It's been a slow process, but after months of boredom and an excess of access to the world wide web, I've downloaded a shitload of music and my one time Greek god of a Macintosh has lost a bit of its studly performance edge and now has to pull more weight than Marion Jones' ex-husband. I never got that relationship. I think Marion had other problems. She never won my heart as Mia Hamm did. Lisa Leslie came close but then her bone structure got to me. My vocabulary in the language of mainstream female athletes should not be questioned. But going back to Staples. I found the hard drive I wanted (it's sleek and notebook-size and I won't need more than 250 GB realistically will I?) but I had to go ask a Staples person to go in the back and get it for me. So I walk to the customer service whatever little island at the front of the store and ask some mid-thirties dude with a goatee for what's that word they use assistance. He is obviously not doing shit except chill there and chat with his suckup of a co-worker who looked like a grown-up twenty-something version of Brucey from Matilda (great movie). So I ask him for the hard drive. He looks at me. He picks up the phone that talks over the loudspeaker and calls "Ted" to "Hard Drives" for "Customer Assistance." Bruce laughs as goatee summons Ted.
OK. Ted comes. He is probably mid-fifties and Asian and he has glasses and he looks kinda sad and depressed. His hair reminded me of Javier Bardem in No Country but in this case the effect was not kickass and psychologically devastating, but instead, once again, sad and lonely. My mom whispers to me that he has been there working at Staples forever. So already I kinda feel bad for him. But he did what he had to do (and believe me, we presented him with a really difficult task.). I pointed to the hard drive I wanted. He looked at the number on the laminated slice of plastic which corresponded with the hard drive I wanted. He went in the back and got it. He handed it to us. After thanking Ted for his trouble, we walked towards the register and I noticed that the group of island douchebags had not moved and was still for the most part not doing shit. Still chuckling, being lazy, being douchebags. So I went over to goatee and asked him why he couldn't have gotten the hard drive himself. He pauses and looks at me.
"Well, Ted's in that department... and... and he's right there." He points to Ted who now is standing, indeed, right "there" very much in our range of eyesight but not involved at all in the conversation that was heating up at the customber service island.
"That's his department?" I asked.
"Yeah, Ted's in that department and he's right there."
Wait... hold on. Ted might be "right there" now, but he's only there because you called him from across the store to do a menial task. And what is this department you speak of? There's one fucking shelf for hard drives. That's not a department. Across from it is mp3 shit, and adjacent to that is printers. I looked at Ted's nametag and it said "Sales Associate" - same as your nametag. You're telling me Ted is the only person here who could read a barcode and go in the back and get it? You don't know how to do that? No, you do. But you would rather make Ted do it. And you know Ted is never going to complain one bit and he'll do all your boring jobs. How does that make you feel? Do you feel like a bum? Can you feel how little respect I have for you right now?
I didn't say any of this though. I kinda stared at him for a second, said OK, and left. I think I made him a little uncomfortable but I really need to be more assertive in situations in which I feel that an injustice has been committed. In hindsight I wish I could have gotten him really pissed off and flustered and then made him feel like shit for getting worked up at an 18 year-old kid.
"STAPLES. That was - you're a dick."
