Since the fall of 2008, I've been working retail here in Copenhagen. I work at a costume store, reminiscent of the Halloween Adventure / New York Costumes in NYC.
Working retail is routinely boring, frustrating, annoying...But sometimes also rewarding. Every day isn't "Not Always Right" day, though there are a lot of those days.
I'd like to share my two favorite stories from working retail with the internet.
Working in a store that not only sells costumes, but also decorations and assorted party items, I had a female customer in one day. She was pretty timid, but needed some help getting some stuff for a surprise party for her boyfriend. She told me she was looking for some stuff to give her boyfriend's apartment a hawaiian feel, and I helped her out with more stuff than she'd hoped to find.
After finding a lot of stuff (much of it cheap, to boot) she told me that she was very, very happy with coming into our store...She admitted that she and her boyfriend were both pretty much broke, and that he suffered from a depression. They'd both wanted a tropical vacation, but had no real hopes of getting one anytime soon, but that she was sure that the stuff I'd helped her find would cheer him up. She was almost in tears by this time, and I have to admit that I was pretty touched too.
Grateful customers are not as rare as some people working retail might want you to believe...But genuinely so happy that they're almost crying, that is pretty rare. It totally made my day, week and month. I know that working retail (now as a part time job since I'm studying at the Copenhagen Business School as well), I don't make that huge an impact on anyone's lives...But making that customer so happy really made me happy as well.
The other story was a day in the early autumn last year, I was helping out a couple of the, erhm...White trash persuasion. I don't like to admit it, but I am pretty judgemental (even if I don't say stuff to / about people out loud). I do try to give everyone the same attention and level of professionality, though.
I helped out this couple, and after having helped them find costumes and accessories for the party they were going to, they were both just positively happy. I'd helped them find just the right things, and even though they didn't say it, I could really feel that they weren't used to being given the kind of help I'd given them. The guy ended up shaking my hand (Which I feel kinda freaked out by...It's not often that I get my hand shaken in the line of duty at work, and even rarer from people that close to my own age :D).
I was ashamed of my own presumptions that they'd be an annoying, ungrateful pair of customers...But really happy that I'd helped them get a good experience.
On a slightly related note, I do get the impression that people (Around here in Copenhagen, at least) aren't really used to getting treated well by people in retail...I don't know if that's because so many people who work retail pre-emptively are agressive, or if there's some other factor I haven't noticed. But even then, as my boss usually says after we've had a crappy customer...Most people would probably be better people if they'd had a job either waiting tables or working retail.
In the end, I try to help out people the best I can, and I'm happy if I get to do that. When I get a crappy customer, most of the times I can just shrug it off (though sometimes, the sheer audacity of people's schemes, and lies, overwhelm me...But that's a wall o' text for another day).
-Barl0we
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Religion, freedom of speech, other mixed goods.
I was raised in a very atheist home. I think I met the first openly Christian person at the tender age of 15, which I guess doesn't happen anywhere near as late in a place like the USA as it does in Denmark. Many in Denmark may profess Christianity around the age of 13 for their confirmation ( Not really sure it's the same expression in English as in Danish -> The kids get baptized and when the priest asks them if they believe in God, they answer yes. Afterwards they get a party thrown in their favor by their family and gets lots of gifts).
When I was 13, my Mom told me I had a choice of three things:
1. Getting my confirmation
2. Getting a computer
3. Getting a trip with her to Florida.
Already at the age of 13, I knew that I wasn't Christian (and that getting the confirmation would be a fraud, since even if I did say I believed in God, it'd be a lie). I really had to consider whether to get a computer, or taking the trip to Florida. I ended up taking the trip, which turned out to be freakin' awesome.
On a semi-related note, this is when I really started loving the idea of America. During this trip I went to Disneyland (Or World, I always get those mixed up. The one in Florida), Universal Studios and went to the Florida Keys and saw Hemingway's home.
That was kind of a side track...But to get back on the topic of religion:
I'm kind of terrified of people who express religious fervor, whether it be Christians, Muslims or whichever other religion the people in question believe in. I got my first good taste of that when I commented on an episode of the Penn Point on Youtube about an American cartoonist being taken underground by an American security agency because he / she drew Mohammed drawings, just like that fool here in Denmark did.
The thing about the Mohammed drawings is this: They were brought in a right-wing Danish newspaper, and most likely to just provoke reactions from the Muslim world (And boy did we ever get what that damned newspaper bargained for).
Now, I'm all for freedom of speech, and I don't think that anyone should be punished for expressing that freedom. But the thing is, people have to own their mistakes...And drawing Mohammed in various disrespectful ways (and most importantly as a terrorist figure) is just. plain. stupid!
I posted on the Penn Point video on the subject something along the lines that with freedom of speech comes the responsibility to use it right, and that the American cartoonist was silly for doing it, when the reactions towards the Danish cartoonist has been so negative as it has.
I still occasionally get hateful responses to that comment on youtube, and many of them freak me the hell out. Mostly because I just don't care about religion, as long as people don't try to shove it down my throat. Let people believe what they believe, as long as it doesn't hurt or otherwise adversely affect others. But some people just don't feel that way, I guess.
/rant.
When I was 13, my Mom told me I had a choice of three things:
1. Getting my confirmation
2. Getting a computer
3. Getting a trip with her to Florida.
Already at the age of 13, I knew that I wasn't Christian (and that getting the confirmation would be a fraud, since even if I did say I believed in God, it'd be a lie). I really had to consider whether to get a computer, or taking the trip to Florida. I ended up taking the trip, which turned out to be freakin' awesome.
On a semi-related note, this is when I really started loving the idea of America. During this trip I went to Disneyland (Or World, I always get those mixed up. The one in Florida), Universal Studios and went to the Florida Keys and saw Hemingway's home.
That was kind of a side track...But to get back on the topic of religion:
I'm kind of terrified of people who express religious fervor, whether it be Christians, Muslims or whichever other religion the people in question believe in. I got my first good taste of that when I commented on an episode of the Penn Point on Youtube about an American cartoonist being taken underground by an American security agency because he / she drew Mohammed drawings, just like that fool here in Denmark did.
The thing about the Mohammed drawings is this: They were brought in a right-wing Danish newspaper, and most likely to just provoke reactions from the Muslim world (And boy did we ever get what that damned newspaper bargained for).
Now, I'm all for freedom of speech, and I don't think that anyone should be punished for expressing that freedom. But the thing is, people have to own their mistakes...And drawing Mohammed in various disrespectful ways (and most importantly as a terrorist figure) is just. plain. stupid!
I posted on the Penn Point video on the subject something along the lines that with freedom of speech comes the responsibility to use it right, and that the American cartoonist was silly for doing it, when the reactions towards the Danish cartoonist has been so negative as it has.
I still occasionally get hateful responses to that comment on youtube, and many of them freak me the hell out. Mostly because I just don't care about religion, as long as people don't try to shove it down my throat. Let people believe what they believe, as long as it doesn't hurt or otherwise adversely affect others. But some people just don't feel that way, I guess.
/rant.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Why do I love scary books?
One of my favorite authors, Stephen King, often talks of why we like scary stories. I was reminded of this a couple weeks ago, while I was trying to explain to my mom on the phone why a) I was looking forward to playing Amnesia: Dark Descent and b) Why, and how, I can stand watching horror movies alone, and reading horror novels just before going to bed.
Truth be told, my fascination with horror started out when I started reading books for pleasure at the age of 13(ish). Fantasy was alright, and I'd read a few crime books, but horror just had some sort of primal hold over my imagination already at that point.
Stephen King has said that we like horror because it is life-affirming; We come face-to-face with the ultimate horror, and as readers we escape the final horror which may or may not befall the characters. I guess that some of that is part of why I love reading scary stories (Or watching them, or playing them as games).
I can't exactly pinpoint what it IS about horror stories that keeps me coming back - maybe it's the thrills, maybe it's the settings whether they be of the Lovecraftian persuasion, or the Stephen King kind. I was stumped for an answer that my mom didn't ridicule on the phone (but lovingly), and I could just hear her marking that up in her mind as a win for her.
I've always read a lot - not just horror novels. I love Sci-fi and Fantasy books as well, and many, many other kinds. I'll read a book for the story, or an author's new take on a known concept in horror stories, but I won't hold out on reading most anything else, either.
One of my favorite books in recent years was Laird Barron's "The Imago Sequence" which I ended up reading in a fevery haze, since I fell ill with a nasty flu shortly after buying the Imago book. It ended up being one of the most horrifying experiences for me, mostly because the fever gave the whole book an extra feeling of unreality.
That might be one of the draws to horror for me, after all; The unreal. Supernatural. The Thing That Should Not Be...I was raised in an atheist home, and most of Denmark is actually atheist (or doesn't really observe their christianity except for in the comfort of their own homes).
I would love to believe in something more than the life we have, some sort of afterlife; Or the existance of paranormal events outside the brains of loonies or drunk / high people, but I simply don't.
That doesn't mean I don't enjoy pop culture of any kind including the paranormal, though.
Wow, this turned out wall 'o text'y O_o
-Barl0we
Truth be told, my fascination with horror started out when I started reading books for pleasure at the age of 13(ish). Fantasy was alright, and I'd read a few crime books, but horror just had some sort of primal hold over my imagination already at that point.
Stephen King has said that we like horror because it is life-affirming; We come face-to-face with the ultimate horror, and as readers we escape the final horror which may or may not befall the characters. I guess that some of that is part of why I love reading scary stories (Or watching them, or playing them as games).
I can't exactly pinpoint what it IS about horror stories that keeps me coming back - maybe it's the thrills, maybe it's the settings whether they be of the Lovecraftian persuasion, or the Stephen King kind. I was stumped for an answer that my mom didn't ridicule on the phone (but lovingly), and I could just hear her marking that up in her mind as a win for her.
I've always read a lot - not just horror novels. I love Sci-fi and Fantasy books as well, and many, many other kinds. I'll read a book for the story, or an author's new take on a known concept in horror stories, but I won't hold out on reading most anything else, either.
One of my favorite books in recent years was Laird Barron's "The Imago Sequence" which I ended up reading in a fevery haze, since I fell ill with a nasty flu shortly after buying the Imago book. It ended up being one of the most horrifying experiences for me, mostly because the fever gave the whole book an extra feeling of unreality.
That might be one of the draws to horror for me, after all; The unreal. Supernatural. The Thing That Should Not Be...I was raised in an atheist home, and most of Denmark is actually atheist (or doesn't really observe their christianity except for in the comfort of their own homes).
I would love to believe in something more than the life we have, some sort of afterlife; Or the existance of paranormal events outside the brains of loonies or drunk / high people, but I simply don't.
That doesn't mean I don't enjoy pop culture of any kind including the paranormal, though.
Wow, this turned out wall 'o text'y O_o
-Barl0we
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