The Post-Church Sunday Crowd is the Worst
Anyone who has ever worked retail or food service will tell you this.
My partner and I were running errands this Sunday morning, and we briefly considered getting donuts before noticing that the line was terrible. I cracked a joke about how everyone just got out of church and is getting their donuts for the day, and it led to a conversation about the post-church crowd at any store or restaurant.
My partner worked in food service, and I worked at a grocery store, and between the two of us, we have stories about the post-church rush. Some of them are ours, but a lot of them are second-hand from friends or others we know who have worked in similar positions. They are all pretty terrible.
There is a particular type of person who exemplifies the post-church crowd, and I want to be clear that not everyone who goes to church and then goes out to eat or to pick up groceries fits this stereotype. However, there are enough people who do, and do so loudly, that anyone I’ve ever talked to who has worked retail or food service agrees that the post-church people are just the absolute worst.
These are the people who raise hell when we are out of the particular brand of figs that they want. These are the people who order very particular things at IHOP and then complain when their order comes out, regardless of its accuracy. They inevitably leave a mess in the bathrooms along with a couple of Chick Tracts because they’re godly like that.
Generally speaking, they’re rude to workers, managers, and anyone that they can exert what they view as their god-given power over. They are the few, the mighty, the church ladies (and men), and they are not afraid to let you know how godly they are while making the woman at the cash register cry and raising bloody hell about anything and everything.
They don’t believe in tipping in the traditional way — their tip is a piece of paper that looks like a crisp twenty but actually has bible verses on it. Working as a waitperson is a hard job that brings lots of suffering, and suffering is godly, after all, so of course you’ll appreciate it. Except if you’re stuck in a low-wage job like that, you are obviously a bad person who deserves what you get, which is a piece of paper that looks like currency but has bible verses on it.
(And to clean the mess they left behind in the bathrooms.)
The post-church crowd is a righteous bunch, fresh off a fiery sermon about hell or sinners or whatever, it really doesn’t matter. Honestly, I’d believe that these people would sit through a sermon about washing the feet of sinners and the Good Samaritan and stuff like that, crying the whole time, and then go heap abuse onto whatever retail worker they encounter first. They’re feeling good and righteous, after all, so whatever pleb is bagging their groceries deserves two scoops of good, righteous wrath.
Now, in my many years of working at a grocery store on Sundays from noon to 8, I encountered many of these types, but not necessarily every shift. All told, there were probably a few dozen major ones in the years that I worked, plus the standard-issue rudeness that I dealt with daily, and for that, I think I was fairly lucky. Food workers in certain areas probably have horror stories every week.
However, I want to make it clear that the bulk of the post-church crowd is perfectly fine. There are always bad examples of any group to point at, and going to church doesn’t make you immune to being a total jerk. It’s just that they are often very loud about their supposed godliness and the like while managing to not exemplify a single Christlike tendency along the way.
I’m sure a lot of you who have worked retail know exactly what I’m talking about, and for those of you who don’t, I assure you that you’re quite lucky in that aspect. Either way, if you have to work on this or any Sunday, I wish you the best. Be safe, stay sane, and try not to anger the post-church folks, lest they bring the wrath of god down upon you.
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