It's a common Hollywood trope. A fast food employee stands at the counter, dealing with the customer’s numerous irrational requests. The customer gets angrier and angrier at the employee's inability to fulfill his request for fine ground wildebeest meat in his hamburger. The manager is called. The order is fulfilled. The employee is reprimanded. Ha ha ha.

The worst part about this joke is that it isn't a joke.

Working in a service industry is an invitation to be dehumanized. It's a consent form to be mortified on a daily basis.

Service employees are treated so poorly because they can be. There is a pervasive consumer culture in America that clings to the idea of “the customer’s always right.”

I don't know if I can say this enough, but THE CUSTOMER IS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT.

If I'm selling a candy bar for $2, and you want it for $1, the candy bar isn't $1. Screaming at me like I'm a voice-activated candy bar dispenser unit will never ever make it $1. Calling my manager won't make it $1. Calling the Better Business Bureau won't make it $1. I probably don't even agree with it being $2. I'd rather pay $1 for a candy bar, but nobody ever asked me. According to a statistic that I just made up, 99.9% percent of service-related problems you encounter are due to a decision made by somebody who could buy my car with the money in his couch cushions.

I didn't make the breakfast menu end at 11, but I'll get fired if I don't enforce it.

Dehumanizing another human being, no matter in what context, is wrong. Worse, it dehumanizes both the perpetrator and the victim.

The idea that service employees can be treated as less than full fledged human beings is one that's unfortunately ingrained in our culture. It doesn't just take common human decency anymore. It takes effort to be a better person when everything around you tells you that you don't need to be. Remember, with the decision to dehumanize another person comes consequences. Treating somebody like a vending machine will do nothing but get you treated like a crumpled, old, wrinkled up dollar bill.