The Dudeism Forum

I work at a mom and pop convenience store, so I get plenty of old, mean drunks. Today, one of the regular jerks came in. I usually say "Hello" when he walks in, but he just gives me a dirty look and buys his 4 40 oz. Busch Light beers and leaves. Doesn't say "thank you" or "see ya later", just throws his card at me like I'm some worthless lump behind a register.

So today, he actually bitched at me for putting his beers in a bag. "It's gotta be a heavier bag than that," after he watched me put them all in the first bag. I put the other bag away, got a heavier one out, ran his card through the machine, and as he's leaving I say,

"AND A GOOD DAY TO YOU, SIR"

He didn't respond, but it certainly brightened my day. I'm usually a pretty chill person at work, which deflects a lot of the mean drunkenness, but today I decided to spice things up a bit.

A commendable story of chin-upness AB!

Sometimes in the face of such dickishness all you can do is laugh on the inside, smile on the outside and hope their grump will dissolve just a little bit as they look upon your radiant dudleiness.  Kudos!

Also, good to see you've bounced back from that shitty bike-theft incident

Yeah, I have another bike now and it's in pretty poor shape--the bike seat is always bustin' my friggin' aggets, but hey, I can't complain. Gets me to work, that's for sure!

This week has been pretty awesome--we got approved for food assistance (which we needed pretty bad), I finally got everything sorted out with the university and I've officially obtained my college degree, and the damn dog that barks nonstop next door (mostly because its owner ignores it) escaped and I got to watch our fatass neighbor hobble down the street after it, screaming and hollering.

Sometimes, it's the little things. 

Quote from: A.B. Dude on August 31, 2011, 10:18:03 PM

Sometimes, it's the little things. 

Yeah dude...yeah. You are Not wrong about that.

Today I had a rude lady buying lottery tickets. Must be hard gambling away all that money, I guess.

But my true dude came out later on while a coworker was telling me that she disagrees with food benefits. Which hey, man, it's her roll, but then she tells me because she's tribal she gets free health and dental. I said I was in favor of socialized medicine, and she went all reactionary talking about how "she pays enough in taxes". Now I was thinking "well that's easy for her to say, she actually can go to the dentist and fill cavities without paying an entire month's pay" but I just shrugged it off.

Then she comes back and says, "So you're in favor of FREE health care, right?" And I said, "Well, not free, but socialized. I believe in preventative care for people. Take me, for instance. If I want good health and dental, I've gotta pay 250 a month, which I can't afford, but if I get in a car accident, I'm fucked because I'll be paying that off for the rest of my life." And then she starts talking about how there's Medicare and Medicaid. Now at that moment, I wanted to say, "Well no shit, that's government run healthcare" but I didn't.

I took a deep breath, and said, "Well, I can see both sides of it, man," and went back to counting my till out for the night. I think that did nothing but frustrate her. Good times, man.  I Duded myself right out of an uncomfortable argument about politics.

The wisdom of Dudeism; it pays off. Well done, sir! You handled it in what I would call "the way of a dude."

Quote from: A.B. Dude on August 31, 2011, 05:17:40 PM
"AND A GOOD DAY TO YOU, SIR"

lol.. that guy got owned bretty bad... :-) next time how about "I'll suck your cock for a $1000?" The expression on his face = priceless.. ;-)

I've discovered that my favorite way to deal with asshole customers is to be super sarcastically nice to them.

Our health codes say that we can't allow anyone in the store if they are shirtless, shoeless, or wearing rollerblades. A guy came in with his kid and I said, "Dude, you know he's gotta have a shirt on," and he was like, "Yeah, I know, I understand, we'll be out of here in just a second." The lady at the counter was like "He's a kid, give him a fucking break" and was quite snotty.

I mean, the rule's there for a reason, and I could get fined if a health inspector comes in. And this slovenly white trash bitch got in my face about what really wasn't a big deal--I was pretty nice about letting him know about the rule and he was pleasant and she had to make a big fuss.

As she left I said, "HAVE A LOVELY DAY" as fake nicely as I could. She comes in often and buys energy drinks on her food assistance card--each time she pretty much throws it at me like I'm scum. I'm sure I haven't seen the last of Obese Food Card lady, but hey, I can't complain.

Later on I was reading a book behind the counter (we get slow quite often) and a lady asked what I was reading. I said, "Eh, it's a fantasy novel. Plenty of sex and violence, so it keeps my mind occupied," and I think her face turned two shades of white before she left. Hahaha.

My staff used to have a book running on wether I would actually go too far with the customers, they just used to take the sarcasm and smile, i think most of them just didn't think I could actually be being that rude to them.

It was one of the aspects of the job i used to like.

Is it weird that I'm never rude or sarcastic?  I must be one of those sick freaks who genuinely likes helping customers...   No, don't pelt me with that basket of rotten fruit!!!

I started a topic on it here: http://dudeism.com/smf/index.php?topic=2599.0

It explains the power of not having a connection with people and therefor not being rubbed up by them.  It might help, although it seems you have a fairly good coping method as is.  If you'd like to contribute to the discussion, AB, please do, the art of Dudejitsu is an artform, not a science and you've proven yourself an artist in coping with downers these past few weeks or so

Hey Ed, you're raising some profound issues there... I would say that one reason The Movie is so great is its mix and combination of characters, like for example the Dude alone would never experience all the things that the team of the Dude and Walter experiences together. So equally, I think that a healthy dose of Walte-Jitsu from time to time totally has its place in Dudeism. It's like a Neo-Dudeian Synthesis.