I have worked a front facing customer service job in 7 locations over 80 miles of road for 24 years. I have had people walk up to me and say, “This is my best friend angryseal! He helped me get through my divorce with Steve.” and I have no clue who they are. My wife hates going shopping with me because people are running up and giving me hugs everywhere we go and then keeping me still talking for an hour.
It’s a very poor area for the most part and I’ve talked a lot of people through a lot of shit over the years, just standing there like a bartender in a Bible Belt area with no bars. I guess it makes sense that some people have developed friendly and fond feelings for me. It’s just been so many people that I can’t keep up with them all. I’m an extreme introvert with the personality and friendliness of an extreme extrovert, so that has made life exhausting for me at times, but I love people and care what they’re going through.
I’ve had people pop in during hard times in their lives and then come by daily to talk for hours for a few months. I guess I’m just good at coming up with what folks need to hear in those times.
There’s a guy who promises me that he’s going to come to town and shoot me one day because I convinced his wife it was ok to leave when he blacked her entire face. He likes to periodically remind me, “When I come back down there I’m gonna kill you bud. You took everything from me. My wife got on drugs because of you. She’d still be sober if she’d stayed with me.” I remind him each time that his wife left because he blacked her face and that she wouldn’t have left and ended up on drugs if he hadn’t, you know, blacked her face. I always wish him well and hope he doesn’t kill me one day.
I can’t imagine having a front facing job where the entire country knows who you are, and half of them love you religiously.
I can’t stand Donald Trump, but I’d be in a mental hospital right now if I were him. Same goes for any world leader I guess. I can’t imagine remembering anyone outside of my family in that situation.
I knew two openly gay men when I was growing up. Only two. The world was so unkind to them for so long. They were the butt of every joke. I knew their names before I knew them.
The one man had the double whammy of being black and gay in a rural coal mining town. He was a teacher, and he had to deal with parents fighting to have their kids taken out of his class every year, afraid the “spirit” would get in their kids.
About 10 years ago I was at my lowest point. A drug addict without a dime to my name. My car broke down, so I borrowed my mom’s car. It broke down the first day. This man heard me crying to my mom on the phone at her job and asked to speak to me. He said, “You get you a ride down here and I’ll let you use my van. You keep it as long as you need it.”
I drove his giant Ford van around for more than 4 months. It was so badass, had the old CRT and N64 ports in the back. I put a console in there for him and gave him a pile of games. He was always hauling the local poor folks around to the grocery store and appointments and things. Every time I seen him after that he had folks playing Mario Kart in the van haha.
Everyone had comments too. “Ooooh. What did you do to get that van?” I’d always fire back, “let me drive your car and I’ll show you.” Haha
I seriously have a boiling hatred for computers now because I couldn’t even be a little bit mean. I’ve snapped a few times when people blamed me for problems years after I worked on their stuff, but mostly I just got trampled on and robbed at every turn because I didn’t want to upset anyone.
By the time I was mean enough to demand payment and things like that, I already hated it.
My daughter is passionate about computers, so nowadays if I so much as want to tweak something a little bit I let her do it unless she don’t want to. I don’t want to burn her out too.
Your dad sounds like the childhood hero of mine who got me into computers.
Severe ADHD prevented me from ever learning to code, but I became damn good at repairs and things and just general understanding of computers because he was available to ask questions at almost any time.
He went to school auctions every year and got me a pile of hardware to learn from. He never asked for anything in exchange. All around great guy.
I heard him on the phone a few times dealing with the people who he worked with though. Good god he was mean. I couldn’t imagine him being that way with me ever, but he was brutal when it came to work and money.
A dude called him one time while I was sitting there, he listened for a few minutes and he said, “I’ve got a 14 year old kid here, he’s been doing this stuff for about 2 years. I’m gonna let him walk you through this for the 10th fucking time because you’re a goddamn idiot and feeling like a fool when you hang up the phone with a grown man isn’t teaching you any lessons. Maybe get a pen for this one because if I have to remind that a child walked you through it last time, I’m not going to be so fucking friendly.” I was so nervous, apologized multiple times, when I was finished walking him through it he took the phone and said, “now don’t you feel stupid? 25 years and this kid just schooled you.”
He told me, “you gotta be real with idiots or they’ll bother you with stupid problems every single day of your life.”
I wish that lesson had stuck haha, it just wasn’t in me to be mean. As a result, a hobby that I was passionate about all of my life is something I avoid like the plague now. People ruined it for me by bothering me constantly.
It’s called the Mandeller effect. You’re trying to stir shit up, aren’t you?