A Blog of Great Importance

- People still believe that they are being reasonable when they think that the dishes they have should and will be available forever.  Recently, a line of dinnerware we carried for DECADES became unavailable.  People are devastated.  I was getting sucked up into the tragedy when I began to peruse this book on our clearance shelf.  It was a great reminder that there is no promise and never was that the things we use and love will be available forever.  And this is part of what makes them special.  You will find other dishes and you will fall in love!

- I had a customer say to me "I'm a Spanish from Spain and this is the sort of furniture we have."  Now, I did not know the woman, so I cannot know anything about her for sure, but, first, she did not have any sort of Spanish accent.  Second, she didn't have that air of tourist or even visitor.  I am going to be harsh and propose that she was a crazy faking that she was a Spanish tourist.  This is not an uncommon occurrence, people shopping in character.  What made her stick out is that, in addition to her weird fake English language sentences, she was extremely, unnecessarily rude.

- The "I don't shop" shoppers drive me a little bit crazy.  I ask if they get our mailings, have their discount card, whatever, and they lay into me.  "I don't shop.  When I need something, I just come and get it.  I don't give my information out to anyone.  The best way to save money is to not shop.  In fact, don't even go into the store.  I don't go into stores.  I was just walking past here on my way to Zumba and I knew I needed a butter dish so I came in and got one."  And on and on.  I go back and forth between annoyance that they pride themselves on depriving me of income and amusement that they seem to be talking themselves out of buying more.

i have but one back, and i don't want to break it for you.

It's probably my own fault. I work/have worked demeaning retail jobs for my whole life. Why would I do that? I'm probably stupid. Since I'm probably stupid, I probably compensate by having super human strength, despite the fact that I appear to be an average size.

So of course customers would not hesitate to ask me to carry insanely heavy things to their cars for them. And if not me, then one of my co-workers: equally (if not more) fragile ladies, hired for their ability to merchandise, count back change, and give advice on napkin choice, NOT lifting hide-a-beds.

Oh, we have a system for helping those people that are too stingy to pay our delivery fee, which is less than $50, by the way. But customers don't listen and just SHOW UP and then we have no choice but to find a way to throw a console table into their truck. I cringe when one of my co-workers that should not be lifting heavy things does just once in order to help a customer.

Sure. It's just a credenza. A solid wood table. Six feet long. With a shelf and two unremovable drawers. When was the last time you picked a fucking tree up off the ground and gently placed it in the back of a Volvo?

stingy with the hatchback

I have said before how weird it is that so many customers don't think their furniture purchases will fit in their huge cars/vehicles/SUVS. The weirdness turns to annoyance when

1) they won't measure items. Somehow they think eyeballing it will do, even as they express doubt that it will fit.

"I think this will fit in the back of my car. Can you carry it out for me?" [I find people to carry it out. They gird themselves for the lift. The customer returns.] "You know what, I don't know if it's going to fit!" And then we don't even get to try.

2) they don't even begin to trust me when I suggest that it probably will fit in their car, regardless of my relatively good spatial skills (which, to be fair, they probably don't know I have) and the fact that I am at the store all day, measuring shit and helping people with the exact same scenario.

I don't know about other clerks, but I'm not even going to suggest shoving something in your car unless I'm pretty damn sure it will fit.

I'm going to blog the shit out of you

The other day I had this customer come in 50 minutes before the store closed and purchase a LARGE, HEAVY piece of furniture. I started the whole delivery-for-a-nominal-fee versus "free" pick-up conversation. The customer asked (basically quote) "don't you have some beefy guys that can throw it in the back of my truck?" And I'm, like, "No." I thought he was joking. His tone was even sort of jokey, so I was playful. But when I chuckled and said no, shit got desperately serious.

He actually thought that we paid warehouse guys to stand around the store JUST IN CASE someone wanted to cheap out on delivery and have them hall a clearance floor model piece of furniture to a customer vehicle instead. The customer became pissy and wondered off to bitch into his cell phone. Meanwhile, I called the warehouse in a panic, hoping that someone was still there and that they would be able to hotfoot it over and haul the merch.

Luckily, someone was at the warehouse and he cheerfully came to help. BUT bitchy man customer was still put out EVEN THOUGH HE WAS GETTING EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED (in all caps). He sat and pouted for the 12 minutes it took the warehouse staff to get there. I couldn't even look at him. When I did get a glimpse of him in my peripheral, I wanted to puke because he felt the need to keep being a jerk with this silent pissy attitude. Like, let it go man. And though the same could be said for ME, I will say in my defense that I get over situations pretty quickly. If there is some residual crappiness, I write there. But I honestly try to be humble, see both sides, and fucking forgive.

All I could think to pacify myself when he was sitting there is: "I'm gonna blog the shit out of you, unreasonable, stupid man." And that was reassuring.