Are People Getting Dumber?
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the ideal customer. Actually, no, I am the ideal customer in that I want to get whatever transaction I am engaging in finished as quickly as possible. I pay, I go. Along the way, I say just enough to facilitate the completion of the transaction. While I am not unique, but I believe my approach is the best. Unfortunately, people are getting dumber and making this symbiotic relationship a freaking mess.
Can I just ask a basic question: Who the hell are these people who go to Costco or the grocery store to make friends with the cashiers? No offence to cashiers, I’ve been one, but they’re not that interesting. Yet, we have these people who, no matter how long the line is behind them, strike up a conversation with them, slowing everything down to a crawl. Then, in what makes me come close to breaking, they seem surprised, even shocked, that the transaction requires them to pay at the end of it.
As if that weren’t bad enough, when they fumble through their purse or pockets to find their card, they look at the swipe machine as if it was the first time they’ve ever seen one. They don’t know how to swipe or insert it, they pull it out too early and have to repeat everything, and the concept of a PIN is treated like a delicate boobytrap disarming that would confuse Indiana Jones. How do these people dress themselves?
Of course, much worse than all of that is the 2 percent of people who still insist on writing checks. Nothing against check writing, but you should not be surprised by it being an important part of the closing of your retail transaction.
My mother was a check-writer, always. But she knew how it worked and, while she was always a talker too, could chat with the cashier (who she’d usually known for a long time) while filling out everything on the check except the amount. As soon as the “total” button was hit, my mom was ready, pen in hand, to finish the transaction so everyone could get on with their lives.
Now, check-writers don’t have a pen half the time, never know the date and completely forget they’re going to pay that way until everything is bagged and back in their cart. It’s like being caught off-guard by your reflection in the mirror.
On a recent trip to Delaware, the family and I were looking for a place to eat. It was late for dinner, and many places were transitioning from restaurant to mostly bar, ready for people to come in and start drinking. I don’t blame them for not wanting to seat a couple with 2 young kids, as we could delay that transition. Still, they need to come up with a better lie than “We don’t have any tables.”
Then we get to a place that is just a restaurant, my hopes rose. I asked hostess if they had a table for four and she replied, “Inside or out?” Immediately, I thought we were in business. “Any,” I answered, ready to get everyone’s hopes up. “We don’t have any tables,” she responded.
I looked at the vapid face – possibly the dumbest person I’ve ever met in real life – and marveled at what had just happened. Half laughing, half shocked, I said, “Then why the f*ck did you ask me that question?”
She had no idea, completely oblivious to the moment. “What do you mean?”
Laughing, I replied, “Was there an answer I could have given that would’ve freed up a table? Is there a code word I don’t know or is there a plane of existence between inside and out where tables are free, but you have to specifically ask for them?”
Her face reflected the fact that her inner monologue is “duh.” I kept laughing and walked out, impressed in the way only unaware incompetence can.
I don’t know, maybe we’re getting dumber or maybe we’ve always been this dumb and I’ve only started noticing. But I do not remember being that dumb. Of all the stupid things I’ve done, and lord knows that list is long, I was always aware of the fact that what I was doing was stupid. That, in some ways, makes what I was doing dumber. But it also makes what I’m seeing now worse, because it means these people aren’t aware of how stupid what they’re doing is.
Either way, it does not bode well for the future of our species.
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