Sunday, August 11, 2019

You Don't Know Me, Fool!

Do you like your name being recited by strangers?  I was in an appointment at work and ended up in a long discussion about calling one by their proper name.  Spoiler alert, I'm not into it.  People like to introduce themselves and that's normal. I'm not normal.  For example I cringe a little when I see someone approaching all proud with their arm extended for a promised handshake. I just know they're gonna say, Hi, I'm whozitsorother and then demand my name.  I never remember what they say by the way. I don't process people like that.  I just need to look at them to see who they are, stand in their presence for a moment, feel them.  I'm not as interested in a description someone gave the day you were born.  This is when I really feel my tiny percent of Indian blood.

And I'm talking at work. These aren't friends, these aren't people I want to know.  It's business and I'm getting paid but the longer I'm in it the more I resent abiding by so many social constructs that I'm not comfortable with.  In a recent memo someone who apparently gets paid way too much writes this whole schpeel on introducing yourself, how we should state the customers name back to them and repeatedly.  That this will make them feel special, like they are someone important.  I'm not even going to touch on how insulting that is for a grown person to read.  But it does help explain how our company is failing right now that some Captain Obvious has been hired to express these ideas.  My issue, honestly is that you gotta do you or something you are capable of being while standing in a ridiculous yellow striped shirt.  And for me, that is being someone far far away from me, someone I construct each and every time I punch that time card.  And hearing my real name pulls me out of character, makes me uneasy.
As a matter of fact I only want to hear 10 people tops, who aren't family, recite my name, ever.  My customer said to me, hearing one's name is supposedly the top of the list for most people, as far as preferred sounds.  He must have said my name like 20 times before I shot him a say it one more time MF look and then he begins quoting studies.  This was someone's annoying husband so while I'm tuning him out, I study 'the wife'.  She's no help.  She's nodding obviously in agreement and seems so proud that her hubby can quote valid data.  I still have at least an hour and a half with these robots, so I go off deep inside my head:  Quit saying my name MF, I don't know you. I am not who you seeYou will never meet the person on the name tag.
Image result for taxi driver robert de niro looking in mirror gif
As a matter of fact, I propose that retail allows workers to make up a name to use at work like hookers do.  I would love to be Kitty or Sally McNally or a host of other fun characters and actually I always act in character while I'm clocked in and being paid by said company.  That's how I get through working with the public everyday.  That's my coping mechanism.  So when some corporate hack wants to infringe on my rights further, where it's mandatory to introduce myself, my true name, which to me is super personal, I just hate it.  I hate it.  I'm cool with just being called by the company name actually.  I'm there to sell you their product so I don't see how the real me has to come into it at all.  This is where I'm at.  Study THIS shit.  I may be the exception but I wonder just how different this thinking is to others in my position.  Where are our rights?  I am forced to wear a pictured ID tag that states my first and last names but I'm clever to cover it up so that only when completely necessary do I ever have to flip it over for someone to see.  Then we wear yet another bigger badge with our first name written on it in big bold letters that must always be visible.  They pay people to come in and check and dodge you 10 points if it's not.
Thank goodness, having lived and learned among the incredibly savvy San Francisco Tenderloin street hustler boys, I am expert level at avoiding genuine answers to any and all personal questions.
I call this a stir fry but it's actually barely that.  Steamed broccoli, snow peas, tomatoes, mushrooms and ground beef over black rice.

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