I don't know what it is, but lately every time I hit the checkout line at a grocery store, I get the clerk who is about three more shoppers away from his nervous breakdown. It doesn't matter if I change stores, either. I will still get the clerk who overshares.Seriously. I've had clerks who regale me with terrifying stories about the condition of their feet, clerks who rant about "the greenwashing of America" when they see I have my own bag, and just tonight a clerk who felt free to let me know that he was feeling on the verge of being the headline in tomorrow's newspaper. Is it something about my face?
It's not like they're overtly threatening me, so much as aggressively telling me things their own friends probably don't want to hear about, much less a complete stranger. Now, I work in a customer-facing job, and I get customers all the time who take advantage of the fact that they have a captive audience in order to tell me things that make me ponder the efficacy of natural selection. Have I just gotten too comfortable with shining on things like that? Do I now have a demeanor that says, "hit me with your batshit crazy, I can take it?"
If only you could buy beer at the self-service checkout, then I could avoid this problem altogether.
