{"id":584195,"date":"2026-08-05T18:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584195\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T18:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:24:09","slug":"richard-hogan-why-i-gave-a-store-manager-a-dressing-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/584195\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Hogan: Why I gave a store manager a dressing-down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was standing in a queue recently, the girl serving behind the counter couldn\u2019t have been more than 17. Obviously working a summer job to get some money. Admirable.<\/p>\n<p>She wasn\u2019t moving through the costumers with ease. It was clear she was struggling with the change and the cash register.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">I was with my youngest daughter, so we started to play a little game. Working in the Philippines, I am used to being inconvenienced and having to wait a long time for things to move.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The guy in front of me grew more irate as the seconds ticked on. He was turning around, looking for some help, cursing under his breath, until eventually he said out loud: \u201cHurry up, people have lives to live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He looked around proudly for validation. I told him that we will get there and that he is shouting at a teenager. He wasn\u2019t best pleased.\u00a0Then he went off looking for a manager. One arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The girl was flustered and said: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, this woman wants an exchange but I don\u2019t know how to do that.\u201d The manager stuck his magic key into the till and, abracadabra, all was sorted. The manager, scolded her and said: \u201cIt\u2019s not that hard, now hurry up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">People in the queue were thrilled we were moving again. When I got up to her, I explained that I worked many summer jobs, and that just because you meet a few arseholes doesn\u2019t mean everyone is an arsehole.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">She was smiling. I told her I thought she managed it all very well. She thanked me, and off we went. I told my daughter, who was holding my hand: \u201cNever take crap from arseholes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">She smiled at me, and then I saw the manager fooling around with a mannequin and I went over to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            I told him that speaking down to a teenager working a summer job like that illuminated his lack of skills, not her incompetence. He stood there, jaw open.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">As we were stepping into the street, my daughter said: \u201cAre you a Karen, dad?\u201d I didn\u2019t know the answer to that question. We both laughed all the way home. Maybe I am a Karen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">What has happened to us, that we cannot suffer being inconvenienced? Not even the slightest bit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">You see it in nearly every aspect of your day; the car isn\u2019t pulling out of the space quickly enough for your liking, honk the horn at them. The bank teller is talking too much with the customer in front of you, raise your eyebrows in disapproval.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The bin men left your bin slightly in the road, outrageous indignation. \u201cNow, where are the bloody napkins, why aren\u2019t they in full view?\u201d Moral outrage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            We have become a society of chronic convenience, and any deviation from that will provoke scorn. But is it really about being inconvenienced?\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In my experience, there is something deeper going on when you react so strongly to some everyday encounter. The idea that we should never be inconvenienced is ridiculous.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">There is an incredible amount of self-righteousness involved in feeling that way. \u2018How dare you hold up my day\u2019. Where has that come from?<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">It wasn\u2019t long ago that we didn\u2019t have running hot water, or a constant food supply for that matter. So, this idea we must never be inconvenienced is modern enough. Our ancestors certainly didn\u2019t struggle with it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Whenever I see someone react like that, I see the hurt little child within. Most of us had messy childhoods. Those frustrations we felt, those insecurities we experienced, that sense of not being seen, I think they are all right there with us when we overreact in traffic or chide some teenager about the size of the ice-cream they gave us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It is something deep within that we are reacting too. It is never really about the thing that is annoying us, but rather the invisible force we can\u2019t see that is really tormenting us in that moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">And if we took a moment to reflect on what that is, we might be able to come to some better understanding of ourselves so that when we are in a queue in polite society, we don\u2019t act like an arsehole.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Modern life is frustrating. All that inanimate interaction, \u2018place the basket in the bagging area\u2019. But when we overreact and become aggressive to what is happening in front of us, maybe it\u2019s time to figure out what is really bothering us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Maybe that frustration is something knocking at us, asking us to take a look at how our life is going. Maybe if we took the time to figure that out, we wouldn\u2019t be so irate at silly, everyday things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            We will all be inconvenienced, from time to time. Maybe surrender to it, and taking control of the fact we don\u2019t always have control would be a great starting point to manage our busy lives.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">But, most of all, don\u2019t be an arsehole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was standing in a queue recently, the girl serving behind the counter couldn\u2019t have been more than&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[119343,61,60,756,80],"class_list":["post-584195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-richard-hogan","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-parenting-advice","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}