Jackassery

Hey, you. Yeah you. I'm watching you.

Exodus coined the term, jackassery, several years ago.  I can’t remember the moment, but I do remember the laughter after he used it the first time.  Since then, I bust it out on occasion.  I’ve actually used it on Facebook and had people take my status without giving credit.  So right here, right now, if you ever see this word out there, you can thank my friend, Exodus.

I hope the term is self-explanatory.  We see jackassery everyday.  The woman who snakes into the parking spot you’ve been waiting for for 10 minutes. The guy in front of you going 10 miles under the speed limit because he’s too busy talking on and then having his face buried in his phone trying to text.  The school bully knocking your milk over.  One person quietly stirring up a group in order to piss someone off.  The woman who stops in the grocery store mid-intersection because she has to dig out her phone that is ringing.  It could be life or death don’tcha know.  Parents letting their children run loose in a store and paying more attention to other things rather than their own progeny.

I see a lot of jackassery at work.  Hard not to when you work in retail.  It can get bad some nights when I work a closing shift.  We clean up all the evidence of the jackassery so the store looks brand new in the morning.  The way people just dump stuff or are rude to my co-workers or other people is appalling.  I can understand a parent(s) ditching a cart full of stuff because their kid is having a meltdown and they can’t get him/her to calm down.  Honestly, we don’t have full-blown meltdowns happen often.  The kids I hear are usually the ones screaming because they were told they weren’t getting a toy and they’re going to scream until they get it or they haven’t had their nap yet (or their parents have them out near or past their bedtime).  I hear those two a lot.  But we find ditched stuff everywhere.  The other day, I found sippy cups, and some other toddler items hidden under bean bags with the furniture.  One of my co-workers found 2 bottles of wine in the women’s sock bins on New Years Eve.  I find people’s ditched drinks behind things on shelves.  And this is just on a regular night.  Don’t even get me started on the jackassery around the holidays.  You would think animals shopped the store during the holidays.  I know that that’s what we’re there for, but many times we talk about how the people who come in act like they were never taught things like, “Put things back where you found it”  Heck, the one thing that was drilled in to me as a young Girl Scout was, always leave things better than you found it.

I see parents passing on their legacy of jackassery.  “Leave that there!”  Meaning a shopping cart toy in the middle of the walkway.  There was one jackass I had to pass of to my manager.  He wanted me to pull a box of Matchbox cars so his son could sift through it for the ones he wanted.  I told him she said we couldn’t do that and he was insistent.  I finally passed him off to her at his request and he was still insisting with her.  He still didn’t get what he wanted.  I’m hoping his son learned from that that he can’t always get what he wants rather than “Go ahead be a jackass to get what you want no matter what.”

Then you have the stupid jackassery that your friends engage in.  Juvenile stuff that has you rolling your eyes.  Sometimes it’s funny.  Sometimes it’s just downright stupid.  I have one friend who’s jackassery knows no bounds.  I’m always telling him what I think about it and he keeps right on doing it.  He earned the nickname Village Idiot for many reasons.

What is my response to all the jackassery?  The stuff I see while driving usually earns a bit of profanity.  Especially the distracted driving jackassery.  The stuff at work…well that depends.  If no one is around, I do a little, “GRRRR!” pick up the mess and move along.  The rest of it.  Deep breath and keep going.

Just keep going.  That’s all you can do.