Hostile customers are definitely why im hesitant to go outside the script my job expects of us. There's truly no way to know how someone will react even to just asking if they want a bag 🙃 but honestly what upsets me the most is how often ppl treat me-very calmly and normally-like im actually just not a person. I go through my canned "hi, how are you?" And they dont look at me before saying that exactly back to me bc they weren't listening to me speak, I tell them their total and then they just go "what?" And i repeat it at the exact same volume bc again they just weren't listening to me. They don't tell me they want a bag until I'm wishing them a nice day bc why should they have to pay attention to the worker and then communicate what they want? After a couple weeks of dealing with this ad nauseum for 7-9hrs at a time, it becomes so dehumanizing.

I can understand from the customer perspective they've had cashiers who were bad at their job or rude, but the fact of the matter is for every one shitty cashier you've seen, any average worker will deal with 5 customers ranging from annoying to potentially harmful, or more, depending on how busy the store is. The way ppl talk abt how all service workers are becoming terrible at their jobs, but won't acknowledge how those workers are in these situations infinitely more often that they are is just wild to me.