Service Workers Are Not People

This post was catalyzed by this letter on Imgur.

"If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

I judge people by how they treat me when I am at work.  If they are awful to me because they think they can be, I know what kind of person they really are, and it is not kind.  I think working in the service industry has taught me how to be a good person by virtue of showing me how I could be perceived by my treatment of others.  I am not perfect, and I am not always nice.  I also expect excellent service when I patronize businesses, but I would never, ever demoralize another human being like so many do.  I deserve to be treated like a person with feelings, and I should not have to accept less because I'm wearing a nametag and scanning things for you to take home.

This is why I am going to college.  Sometimes I forget and wonder why I'm bothering with all of this work and stress, but it is because I would like to be treated with respect when I am in public.  I am tired of being forced to accept that on a semi-regular basis, I will be called names, cursed at, have things thrown at me, be threatened with physical assault, and have drunk people screaming vulgarities in my face.  I have to smile and put up with that because to do anything else could get me fired, and I need to remain employed.  I am perpetuating the culture that it is okay to treat me and other service workers that way, because I have no other choice.

Unfortunately, the veneer is cracking.  I occasionally don't let people get away with saying some things to me.  A man recently said something rude to me about how I need to be grateful for my job because I was joking about how tired I was, and rather than smile and be nice to him and change the subject to safer ground, I simply stopped talking to him.  I do not have to be grateful like a dog because I barely make $8 an hour.  Yeah, I don't make much right now because I'm going to school and only work 3 days a week, but $8 an hour is still basically nothing.  If I had a car, I wouldn't be able to pay for it or car insurance.  I make enough to cover my bills and buy supplemental groceries now that I no longer have food stamps.  (Because I'm a college student, I obviously don't need any food to fuel my body or anything.)  If I didn't pay rent in giant chunks with my student loan money, I wouldn't be able to afford the rent and I'd be homeless by now.

People have nearly hit me with shopping carts, demanded that I smile at them, gotten me fired because I didn't thank them for their purchase, thrown drinks at me, allowed their child to throw things at me, threatened me with physical harm, grabbed my breasts, made me cry, cursed at me, and many many other things over the years.  It has been made very plain to me that I do not matter, and I am tired of it.  What happened to treating others with kindness?  What happened to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"?  What about basic human decency?

Why is it okay to be rude to service workers?