I was at The Gap in Alabang this morning and the staff were talking about their personal lives, teasing each other and bantering, as if there were no customers. They were talking and laughing out loud and they were across each other, so that one had a sense there was a private party going on, from which we, the customers, were excluded. I noticed people coming in, browsing, looking at the salespeople, and then leaving. I left and went through Rustan's and it was the same story. A salesman was bickering to someone about how difficult it is to help people who are ungrateful in turn. Out loud. Really out loud and long.
In S&R, it was the same thing. The cashiers were just talking to each other and ringing up my stuff as if I were invisible. It's the body language that bugs me, too. They're all animated in their eyes and smiles as they talk to each other, but sluggish in their limbs and bodies as they do their work.
Some will say that we ought to just leave them alone because they don't have the best jobs in the world, but I maintain that whatever job you have, you must make an effort to do well. I worked as a salesperson in the States, at different establishments, and I was too busy working all the time to be chatting my life away. Here, most establishments are so overstaffed; there's a lot of idle time for everyone and people tend to be sluggish and lazy because their work comes in fits and starts and then there's lots of time in between. To chat. Out loud.
If it's not the blaring music that drives you out, it's the gunfire chatting and blatant disregard of your presence. They will greet you, this much I will say, then they drag you into their virtual households and there you will stay until you remember all you wanted to do was shop.
