The Odd Girl

Gossip Ghoul here. A little tidbit about me: I work an overwhelming amount of hours each week at an international grocery store which focuses mostly on Eastern Asian Food. I do almost everything: answer the phone, stock the shelves, reorganize shelves and displays, price-check and reprice as needed, assist customers on the floor, clean, fetch carts, sometimes help customers carry items to their cars, and bag, all while working two registers as cashier. It isn't that large of a store, and not every shift is super busy, but it certainly is an interesting job.

I mask my true nature with a sweet and friendly smile, except for first thing in the morning. Before my coffee's kicked in, I am way too tired to make an effort to be nice to people, particularly the customers who show up ten or fifteen minutes before we open. Because it is such a niche store, there's definitely an odd mix of customers. Being the only caucasian employee -- let alone the only white, American girl employee -- at an Asian supermarket certainly comes with its trials. In other words, I have to put up with a lot of crap from people. Customers will often outright ignore me when I greet them or ask if they need help because I address them in English; and an unfortunate percentage have a very difficult time trying to communicate what they want because they don't speak the best English, while I don't understand Korean/Mandarin/Cantonese/Japanese/Vietnamese/Thai, etc.

The Americans can be even worse.

"What brand of Asian are you?" a man once asked me, after pulling my hair, while I stared at him blankly with my facial features of obvious Polish and German descent.

"How can you work here if you don't speak Chinese?!" a woman exclaimed with a shocked gasp. "Isn't that such a disadvantage?"

"Well, it's a Korean store, so not really," I replied, and I turned every item of hers I scanned to the easy to read English labels.

There are so many examples, but the worst was this middle-aged woman with a Kentucky accent who came in a couple years ago. She was looking for an ingredient for a recipe that a friend gave her, but she had forgotten the recipe, and she didn't know the name of the ingredient. After establishing that yes, I did work at the store (I wasn't stocking bottles of Lee Kum Kee Oyster Flavored Sauce for kicks, after all), I offered to help her. She didn't know what it was she was looking for. I asked which nationality it was to try to narrow it down. She didn't know. Was it a sauce, a paste, a noodle, a powder, a vegetable? She didn't know. I was getting impatient, especially when I asked her to describe it, and she had no idea. Then she got upset and demanded to speak to a Chinese employee and grew angrier when I informed her that no Chinese people worked that day, so she insisted on speaking to the owner.

"He's Korean," I replied, deadpan, "and he's not here."

"How could your owner possibly leave with Chinese people here?!" she shrieked.

Long story short, I have therefore learned that I would have an easier time at my job if I were Chinese because then I could psychically intuit what people are looking for.

No, really, I've learned not to make assumptions about people. Some people might seem standoffish and ignore you at first but then turn out to be really nice people after you talk to them a few times. Some people might appear friendly at first but then act like a jerk for completely unnecessary reasons, which is why I refer to asshole customers as asstomers.

Just not to their faces. I need my job to pay the rent.

Until next time.
XOXO
Gossip Ghoul