Mood: Awake
Music: Movin’ On – Elliott Yamin
Notes: None that I can think of, except comment, biznoches! LOL
Belladonna posted a video blog on her myspace about her herpes scare and STD’s in the “adult film” community (which is a fancy word for porno). On a side note… in her blog, she actually says that 99% of the adult actors and actresses in the industry have herpes. is that a good reason to get into porno? I don’t really think so. These are the types of things that make people dislike me, but the truth is, this is one very good example of why I hate porn. I used to watch a lot of it, but I just don’t anymore. I don’t like a lot of things that happen to people who get addicted to it, and I hate what it does to the people who do it, but this right here? Reason enough for me to tell people to stay out of porn. If you feel like continuing to read, please do so: <gestures for continuing>
Owen Wilson is on the cover of People Magazine this week. I do hope he’s okay. Haven’t heard anymore about Juanita Bynum, but if any of you have any news, please let me know. I just received some raw Shea butter in the mail this week (big BIG shout out to my girl Ina who sent it to me!), and I’m excited about making my own Shea Butter/Vitamin E/Cocoa Butter/ Olive Oil exfoliate, along with some lotion and maybe a deep conditioner – minus the Cocoa butter. I wanted to write about so many more things today, but these blogs are long enough as it is, so next time, I promise there will be different subjects! Yes, I’m listening to Elliott Yamin again. Why does his name have two T’s in it? Was that a marketing ploy? I hope not, because it was a bad one. No joke. I have to consciously remind myself to put the extra T in his name when I type it. That’s just dumb. Unless it’s his real first name, and then it’s awesome! No joke, it’s awesome.
So this past few days, I’ve been alternating between the gym, my job, and my family. It’s been a really rough time for my family as of late. We’ve had a few deaths, and a few huge accidents [immediate and extended], and I’ve just… needed to be there. Cooler heads and such, as they say.
But more than that, what’s been on my mind is my performance at work, my attitude at work, and the resulting lower amounts on my paychecks because of it. So I guess this is the time where we talk about the sliding scale, but not really in depth. Why? Because it’s boring. <shrug> I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s just boring. So, rather than talk about it here, I’ll wait and talk about it in another entry sometime in the future.
Anyway——————– on to how people get paid. I won’t tell you how my company pays me, because then it would be easy for people to find out where I work, and because:
A. The opinions here are solely mine and not the opinions of my employer, and
B. I can’t afford to get fired or some other result of my words.
So, for the second time, on to how people get paid. Some companies pay their operators by the hour, and some pay by the minutes in which an operator is actively talking. Either way, most of the time, an operator is going to make nearly the same amount of money. How? Because of one great equalizer: The sliding scale. It’s like commission, but you moan for it. <nods> So, all that being said, the past few weeks I’ve been sliding lower and lower on the scale, which means making less and less money. I can’t do that, at all, so I decided today to adjust my attitude. Which is how today’s entry came to be alive.
I can hear people already, “How can your attitude be bad? All you have to do is talk dirty!”
To that, I say a hearty,
The thing about it is, let’s say you have this job, where people come in to get food. A fast food joint even [stick with me, I swear this analogy will work. I hope.], but a fast food joint that pays $20.00 an hour. So it’s great and good, and for your first 6 months, you don’t care that every person who comes in orders the same thing, they have bad attitudes, they’re ridiculously bad communicators, and sometimes they even yell at you. In fact, a lot of them yell… loudly. Now, for the first 6 months, it’s freaking great, you’re working 40 hours a week, you do whatever you want, and you can’t smell the grease anymore ( I’ll explain that part of the analogy another day).
The catch is that to receive your $20.00 an hour, your customers have to stay at the counter ordering for an average of say… 35 minutes. When they walk away with their food, you don’t get paid for that time anymore. You only get paid if you have an average counter time of 35 minutes. You can do it, and even sometimes, your customers stay at the counter for an hour! They like you, and return often just to sit at your counter and order for an hour! You’re good at it, you know it, and your boss knows it.
But, 8 years has passed now, and you’re still doing it. You’re 26 years old, your friends are all professionals with families and regular jobs, and you’re still putting on your cheesy uniform with that stupid ball cap and going to serve people greasy food for 10 hours straight. Now, granted, you make more money than 98% of your friends, but they don’t smell like french fries after work. 
8 years has passed, and every day, to every customer you say, “Hi, how can I help you?”
Your eatery only serves one dinner: burger and fries with a soda. Only three different types of sodas are served, and that’s really the only choice your customers have, but you still have to talk to them like they have a choice to make. You know before they say it that they want a burger, fries, and most likely a soda. Maybe water if they’re freaky, but mostly soda. You have to act like you don’t know what they’re going to order, so you stand there, like an idiot, while they hem and haw until they get down to business and order the hamburger. You have to look at them everyday, all of them, one after the other. They yell at you, abuse you, call you names, act like they are better than you because you’re serving them burgers, and some of them even tell you that. Some of your customers even call you a burger whore.
<LAUGH> 
…burger whore… That’s funny.
Anyway, I digress. Think about it, if you had this conversation 50 times a day for 8 years:
You: Hi! 
It’s great to see you! How can I help you! I’m really excited!
Them: Uhhhnmmmmmmmha… let me think, what do you have?
You: I’m so glad you asked! 
We have a burger and fries, with a drink for $5.00! What would you like?
Them: Uhhhhhhhnmmmmmheh… What’s on the burger?
You: 
I’m so excited to tell you! Lettuce, pickles, mayo, and a tomato slice are on the burger! I’m happy you’re ordering here!
Them: Uhhhhhhnnnnmmmmhoh… I guess I’ll have…. a… uhhhhnnmmmhaho… a… u h m m m n n n j aj ha he… a… o maybe I’ll take the… uhhhnnmmm well… What do you have to drink?
And the conversation goes on from there. At the time the drink is asked for, you may delineate from your script, but until that moment, you really need to say the same thing, because your customers are all going to ask for the same thing. So 50 times a day (give or take a day here or there) for 8 years, you have that exact conversation. Are you going to have a great attitude? All 365 days of each of those 8 years, are you going to be ” so excited!” to help everyone who comes into your food joint? Probably not.
But then, the question pretty much asks itself: Don’t each of those people deserve you to act like you haven’t had that same conversation with everyone else? I mean, each individual person, unless they’ve come in before (which does happen), hasn’t had that conversation with you. So shouldn’t you then adjust your attitude so that your customers feel like they have been treated well? Of course you should! That doesn’t mean you will though, because you’re a person too. People fail sometimes, it’s what makes us human, you know?
I haven’t included a synopsis of what would happen with the customer who runs in the door like someone is killing him and says, “You burger whore! Give me a meal!”
I also declined to include a synopsis of what happens with the customers who come in the door with their own sack lunch and start eating on your counter while looking at you and never buying -or even saying- anything.
So I consciously adjusted my attitude today, and every single customer who came in spent 30 to 45 minutes ‘ordering’, which is a great thing for me. But also an eye opener: Today has been pretty much the most grueling day I’ve ever had on the lines. Keeping my attitude and my mouth in check when every single person says the same thing is difficult for me. The stupid, cheesy come-on lines, the ridiculous, clumsy misplaced anger, the abuse and name calling, all that… it’s difficult for me not to say, “You don’t have a wife, you’re whispering because you want me to think you have a wife you’re hiding from, you really just want to justify the fact that you have to call here to be satisfied sexually, you loser.”
Okay, maybe not that, but something like that. I had a guy call me a few days ago, whispering like… no joke… whispering like white text on a light gray background. I couldn’t hear him, but most of the time, when guys are asked to speak up they will just hang up the phone, as opposed to talking at a volume that is audible for human beings. So I asked (which is also a risky thing to do) why he was whispering. He then told me his wife was asleep next to him, and he thought it would be hot to call me while she slept.
By the way: Trust me that this is not a one-in-a-million conversation. I would be willing to bet money that if a person surveyed every phone sex operator in America, 95% of them would say they have had a call like this before, and maybe 50% of the girls/guys who worked last night actually received a phone call like this too. I guarantee it. I’d bet real money, a substantial amount too. It’s so common for men and women who call to make up reasons for calling. Like fat women who go to fast food places to act like they are ordering for people who are ‘at home.’ Most likely, no one is at her house, and she’s going to eat all 4 of those big macs herself, but it makes her feel better to think that the kid giving her the food doesn’t think so. Truth is, he knows she’s going to eat all the food, he just doesn’t say it if he wants to keep his job.
I digress, back to what happened. For like an hour and a half, this man alternated between whispering to me and yelling at me to STFU (for real, yelled at me) while his “wife” was “asleep” next to him. In all reality, the wife in question was more likely a pet, and ‘laying beside’ him was probably code for ‘outside in the back yard,’ but whatever. At one point, he actually told me he was engaged in activities with her while she was sleeping.
uhm… hm. (that’s my code for yeah. right.)
He started screaming and yelling, grunting and things, telling me she was still asleep. I wonder why people even keep up with the charade sometimes, but they do. Without fail, every single one of them does, and will, regardless of what happens during said charade. Just the way it is, I guess. <shrugs> Now, normally, I would have said something like, “You don’t really have a wife do you?” And he would have either hung up on me (most common reaction), or reinforced the lie by doing something stupid like saying, “here listen to her breathe.” and breathing in the phone on his own like he was asleep (really does happen). But I didn’t do that, I’m adjusting my attitude. So I just acted like I believed it, and an hour and a half later, he finished and hung up on me. <LAUGHS>
I’ve had guys talk out loud to no one in a feminine voice to act like there is a girl in the room with them. I’ve had men call and act like women so that they can be the angry boyfriend who comes in and snatches the phone and starts abusing me for turning his girlfriend into a lesbian, thusly forcing him to assault me sexually in order to turn me into a hetero woman. I mean, the list of craziness really never stops, but the point is, none of them have been at my counter before, and I have to act like that, even though, in truth, they’ve all been at my counter before… in one form or another.
Love you all,
Geisha
, for the uninitiated, is a Rabbid. I did not know the name for them until today, but I have loved them for a year. I do not know anything more about them, but if someone knows their story, please tell me. I love the crazy rabbits with the toilet brushes. <laughs>
On top of that, because it is super cool not to care about anyone else’s financial situation as long as your own is covered… super cool.
Reluctant Geisha 