> the privileged and the poor seem to enjoy abusing service workers at about the same rate in my experience.
Agreed. When I worked retail and waiting jobs, I got grief from both out-of-touch wealthy people, and bitter poor people (although there were also kind people from both of those categories).
interestingly, I did identify one group of people who were consistently great customers. every construction worker who walked through the door treated us with respect and always tipped, even for carry-out. not sure why exactly, but I appreciated it.
Myself, and I suspect most people, I got grief from everyone.
Poor.
Middle Class.
Wealthy.
Those with accents.
Those without accents.
White.
Black.
Tall.
Short.
You name it. It's brutal if you have to work such jobs for a long time. (Like say, throughout high school and college.) A lot of people out there turn terrible as soon as they interact someone of lower status providing them a service. Even if you never make a mistake, you can't escape it. I remember a girl spilled a drink on the dress of some woman. Apparently the table was already bad, and it turned worse. Manager made me take the table. (Not proud about it, but I was the best doormat he had.) I don't even remember the rest of the night, but I remember that table. Remember every face. They didn't even look like bad people either. That's what was so surprising. Man, that has stayed with me.
So if you only got grief from a few people, then you should thank your lucky stars. You got off easy.
Please re-read my comment, because your response came across quite poorly. I didn't say I only got grief from a few people (quite the contrary!). Clearly you read into it what you wanted. Here's the gist of your response, without knowing anything about me or my background:
- "you were lucky."
- "thank your lucky stars"
- "You got off easy"
- "It's brutal if you have to work such jobs for a long time"
I worked retail, bused tables, and waited for almost 3 years full-time, and I'm certainly not claiming to have only gotten grief from a few people. I never said anything even remotely close to "few people" in my comment. I suggested that there was a trend to the people I got grief from, in agreement to the GP comment. Note: a trend, not an absolute cut-off.
In addition to the comment I was responding to, there are other comments in this thread making similar assertions, so I'm not the outlier here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21717225
Agreed. When I worked retail and waiting jobs, I got grief from both out-of-touch wealthy people, and bitter poor people (although there were also kind people from both of those categories).