I’ve spent the last hour of my morning muttering “You…lazy…mother…effers” under my breath. Considering that I just stopped in the store for some two-stroke oil, you would think that nothing could’ve happened to have set my trigger off. Worst to worst, I yell at a clerk until they actually ring me up and I leave. But no, I bought my oil just fine from a polite clerk who is a recent newcomer at the store. Instead I watched four clerks ignore an older man on a cane who needed a little bit of help. Since Store Manager was on the phone, I killed an hour of my morning trying to help this gentleman pry the rearview mirror mount out of the mirror on his Olds Bravada. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it out either (didn’t want to break the mirror or the windshield), so I gave the man the directions and phone number to Safelite, then called them after he left to let them know he was coming in for something simple. Four people. I’m not so mad at the one delivery driver, I could understand his predicament. But the other three could’ve jumped in…instead two of them were complaining about why the minimum wage hadn’t been raised yet and one of them was asking me about my job while complaining about his own. To every store manager everywhere: I’m sorry you are required to pull employees out of such a worthless candidate pool.

Now, for a mood switch, let’s break up some of the sad anger and bring in some of the entertaining anger! You see, a friend of your old buddy UPCG has found themselves as the newest employee of one of those parts stores/tire shop combination deals, like a Sears Automotive, Big O Tire…you get the idea. And compared to him, I’m a level-headed and friendly individual. Yes, this guy makes me, the guy famous for threatening to throw an alternator at some moron’s head, look like I’m resting in a hammock on a cool Autumn day. He just started out, so he is having to go through the employee training system (never mind that the car he probably drove there is older than his boss). And as such, he gets to watch other people deal with asshats all day so that he can be prepared to deal with them himself. Not halfway through day one, and he was sending me a story that had me laughing my ass off: A customer was on speakerphone, screaming something about the oil in his car not being changed while he was there. His store manager was doing everything to calm this hate-filled human down, including offering to procure the CCTV footage of the oil change actually happening. The car’s owner, instead of taking up the offer, went off of the cliff, screaming that the video “isn’t proof of shit!” (Don’t overthink that one. You’ll hurt your head.)

Now, let’s take a look at the vehicle for a moment: a relatively late-model pony car, 175,000 or so miles, and an aftermarket turbocharger. Guys, I’m not ASE certified, but even I know where this is going. I’m just wondering how many miles were driven between the oil change and the phone call. As the idiot on speaker raves on in full-throttle anger, threatening jobs, bombs, World War III, and probably the wrath of his wife, the manager does something that, honestly, is kind of brilliant. He hangs up. For anyone who thinks this is a bad move, it’s simple: if you have a complaint, you work it out with the shop, not threaten everyone and their mother like you are a North Korean dictator. After a few seconds the manager calls the customer back, apologizes for the “phone issues” they have been having. The customer starts right up in full tempest, and magically, the phone has another “issue” after a minute or so. A few rounds of this and the manager finally informs the customer that it would probably be better to come down to the shop, that way he could prove that the oil was changed and the services were provided. And maybe, just maybe, explain to him about why his oil is black.