I can't make this shit up

The other day I was having the strangest interaction with some customers, the sort of conversation that makes you want to give up on humanity.

So this couple was looking at a piece, let's call it a credenza, and wanted to know if it came in a lighter stain. I know for a fact it does not, but, playing the retail game where if you answer too quickly you lose credibility, I said "I don't think so, but let me double check." While I was thumbing through the catalog, the woman started telling me how her table is lighter, so that piece MUST be available in a lighter stain. "Did you get your table here?" I asked. "Is it from this same company?"

"No." she said. She had gotten it from our competitor's store. "Is it the same kind of wood?" I asked. "No." she said. She was not getting what I was getting at.

I found the page in the catalog with that particular furniture collection. "See, these look lighter" she said. "Well, each piece is different, this is a picture, that is the real product," I tried remind her. This is the sort of person that you dread doing special orders for because they can barely understand what is in front of them, much less an idea from a catalog or a drawing.

I started looking at my computer, thumbing through the inventory of similar items while she and her male companion flipped through the catalog. There's where it got good. They found a picture in the table of contents of the table from the collection. "This one!" they said "This one is lighter! " I looked at the picture. They flipped back and forth from the table of contents picture to the picture in the catalog. They were the same picture, but the one in the table of contents was enlarged. THE EXACT SAME PICTURE.

I gave up. Luckily, I had been helping some customers that were serious and capable of thought before Dumb and Dumber started pestering me, so I was perfectly justified in walking away from them.

See?? You cannot make that up.

on repetition

After I posted yesterday about the state quarters, I had a thought that I might have mentioned my annoyance with the collecting of them before in this blog. At first I was embarrassed, repeating myself. Then I thought, "NO! I am going to leave the posts as they lay!"

Because part of the weirdness and hilarity of retail is the repetition. Never have I felt more déjà vu than at work: different people, different products, same game. I repeat certain phrases so often that I have to work hard to not sound like a robot. Foresight and mind reading are not psychic abilities you are hired for, but rather, skills gained in the field after observing people being people everyday all day long. You hear so many customers say the same things over and over that you wonder how many times you will have to hear it in your life time and how many times they have been uttered before.

There are not many surprises in retail, and sadly, they are usually some act of kindness or decency. "Wow! She was really nice!"

Stuffs like that...

More Things to Not Do

-Do not ask clerks to sift through their quarters for the state quarters that you need. In fact, do not collect the state quarters for your grandkids. The fun of collecting is the hunt and the acquisition. If you collect all the state quarters in full and give them to your grandkids, they will probably just spend them on drugs.

-Do not buy an inexpensive pot, use it for 15 years, abuse it with abrasive cleaners because you are a cleaning fanatic, and then take it back to the store where you think you bought it, claiming the pot spontaneously corroded and that it has a life time guarantee.

-Do not expect the clerk to know the exact chemical make-up of the stain of some cheap clearance table imported from China. And when the clerk goes to the trouble of calling the company and questioning them, do not be surprised when they don't know either. Because nobody knows and it doesn't matter anyway; you are just being a crazy old person. Don't do it.

-Oh, yea, do not put your wet or hot dishes or glasses on a wood table. Just be an adult and use a coaster. Or a trivet. Or both at the same time.

-As I've stated before, DO NOT ever EXPECT free gift wrap. Be gracious and thankful when it's offered and available. Don't ball out clerks for charging what they are supposed to charge.

Weekly highlights!

-We have several garbage cans in various locations around the store. And every time we sample something (food, beverage, lotion), we have to place another trash can there. If we didn't do this, people would just leave their garbage everywhere, worse than they already do. As I was walking around, emptying the cans, I thought, "Wow. People are pigs." They will leave their empty Starbucks mocha cup, smeared with residual chocolate and whipped cream dregs, wherever they are when they finish it because they are too fucking lazy to carry it to a garbage. We also have to put a wasteful plastic liner in every can because people will toss in half a milkshake or some other disgusting dairy mess and it will splatter. Who's picking up your garbage?

-People with hippie girl voices that say "No worries" make me choke on suppressed laughter and blind with eye rolls.

-Today a lot of people tried to make their own prices. Like, "I thought this thing was this price...". Then they get pissed when you have to keep explaining, in the nicest way, that it is not, was not, and never will be that price. I must do all of this without explaining that they are confused and or crazy.

-I am always amazed by the customers that will just buy a display. "I want this! Just like it is!" they will say, and when you start to dismantle it, they stop you. "NO! I will just put it in the car how it is! Just ring it up!" The thing about displays is that there is a lot of shit in them, so they are expensive. Naturally, I am apprehensive when someone declares, with wild abandon, that they will take it all. I don't want to insult them, but I do want them to understand what they are about to pay for. And some people just do it. Wow.

-Sometimes you will have a co-worker that may show discrimination towards certain people. Often it is slight and they don't even seem to realize they are doing it. I do not discriminate; anyone can annoy me, regardless of race, religion, economic status, or age. It is somehow reassuring to know that we all have the ability to be an asshole.

Hey, employees! Don't steal.

Employee theft is weird. I do not condone it. Some employees are really clever and find ways to get a little something for free and never get caught. Most thieving employees are definitely not clever and are dicks because the repercussions of their actions are residual and last past the time that they are fired and move on to rip off other employers.

Thieving employees often try to justify their actions with the case that they are not properly compensated for their skills. This is bullshit. Lots of awesome employees are underpaid and do not receive enough praise. I say "tough shit." If you were truly a great employee, you wouldn't steal.

After an offender is gone, there is still a mess of distrust and loss prevention. Everything is looked at with suspicion and once harmless actions (the 11 minute break, the digging through the stock loss garbage) bring about a dangerous kind of attention.

So don't steal. I will let you know right now that you are now that you are not smart enough to get away with it and when you DO get caught, we will all hate you for making our lives more difficult than they already are.

In praise of customers: It's not all bad news!

Lately I've witnessed a lot more customers bringing in and using bags to haul off their merch. Those packable nylon bags, the Chico bag and similar styles, seem to have changed the way customers think about bags. Canvas bags are bulky; if you are not in the habit of being a bag lady and carrying them with you everywhere, it can be difficult to get into. But a little light-weight bag that collapses in on itself can fit in side most purses. Simply changing the material makes all the difference.

There have also been a lot of customers that are making a decided effort to "shop local." I acknowledge that box stores employ people too, but I think it is great when people are more thoughtful about their purchases instead of mindlessly driving to the mall just because and usually with the assumption that the prices will be cheaper there.

Customers are people too and sometimes they are alright.

Sale!!

Sale shoppers are the dung beetles of the retail world. They are the maggots feeding on the carrion merchandise. They are necessary. Without them, the dead items of seasons past would linger for years, fingered and handled until they are stock-lossed and tossed.

They are necessary, yes, and they also bring a certain repulsion with them. I and others are disgusted by their heckling over prices, nick-picking at the condition of merch, paranoid receipt checking.

These are all normal shopping habits, but during a sale, they are boiled down into a frenzy of impulse, desire, thrift, and remorse. Most of us have been this shopper at one time or another; do not let it become your main shopping mode. Keep your dignity and avoid the reputation (which you will get behind your back) of Clearance Whore.