I have been thinking lately about how lucky I am to have this job. Weird, huh?

Not "lucky" in the sense that I'm paid what I'm actually worth, but fortunate to be compensated for roughly the amount of work that I do. Which isn't a whole lot.

Plus, I get to eat company-provided Bad Things and ogle celebrities. My life ain't so hard. I can't even remember the last time I thought, I don't get paid enough for this.

It certainly could be a lot worse. I could have to clean up foul-smelling spooge, old food (my favorite), do "customer service" (argue with people for a living), or be fed a line of crap by Corporate which I have to repeat like a good brainless femme-bot even though I don't mean it in the slightest.

The place I notice this misfortune most frequently is at the grocery store, a magnet for crazies. Especially mine. Just the other day, I had the strong urge to donkey-kick the guy behind me in line, a horny Latin male who was invading my space due to my alluringly large rump roast. Yes, the one on my person, not the deli item. I misguidedly looked to the clerk for interference, but then I remembered: they don't get paid enough for this.

Just today at another store, I noticed that Von's has been requiring a particular task of their checkers that seems rather sadistic to me, especially in L.A. They make them attempt to pronounce the customer's names.

They don't get paid enough for this.

I guess when you swipe your credit card or your club card dealie, it prints out your name on the receipt. Then the checker has to look at it and say, "thank you, Mr./Ms. ______." Or in the case of most Angelenos, Mr./Ms. __________________ - __________ + possibly a symbol + something unpronounceable + a sound not normally produced in nature + the supersonic dolphin eek from SPLASH.

Jeebus Cripes Almighty. No good can come of this.

I have got a long-assed, weird, ethnic name. It is an unusual name, so anyone else who has it is probably related to me and will look me up in the phone book when they come through town and accuse my great-grandfather of stealing their invention for the crossbow. So has Cranky, whose name is so long and oddballish that at first I thought he was making it up for comedic value.

Neither of us particularly enjoys hearing our name(s) mangled, or being prompted to say it ourselves. He says HE even has trouble with his, sometimes. For years, I have been threatening to change my name to "Kim Smith". You just get tired of having to spell it out for people.

This is a misguided attempt to provide customer service. I think we'd be more satisfied as customers if they would just stop getting in our way and "helpfully" trying to put back all the things we have bought just because we left our expensive cart full of beer sitting in the aisle for 5 minutes, necessitating us to gather everything twice. Their hamhanded attempt to pronounce our surnames does not make us any happier.

Furthermore, no one talks like that in actual life. It is just making everyone feel lame and awkward, like a bad uniform.*

*This blanket statement does not cover employees of Hot Dog on a Stick. Those idiots are just asking for it.

At least Von's isn't like SBC (1-800-750-2355), which makes their employees spew this monster mouthload 'o bull hock: Good morning/afternoon/evening, this is ____ with SBC. How can I provide you with excellent service? (Audible shit-eating dead-head's grimace of pain on other end of phone).

Mutha, puh-leeze. Nobody says that. If these corporate donkey-dicks, sitting in their ergonomically correct chairs in their suits, actually tried repeating the shit they come up with, they would spew donut chunks into their Starbucks. Especially on Mondays, when they are hungover.

Attention, Corporate America: please stop torturing your employees. Please stop torturing us all.

Thank you.