Friday, December 29, 2006

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

People will say the most astonishing things sometimes. I don't know if I look like I welcome complaints from these horrible people or what, but they're lucky that I can't strike them dead with a thought. Some of them certainly deserve it. Still, save them all and let Buddha sort them out.

This woman wanted to send money last Saturday. Whenever people ask "Where are the MoneyGram forms?" you know you're dealing with a novice, so you have to ask questions to help them through the process. I've got it down to a science.

Her: "Where are the MoneyGram form?"
Me: "Are you sending money to a person or paying a bill?"
Her: "Sending money to a person."
Me: "Are you sending money out of the country? If you are, there's a special form if you're sending to Mexico."
Her: "No, I'm sending to Arizona."
Me: "OK. You need the regular red SEND form right here. Fill this out and then wait in line. If you have any questions, just ask anybody up, you don't have to come back to me."
Her: "OK, thank you."

She fills it out and waits in line. As it happens, she gets me and wants to send $5o. I always wonder why people want to send such low amounts, because it costs a lot of money to send via MoneyGram, but I never question the customer. Anyway. I tell her the fee is $11.46 and she goes "I know. It's probably cheaper if I were sending out of the country. THAT'S WHY PEOPLE HATE THE MEXICANS."

OH. MY. GOD.

I just sort of look at her. I don't know if she expected me to answer or what. I did the MoneyGram and was like "Here's your reference number."

She thanked me, wished me a Merry Christmas and left. Lady, you're so clueless, Sherlock Holmes couldn't find you.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nope, that's not why people "hate MExicans" That's why people hate bigoted, snooty Americans. People like that piss me off!

Anonymous said...

LOL. Moneygram is bankin' some serious coin. Just goes to show you why Mexicans love the Americans.

jess

Vicki said...

OH. MY. GOD. How can people be this rude? Sheesh.

Kasia said...

Reminds me of a woman I used to work with (pre-9/11). We worked in the dean's office of one of the larger colleges at our university, which is quite diverse (large numbers of international students, lots of different American-born ethnic groups and religions, etc.), and she and I were working at Commencement.

She came up to me and said "Apparently the Muslim girls are having trouble with their mortarboards, because of their scarves."

I said "Oh," thinking to myself "Well, that's an interesting logistical challenge. I wouldn't have thought about that - I guess you couldn't use a bobby pin if your hair is covered."

She sort of leaned in and said, "You know..." and I thought "Uh oh..."

"You know, some of these girls won't even shake a man's hand?"

"Oh." I did know that in the abstract, but I don't like the direction this is taking.

"The poor dean - he doesn't know whose hand to shake and whose not to."

Well, my guess is he'll just put his hand out, and if she doesn't accept it, he'll pull it back. He's a smart guy, and very socially adept. But I say, again, "Oh," getting more and more uncomfortable with each passing moment.

Then she says "You know, what's the point?"

I looked at her blankly. She looked back at me. So I said, "I guess that depends on what you think the point is."

Now she looked at me blankly. So I went on: "I guess it depends on whether you think the point of Commencement is to wear a special hat and shake the Dean's hand, or whether it's to have a public acknowledgement of your hard work and achievements."

She looked at me kind of funny, like she'd just realized that we weren't batting for the same team. Then she walked away and never broached the subject with me again.

Like Carmen said, you never know who you're talking to.

Thanks for blogging, btw - your blog reminds me to thank God daily that I no longer work retail. (I used to work customer service at CompUSA. I could tell you some stories, but Wal-Mart has got to be worse.)

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