After working for almost a decade with a certain retailer, I have comet to realize that what matters most, is my sanity. One would think after reading that line, that my job drives me crazy. However, it's not that my job drives me crazy. It's dealing with the public and their ridiculous questions that drives me insane.
I am currently a Customer Service Supervisor at Wal-Mart. My job is stressful, and at the same time fulfilling, because I solve a variety of problems everyday. I can do this because, one I had a very good high school education, two, I was trained by seasoned cashiers when I had just been hired to work at Wal-Mart and I paid close attention to them, and three, I have a willingness to learn. Because of these above factors, I can make keys, pierce ears, mix paint, solve money transfer issues, and ring up customers with an average of over 600 items an hour, all while making sure that the breaks and lunches of my front end cashiers, people greeter, cart pushers, and service desk are staying on schedule.
This being said, enter the people of the world who do not have a willingness to learn, who are lazy, think they are entitled to whatever they want, and want to tell you how stupid you are. I've had people curse me, and threaten me, and tell me I'm stupid with a vocabulary and mentality of a sixth grader, all while I stand their smiling at them like a fool.
On top of that, add to this environment a few college drop outs that have just turned 21, and whose biggest ambition right now, is the bar fight they will be in on their way home from work. I worked out at a gym to blow off steam. These people brawl, with alcohol. Not only are they confrontational but they also seem attention starved. Because it's the same ones that are always asking me questions that they already know the answers to, as if all of a sudden they forgot.
So it's for these reasons that I find the fact that the Obama speech about to all the school children across America being a cause for parental panic to be outrageous. It was as if people were saying to each other, "How dare a rich and powerful man, who is well-spoken, and has made history tell my children to stay in school! Of all the nerve!"
By all means, children need to hear that they need an education, and they need to hear it many times. I'm 28, and still in college. I have classes with 19 year olds that can barely go through a class without texting. Not only do they need a better education, but I will gladly pay taxes towards some etiquette classes for the children of this country.
What does this have to do with my sanity? While I may or may not be working for Wal-Mart after I graduate, I will still have to see these people when I shop, or go out to eat, or for any form of public entertainment, and it scares me. I've had people ask me questions that just make me want to look at them and scream "Read the package you idiot, or did you even get that far in school before you quit?" Lazy, uneducated people trying to function in society is a plan for disaster. It takes up time, and energy better suited for something more important, and usually ends up with someone screaming.
So parents, please for the good of the future of our country, and my sanity, do your kids a favor and get educated, and lead by example. Your kid might not be a future CEO, or president, but reading comprehension skills are key, when they are faced with a debit reader, and it asks for their pin number. Save them the embarrassment of asking their cashier, "When do I put in my pin number?"
