This isn't a discussion for bashing fast-food and retail workers. Also I grew up in a very secluded and "old fashioned" village, so I'm only recently acquainted (relatively speaking) with the way employment works these days.

I've noticed a lot of sympathy for people in those areas of employment. It's a job that's low on the totem pole but a job nonetheless. People knew what they were in for when they applied there.

Regardless of them knowing what they're in for, they shouldn't be "in" for it. Some of them are treated way worse than they should be and the place of employment isn't as good as it should be.

Get a job where you are face to face with the public all day...and make sure the public includes plenty of people who consider you 'low on the totem pole'...in other words beneath them...then get back to us with the 'why the sympathy' question.

Okay, that was harsh on my part. I apologize. But it did illustrate the point. Those people are face to face with people all day and expected to be nice...and among the people they face are plenty of people who do think that their 'good job' entitles them to a whipping post whenever they are having a bad day and some 'lowly fast food worker' is a fine candidate.

Take a magazine, go sit at a Taco Bell and nurse a soda (refills!). Don't read, just watch how people treat the workers at the counter. If you sit there for half an hour and don't find yourself wondering 'how did that kid not just punch that guy?' at least once it's an off day at the Taco Bell.

A lot of people who work in retail are not there by choice, they either didn't have the qualifications for other jobs or needed a job fast and retail is always hiring. Not bashing retail employees, I'm one myself and while not rich I'm making more now than I could in a new job possibly for a few years.

The sympathy is that if only 1% of your customers are ... jerks ... (and that's a pretty reasonable number) then you have to deal with several a day, dozens a week, and hundreds in a year. And retail is one of the few jobs were you can't really defend yourself you just have to svck it up and take the abuse (to a point).

This too. The reason we need a pat on the back (I don't think we need sympathy, recognition would be better) is because we have to deal with the world and the world is kind of stupid. No offense of course.

If a customer gets a wrong part, or what they have is broken..you know who they blame? You. Not the company, not who made it..but you. You get the brunt of everything. Hell most of them know better but don't care. Don't even get me started on the entitled folks.

Yeah, agreed. It's not a matter of sympathy, really, it's just a matter of basic respect. Sympathy tends to come into play when that respect is absent.

On the upside, I've been doing it for so long I can have customers get in my face and scream profanities .... and I don't have to act like it doesn't bother me, it really just doesn't, I'm immune to it and while they go home pissed off I've forgotten about it 5 minutes later. That's actually served me pretty well in life lol

I feel like, one thing that gets missed is - someone has to do that job. Yes, some positions are intended more as stepping stones and you "should" want to better your position in life. I can possibly see a point to be made that if you don't like your current job then you should get a new one.

On the other hand - when you leave that job, then someone has to get hired to fill that role. Someone's going to have to bag my groceries and check out my purchases. Those burgers aren't going to flip themselves. So even if a potential "solution" on an individual level is to find a better job, it's still not addressing the (more pressing, I feel) issue that those jobs really svck and don't pay enough for the work you do and the people you have to put up with.

Yeah, I used to work the night shift at a 24-hour grocery store. (Around 3 or 4 in the morning is when the really "interesting" customers surface, I found.) I found I got to a point where I even kind of enjoyed dealing with irate customers.

As has been noted, many people (perhaps even most now, depending on how one interprets the data) are actually underemployed. In other words, they are not working where their skills, experience, and training are best used for society, and this is not by their own choice but rather by the choice of people in power at any/all levels. It's called "oppression." They are working (if they are lucky, as many of us are not working and have not been employed full-time for many years) at the particular job (e.g., fast food and other low-wage service positions that are not intended for independent advlts) because they have no choice in order to try to pay their bills and live.

Mind you, what I just noted is the "best case" scenario. In reality, many people (again, can be most depending on how one interprets the data) are also discriminated against due to ethnicity, age, six, or even other characteristics such as weight or height. There are studies that have shown discrimination due to simply a person's name, nothing else.

Notice that many jobs are now either automated or self-serve. For example, in most major supermarkets, you see the self-serve lane where you check yourself out and bag your own groceries, no human attendant is paid for the position. Same with gas stations. There have already been pilot stores for doing this with fast food, too.

Well my best friend works at a peets in california an allthough she knows a few great customers she has also had the regular racist aholes who treat her like crap an thats when shes not getting it from the manager aswell whos a total [censored] on a power trip an since she also has a kid to feed and the money from one job aint enough she has two jobs which barely give her time off to sleep let alone money an she has the right qualifications to get a career but she needed money fast.

I just wish she didnt have to be someones slave just to make a living.