Cocaine in the Water Cooler

I don't know what it is about certain service workers. Whether it's the deli woman who's far too enthusiastic to take your order of turkey on rye or the Mastercard phone rep who seems to be doing speed as he's talking to you, they are veritable beacons of over-cheer in a land of Just Trying To Get Through The Day With My Dignity Intact.

They must put cocaine in the water cooler or something. Maybe their bonuses are based on serotonin levels?

It's much worse when they interacts with you on a daily basis. That overly cheerful barista who must come from the land of Sunshine, Lollipops, and Electroshock Induced Happiness in order to maintain a level of blithe joy is a daily attack on my attempt to keep my head down and plough through the day.

They must have watched, and taken to heart, every movie with Robin Williams where he keeps a child-like innocence about the world and admonishes the stuffy authoritarian figures 'that if they just let their inner child laugh and play, if they just smell the roses once and a while', everything will be fine. Never mind that they'd put you in a mental institution before you could say Lithium or "I have a slight aversion to bovine tranquilizers".

It takes a measurable amount of energy out of me to even look at them, much less talk to them; energy I'd much rather put into thinking about "what the hell I'm going to blog about next", or "how much coffee would create a lethal caffeine blood level?". They are energy vampires. They must take pleasure out of culling from their customers every line of cheerful pitter patter, every last ounce of Disney-inspired goodwill towards men and small forest animals.

Maybe they are really soulless harpies who realize the amount of subtle pain they inflict on their customers and take a secret glee each day in extracting the hidden wince and under the breath groan. After all, it's good to be cheerful right? Enjoy your job, bring joy to others? That's the current train of thought anyways.

Personally, I'd be much happier if we could just buy everything out of vending machines. At which point, of course, I'm sure the vending machine technicians would start getting on my nerves.