Can I get an exemption as already having compassion and empathy? I don't think I'd survive that.
this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
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I still think every person working a cash register should be allowed one free kill at work every year. People would be a lot more polite if they knew there was a chance they could face actual consequences for their actions. Would especially help around the holidays, as you dont know if this Taco Bell employee has burned his kill yet prior to the new year
it'd make those political campaign donut stops more fun for sure. can you imagine being JD Vance and hearing everyone shout DIBS when you walk into Dunkin
One of my little ideas for 'fixes' for political problems has been 'if you get voted in, you have the job for life, but can be fired at any time,' as in out of a canon, at a brick wall. Better keep those approval rates over 66%. Donors come and go. The canon is forever.
I have said for years something similar but if you're in IT you should be mandated to spend a part of your year working on helpdesk and providing Operational support requiring on call. Too many CS wonks now in IT who come right from school into development and/or management pipeline.
Jokes aside that can't really work when companies are private tho.
Like imagine Amazon has a strike going on so government drafts you to the unfilled labor positions.
I’d rather we just teach empathy from the get go.
American culture is one of individualism and that is such a shitty thing for society.
While I've subscribed to this philosophy for decades at this point, there is a possible issue that was really hammered home by COVID -
there will be a non-zero number of people who will be even shittier because "I had to ~~ensure~~ endure it, so they should, too!"
Those kinds of people won't really be any nicer without this training, either. At least we can make them take it for a day. I'm still behind the plan (however, at a lot of places you need more than 1 day of experience to grasp how the whole system works and why some complaints are actually ridiculous).
yeah, i say one week minimum (but i learn fast). maybe one month?
My thought project on the subject is actually a bit more expansive -
Before the age of 25, everyone must complete 1000 hours (~6 mo) in a customer facing position in one of the following roles:
- Retail
- Food Service
- Call Center
Service must be completed with under x number of verified complaints.
Age limit may have to be tweaked. There would have to be some kind of oversight board to prevent people from being assholes the whole time they're there. Also, some kind of minimum service block to prevent doing it piecemeal a week at a time or something.
ETA - but, because everyone has to go through it so everyone knows the parameters, there would need to be guardrails against customers holding complaints over the employees head.
When I worked in call centers, we would always joke that management should give away "non-recorded call passes" as incentives. At any point in a call, you could place the caller on hold, head into a different room, and continue the call from there. No recordings, no repercussions, nothing - just a black box of account activity. You could tell the customer exactly what you think of their bullshit threat to cancel their service.
I tell that story to say that, with some tweaking, I think that could be worked into a way to prevent customers from gaming the system. If you knew that every employee got 1 free "punch a customer in the face" card per month, you might think twice before mouthing off.
what would you do if they got verified bullshit complaints, like "i did not like their shoes" and they wear vibrams around the office? that's verifiable, legitimate, and totally bullshit.
Complaints would have to be about their actual conduct / job performance.
I've had VERY similar thoughts on the matter in the past few years (compulsory hospitality service, for about ~half a year), and I dig your terms. Please send link to signatures when you start your campaign.
Thank you for your support.
That is not just a north-american thing. And I would think it would work great here too.
But not with a disclosed end. You can endure a lot if you know it ends tomorrow 😁
For me, the worst part of working retail at Christmas was hearing the exact same record played on repeat for eight hours straight.
It was years before I could listen to any Christmas music.
Retail has toxified any and every holiday experience because every holiday is just "BUY BUY BUY!"
Halloween? "BUY CANDY! JUST BUY IT OH AND BUY CHEAP DECORATIONS AND TAT TOO!" Thanksgiving? "BUY FOOD! BUY LOTS OF FOOD!" X-Mas? "BUY EVERYTHING OR UNLESS YOU'RE A SOULLESS PERSON WHO DOESN'T BUY ANYTHING FOR THOSE YOU LOVE!" Valentine's Day? "BUY CHOCOLATES! BUY CHEAP TAT!"
And it just cycles through every year. And you get to witness so many idiots that continue falling for the same traps, just by coming into your store every day.
i was a christmas musician for a few years. 50-60 gigs from the saturday after thanksgiving til the weekend before christmas each year, occasionally a private christmas eve party if my family got to come too.
we were good and polished: we started practice for the season in june. i think it took a decade of that until i can do like, one or two christmas albums the entire season without losing my mind.
wife's a good sport about it tho. the main trees are up and we've got a bunch of tabletops to still spread around, and we have a good-natured annual argument about whether the true queen of christmas is mariah carey or andy williams.
i am pretty much always in the mood for the harry simeone chorale though. their do you hear what i hear is a banger
Zoey Deschanel 's she and him album. On repeat. All month. I was there, man
I'm pretty sure she owes you a least one CENSORED and maybe some CENSORED.
why are we censoring apology and mansions?
I've never worked retail, but I loathe Christmas music anyway. I fucking hate going shopping in the US between October and January.
Unless I know exactly what they'd like, I use this simple formula to buy presents.
Under 5 years old? Get them a really big Christmas card. Little kids never get mail, so they'll love it. Give the parents the money you'd spend to get the kid whatever they actually need.
5 to 10 years? GI Joe or Barbie. It's like getting someone in jail a carton of Kools; if they don't want it themselves they can swap it in the yard.
10 to 20? Cash money. You can make it fancy by getting gold colored dollar coins putting it in a draw string purse.
Over 20? Booze. Unless they are a raging alcoholic.
Over 20? Booze. Unless they are a raging alcoholic.
Fancy olive oil, chocolate, tea, or coffee are good alternatives, depending on their tastes.
Fancy olive oil
ooo, we have a decent press not too far from here. that's an idea
Reminds me of a story I read a while back.
The writer was in Italy and toured a particular olive oil producer. They told him he could have a case sent to the US for about $5.00 a bottle. He wasn't a great cook, but it seemed like a good price and he didn't want to look cheap, so he got a case.
Gets back home and he has a meeting with a contractor. They are walking through the kitchen and the contractor sees one of the bottles. Goes off. Apparently, this is the Ferrari of olive oils. The writer gives him two bottles.
The job, which he assumed would take six months, was done in two.
Never underestimate the power of the right gift.
Is shopping in person still as big a thing these days? I would assume more people prefer to beat the lines and shop at the same store online. My wife went out on black friday a few years ago. When she saw the line to checkout, she pulled out her phones, bought the same stuff at the same price and went home.
That implies that yes people are still shopping in stores
That was years ago. She hasn't gone since. I would imagine other people came to the same realization. I'm not asking if anyone still does though. And I am sure there is still an increase during the holiday season. But is it enough to cause the problem OP is referring to?
karens subsist off of making others miserable, they must shop in person in order to get the most out of their prey
Ngl if we really wanted to there is a way to complain while respecting workers. Imagine someone asks to speak to your manager and is like "How dare you fuck this up, and then you put this sweet person up to being blamed for your fuck up? Shame."
Managers are normally wage slaves, too
I mean, at this point, it sort of is for most of us.
However, I expect the refrain would be, "I worked retail, and I never did that thing!" Kinda the equivalent of, "I have black friends!"
I was going to comment pretty much that exactly given the ladder-kicking behaviour of quite a few older folks. If anything, I'd expect it would create an even bigger cycle of abuse: we went through it therefore it's now our well deserved right to put you through it too.
EDIT: typo
I never worked retail (well, once, but it was a very simple one where people could see for themselves all of our inventory and I was a glorified pointer), but did several stints in customer service jobs and several years in social work. I for sure can remember that the person working the job has likely been on their feet for hours, is earning a pittance, and likely has concerns about life that are valid and pressing. BUT! I don't think it's even the job that matters for the reaction we want in the last panel. I know several cunts who worked retail and still feel entitled enough to scream at a teenager stammering out the store's policy.
The real difference is in the folks who had to keep their job or they and/or their family were fucked. When some dumbass complaining about you can get you fired, and all because you wouldn't search the back for an item that's not in the inventory or wouldn't give them their 'special person who's a dweebus' discount... that's when you see people later in life have empathy, or even just do the bare minimum of introspection and realize that's another person you're talking to, not a robot that you have to scream at for it to work.
To me, that's the real difference between the middle class and the working class. The middle class took that job at the local department store so they could get some spending money in their pocket once the parents stopped giving an allowance. They could curse out a customer, coolly stare the manager in the face and tell them they ain't working X holiday, and drive back home to fill out an application for somewhere more poshy this time, so they don't have to deal with all those smelly commons.
Some countries have compulsory military service for all of its citizens.
North America...
While the US hasn't had a need for peacetime conscription
its war planning has assumed that its peacetime military, especially its navy and air force, could hold off an invader for six months, long enough to train up untrained infantry from scratch -- that's not all countries in North America. I'd guess that Cuba likely has it.
checks Wikipedia
Looks like they have two years of mandatory service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Cuba
Conscription is inscribed in the 1976 Constitution of the Republic of Cuba in article 65, stating that "Defense of the socialist homeland is the greatest honor and the supreme duty of every Cuban citizen."
Cuban nationals were required to serve under the Obligatory Military Service (SMO) system. Under this structure, it was compulsory to complete three years in military service, the militias of territorial troops, or the brigades of production and defence.[2] The SMO was reinforced by the first Law of Military service which was established in November 1963.
As of August 1991, the SMO changed to the General Military Service Law and the requirements of active military service were reduced to two years, with enlistment being obligatory between the ages of 16 and 28, however most nationals were not called to service until they were 17.
EDIT: Here's a map:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription
Mexico apparently also has it, though there it's only a randomly-selected subset that are required to serve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Mexico
Military Service in Mexico (Spanish: Servicio Militar Nacional, or SMN) currently involves all males reaching the age of eighteen years. Selection is made by a lottery system using the following color scheme: those who draw a black ball must serve as "availability reservists", that is, they are not required to perform any activities whatsoever and will receive their discharge card at the end of the year. Those who draw a white ball must serve “framed” which means, they must start service immediately from 8am-1pm for one year in total, until they receive the discharge card.
And thus, companies get away with shitty anti-customer policies. And now it's the customer's fault for being understandably mad about it? These policies sucks for everyone. I think "customers should be nicer to service workers" is the wrong conclusion, because they have nowhere else to go with their complaints, and that's by design. Why don't we put the blame with company higher-ups shitting on their own customers every day, hiding behind others to deflect criticism?
I'm not talking about weird entitled assholes. But about customer facing workers with no agency. They're just robots repeating company policy. It sucks for them and for the customer