But I just realized the worst job I ever had in terms of the general public thinking they could talk to me however they wanted -- I worked in a hospital during SARS. That was a mess. But the big difference was that we had security. I had these two women sitting about 10 feet away just talking crap about me and my colleague because they weren't allowed into the hospital until 2:00 PM -- a policy I had not personally come up with -- and eventually one of them said "well, you know who they give these jobs to, right? People who can't do anything else."
Oof. And wow...what an awful thing to say.
Bff was a nurse for years. She preferred working the overnight shift mostly because she didn't have to deal with visitors and family members of the patient (unless it was an emergency and a family member had to be contacted). Even with as little experience dealing with non-patients as she had, she still had a lot of tales about people treating her poorly or acting like they were in a fancy restaurant or hotel. Not once but several times, she had visitors demand their pitcher of water...or meal...or once, a pair of hospital slippers like the patient had.
This you can never do in retail or food service because these people are customers -- but at a HOSPITAL, you can jump up, tell your colleague you're going inside and then go get security. Those women never talked to me again. The humiliation of having someone come over to them and tell them not to be giant asses was very effective.
I love it--a very satisfying end to your bad experience!
