as much as i hated it i understand a lot of why a lot of customers would just flip shit with me immediately back at ye olde retaile jobe. because we are in a constant state of Getting Scammed right now. unfair/hidden fees on goddamn everything, scammers calling your phone and texting you and emailing you 24/7, "customer service" getting replaced more and more by dipshit automated chatbots, the price of everything constantly going up and never coming back down, insurance companies and ISPs making every interaction with them into a verbal brawl, everyone is always trying to screw you out of money or do something shady with your personal information. pharmacies lie to you about your prescription being ready. FedEx/UPS/USPS will lose your package and mark it "delivered". at Walgreens we had "one-hour" photo and pickup order services we absolutely could not stay on top of because we were too understaffed. even legitimate businesses are just kinda scamming everyone all the time. on a regular basis, USPS decides (based on bad data from their dumbass APV system) that one of my Etsy packages is heavier than i said it was and they just automatically charge me extra money; it takes weeks to get that money back. they just get to do that instantly and if i tug back, it's all "please be patient" and "we have a high volume of emails".
just about bi-monthly, i have to escalate one thing or another from a good-faith "hey, i paid for a thing and i don't have it, can you check on this?" to "okay, fucker, i see you don't want to help, guess you can duke this one out with my credit card company/the BBB/etc." and there's no accountability or consequences for anything unless you are just a regular person, mostly. businesses can just fuck with you as much as they want. even if there's a resolution, i rarely get an apology. because an apology is an acknowledgement that wrong was done, and if you acknowledge that, you could get sued. (see also: the sanitation company that still has not apologized to me or my mother for one of their drivers for very nearly killing us in early August).
it just grinds on you. it erodes your sanity and your patience. and i understand that feeling, the minute something goes wrong, of wanting to go ape fucking shit because goddamn it i do not want another weeks-fucking-long ordeal to get what i paid for, or to get my money back, or just to get someone to please acknowledge a problem.
something something capitalism alienating me from my fellow humans something something feral screech
