Macrolog
Another Name Added to the Hitlist
Life’s not fair.
That’s how the old saying goes, anyway, and somehow people are expected to live with that sentiment when things turn sour. But on the other hand, surely life is based on the premise that it should be fair? If not, then why, for example, bother with the concept of justice? Should we just grin and bear it when life deals us a bum hand? Well as far as I’m concerned, we shouldn’t.
I mention this because of an incident that happened in my store, at my till, on Wednesday afternoon:
A well-dressed (read: stuck up) middle-aged lady (emphasis on aged, hesitate to use the term lady) approached, requested €30 worth of gift vouchers, and tendered a €50 note. I rang up the till, took the note, opened the drawer and gave €20 change.
Now this is the crux of my little story: while handing out this €20, for some reason I said to myself ‘concentrate, remember this moment, be certain that you have given this change’.
I carried on, signed out the vouchers, handed them over and closed the till, ready for the next customer.
The lady was still standing there. She said that I had not given her her change.
I shook my head, certain that I had in fact - barely one minute before - handed her a €20 note.
No, she said in a much firmer tone of voice, I had not.
I repeated ‘I did give you change, I gave you a €20 note’.
Then she turned nasty.
At which point the frustration set in; I couldn’t really say anything other than what I had already said, because the fact of the matter was I had indeed given the correct change. But what was I to do? I didn’t have any witnesses. I didn’t have a video camera on my shoulder recording the event for instant replay. I was left alone, defenceless against the accusations of a boldfaced liar. I was reminded of that old proverb: if a tree falls in a wood and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? In this case, it seems I was the only one who heard the tree fall, and I couldn’t prove it to anyone else.
When I started visibly shaking in anger, restraing myself from eating her face off with a tirade of verbal abuse, Paul from upstairs stepped in to diffuse the situation, giving the liar €20 to get rid of her while I went out back to cool off.
It was a little while later when things started to add up. For instance, when she originaly challenged me about the change, she never actually opened her purse or anything to show that I had made a mistake (because, of course, I hadn’t, and she was lying). I also learned too late that I could have asked security to intervene. (Robin apparently loves doing till audits to catch out fraudsters like her.) But despite it being over and done with, I was still disturbed by the whole experience. I mean, how could someone, especially at this time of year, be so deviously unscrupulous? This person also probably goes to church every Sunday, pretending to be a morally upstanding citizen. That’s the thing that really got to me.
Maybe I’ve lived a sheltered existence. Even though I know that there are people like this in the world, I don’t run into them that often. My question is, why should we have to capitulate to them when we do? To me this wasn’t about the money or any of that; this was one of those rare clear-cut, black-and-white cases of right versus wrong.
Sure, she may have gotten her measly €20, she may think she got the upper hand and made a fool out of me, but I won this battle, because I know I’m a better person than she’ll ever be.
That being said, I sure as hell won’t be sorry when I can put this job behind me. Two weeks left and counting. I’m gonna have a good Christmas this year.
(By the way, thanks to the parent company for the bonus vouchers; they won’t nearly make up for allowing us to be treated like shit over the past few months, but they’ll pay for some books that I can read after I quit.)
Fri 06 Dec 2002 at 18:31 ·
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This is the personal website of MacDara Conroy, a twenty-something journalist, editor and all-round creative type living in Dublin, Ireland.
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You are reading Another Name Added to the Hitlist, a Macrolog entry by MacDara Conroy. It is filed under Generalia, and was published in December 2002.
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