For every hard-working and polite C-Store employee and Union cashier on campus, there must be five or six who view it as their personal mission to screw with people whose only agenda is consumerism.

The decline of services in this country has been a well-established fact since homesteaders on their way to grab land in Oklahoma were forced to pay nearly a dollar for a twenty-pound sack of flour by the owner and operator of the local hitchin’ post.

The American dream cannot succeed unless the dreamer is willing to walk all over the dreamee, I guess.

Anyone on campus who has ever attempted to pull a Union cashier away from the latest John Grisham novel before the grease on his fries congeal knows how apathy and attention deficit disorder have made basic, polite service impossible.

I recently bought one of those cheesy, shiny phone cards from the C-Store in the Maple-Willow-Larch Commons. Having heard about what a great deal was to be had, I decided to put aside my normal apprehension and dread fear of getting screwed by the gilded plastic devils.

As if God Himself wanted to make sure I never bought another card of questionable quality, my four-point-nine-cent-per-minute wonder of modern technology gave up the ghost within 20 minutes.

This did not sit well with me.

However, reasonable as I am, I decided to call the toll-free number on the back to plead my case.

Of course, no one ever answered that number. What was I to do?

No problem. I would just take it back to the C-Store I got it from and explain my travails to the fellow student behind the counter. Surely she would understand the pain of getting screwed.

As jaded as I am, I still get sucked in on that one.

I explained the situation to the terse young woman behind the counter. She offered me the toll-free number I had already called. When I told her it wasn’t working for me, she asserted that it had always worked for her. Apparently she had also know the hassles of cheap phone cards.

When I tried to explain how that option felt exhausted for me, young Eva Braun actually asked me where I was getting my attitude. Apparently, where she comes from, she is not used to dusky types getting uppity with her.

Now, I’ve worked my fair share of entry-level positions for a variety of customer service-oriented fields from taco-slinging cashier and cook to burger-slinging cook and cashier.

I seem to remember a variety of instructions for dealing with problems and not one of them included lecturing customers on the appropriate tone one should take with cash register jockeys.

If a situation became too problematic, we always had the fallback position of passing people along to the manager.

There are all kinds of steps before “I can’t help you” and “what’s your problem, pal.” Steps guided by philosophies like “the customer is always right” come to mind. Fat chance.

You’re lucky to get a “thank you” these days. Mark it down in your diary if you do because you will need to live off the good feeling from that one for a good long time, my friends.

Perhaps the fault is our own. Perhaps we have put these positions down for so long that we have created clerk monsters incapable of human emotions — creatures so vile and hateful they cannot, under any circumstances, put themselves in the customer’s place and help a brother out.

Maybe coming fresh from your own McJob taking guff from dozens of unruly customers, your only outlet is to take it out on the poor wage slave behind the counter.

It is not inconceivable that we are creating our own vicious circle here. An unending cycle of bitter attempts to get one up on that last person who yanked our cord a little too tight.

The boss chews you out, the least you deserve is a little dignity when you hit the drive-through, right? If that spotty-faced teenager behind the cash register forgets your ketchup packets, why not lay into him? Maybe reducing another human being to his component parts and reducing his dignity is the only way to feel a little better about ourselves.

For me, I will always make it a point to compliment good service and tip as well as I can.

The decline of manners has taken its toll on us all and if graciousness and dignity are impossible at work or during that tax audit, then try creating some for someone else.

As a member of the public, you know how unreasonable you can be. Give each customer the benefit of the doubt.

Likewise, treat every cashier and pizza delivery guy the way you would want to be treated if you had to make your living dealing with people like you.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily.