The Customer Is Always Left

Long ago, I spent a year and change working retail. The economy was in a downturn at the time, and I took whatever work I could score. It’s not something I’ve thought about often, except that the other day it popped into my head how similar the “customer is always right” philosophy is to a feature of Leftist politics.

You see, Leftists see racism/sexism/bigotry/whatever in everything, even where it does not exist, even in cases like Jussie Smollett where it is blatantly made up out of whole cloth. There is a functional similarity to angry retail customers.

Consider the following example: I worked in the shoe area of a department store. The store had a policy where shoes would not be accepted for return if they were clearly worn, unless the shoes were defective in some manner (which was handled via a different procedure than regular returns). The sign stating this policy was clearly posted on the register, and workers were instructed to remind the customer of this policy upon sale.

It happened often enough that someone would try to return shoes that were clearly worn (they’d have dirt on the soles, or stains, etc…), and demand a refund. Some would still be dripping mud, when the customer made the absurd claim that they hadn’t been worn. Invariably, they would get angry upon being denied the return. Such customers would claim that I wasn’t doing my job, or I was a bad person (and please, could they complain about me to a manager), or offer increasingly improbable stories – and variations of the same story – explaining how the signs of wear weren’t really evidence of the shoe being worn.

Some would threaten to have me fired, others would yell at the assistant manager, and then the store manager, and insinuate claims of discrimination (oh, you won’t take the shoes back because I’m black, is that it?). This isn’t unique to the shoe department at an old department store, though. Anyone who has worked retail will have long lists of situations like these.

Another example was when the store management tried to push store credit card applications. Cashiers were required to ask the customer if they wished to save 10% on their purchase by opening a credit card with the store. Now, this was one area where I disagreed with store policy. I hated trying to push credit, and some customers would get hostile if either denied the credit account (and thus the promised 10% discount), or when I asked for their Social Security number. I fully understand that. I wouldn’t want to give out my social to some random person at a department store either. BUT this was how it worked. I had no choice in the matter. I had to ask, or I would lose my job.

Angry customers would then say that they wanted to get me fired, especially if the system sent back a denial.

The latter example is similar to how many Leftists claim that a system of oppression is in place that discriminates against X people, and that if you’re white and you aren’t actively trying to dismantle this system, you’re a bad person. Well, even if it exists, what do you want me to do about it? Am I supposed to, as in the credit example, lose my job because you’re pissed about something someone else did? I have no control here.

In the nasty return example, I was often unsure if the customer really believed their bullshit stories – that they had convinced themselves they hadn’t actually worn the shoes, or believed their child when he swore he never wore them – or if they were actively trying to screw the store over for free shoes. It is often that way with angry Leftists. Do they really believe a white guy wearing dreadlocks is racial discrimination? Or are they just exceptionally gullible? Did they convince themselves of this belief?

The saying “the customer is always right” is a load of crap. Leftist claims of oppression are likewise. Look, we all see the dirt on the soles here. We see the Jussies of the world oppressing themselves. We see the people irrationally freaking out over some white girl wearing a kimono to an art exhibit. None of this is real. It’s all either an act, or some kind of very special stupidity.

The only question is, are the Leftists just weapons-grade morons, or are they actively trying to screw us? At some point, it no longer matters. No, you moron, if you went trudging through the mud in your shoes, you can’t just bring them back. How did you ever think this was going to work?

The tactics are the same. They’ll call your manager and complain about you and try to get you fired for having the wrong opinions. Leftists have this vindictive mentality that mirrors those of spurned, angry customers. Oh, you didn’t risk your livelihood to please their whims? You bigot, you! They’ll scream and yell at you, and make a nuisance of themselves in public. They’ll rant and rave about getting you fired. They will gleefully see you ruined over something you didn’t do, and don’t have any control over in the first place. Even if you submit to them, they’ll still hate you and see you as the enemy. It’s very bizarre seeing entitled people whining about your entitlement.

And then you get incidents like the GameStop transgender, where we have a literal merger of an Angry Customer and the Entitled Leftist into some kind of Uber-Asshole, created in a laboratory and assembled from the parts of lesser assholes:

The Gamestop employee no doubt had a difficult decision to make when addressing this person: is he really a would-be she, or a he merely dressing slightly feminine? Who the Hell knows anymore? But woe be to the cashier who guesses wrong.

This, of course, becomes moral ammunition in whatever transaction is going on here. “Give me my fucking money back.” Is the he-she genuinely angry because of a pronoun, or is this all some kind of scam to get some kind of treatment?

Or, worse, did he-she get up on the wrong side of the bed and just want to get somebody fired from his job?

Angry customers are fascinating in how fast they go from not even noticing you exist – you’re just a wage-earner, after all, and entirely beneath notice – to having a personal desire to ruin your life over the most trivial of things, most often things you don’t even have control over. I can’t go back in time and change the policy of early America on slavery in the South. What the Hell does that have to do with me, personally? And what do you want me to do now? Do you want me to quit my job and give it to a “person of color?” Do you want my house, my car, my money? What?

It’s like when you say to an angry customer that you’re sorry, and while you didn’t come up with the policy, you work here and have to abide by it. The angry customer might say ‘well if you don’t like the policy, why do you work here?’ Because I need to eat, jackass.

There is this bizarre notion that corporations and employees must have some kind of singular political belief – a Leftist one, naturally. Companies owned by admitted Rightists have to deal with this bullshit all the time. Chick-fil-a had those protests some time back because one of the owners wasn’t a big fan of gay marriage. So what? For one, what does that have to do with serving chicken? And secondly, there was no evidence the owner’s personal beliefs had anything to do with store policies. Chick-fil-a did not ask if you were gay during a job interview.

But, it’s the end of the world if a Rightist might actually own a business. Worse, I suppose, would be to be a Rightist employee. If you make the wrong joke at the wrong time, in the wrong social media space, you could have an angry mob calling your employer and getting you fired for a bad tweet.

The hostility is so much like the angry customer it’s hard to not see the connection. Except to say in this case, companies are firing people upon the demand of people are are not even customers. What is this, the theoretically possible future customer is always right?

When the economy picked back up again, I was glad to get out of that retail job. I do have a level of sympathy for people who deal with that attitude on a daily basis. But with the expansion of Leftist politics into every aspect of life, including your personal life, your job, and your business, pretty soon everybody will be dealing with something like the angry customer, screaming at you and blaming you for things that are objectively not your doing.

Soon, everybody will learn what working retail is like. And I tell you, it will suck.

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