I’m told when I have a line, I let people know there’s self checkout available
Well, today I did that.
Thd next person in line was Black. She started saying loudly that she knows full well we have self checkout and she doesn’t want it. Today is Juneteenth and she wants to be served by a white lsdy anc not have to do it herself. It’s Juneteenth she repeated
I apologized and said I was more than happy to help her next.
She replied no way. You said if so now I’m doing self checkout on Juneteenth.
It was awful. I was beside myself, I don’t want to be the racist in the store. It’s the policy. You offer self checkout when there’s a line.
You absolutely don’t sound racist. I personally hate self check out. But no you were just doing your job. Try not to worry about it.
Edit: @CoCo can you pls relay to your boss that people want to interact with a human being and not those stupid self check out counters. I can’t work them right anyway. My dad absolutely refuses self check out.
And btw that lady who accused you of being racist was being ridiculous.
You could tell your boss that mentioning the self check to customers when there’s a line may be an unwelcome suggestion.
Customers who frequent the store are likely aware there’s full check and self check and if they’re in the full check line, it’s because they prefer full check.
I’ve been amazed at the number of deep human hierarchies that seem to want commands to propagate down the hierarchy, with no balk-talk back up the hierarchy.
I think there is a reason for that. I think that intelligence-gathering organizations are often designed with a flat structure, with few separations between the bottom and top.
Anyway, in many jobs, I guess I’ve felt I was mainly paid to do, not mainly think or instruct management.
I don’t think that anyone wants to tackle the racial aspect of that. The history involved there that creates the conflicts is one that is not forgivable and at the same time you are not personally responsible.
I had a similar incident when I was doing security in a parking lot at a popular weekend district. The parking lot only had so many spaces. I had just let the last person in that could could fit into the lot. The next car in I told something to the effect of “Sorry, the lot is full now. There are no spaces left.” I was then accused of being racist, because I had just let another person in. After some disagreement they left.
They came back later when some people had left, freeing up a space, because it was difficult to find a spot nearby on the street, and I let them in. Upon leaving the car, they shouted something like “In the year 2012!” or something like that(i don’t remember the exact year). I just said something to the effect of " I cant convince you otherwise, you are going to have to believe what you want to believe". It upset me quite a bit.
I don’t know the point of this story. But I think there is a history that leads to suspicion and sometimes even anger. But at the same time, you are not personally responsible for that history, either. So, it’s a complicated situation.
I don’t think I want to delve into it any further than that.
You’re not racist, this person probably came in the store with a chip on their shoulder. You’re kicking ass by going to this job and doing your best though, great work.
I’ll give an example of someone who isn’t white being racist.
Imagine a PoC imitating fake chinese speech and making fun of it. Is that only racist if the person is white? I argue it’s racist no matter who says it. I bring this up because this is a real example I saw plenty of in Oakland during the pandemic. Racism vs Asians was huge then and everyone was participating, black white latino you name it.
I’m just waking back up. I’m not sure if I should close this topic or not. The truth is , that there are people that behave innapropriately from every race. But there is some history in certain countries which makes some distrust and maybe even ‘chips’, as it was put, understandable. I think things are improving , though.
This topic is no less divisive than religion or politics, IMO, so I’m unsure if I should leave it open if I try to go back to sleep. I don’t want to see people generalizing and pointing fingers.
I dont think there is any doubt that @LilyoftheValley didn’t do anything wrong here. She was just trying to do her job.
Edit: Hopefully one day we will grow mostly out of these types of behaviors on all sides. It seems unlikely to ever completely disappear, though. There will probably always be those that judge a person based on race/ethnicity instead of the content of their character(as mlk might say).
Edit 2: I also think these types of behaviors are more prevalent in those that do not have friends or extended contact with those of other races. You are more likely to see that we are all just people the more you have exposure to others of a different race than yours. We are more similar than different.
We have self checkout at my workplace, but it’s not obvious for customers to see it, so if the line gets large we inform the people.
The customers are multietnicity, but we don’t have the kind of racial history that the US does. I think that some people in the US might be very touchy about this and make things that are trivial into a racial issue every chance they get. That’s sad, because that’s not moving forward.
We have had self checkout for about a year, and as far as I know there has not been a scene with anybody.
You are doing nothing wrong with mentioning self checkout. There could be people who are there who are new customers or unawares. To flip the coin some people would appreciate it if they are in the hurry to get somewhere.
Anyways, when there is a scene with someone for whatever reason, I learned to not take it personally when I’m just following store policy. Either they have a problem with the store company or the whole world.
Hang in there, and remember it’s not you personally they have a problem with.
There is a thing that happens in every human brain, where we notice patterns and start to anticipate them. That makes us subconsciously start to view things through the lens of “how does this fit the pattern?”
Right after 9/11, people were being very openly racist to me and my family members. Calling the cops on us, calling us slurs, etc. More so to them than to me, since my skin is light enough that I only look Arab when I’m standing next to them, but I got my fair share of it also. We were shocked and hurt at first, then we learned to protect our feelings. We started to anticipate the rudeness and the subtle exclusion, and started to expect the reason to be because of our race. That meant we wouldn’t be so hurt when it happened, but also meant there would be times when we were told perfectly reasonable things, like “self checkout is open,” or “this parking lot is full,” and, because we were already on guard, we would assume we were being excluded for racial reasons. We would react as though that is what happened.
We eventually learned that we had to suppress that reaction, because actual racists got a kick out of provoking us into “unreasonable” responses and then pointing out how irrational and violent Arabs are, and people who weren’t racist would be more likely to develop a negative view of Arabs if we reacted that way when they weren’t trying to provoke us. If we acted like we didn’t notice the racism, actual racists would get frustrated that we didn’t rise to the bait, and everyone else would just think it was a typical interaction.
It isn’t really any one person’s fault. If that woman faced less actual racism, she wouldn’t be so prepared to spot it everywhere she went. You didn’t do anything wrong, and in this specific instance, she was being overly suspicious. She responded with what, to her, probably seemed like sticking up for herself, but was, in reality, just attacking you unfairly. That suspicion probably comes from real experiences she has, and a self-protective instinct, but you didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe when she goes home, she will consider that you say that to everyone every day when there is a line, and realize you weren’t being hurtful. Maybe she won’t. Sometimes there is no fixing someone’s perception of you. Everyone is the villain in someone else’s story.
Heck, for a more recent example of me falling into this mindset, right after I came out as trans, and started facing heavy discrimination, I got in a fight with @Patrick and @shutterbug because they were talking about the transmission in a car using the common mechanic slang term “tranny” and I was used to spotting the pattern of transphobic comments. Especially on here, where certain users liked to send me hateful messages repeatedly, calling me that word along with a lot of others. Those users have since apologized or left, and I don’t get much of it anymore. I am not so self-protective anymore. We laugh about it now, but I am not sure they ever understood why I was so prone to seeing transphobia. I am glad I can have a more positive outlook now, but I am able to have that positive outlook because I face much less daily discrimination.