Ranting - in the style of Bret Easton Ellis

"I like this guy, here, I like him.  I like you."  The man is patting me on the back and telling me repeatedly how much he likes me because I'm helping him make photocopies on the store's copy machine.   I flinch and shrug and do not say, "I like you too" because I don't know him, that would be weird and I don't like him.  

Truth is, he's just like any other schmuck that comes through the door and asks a question that I either wouldn't possibly be able to answer, or one that makes no sense and is ridiculous.  Then there's the person that expects us to offer a service that we'd never, in any stretch of the imagination offer, and is furious when they're told we don't.   Or, my personal favorite, the customer that is upset when he learns, days after his purchase,  that the prices we charge for a service are marked up, as though he expects us to give him wholesale prices at our retail location.  "But I went online and saw that it was cheaper," he argues for 10 minutes.  "That was wholesale," we say, "this is a privately owned store." Then, "Get out."

I'm a likable person and I try to be helpful, but the free-standing copiers that you see there in front of you?  Those are self-serve.  As in, use them by yourself.  I do not get paid to help you figure out where the paper comes out.  I do not get paid to help you zoom and blow up your original image onto a larger piece of paper or darken that image.  I do not get paid to show you how to collate and staple.  It's all right there in front of you on that little touchscreen.  I have just as little idea how to use it as you do.   

"Seriously, man, I couldn't have done it with you.  He's the best.  The BEST."  The man is telling the other customers waiting in line.  A part of me dies, because now the customers in line expect the same kind of hands-on copy machine lesson.  I do my best to give them a nice heads up: "These machines are typically self-serve, but it's no problem at all for me to help out, if I have the time," as though they're listening, as though they'd care.  

I ring the man out at the closest register and his total comes to a whopping thirty cents.  He's made three copies, with my help, in 10 minutes.  He loves me because he's just ripped off the store.

I smile and give the man his 70 cents change and he thanks me again and tells me that he'll definitely be back and I not so secretly pray that he won't.  

The next person in line, a woman, comes up to the counter and smiling I say, "How can I help you today?"  and fantasize about strangling her.