People Are Dumb: Look Around, Read the Signs

There's a space-age Safeway in the shopping center up the street from my house. The store, which is way more than a store, has within it a giant pharmacy, a Starbuck's, a nice big deli and a branch of Wells Fargo Bank.

There's really no good time to shop at Safeway, or Raley's a mile in the other direction. The stores are busy all the time. I'm not sure when people all started shopping for three items at a time, but that's the trend. If people would shop, and fill a cart, they could shop once a week and not have to be in my Safeway at 11 o' clock at night buying milk and garbage bags. At 11 o'clock, I should own that Safeway. Well, me and nurses getting off the night shift at the hospital. Safeway makes a profit staying open 24 hours down here by keeping a skeleton crew on deck.

On Tuesday night, I had my cookies standing in a line that stretched halfway down the cleaning products aisle. I was behind people buying Tylenol and cupcakes, a fifth of Jack Daniels and a Zippo lighter, two loaves of bread and bologna and cheese ... and one guy who had a basket half filled with groceries. There always seems to be two relatively young women, in pajama bottoms and hoodys, giggling and buying something I would never have imagined people would leave their house to buy at 11 p.m.

That type trip to Safeway is nothing compared to hitting the joint in the middle of the afternoon -- needing to do business at Wells Fargo and the nicest pharmacist (arguably the most pleasant customer service individual) ever Christine Lum. This isn't my hometown where people are friendly and people know and remember people in stores and banks. I don't know Christine Lum personally, but I took time to learn her name because she's so damned helpful.

Oh, so, before I went to deal with Christine Lum's often not so helpful staff...I had to stop at Wells Fargo. The branch takes up as much room as your average McDonald's needs for half its front counter and a quarter of the kitchen. It's small, but it's understaffed...even with the nine employees and one branch manager I counted in there Friday afternoon.

The minute you get in line, a customer service person asks how they can be of service. Oddly, not one has ever smiled when I've said, "You could let me cut to the front of the line, for starters." Today, the guy whisked me into the office -- a tiny rectangle space with three computers at two tiny workspaces where personal bankers do, well, personal banking.

I heard one woman ask the same question six times...and, yeah, I counted.

"Will the money still go to my high-yield account?"

Each time, the personal banker answered the same way and each time I became increasingly moved to shout, "She doesn't get it...talk slower..."

Finally, the old woman got her high-yield question answered and I was up. I, literally, traded chairs with her. She needed a receipt or something. I needed to be with the personal banker. We looked like two people changing seats on a Southwest Airlines jet, "Excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me."

Then, as I was sitting there waiting for my banker to ... bank ... a man and woman pushed into the office and mumbled, "Kin' we stand here?" The banker said, "Certainly! Someone will be right with you," because that's what all the employees said the entire time I was waiting at Wells Fargo.

Then, as I was doing my personal banking, I felt someone push against me and saw a tattered checkbook flop down on the desk beside me. Then, I heard the woman who'd pushed her way in ask, "How long's it gonna be? I can't be waitin' a half-hour in here!" I looked up and, surprise...she was in pajama bottoms and a gray hoody.

Seriously.

Then, she explained to the banker who made the mistake of making eye contact that her Social Security check had been accidentally deposited to her Wells Fargo account and..."How long do I have tuh wait? I gotta get to my other bank!"...her transaction involved the nefarious acquistion of funds from a government payout that involved her aunt. (If she invades my space, I'm going to listen very closely.)

If figures that my banker was quick, apologetic and alert. When I smirked, shook my head and mumbled, "Incredible!" he said, "I'm so sorry sir! It takes a moment to..." I mentioned I thought the customers they had to deal with were impolite and not really very bright. Of course, maybe if those people only had $18.21 in a personal checking account like mine, they'd be really polite and quick to understand things.

From Wells Fargo, I walked to the back of the store to the pharmacy. Christine Lum wasn't working, so I settled in for a long wait.

A couple years ago, I wrote a newspaper column about how rude it is for people in line at the pharmacy to crowd up on me when I'm getting prescriptions and talking to the pharmacist. It's impolite to crash anybody's pill party, you know? There's a reason that the doctor takes patients into a room and closes the door to do exams. It's private. Health issues are not for public consumption.

So, in the newspaper column, I suggested Safeway require that the line for the pharmacy checkout window begin a distance away from said window. Two weeks later...there was a sign and a rope telling customers that pharmacy transactions were private and that the line started 10 feet from the window. (And, I thought I couldn't make a difference?)

I was standing by that sign feeling good about the length of the wait I faced. There was a woman checking out and an old woman with orang'ish red hair and incredibly large bags under her eyes leaning all over the counter next to that woman. There are two cash registers, two places to slide your bank card. Since the red-head was literally brushing elbows with the other lady, I figured both checkouts were running.

I've always wondered why guys in movies waltz into a tavern, then lean all over the bar and whisper, "I'll take a whiskey." In real life, I've rarely ever been able to squeeze close enough to shout at a bartender. So, I thought it a foolish depiction of reality. Nobody gets that comfortable and stakes out that much personal space at a bar.

The red-haired woman had a body-width all around and called it her own. She was listening in on the other woman's transaction which well could've been for herpes medication or a salve for genital warts. At about the time the woman checked out, I noticed that the red-head was wearing a gray hoody and gray sweats...and that she was waiting in line...at the counter...eavesdropping. And, no, she wasn't sick. I've seen people too sick to stand up at the pharmacy. She just thought the sign was for everybody except her and walked up to press the clerk as if standing in the clerk's grill would get her moving more quickly.

I noticed that the sign, my sign asking for privacy, had been turned sideways. Maybe the old red head didn't see it. I turned it so that anyone who approached the rope could read, assuming they can read at all, the sign asking for privacy. When I approached the checkout window, the next person stopped -- respectfully -- at the sign.

Read the sign. Look around. Use your head. Simple rules, aren't they? Nobody really follows them.