Gun Store Jerks

Every month or two someone posts a question to one of the gun boards to the effect of "Why are the employees in gun stores jerks?" Which prompts a flurry of backlash from small gun shop owners rehashing the same stories they told last time this question came up about idiot customers who are much bigger jerks than they are. Then slighted customers respond about how they were mistreated by some gun shop employee some time, which causes more responses and on and on and on.

The basic claim from the gun store "jerks" is; gun store owners/employees have to deal with some REAL idiots, and they have a right to be bitter. Many of their stories include instances where they got to blow up at someone because they were being exceptionally idiotic. I say "got to" because they felt they had put up with enough crap from the customer, and felt justified in snapping at them.

This reasoning is bullshit because of one thing...

Helpdesk.

I worked helpdesk for a while, and had to deal with the bottom of the barrel, bar-none, true idiots. I know plenty of other people who've done the same thing for years. I honestly believe that there are few things in this world more frustrating than spending three hours trying to get some computer illiterate retard to open his e-mail settings. Yes, I have spent hours explaining to someone every little detail involved in accomplishing this task, from how to use a mouse, to what that thing moving around the screen is, to finding the "Start" button, to getting to "Control Panel," to explaining what icons are, to detailing how to change information in a window. Only to hang up, and take another call the exact same way. However, throughout all these infuriatingly idiotic calls, I and every other helpdesker I know, have kept our cool. We may blow up about it afterwards, but we DON'T take it out on the customer. This is primarily because the customer doesn't deserve it. The customer is an idiot. Yelling at an idiot is like yelling at a chair because a spring broke. It's pointless, and the mark of someone without self-control.

I'll make an exception where there was legitimate danger, which can happen when idiots handle firearms, but most of the yelling or put-downs are not the result of dangerous misuse of firearms. It's just people being dumb and ignorant (as they are wont to do), and otherwise rational people losing their cool.

Despite what they will argue, people snapping or blowing up at customers doesn't happen just as much in every industry. It seems focused in the gun shops for reasons owners and employees are not willing to fess up to.

You think you got it hard? Try working helpdesk.