For the last few days, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do, if anything, about the responses to my last blog. I’ve been accused of being a snob, a twit, a spoiled brat and, worst of all, a racist. My stomach started churning the moment the comments started flying in.
My first thought was to ignore all of it, to just let things go. That would be easy. After all, none of you really know me, you don’t’ know where I live, there’s no way you can really “hurt” me except with your words. But that’s not me. Indeed, if you take a moment to read all of my other posts you’ll get a better sense of who I am. You’ll also get a sense that I’m new to this and that I recently started dabbling in Dave Barry-like satire.
As you know, when you try to be funny you can come perilously close to being insulting. It’s a delicate balancing act. Of course, Don Rickles made a living out of insulting people to their face. Others who think they are being funny have not been as successful.
The first thing I want to say is that this incident never happened. When I started writing this piece I was trying to make a point about an incident from my past. It was two years ago when I was standing outside a Toys R Us just before Christmas, waiting with hundreds of others for the doors to open so we could all dash down the same aisle to grab that new, you-just-have-to-buy-this-for-your-kid, action figure. It was pouring rain, freezing rain at that. We were getting absolutely drenched, including a whole bunch of infants. I looked at my watch and it was 8:55. When I looked on the other side of the locked doors, I saw three Toys R Us employees sitting in chairs, yucking it up, sipping their lattes.
I was by myself, so I didn’t give a crap about waiting another 5 minutes. But I kept listening to these poor kids who were getting totally soaked and I wanted to burst. No, I wanted to take out a brick and throw it through the glass doors to give the crowd refuge. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that, in a situation like that, what is the harm in letting the folks in just a few minutes earlier? I just wonder if we are losing our humanity at times.
Come to think of it now, I don’t’ know why I just didn’t write about the actual incident.
As for my “racist” remarks, this will probably not assuage you but I was thinking about an episode of “The Simpsons.” As you know, that show is replete with jokes about all cultural stereotypes and one of the main characters is a man from India who runs the local mini-mart. In true “Simpsons” style, the jokes are always flying, as they are for the Ted Kennedy-Irish-type Mayor.
Anyway, apologies if it came out the wrong way. I’m not a racist. Indeed, I am the only white person who is a member of our local school’s Black Student Achievement Council. And I never really said those words to any real person. It was an attempt at satire that obviously touched a nerve.
Hope we can move on from here!
Your problem with the piece is simple.
How you seem to think it read: “Here’s my anecdote about how the mean clerk couldn’t show simple decency by breaking the rules just a tiny bit.”
Here’s how everyone else read it: “I was running an unimportant errand, underdressed for the weather, and the clerk saw no reason to risk his job to let my entitled arse in the store, so I resorted to name calling. *sob**sob*”
Now you say it never really happened. That this was intended as humor. That the real story is basically the same, but with an unruly mob of parents and kids waiting to reek havoc on a store, and no racial slurs.
It’s not the store’s fault that apparently nobody thought to bring an umbrella. Your lack of planning is not anyone their emergency.
You aren’t really helping your case, and you fail at slice of life humor. Read more Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry. Look at what they do* and go back to the drawing board before trying again.
*Hint:They don’t make it up out of thin air. They don’t sling insults, then try to backpedal with a “one of my friends is ______” type excuse.
I appreciate the explanation however your real story really isn’t much better. Ive worked over Christmas before and the store is always very -tightly- controlled because of how many people go crazy. Customers have had fist fights for items, beaten each other up. One year a customer was trampled to death. We have -got- to follow procedure to the Tee, and even then sometimes it’s not enough. The people who weren’t compassionate weren’t the store clerks who were inside and getting ready to be jostled, elbowed, and screamed at for eight hours straight. It was the people dumb enough to bring their children, in the freezing rain, to what usually amounts to a circus.
Now, with that out of the way, I’m going to have to say this. You are not an established comedic writer. You are not the Simpsons, you are not Dave Barry, or Erma Bombeck, and even if you were, and you wrote a slur like Ghandi? You’d have to apologize. The Simpsons only gets away with so much because they make fun of -everyone- including themselves. And even then sometimes they’ve crossed the line and had to pull an episode.
I’m not saying stop writing. Im not even saying to give up on writing satire, however I am saying the next time you try to write something even remotely similar, show it to your closest, most honest friends before you put it up where strangers who don’t know you can see it. Because I promise, if they have even a tiny problem with it, we’re going to have ten times the problem. Because we DON’T know you. We don’t know “oh it’s just Pam trying to be funny, and failing MISERABLY.” All we know is “this woman just wrote something remarkably racist, insensitive and entitled and she thinks it’s okay!
That being said, “I have black friends” really doesn’t mean you’re not racist. But I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not racist just incredibly ignorant.
You people are clueless.
Pat rights extraordinary posts on a routine basis.
So a bunch of people go off on Pat, and Pat, one of the few people I have heard of makes a sincere gesture to explain, the possible miscommunication.
The Nastiness toward Pat was so well timed and coordinated I wonder if it’s real at all.
And don’t bother telling me your real unless you ‘ll send me your drivers license numbers.
Before you dribble on Pat educate yourselves and read of the incredible posts pat has placed as a matter of routine.
That stream of commentary was the most ludicrous thing I ever saw on a respected blog.
——
Pat,
Our reading group loves your posts and we discuss them.
Thank you. Please keep it up, for whatever motivates you to write these posts.
Most of us that like them never bother commenting, but maybe we need to, to get rid of the sloths from the other post.
Thanks Pat
It’s not well timed, or coordinated. It’s a simple matter of one person finding a remarkably self-entitled rant with a lovely racist undertone. That person posts a link to a LiveJournal community where people bitch about dealing with customers who act exactly the way Pat did in her original post. Many of them came here to voice their comments in person.
No grand conspiracy, that’s just the way the internet works.
I appreciate that she tried to explain. The problem is, it’s pretty clear she doesn’t really grasp why she got jumped on. The main points being:
1) Whether or not she’s actually a racist or someone who just said something stupid, the fact she feels the need to refer to it as a ‘”racist” remark’ undermines any attempt at an apology.
2) She does not seem to understand that just because someone shows up at a store ill prepared for the weather, doesn’t mean the store clerk won’t be fired for taking pity on them. Neither of her stories involved an emergency of any sort. Store employees are people too. They have bills to pay and families to feed. The fact they want to have a relaxed moment before being inundated with customers, doubly so for a toy store near Christmas, does not make them bad, or even inconsiderate, people. She comes across as having very little empathy or compassion for their situation.
I have no idea what kind of person the author is. I’m not actually judging her to be a horrible person based on these two posts. I am judging her to be more self absorbed than she thinks she is, but guess what, we probably all are.
I assure you that I’m quite real. I have no urge to prove that I’m not someone posting under multiple names. The assumption that only one or two people could possibly disagree with the original story, or have issues with the explanation, is just too incredible for words.
As for sending you my DL info, first prove to my satisfaction you are not the the original author posting under another name, and I’ll still probably not send it to you. Seriously, have you not heard of ID theft?
Glenda, hate to tell you this but just because YOU liked it doesn’t mean everyone else did. You’re right. We don’t know her. We only know what we see, and THAT is unfortunately the first impression we got of this woman. Therefore whatever else she’s written really doesn’t matter. In fact when I went back to look at her old journals–and yes I did go back and look–I was VERY disappointed that she seemed to be so for women’s rights, and human’s rights in general, then made a statement as callous as “Ghandi, open the fucking door.” It wasn’t funny. Plain and simple.
I hope you don’t think ANY of us are as ignorant as you hope we are. No one’s stupid enough to give you their drivers license. However my livejournal IS linked, and I have absolutely no shame in saying that I am my own separate person.
No kids yet, however, we plan on tanikg a special NFP class that focuses on how to use NFP effectively after giving birth because you are right it won’t be straight forward. The couple to couple league (a Catholic organization) puts on the class but a lot of non-catholics attend too. I wish I had all the details of how NFP works post baby but we haven’t gotten that far yet- heck we haven’t gotten pregnant yet!
Articles like this really grease the shafts of knowledge.
And don’t bother telling me your real unless you ‘ll send me your drivers license numbers.
Don’t bother telling you my real what? Or did you actually mean to use the contraction of the words “you” and “are” (and is spelled “you’re”) instead of the possessive form of the word “you”?
That stream of commentary was the most ludicrous thing I ever saw on a respected blog.
I take it you haven’t been using this new-fangled internet thingy very long, have you?
Thanks, Glenda. Where did all these people come from? Yikes!
I hadn’t thought about the potnetial for confusion, but I’m not the Chris who wrote the article. I’ve read that article before, and I do hope that emergency contraceptives do not have an abortifacient affect. However, as you mention, I view life as sacred and thus would not be able to accept even a chance that it would contribute to ending a human life.Based on the article, it doesn’t follow that the information would apply for IUDs as well. One significant point made is that the hormones from emergency contraceptives aren’t present for long enough to have a significant impact on the endometrial lining. In the case of hormonal IUDs, this certainly isn’t the case since they are present for much longer.The main question still remains for me: since a safe, effective and natural method of birth control exists in the form of natural family planning, why would any couples be willing to risk the woman’s health in the name of sexual convenience?Perhaps proponents of artificial birth control don’t see the question the same way. I’m open to discussing what the shortcomings of the way I’ve stated the question are.
Information is power and now I’m a !@#$ing dictator.
Are you not a native English speaker? I don’t want to make fun of someone who’s speaking their second language, but your punctuation is all over the place. Maybe Pat can “right” your post, as in, correct the spelling and punctuation and teach you the difference between various homophones.
And even though I made my comment on her previous entry before coming here and seeing this one, I stand by everything in it. Because the fact that it was an attempt at satire did not come through AT ALL. Because if a bunch of people who saw it and did not like it did not realize that it was satire, then somebody who sees it and agrees with it isn’t going to pick up on the distinction either, and is going to feel that much more justified going into a store and treating the clerk. So not only does she fail to spread more compassion in the world in her direct interaction with convenience store clerks/toy store employees, she fails on the internet too.
Pat, if you want to write satire, you need to make it (amongst other things) waayyyy more over the top. Frankly, your post described many of the interactions we customer service employees handle on a daily basis, without even a hint of exaggeration. In fact, many of us handle far worse on a regular basis, from people who aren’t even kidding (go read one of the many “customers suck” forums out there and see for yourself). How can we be expected to pick up on the fact that you’re kidding when we encounter situations like this regularly? Step back and make the cognitive dissonance clearer to see, so that we believe that you’re aware the dissonance is there, and that we don’t have to point it out to you. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but not even the Simpsons calls people “Gandhi” (or calls Dr. Hibbert “Cosby” or “Uncle Tom,” for that matter). There’s a fine line between poking fun at bigotry and sounding a little bigoted yourself–you need to find it.
*…treating the clerk like an asshole. Curse my inability to finish sentences!
Great hammer of Thor, that is poflewulry helpful!
As one of the other commenters, I can explain why I didn’t appreciate your attempt at “Dave Barry-like satire. ”
It wasn’t funny.
And for what it’s worth, I don’t find the Simpsons all that funny, either, but when they show a character like Apu they aren’t making fun of Indians…they’re making fun of people who put people like Apu down for “just running a convenience store.” It’s kind of how All in the Family wasn’t a racist, bigoted, sexist show, even though the main character, Archie Bunker, was, in fact, a racist, bigoted, sexist jerk. It was showing how ridiculous it was to be a racist, bigoted, sexist jerk in “today’s society” (which at the time was the early 1970’s, but it’s just as true today as it was then). Archie was pretty much the butt of all the jokes on that show.
But I digress. You say you were just making up an amusing anecdote. Thing is, whenever your punchline involves words like “Fucking” and uses Ghandi’s name as a racially-charged insult…well, that just isn’t funny.
Whatever….
I”ll continue to write. You can read it or not…
That’s as it may be. You might want to brush up on basic spelling and grammar, though.
And you might want to prepare yourself for more honest reactions to the things you write in future.
Found this via the post in customerssuck. Yes, I am yet another person and not just the “same person” posting another comment. If you don’t realize the power of the internet and how it can disseminate information then what are you doing posting on it anyway.
I am not going to touch on the other post, rather I am going to comment on what you have said in this post.
Just because a TV show like the Simpsons is replete with jokes about cultural stereotypes and the various characters make jokes about it doesn’t make it right. There are people like me that find it offensive. Dumb blond jokes are supposed to be funny right? But they are offensive to many people. Just because something doesn’t offend you doesn’t make it offensive to others. And you don’t get the right to determine what others get to be offended by. The best thing to do when you make an offensive statement is to say “I am sorry I offended you. I understand that it was offensive and I won’t do it again.” Not “Well they do it on the Simpsons so it must be okay”. It’s complete bullshit and invalidating people’s feelings and your whole apology.
Second, with the actual incident that you based your original post on, all I have to say about the conditions is tough noogies. Everyone there made the choice to be there to get the great deals. They knew what the weather conditions were going to be so if they were under prepared it was their fault. And they made the choice to bring their children. By the way, who in their rational mind would bring their young children to a sale like that? Where there could be the potential for injury? Honestly I do feel bad for those kids. But I blame the parents, not the employees. The only ones in that incident that were losing their humanity were the parents. Period. Looking to score that sale. Saving a buck. While I can understand in this economy is a major consideration, is it worth possibly making yourself or your child sick? For a toy-honestly no. Kids can do without toys. It sucks at Christmas to have less presents. But having your health is a better choice if it comes down to it.
By reading this post, I get the point you were trying to make, but I feel bad for those kid whose parents decided to bring them to an event like that, even without the bad weather. Haven’t those parents heard of what happened when the Tickle-Me-Elmo first came out? People get trampled over these things.
However, you kinda took the wrong approach at making the altered version funny. Why? Because it was too realistic. Because people will do things like what you depicted in your story, call clerks by racist slurs (and sexist ones), and all because they think that since we work in the service industry, they can treat us as they please. And very rarely will we say anything to these bigots for fear of losing our jobs. Example:
A friend of mine was working at a chain coffee shop, and was seven months pregnant. The uniform shirt made her condition obvious. This man would grab her by the wrist every time he came up to the counter for his coffee. She tried complaining to the manager, who said it would be dealt with. It never was. One day, my friend told the man herself what she thought of his constant grabbing. She got fired. Not a bit of this was exagerrated; it really happened.
Okay, as someone who has worked retail off and on for 20 years, let me make a couple of points.
1) Your average retail employee is overworked, underpaid, and generally treated like crap by both their employers and by the public. Cut them some friggin’ slack.
2) Minimum wage retail clerks do not set store hours. Store hours by set at corporate headquarters by people who have often never worked in a store. Be serious; do you think that the employees were making you stand outside out of spite? There is nothing they can do. That brings me to my next point.
3) Most likely the only person in that store with keys to unlock the door is the manager. If they want to let people in early they will. That has nothing to do with the clerks/cashiers. Say it with me; THEY HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHEN THE STORE OPENS.
4) Why should they open early because there are retail crazed parents outside forcing their children to wait in the rain? When didn’t all those parents go wait in their cars like grown-ups? Or, I don’t know, bring an umbrella? Do you think that any of those people start their jobs early just because some entitled people are whining at them? I bet not. How about you? Would you go against corporate rules/guidelines/policy to open early? Especially if disobeying those rules could get you fired? I bet you don’t.
Just a little note on working retail. State laws aside, a lot of retail workers do not get their breaks, are often asked (and made to feel bad if they don’t) work late or come in early. Cashiers especially are forced to ask someone if they can go to the bathroom like a small child.
Just imagine, if you will, standing in a space the size of a small closet for eight hours while people treat you like crap, yell at you, throw money/credit cards at you, or just generally treat you as a non-person. Now, add to that that your feet hurt, that you have to pee, that you’re thirsty, and that you haven’t gotten either of the two breaks that are promised to you by state law. And finally, do that with a smile.
Still think that the retail clerks/cashiers are to blame for your poor planning?
Next time you’re standing in the rain BY YOUR OWN FAULT please try to think of the response this post and the previous one has gotten. If you think that “opening five minutes early is no big deal”, then you’ve obviously never worked retail. You should try it one Christmas season- see how the other half live.
I didn’t want to leave another comment, but I felt the need to share a specific incident from when I worked as a cashier at a bog box home improvement store. A man had about $250 worth of various supplies in his cart. He swiped his credit card and it was denied. I asked him to swipe it again. He did, and it was still denied. I even tried typing the numbers in just in case the magnetic strip was bad. No go. Keep in mind that he had been 100%, perfectly polite up until this point. Apparently this third denial was too much for him, and he called me a f-ing bitch and slapped me. HE SLAPPED ME ACROSS THE FACE. When I called management they were unconcerned, and didn’t want to take a report even though I knew the man’s name because I still has his credit card; he’d not picked it up off the counter. I had to threaten to call the police to get the manager to file a report.
I’ve been slapped, hit on, grabbed, hit with ladders (and had three bones broken in my hand due to it), been rammed with carts, had paint thrown on me, I’ve had customers grab my ass and try to grab my breasts. I’ve been told by managers that, “It’s not a big deal, just deal with it.”
Welcome to retail. None of the above incidents are that unusual for people working retail. So, please, show a little compassion and treat retail workers like human beings. And take an umbrella the next time.
I do believe that the higher-ups are COMPLETELY at fault for any of their stupid doorbuster sale events. You’re asking for a mob to form outside your store and push against your doors so they can get that toy at half price before the moms next to them can even find it. It creates this horrible attitude among customers and a completely hostile atmosphere for their employees. “What do you MEAN that lady picked up the last digital camera that only cost $50? I DEMAND you give me that other model of digital camera for $50! This is false advertising!” I’m sure you’ve heard of the story where the mob broke the doors down and trampled an employee to death? It’s only natural in a large crowd like that to start an ebb and flow of people–the front line gets pushed forward by the folks behind so they push backward, and folks even further back keep pressing forward. Happens at concerts, too. Corporations and managers should know this by now, but it’s all a ploy to make money. They’ll slowly inflate prices throughout October and November so they can “Slash” by 40% and still make a profit, all in the name of not being the last store on the block with their Christmas merchandise still in stock on New Year’s.
Imagine those store employees opening five minutes early to let the crowd in out of the rain. Imagine as the crowd flows into the store, a customer pulls up and sees the doors have opened early. When this customer comes across an item that is already sold out, who or what do you think they will blame? “I saw your employees open the store early!”–and it wouldn’t be five minutes, since irate customers tend to exaggerate–“If I had known they were going to open twenty minutes early I would have come earlier!” You have to cover your ass, because nobody honestly wants their manager to have that conversation on an already horrible, stressful day. Do these lowly employees want to get fired over the holidays? No, they want to keep earning money so they might have a chance to shop for their family, too.
Not only that, but you saw the front-line employees sitting there, seemingly doing nothing. Someone else could have still been double-checking stock, making sure aisles are clear and decently clean, double-checking EVERY single price to make sure nothing has the wrong label or is placed by the wrong labels (to avoid “But the sign says $4!” “Ma’am, the sign says $4 for t-shirts, not for cashmere sweaters.”), even cashiers still bringing out their drawers and booting the computers. If you open the doors and let loose a deluge of customers when they don’t even have the cash in the drawers yet? That’s just not cool.
I commented a few days ago on your original story, and my comments still hold true. You have to look at it from the other person’s point of view if you want your message of compassion to ring true. It’s fine if you plan to keep writing, nobody’s going to stop you there. Just, please, take a minute to reflect on the responses you’ve gotten. Not the ones calling you names or being rude, but at least the people who don’t think you’re “practicing what you preach” in these stories.
Wow.
I found this whole mess sort of late, while wasting time on the internet. I really can’t stand it when mobs of people swarm blogs, spewing insults and restating the same points over and over …
… usually.
But in this case the Gandhi thing made me cringe. I mean literally cringe. And if you did make it up, and thought it was funny, then isn’t that even worse then mouthing off in a moment of regrettable anger? That’s not a “touching a nerve”, it’s expressing something really ugly that made a lot of people rightfully angry.
That doesn’t make you a terrible person. Everyone, including myself, harbors a little darkness, a little bigotry, whether they acknowledge it or not. But I wish you had owned up to that, apologized, and moved on. (As hard as I’m sure that would have been to stomach.) Its not fair to ask your readers to “move on” from something that bad when you yourself appear completely unmoved.
And its for that reason that when you say “Whatever…. I”ll continue to write. You can read it or not…” I’m in full agreement. I’m going to go waste my time elsewhere.