![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cats and Clerks
Sep. 8th, 2005 08:23 pmI think my cat is a bit smarter than the average cat that the writers of Cat Fancy come across. In this month's issue, there was a suggestion for bored cats: "Buy a food dispensing toy, or make one of your own! Simply fill an empty toilet paper tube partway with food, tape the ends shut, and cut a hole in the side! Your cat will be entertained for hours!" Dexter is currently happily engaged in ripping the whole thing apart. I guess he prefers to have his food all at once...
On a completely unrelated note, I've never liked the tradition retailers have of making customer service employees wear name tags. I suppose I can understand the idea - you're trying to be friendly and helpful, so the name tag allows customers to feel more at ease, or something - but it's always struck me as a bit demeaning. There are all sorts of traditions in various cultures about when and how you can use someone's name, because it gives you power over them; even though we may not believe that these days, there's something to the stories. For one thing, when someone calls you by name, it tends to put you at a brief disadvantage - most people will first think "Do I know this person?" and often panic when they realize they don't. I guess that even though names are considered relatively valueless in this society (so much so that we tend to reuse the same few thousand in a country of several hundred million), I personally don't like people to have my name unless I've given it to them. I can't help but think that there are a few people in low-wage retail jobs who might agree with me.
In a way, I suppose it's quite possibly a classist thing. Plenty of higher-up jobs require the use of name tags - surgeons, for instance - but they almost always say "Dr. {lastname}" or just have a first initial and last name. Having your first name being blazed out to the general public whether you like it or not sends the message that you are beneath the customer, and therefore it's okay to abuse you (by name, which is even worse than in general). The same way that so many minimum wage jobs require drug screening, despite the fact that it's rather expensive and that the only drug likely to be detected (marijuana) is also the most innocuous. Everything else burns through your system too quickly.
I dunno. I know almost everyone's worked low wage jobs before, so maybe I'm just overthinking this. But since reading Nickel and Dimed it's just something I've noticed more...
On a completely unrelated note, I've never liked the tradition retailers have of making customer service employees wear name tags. I suppose I can understand the idea - you're trying to be friendly and helpful, so the name tag allows customers to feel more at ease, or something - but it's always struck me as a bit demeaning. There are all sorts of traditions in various cultures about when and how you can use someone's name, because it gives you power over them; even though we may not believe that these days, there's something to the stories. For one thing, when someone calls you by name, it tends to put you at a brief disadvantage - most people will first think "Do I know this person?" and often panic when they realize they don't. I guess that even though names are considered relatively valueless in this society (so much so that we tend to reuse the same few thousand in a country of several hundred million), I personally don't like people to have my name unless I've given it to them. I can't help but think that there are a few people in low-wage retail jobs who might agree with me.
In a way, I suppose it's quite possibly a classist thing. Plenty of higher-up jobs require the use of name tags - surgeons, for instance - but they almost always say "Dr. {lastname}" or just have a first initial and last name. Having your first name being blazed out to the general public whether you like it or not sends the message that you are beneath the customer, and therefore it's okay to abuse you (by name, which is even worse than in general). The same way that so many minimum wage jobs require drug screening, despite the fact that it's rather expensive and that the only drug likely to be detected (marijuana) is also the most innocuous. Everything else burns through your system too quickly.
I dunno. I know almost everyone's worked low wage jobs before, so maybe I'm just overthinking this. But since reading Nickel and Dimed it's just something I've noticed more...
