Maybe the dude that started busting caps in Toys-R-Us yesterday had a point; like a psychotic, morally reprehensible one, but a point nonetheless. Certainly it's too much to ask that $7 an hour and no health insurance would instill esprit de corps among the workforce. But after I've been turned into a sputtering mass of frustration three times in two days by surly holiday hell, I can see how someone close to the edge might be pushed over by so-called "seasonal help." Maybe moneygrubbing corporations shouldn't unleash untrained hordes of underpaid nitwits on an unsuspecting public looking to buy their yearly allotment of trinkets. The lurid coverage of frenzied bargain hunters trampling a Wal-Mart employee to death and spraying a Toys-R-Us with machine gun fire might be having an effect on the morale of big box store employees!

First—while standing at the counter trying to buy some paper in a completely deserted Staples on Union Square—a chubby salesclerk in a red polo shirt shot me an angry look. "Do you see those arrows?" she asked, pointing to the stickers on the floor behind me. "You have to walk behind the rope, stand on those arrows and wait on line for us to call you." Oh, ha ha, I get it there is no line—you're kidding. "Stand on the arrows. On the arrows!" she repeated for emphasis.

Then I went over to eat at Sea on 2nd Avenue and 5th with my boyfriend. The place was filled with yuppies scarfing down chicken basil and pad thai, and a waiter was nearly impossible to come by. We couldn't get a pair of chopsticks, but that didn't stop the management from hiding an 18% gratuity in fine print on the bill. After my bf almost double tipped for non-existent service he left 10% . We got as far as St. Marks when a shifty-eyed cook scurried scraping, bowing and sighing like he had lost his first-born. "Ahh, ahhh, you eat at Sea?" Yah. "Ahh, there not, ahh, enough money." Beat it pal.

"You can't let people shake you down," my boyfriend said. Then we gave some money to a homeless person.