I normally don't talk about this kind of thing because it's personal, and frankly kind of boring. But I also like being square with myself and those around me. This is all stuff I've touched on here over the years, but never really went into detail with.
I've always known that customer service is not my deal, but I also figured it was my only option until I get a degree. I have no idea when that will be, but I do know it is years away. So, in my mind, customer service was my only option in order to be able to survive for the unforeseeable future. I honestly thought that I would be miserable for probably the rest of my life. I thought that was just my personality- a miserable asshole who hates everyone and thinks babies are a waste of everything (still half true).
I have worked in customer service exclusively for my entire working life, over ten years. And, as I'm sure most everyone knows, I hated it. Most people don't like it, but for me, it was awful. It is often said that every job would be great if it weren't for the people, and I'm always on board with that sentiment one-hundred percent. Over the years I have developed a curmudgeonly, grouchy or even outright mean persona or attitude that has been pointed out to me multiple times, whether in a joshing way or negatively in countless performance reviews. I was constantly told to 'just be more friendly', to smile more, or be more open or natural. I understand these things fundamentally, but when it came to my trying to actually do these things, I couldn't. It was often interpreted as I wouldn't, that I didn't care, or was grumpy, but I just could not make myself function the way that was expected of me without tremendous effort.
Here's the thing- for people that this comes naturally to, it seems stupid or lazy or weird. But for me, something that seems a simple as making small talk with a customer is incredibly difficult. I don't have the same problem when in the opposite situation- I don't find it excruciating to talk to a cashier. However, behind the counter, I feel as though I cannot judge a situation at all. So every encounter with a new person makes me feel as though I am having to guess how this person is going to react to how I act, how I talk, how my face looks. That level of anxiety makes it feel like I'm on a spinning wheel with knives being thrown at me. I know this comes of as melodramatic whinery, and I often felt as though I should just be able to deal with it. If I were to just get over it, whatever "it" was, I would be fine. If I just improved those unfriendly parts of my personality, I'd be able to make people happy. If I could just try harder to blah blah blah. Well, guess what? I tried harder for ten years and it never got any better. I finally came to realize that customer service is like whistling. It's something you can either do or you can't. Those who can do it naturally find it easy. Those who can't can try to learn but it's never going to be as easy for those who can just do it.
I've dealt with depression and anxiety for the greater part of my life, and it's not something that's going away any time soon- or probably ever. What is most frustrating about my particular brand is that I'm not an Eeyore. I don't have the recognizable symptoms of not being able to get out of bed, ect. I actually had never heard someone put my experience into words until several months ago, when I read this blog post (do yourself a favor and spend the next four hours crylaughing at all of her other posts). Instead of being a sad stuffed donkey, I'm actually a high-strung maniac who thinks people who ride their bicycles down the sidewalk kind of deserve to be shoved into oncoming bus traffic, or that people who don't buy all the the things they bring up to the register should have their money-spending privileges revoked until they learn how to shop like a goddamn human being, but that doesn't necessarily read as "depressed". It reads as asshole. Which I totally get. The person who is enthralled by the tiny colored pencils at the register is not a bad person. But for me, every time I had to pretend like it was the first time I'd ever heard about how cute they were was like that person was shoving those tiny colored pencils into my eye sockets. I know everyone is like, they're just colored pencils, chill on the freak out, but I'm on the spinning knife wheel, remember? I'm so anxious already, that everything that is just a minor irritant to the rest of the world is titanic.
The reason I'm bring all this junk up now is that since I started this new, customer-free job, I have felt like a different person and it is significant enough for me to be actually, honestly shocked. I'm still a crotchety ass who thinks that people who talk on cellphones indoors are the worst, but where I was constantly running at easily a 130 percent stress level, I'm now at about 60 percent. And that happened in two days. Two days and I didn't want to slap everyone I came into contact with. My new job is stressful in that it's a new job and I still don't really know what's going on, the usual first months at a new job stuff. But, to remove one element of a job and have a new outlook, or whatever you want to call it, has been incredible. When I learned I had gotten the job, I had hoped I would be able to be less stressed out, but I imagined it would diminish only slightly. The fact that it has changed so dramatically and so fast is so mindblowing to me, I can't really believe it.
Part of me is annoyed that I didn't go out and get a non-customer service job sooner, but it's easy to think that in hindsight. I have often times tried to maneuver my way into back-of-the-house positions in nearly all the retail jobs I've had, but I'm always stuck in the cashier or service position. It's something that I don't really understand- why would you make someone who's clearly not very good at something do that job? Why make the gardener perform brain surgery? But that's on those terrible mall job managers, not me. In a world where not being a people person is seen as a personality flaw, I'm so thankful to have found this position. At one point I found that I wasn't worrying about if my face might come off as angry to others when I was concentrating on the computer monitor, and I realized just how many layers there were to my anxiety and how so many of them frankly didn't matter any more. In this work environment, no one cares if I look grouchy.
So to the guy who told me I had a bad personality in 2009 because I didn't share his enthusiasm for a "world famous hazelnut latte", go fuck yourself. I'm a happier person, and you probably still go to the Starbucks where prostitutes broke the sink off the wall in the women's bathroom.
