The Battle of the Clerks

Life is just an endless dispute with a clerk. By the word clerk I mean all type of service people Computer Salesperson, Lap Dancer, Reservation Clerk, Dental Assistant, Housekeeper, Patrol Person, DMV employee (all kind of Government Administration employee actually), Front Desk  Clerk, Sales Attendant, Sales Clerk, Utility Worker, Waiter/Waitress, Flight attendants, Bookstore Assistant, Cab driver, Customer Representative (I hate Customer Representatives) etc…. The clerk can “work” for National Alamo, Dell, Marriott, Delta Airlines or Pronto Networks. He can be selling shorts at J. Crew, groceries at Safeway or waiting tables at Market Bar but it is basically the same clerk. It is YOUR clerk, the dark angel you will have to fight all of your american life. He is waiting behind a desk or a counter lurking in the dark or at the other end of a phone line in a dirty office far far away from your Ghetto, he can even be a sinister online clerk or worse a sickening delocalized clerk living in India or Mexico. Its favorite diet are highly educated, slightly arrogant, well-off egotistic young gay WASPs and his sick appetite for them is just insatiable. If he works in a Chelsea ihop, good for him, he will prey on these people for days until retirement or death. His helpless presence, his constant mistakes and miscalculations, his lies, lack of knowledge, incompetence, ineffectiveness and lack of goodwill will make each of your minutes as a consumer hellish. If he is a luxury store clerk, he will leave you crying most probably. Don’t even think about not tipping your clerk: if you are expected to and don’t he will find a way to BTK your entire family. Clerks do not know the concept of “fear of losing their job”, are often stronger than you are and invariably unaccountable. They have no manager (or at least no manager that can "take your call") or often their manager is himself a clerk disguised with a manager lapel-pin. You cautiously step forward and try to get a room, a pair of shoes, get some help (NEVER ask anybody for help, NEVER), put your tech support warranty to use or get an answer to a service-related issue, and there it is slowly creeping down the aisle or the phone line, determined to make you lose time, money and temper. He kills you by destroying your digestive system and tiring you with regular little blows. I have given up the fight a long time ago when I meet a clerk I either shout “Jen e pas parlo Ingletera” or slam the door or the phone even before interacting with a loud “F**k you [pause] you know what ? [pause] F**ck you”, to which he is awful enough to respond “please don’t use profanities or I will have to hang up Sir”or “I am just doing my job, Sir”. This does not avoid me the wounds of the clerkish interaction. Anyway if you are a foreigner, clerks are impossible to tackle. Thank god, I am lucky enough to have a boyfriend that knows how to wrestle some clerks these days, like this morning (some Americans are trained even when Toddlers to defend themselves from rapacious clerks). But the truth is that you cannot be victorious (today's struggle required us to convince our clerk that, as of 10:30am this morning pacific time, it had not yet been 9:18pm on 8/22/2005 anywhere in the 50 United States)   because YOUR CLERK runs your life, without him you are naked, alone and hungry. Yes this is the war at home. The only way to be victorious from the clerk terrorism is to become filthy rich…let me amend this statement: rich enough to always have an intermediate between you and the clerk like Victoria Gotti or Anna Wintour. That is why highly educated, slightly arrogant, well-off egotistical young gay WASPs have no choice but to work endless hours in order to protect their nest from the repellant attacks of the consumerism vultures. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: we hold these truths to be self-evident, that the customer is always right and clerks need to shut-the-f***k up. I have a dream that one day all the clerks will be replaced by highly intelligent and responsive automated machines and we will be free from the clerks dictatorship.

That was a long overdue post. Wasn’t it ?. Quickly I’d like to thank Peter R. who told me today “You are the Dominick Dunne of the Gay DC Cosa Nostra”. I always preferred flattery to the truth. I'd like to thank the Pope for reminding us that Religion is a consumer product too. Find also here the list of all blogs in the Metro area – note how most blogs are in Dupont Circle. Bryan’s you are tacky and I hate you is among those.

Comments

[Alexandre]

This was one of your best entries. As for you being Dupont's Dominick Dunne, I can see the resemblance...

[Benjamin]

Mon cher, consider yourself lucky. Try, as a Spanishman fresh off the boat, to get SBC/Ameritech to install your phone *without* paying an $800 deposit because you have no credit history.
Took me a full month, suspended at the pay phone of my neighboring Dunkin Donuts.
At least here they can be held somewhat accountable. You ever dealt with La Poste employees?

[FHC]

Yes Ben: the clerk’s plot has no frontiers.