People Greeter Fail

Okay, so today at work they asked me to cover the people greeter's lunch break and I'm standing by the door smiling at people, offering little kids stickers and occasionally scanning and marking things people want to return. Derek in dairy comes up to me on his own lunch break. Derek is a short, frighteningly energetic teenager who has been working dairy and frozen for a month now and who has spent the last three weeks trying desperately to get someone to let him transfer pretty much *anywhere* that isn't dairy or frozen.

So he comes up while I'm greeting and says, "I want this job! I could do this. I'm great with people. Here! Let me show you how good I am!" So he's standing next to me with his arms folded and a big, huge, scary smile and a blonde walks in, moving fast, and Derek says "Hello!" real friendly. She spins around and gives him the most hateful look, like, "you dare speak to me? DIE VERMIN!" I mean, I think I probably imagined the fangs, but I'm pretty sure she snarled at him.

So I'm laughing hysterically and Derek is all "I don't like this job anymore" in a tiny little voice, and then he sees another blonde coming so he's like, "wait! Wait! I'll get this one! Just check out THESE people skills!" She walks past, he gives her a big smile and a friendly hello . . . and she breezes past like he's not even there.

After that there were two or three groups of people and a few of them noticed him in a "better edge away from the maniacally smiling little guy there" kind of way and that bolstered his confidence. And then this big, scary guy came in. He kind of reminded me of Bluto if Bluto'd been a hunchback with a peg leg and a squint. Also, I suspect he was drunk. He comes in and Derek says "hi!" all big and friendly. The scary guy wanders around in a circle in front of the greeter's station, rattles the hand baskets like he wants one but maybe can't figure out how to pick it up, staggers into the newspaper rack, then lurches right over next to Derek, squints up at him and croaks, "baskets?"

Derek's leaning back going, "uhghgn" so I point towards the carts and say "they're over there" and the guy gives me a fishy stare, wanders over towards the baskets, then lurches back up to Derek, squints up at him again for several seconds, then staggers out around him and disappears in the direction of deli.

I'm like, "Derek, you're really good at this!" and he's like, "oh, shut up! I'll get it. Watch me now!" So a group comes through and he smiles and says hi and they pass without anyone paying any attention to him. Then a second group comes in and the same thing happens and then a third. At that point, our would-be people greeter gave it up and went back to lunch.

I think he was discouraged, but I was highly amused. :D