DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??!!!

There are some customers that you learn early because they are notorious. Thieves, chiselers, princesses, name-droppers: whatever their game, they do it with gusto and without remorse. "I am such a great customer! I've spent so much money here!" They might tell you that to get what they want and to intimidate. I hate that it works on people. Co-workers might mention that a certain customer owns half the town and has more money than God and everything we have we owe to them because of their wild spending habits.

Since they are an unavoidable force in the retail world and it is pretty impossible to punish them, I have decided that the only real way to win is to give my very best service to the customers that deserve it. Oh, I will still smile and inquire and wrap with care for the baddies, but I will be doing it as quick as possible to get them out the door and onto pestering others. When possible, I am going to tell my good customers how much I appreciate them. Because I really do.

Customer Quote of the Month

Last week, there was a woman shopping for accessories for her new house. She was buying a doormat and when she was checking out said, "I don't know if I want to leave it outside. I don't know yet if I have shitty neighbors. They might take the doormat."

Her male companion tried to dismiss her fears. He reminded her that it was a good neighborhood.

Wherein she dismissed his notion of niceties. "Rich people steal shit too." Then she turned to us behind the counter and said, "I'm sure you guys know that."

It was sort of awesome. Her voice was loud and the store was busy. Others heard her. It is the sort of thing a customer can say, but clerks cannot. In the fantasy world that we perpetuate, the customer is not just right, but saintly. When a regular customer is grifting, stealing, or swindling, they are in a state of denial, most likely practiced and justified to themselves beforehand.

Our Loss Prevention Professional says that 1 in 5 customers is a casual shoplifter. So someone is doing it, cause "shit" disappears.

Freak Out Wednesday: We are April's Fools

Even before it began, I couldn't wait for this day to be over.


3. I had an elderly couple return a teapot because it dribbled from the spout. They brought in pages from a website that showed how to make teapots that don't dribble. I'll get right on that first thing tomorrow and fax those to China.

4. Today I said "hello" to a woman that was in the store. "I'm getting a gift wrapped," was her response. Oh, okay, great, I say hi because it's my job, not because I want to buy you a drink or be best friends or sell you more things. When her gift wrap was brought up, she interrupted me when I asked if she needed a bag to tell me that she needed a bag because "it's going on a plane." Uh, I thought wrapped gifts are planes were a no-no, bad idea, waste of everyone's time. Well, more money for us.

5. Staring out the window into the street, I saw a nerdy white kid with dreads, slap scratching his dead like a dog. Eww.

Shoplifter!

Yesterday while I was on my break, one of my co-workers stopped some guy from shoplifting a $1200 espresso machine. It was a classic case of larger items being stolen because they don't fit in bags and people just walk out.

Apparently he was acting sketchy and didn't know she was watching him. When he got within 8 feet of the door, my co-worker said something like "cool coffee maker, huh?" and she said he got the "oh shit! fight or flight" look. At that point he took the box over to the counter, caused a fuss because filters didn't come with the appliance, and decided not to "buy" it.

This sort of thing really pisses me off. We are a small store and if he had stolen the coffeemaker, we would have been in so much trouble. Management would have seriously bitched us out, brought back our worthless Loss Prevention woman, and reinstated the "greeter," a humiliating position because it makes our customers feel uncomfortable. "Am I at Walmart?"

We have already cut back on so much in order to save money during this tough economic time. Shoplifters are not just stealing from the store where I work, they are stealing from ME and taking money that is for my payroll.

There are different levels of Loss Prevention, different goals and techniques. I am down at the very bottom, on level with shoplifters. It is primitive, animalistic, and personal. I come to work so that I might have food, water, and shelter. So eff you shoplifters, I will not play stupid clerk so that you can steal luxury kitchen items. I can't afford them either, jerks.