*Beep, beep, beep* “Hi welcome in.” no response. The chaos in this space on Friday is of one that most would equate to New York City. As I race from one end of the store to the next, I cannot help myself but to think about how incredibly rude these customers can be. “There you go, have a great day” no response. I instantly begin to fight the urge to throw and endless amount of attitude at them but it somehow overcomes me *window slams* As my shift ends, I find my way to the rocky wooden tables surrounded by 2 lounge chairs that occupy the empty corner in the lobby. I sit back with my laptop open and eyes peeled as I observe. I began to notice that my coworkers give the same politeness I do and in return, they receive the same rudeness and ungratefulness that I receive. I watched eagerly as the door opened and closed numerous times, “Hi welcome in” no response. I sat and counted the number of people that entered the building that smelled strongly of fruit, playing HOT FM radio station that was drowned out by the sound of loud obnoxious blenders. Seven is what I counted. Only seven out 
of the 15 people that entered Smoothie King in the time span of 20 minutes responded when they were greeted after entering the store or said thank you after they received their product.
You see, Smoothie King is a minimum wage, low demand job, suitable to college and high school students. I myself, an 18-year-old first-year college student have been labeled Store Manager and have found it extremely hard to gain respect and politeness from customers that still view me as a “child.”
While I do acknowledge that respect and kindness are two different things. I do believe that they go hand in hand, especially when it comes to dealing with children and adults. My whole life, my dad has always preached to me to “stay in a child’s place” and “don’t ask questions, do it because I said so” while my mom has always been one that allowed me to voice my opinions and views on situations. I have always disliked this mindset that my dad had it has always been something that I said I would never instill in my kids. Now that I am in the customer service world, I am often looked down on and not respected in my role. When dealing with customers, I am often regarded as “rude” or “disrespectful” if I speak out to customers. Customers do not feel the need to say thank you or treat my coworkers and I with respect because we are “children” and we do not know the slightest thing about the “real world.” These are all ideologies that I wish would cease to exist. I wish that the idea of respect was not equated to age but rather you get what you receive. If you give respect, you get respect. If you give kindness, you get kindness. Age should stop being used as a means of disrespect. At the end of the day, we are all humans with emotions, conscious minds and we should be treated as such instead of being belittled and dismissed of our opinions because of our age, because we are “children.” This is a societal issue that I plan to work every day to change because it is something that I experience first-hand every day and I would like it to change.