I walked out last night. It was a guy asking my manager "and what will be done about" me after I gave him a stupid answer for a stupid question. And after he loudly and obnoxiously sang in my section for twenty minutes straight. And after I'd already gotten two aggressive customers that shift. I'd already put in my two weeks on the 29th, but I've been coming into work every day wondering who would try to fuck with me that day, a manager or a customer, and $12 an hour is not worth that level of stress.

There was this implication by the end (never to me, of course, over the associate headsets I refused to wear) that I was just awful to all my customers, which is completely unfounded. Most of the complaints they got about me were from me having to tell people no—"sorry, I can't get your grocery cart full of items here, this lane has to stay open for alcohol purchases". "No, you can't buy that much alcohol, 192oz is your limit." Funnily enough, each of these instances happened with no one around but me and the customer, all of whom are cool with lying about low-level retail workers to make themselves look better. In not one complaint was there ever "well I didn't help by giving him shit". It was always my fault. Why does the beer guy still have a job?

No one ever hears about my return customers who like me, who want to buy me drinks, give me money. Beer and wine isn't even on the receipt survey, so they couldn't put in a good word without manipulating the form anyway. No one ever hears about, for example (names and identifying details filed off)

• That dirty blonde girl who always buys the sauvignon blanc Frontera who had a nice five minute chat with me last night about how grueling working retail can be and gushed about how nice Wales is after I told her I was going there
• The old lady who keeps trying to get me to work at her store instead because there's not enough people like me around
• The waitress who gave me $5 or her change whenever she came in, along with a "nice seeing ya hon"
• The couple who'd buy slushies all the time and would tip the "bartender" whenever they did so
• The guy carrying his baby around who'd ask me for beer recommendations and outright bought me a mixed six pack one time because he liked me so much
• The old hispanic dude with his grandkids who was amazed I remembered his phone number for his rewards card (wasn't on purpose, just happened to be one in a million that made it into my memory) and would come in several times a week to buy Fosters and chat
• The other old hispanic trucker dude who always bought Heineken from me and called up HR specifically to put a good word in when he learned I was being harassed by managers
• The black dude with the walker who would talk to me endlessly and would tell me how much good I got ahead of me, who would always give me advice, was amazed at how confident and figured out I sounded for being not even 24 yet

Most of these people, I've seen in the past week. I don't need to dig back into the grey matter for these encounters because they were still happening all the time. No one ever hears about those people, nor do they hear about all the people at my store who thought I carried my department, were excited to see me whenever I entered their field of vision, tried to get me to aim higher than a grocery store clerk because they thought I was too bright for it.

Tell me again customer service back here sucks.

And no, I'm not saying I haven't been flippant to customers before, nor that I'm a perfect employee, but what motivation do I have to try and sweet talk people for $12 an hour and zero reward and plenty of shitty fucking comments from managers about how I supposedly don't like dealing with customers (can you blame me, and you don't either)? Or how about the incident that got me to put in my two weeks in the first place, where a repeat asshole customer was upset I wouldn't serve him, called me names, tried to get other customers to harass me with him, and then I got a half hour-long struggle session about how I didn't handle it right and how a customer buying a $13 six-pack of Guinness (more than I make an hour!) was more important than my dignity?

I went above and beyond for that section, because I'm passionate about what I'm selling and because I buy beer there and I want it to be as good an experience as possible. Sure, they'll replace me. They'll find someone else to work that register, but will that person pull expired beer? Will that person refill the make-your-own-six-pack cooler, let alone with shit people would buy? Will that person wipe down and sanitize the cooler door handles? Will that person consistently show up for work? Even that was not guaranteed with the caliber of people they hired.

I missed one day, by the way, and it was because of weather. Every other day, whether it was slippery roads or being outright sick, I at least came in even though I knew I was leaving early. I was late maybe twice, one of those the other day, and by one minute. Literally exemplary attendance. They used to tell me I was the most reliable associate in the store. So many no-call no-shows—and again, I cannot blame a single one.

I have more stories about how that store fucking sucks, just on the customer end (ask me about the ravioli kit with green spots on it that was out for sale sometime, or how many times we discovered expired dairy left out for sale), but I've made my point. Time to relax in total NEETdom for, I dunno, two months maybe. We'll see.