Customers are getting meaner IRL.

I've been working for a small deli for over a decade. Mean customers used to be rare enough that we could go years between jerks darkening our doors. It's a weekly occurrence now. People come in looking for a fight, refusing to listen when we try to explain things, insulting us. It's going beyond the old adage that you can tell who's never worked retail/food service before. I'm surprised their arms even work with such a huge chip on their shoulders.

My theory is that as people shop more online and order food to be delivered, they're losing practice at interacting with service workers like a normal sane person. Face to face conversations with strangers are less and less common, and people are becoming internet levels of mean when they're out in the 3D world. That and the overall culture of "Being cruel is good actually" coming from this administration and supported by a lot of civilian assholes.

And people are also getting meaner on the internet. But back in my day (shakes cane while fondling my long white beard) people only said mean shit online because they were too scared to do it in real life when they had to look people in the eye while they spewed their venom. I suppose I'm more visibly trans now, and the new owner is a WoC. That certainly makes bigots mean to us in general.

I love my job, actually. My bosses are everything that people wish their bosses could be. I work with friends. And I am en expert in my field doing one of the things I love to do. But these customers, man. Starting to feel like 4Chan circa 2005 was given human form and that guy just rolled up in his audacitymobile. The vibe is feeling like a woman who just said a negative thing on YouTube.about a video game. It's as if a Russian bot was put inside The Terminator and sent back in time to kill my parents specifically.

My job used to be an escape from internet poison. What is giving these devils human form? What ritual do I need to perform to rip away the facade of human flesh to reveal they're hollow inside because their toxicity is as invisible as the carbon monoixde they resemble. And I'm expected to breathe it in anyways because my job makes me beneath them. I must take a deep breath and go in the back while some grown woman gets her mom to yell insults at my shoulder blades, as if I am a personal servant whose job is to protect her from even the slightest bit of discomfort at the expense of my human dignity.

I hate the holiday season. Everybody celebrating a man who told them to not pull such behavior on people. I'm so tired.