My first job was as a bagging clerk at a grocery store, at one of the last stores it seems that gave a shit about its customers.  It was an independent local  Michigan chain, and so there was a faster throughline between the stores and the owner's credo:  The customer always comes first.  Not after your break.  Not after that phone call from your friend who needs to know who's picking up whom before the big party (which is to say, four guys sitting on a couch watching Chris Farley movies).  Not after you're done helping two other people figure out how much a can of corn is.  Not after "I'm really tired."  Never.  You tended to the customer on the customer's terms, and you always abided by the Eight Tile Rule:  If you came within eight floor tiles of a customer, you asked how they were doing, if they were finding everything all right, if they needed anything, if they wanted me jerk you off...(sorry, just had a "big party" flashback).

It sounds worse than it was.  It sounds like bag clerks were the indentured servants of the food distribution industry.  For some, the kids filled with self-hatred (teenagers? nah...), it was.  It was a shit job for no money.  But for a majority of us, it sincerely was an avenue to help people.  We all became friends, kids with common interests and common sensibilities.  We were sort of like the band kids.  

And we were clerks in the truest sense.  Not only did we bag (and there was a cashier and a bagger for each live register), but we carried the groceries out to each customer's car.  We loaded them up and we weren't allowed to accept tips (most of us didn't).  I even remember driving an elderly woman home after she'd taken a cab to the store and stranded herself there with a cart full of groceries she couldn't get home.  Those motorized carts just don't have proper torque.  It turned out - and I swear I'm not making this up - she was the most overtly racist person I've ever met in my life.  I was stuck in my own car, sitting in her driveway, listening to her spew the most hateful, vitriolic ignorance I'd ever heard.  Before I got her out of the car she tried to rope me into a job mowing her lawn and taking care of her house.  Ever the slick huckster, I managed to make it out of there without committing myself to either.  I wonder if she got someone to cover the skid marks my tires left in her driveway.

When I got back to the store it was time to take care of any one of a number of maintenance chores the clerks were responsible for.  We cleaned the floor of the store.  We did stocking.  We did un-stocking (you ever wonder how those eggs get back into the dairy case when you decide you don't want them at the last minute?  Okay, maybe you don't).  We did cart runs out in the parking lot, which led to machismo-fueled strings of dozens of carts.  We dinged a few cars but we got the job done. 

We also, gulp, cleaned the bathrooms.  Top to bottom, spic and span.  Until they gleamed.  Bathrooms are an essential-yet-overlooked piece of the customer experience.  Customers should feel comfortable using the bathrooms provided by the businesses they patronize.  Not to wax poetic about it, but a store's public restroom is really a microcosm of its commitment to service.  It's like a secret, anonymous blog the store is writing about how it really feels about its customers, but it's written in giant letters on posterboard for all to see, and it's signed by everyone who works there

This is the long way of saying that Borders apparently doesn't give a shit about its customers.

There are several Borders stores in the DC area.  I imagine they appeal to the hipsters this town is infected with.  (Look!  Chuck Palahniuk!)  I go there often because, despite my judgments about its demographics, they usually have a great selection of soundtracks and off-the-beaten-path DVDs.  Normally, a person would avoid using the Borders' bathrooms so often that he would be able to compare and contrast the hygiene and presentation of said bathrooms, but two facts should be noted:  1) A certain mentor of mine taught me to never pass by a water fountain or a bathroom; and 2) You only need to enter a Borders bathroom once to see what kind of contempt they have for their customers.

It's a shithole.

No, seriously, puns aside, it's a shithole.

Wet, nasty floors.  Toilets and urinals that haven't seen the working end of a scrub brush since Nathan Good left Death Cab.  Malfunctioning paper dispensers, many of which have been pried open and left that way.  Graffiti on the walls and stall doors (one gentleman was kind enough to leave the forwarding number of an attractive young woman willing to escort a lonely soul about town; I assume "rimjob" has something to do with a romantic walk along the mouth of the Tidal Basin).

There's just nothing clean about it.  There's nothing comfortable about it.  And it's like this in every bathroom in every Borders store I go into.  I should make myself a little badge and issue the store a citizens health code violation.  It's not as though I expect leather couches and free acupuncture in every public restroom, but what Borders is doing amounts to a giant "Fuck you" to its customers.

Why is this?  How does an otherwise upscale, reputable, falling-over-itself-for-educated-suburbanites store chain like Borders force each customer to climb through Dante's Inferno to take a whizz?

Believe it or not, I have a theory.  Perhaps it's not as sturdy as my theory that ROAD HOUSE is the greatest Western ever made (see here), but it's a theory nonetheless.  I think Borders employees feel that they are above cleaning bathrooms, so much so that for the most part nobody does it.  Can you imagine the typical Borders employee, fawning over Gabriel Garcia Marquez while wearing that ridiculous headset, getting himself a sponge and wiping down the sink?  You think he even knows where the mop is?  I just don't see it.  That said, and given the fact that most Borders stores are in malls or shopping plazas, I'm betting they employ a service that does it.  And we all know what kind of job those services do.

I wish I could quit you, Borders, but as much as I try to run, your selection and your industry-leading rewards program keep me coming back.

I just have to remember that sometimes it's okay to pass by the bathroom.