Navy Ts.

I’m in the process of putting away clothes, and a woman stops me. She’s dressed in a basic T-shirt–and by basic, I mean one of those free shirts you get from volunteering at activities, not one you’d pay for as athletic and comfort-wear. She is also wearing an aged, khaki short, and dirty tennis shoes. I am telling you this because as a salesperson, you can get an idea of what your customer might be looking for based on their ‘wardrobe’–because many people come to shop in what they feel comfortable in. Some people will dress beautifully to shop, because they feel ‘comfortable’ looking good when they go out; the same with people who wear Ts, old shorts, and dirty tennis shoes. With this information aside…

“Excuse me, do you have any navy blue T-shirts?”
I stand for a second thinking about her question, and observing what she’s wearing, as I look around me. I answer her, matter-of-factly, “No, I’m sorry. We mostly have these shades of light blue, and these other shades, but no navy blue.” I point out the styles of T-shirts nearby, and the color assortment we carry. I tell her how the season is currently vibrant colors–and for those who know Spring, this includes pastels, etc.
She just looks at me, and turns, maybe 45-degrees. She doesn’t even take a step away from me, and asks the nearest coworker, “Excuse me, do you have navy blue T-shirts?”
Seriously, what the hell? I’m standing right here, I can still hear you. So my coworker takes her on a ‘journey’ around the store to show her all the shirts she ‘won’t’ want. By ‘won’t want’, I mean literally, I just explained her outfit, and my coworker is showing this woman all these frilly navy blue tops, and other tops which don’t match this woman and she wouldn’t even appreciate. Even worse, my coworker turns and asks, “Hey, this is navy blue, right?” Because the woman is arguing that it’s not navy blue. Seriously, if she doesn’t even know what color ‘navy blue’ is, why is she looking for it?
I answer distantly, “Sure, if you think so. Yeah.” I just walk away.

You see, as a customer, when I’m looking for something specific, I hate when salespeople give me the run-around and ‘try’ to push a sale on me showing me ‘other options’. If I ask for a silver cardigan, I don’t want to be shown red, white, or blue cardigans. I don’t want to be shown a mock-turtle neck. I don’t want to see polos, nor do I care about your specials or sales. I’m looking for a silver cardigan, if you don’t have one–say you don’t have one. Don’t waste my time. Let me look for what I need, and if anything, tell me where I can find my cardigan. Thus, I tell people if we have or do not have what they are looking for, and I give them advice where to look–if I know anyplace. I would not be like a coworker trying to show ‘other options’ which aren’t even what I asked for.

Customer Types: The Dumb

Inconsistent Sizes

I’m nearby a couple looking at graphic shirts. I’m folding and they don’t seem to want my help. Of course, this doesn’t mean I can’t listen in, right?

“Look at all these shirts! The sizes are so inconsistent.” He shows her two shirts, “This is a large, but this is also a large, but it’s not large. Can you see that? All the sizes are wrong.”

If he had included me in the conversation, I would have told him these are shirts brought into the company from other brands and companies, to help promote their shirts. I personally noticed some are longer, and some slimmer depending on who made them and what customers they made each shirt for–because you know, some customers prefer longer, slimmer, wider, and shorter, etc. I was particularly surprised about the sizing of these shirts, but I just find the one that fits best and move on. Either way, I just keep folding.

“Well that one is the right size, it would fit you,” his girlfriend says with encouragement.
“It doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t wear it anyway.” He grabs the pile of shirts he was looking at, and shoves them back onto the shelf and walks away.

Now, that’s an outstanding man, and I must commend his girlfriend for her outstanding taste in men. I am so glad that not only did he waste my time by looking at all the shirts just to complain they were inconsistent in sizes, but even when he did find the right size, it didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t wear it anyway–awesome, spectacular, awe-inspiring. This man is definitely management material, here. Someone, hire him immediately!

Customer Types: Big Baby

Japan Relief Shirts

Well, it’s been a long day. I mean, there are rude, demanding, and honestly, stupid customers assaulting us with demands and threats. So to end my day, my store has for sale Japan Relief shirts. (If you live in a cave and/or without access to news and/or information of the outside world, Japan had a massive earthquake, which caused a giant tsunami knocking against their eastern coast, and also damaging nuclear reactors. We shall say it’s not going well over there. So countries as well as companies have united to try to raise money to help Japan with their rebuilding efforts.) Okay, with that said, we have a display with these shirts and a mannequin wearing one of the shirts.

A large Caucasian man, of shaved yellow hair, standing about 6’3″ and maybe 180 lbs. walks up to this mannequin, points at it and states, “Look Japan!” And starts to laugh, not a little chuckle, but a full-on heavy laughter that continues for several seconds.

Of this, I just go on the walkie-talkie and restate what I just saw, then I say, “Okay, it’s time for me to clock out and go home.”

Customer Types: The Dumb, The Racist

NOT M-SIZE!

I’m trapped at the cash registers again, and there is a couple visiting from another country, as I find out, Korea.

There was a long line, and I call the next customers over, but the man is standing there staring at me. Other people behind him are staring at the back of his head. Then he starts yelling in Korean with an angry face. He’s looking at me, but I realize he’s yelling at the woman nearby, who is rummaging through a pile of shirts. He yells again, this time at her, tugging on her arm. I just stand there. Finally, she puts the shirts she was looking at, down, and they approach the register.

The woman comes, shaking a shirt, “I like this color!” But, her face is angry, mad. “I like this color!”
“Okay, that’s nice.”
“No, I like this color, but the size is wrong!”
“What size do you..”
“I like the color, but the size is wrong!”
“What size do you need?”
“It is the wrong size! I like the color!”
“Okay, what size do you…”
“I like the color, but the size is wrong! I don’t want M-size!”
“What size do you need?”
“I don’t want M-size!” She shakes the shirt at me, pointing at the Medium sticker printed on the shirt. “I like the color, but the size is wrong!”
I look at the husband, who is also yelling, but at her. I don’t understand what they’re saying, but I’m sure it makes as much sense as I’m hearing.
“This is the wrong size,” she continues, “I don’t want M-size!”
I just stand there, with my hands on my hips. “I know.”
“I don’t want M-size.”
“Yes.”
Then the husband finally cuts in, “No M-size, she needs S-size.”
“Small?”
“S-size!”
“M is medium, and S is small. She needs a smaller size?”
“Yes, she doesn’t want M-size, she wants S-size.”
So I go rummage through the pile, while asking for a stock check. I find an S-size in the same color, but it’s a crew neck, not a v-neck. I leave them behind me, so they can stop staring at me, and instead stare at the counter, or each other, or a nice wall, or whatever. I go into the stock room, restating our ‘conversation’, while a manager on break says, “Breathe!”
I just reply, “They can wait for me to come back, they want the S-size so bad.”

Customer Type: Guessing Game, Learn the Language

Any Color is Certain Colors

I greet a woman looking for help, and she tells me, “I’m looking for a basic crew-neck short-sleeved shirt and a long-sleeved crew-neck shirt. I need them in medium-size.” She’s reading from her phone a short shopping list.
I lead her nearby telling her, “We only have a few colors…”
“It doesn’t matter what the color is, I don’t care, I’m just picking it up for my sister. She wanted me to pick some up for her.”
“Okay,” so I hand her a gray short-sleeved shirt and a black long-sleeved shirt.
She rubs the collar, looking at me, “Is this what crew-neck is? Just a regular neck?”
“Yes.”
Opening the gray shirt, she looks at the wall, “I don’t want this color, do you have a black one?”
“Yes.” I hand her the black medium, taking the gray shirt away.
“Do you have a white one?” She shakes the long-sleeved, black shirt at me.
“Yes.” I hand her the white shirt, taking the long-sleeved shirt back. I’m so glad she didn’t care what colors we had, or we might have had a problem. I laugh a little to myself, and go back to my day.

Customer Type: The Liar, Micromanagement

Trying Hard to Be Mad

I’m folding, while nearby an angry, red-faced wife is trying to control her young son and daughter, who are jumping around, yelling and screaming. Her husband and mother (or mother-in-law) comes up to her saying what great deals they just got.
The husband comes up showing her a bag full of clothes, “Wow, honey, we had such a great deal!” He lifts up his son, and the daughter runs to the grandmother.
“Well, how much did you spend?” The wife asks flatly, unimpressed.
“It was under $40 for the whole lot,” the older woman replies.
The wife looks perturbed, “Well what did you get?”
“Those shirts we showed you, they were only five bucks! We got several of them in all.”
“Yeah, it was unbelievable, you have to check it out!” He tries to point out some clothes to her.
She sighs, asking angrily, “Did you even get a good color? You didn’t get a good color, did you?”
He shows her some of the colors. She looks at them and just shakes her head.
Again, unimpressed, she says, “They didn’t even have black or gray in your size?”
“Yes, they did,” he pulls them out to show her, “All of them were under $5.”
She rolls her eyes, “Oh, whatever, let’s just go.”
The husband tries to show her some of the good deals, and she turns around leaving the store.
“Honey! Where are you going?”
“We’re leaving, now!”

Gosh, she’s so lovable, I can see why he fell for her.

Customer Types: Big Baby, Guessing Game, Lowered Expectations, Unapologetic

Gray Thing

A woman opens her fitting room door slightly, holding a balls up gray, cotton thing. She’s holding it inside the fitting room, and waving it in her fist. “Can you get me a Medium in this? They are right over there.” She points vaguely in the direction of our shirt collection, which has tank-tops, camisoles, t-shirts, and long-sleeved shirts all in that gray color. I try to grab it so I can get the right one, and she pulls her hand away saying she wants to keep this one. We play an odd game of dodge for a few seconds. Eventually, I have to pry it out of her fingers, telling her I can’t even tell what she’s holding because all I see is a gray mass. It turns out to be the gray tank top.

My recent journey to New York has given me a broader understanding on just how much people choose to be rude or respectful, but dumbness and ignorance is still irritating. I just had to share. I might need to blog about that later.

Not a Box of Crayons, but…

A customer shows me a mannequin asking me where a T-shirt is. Easy enough, I take him nearby to a table filled with that T-shirt style, surrounded by a huge variety of different colors to pick from. There are at least twelve different colors available. I point at the color he asked for, in the very middle of the table; awash in a sea of colors.

He looks at me and asks, “There’s only one color?”

Customer Types: The Blind, The Dumb

When is a Sweater a Sweater?

Oddly, today I had the exact opposite of a person mistaking a sweater for something else. (Like someone mistaking a pile of poop for a fillet mignon.) A couple brings a V-neck sweater to the cash register and when I scan it, they say it’s on sale. I’m not sure about that item, so I ask them to show me the sign. They take me to a table with V-neck sweaters separated from V-neck T-shirts. There is a promotion on V-neck T-shirts.

“Oh, I see. This sign says V-neck T-shirts.”
“Yes.”
“That was a sweater.”
“Yes.”
“This is for T-shirts.”
“But it’s a V-neck.”
“Yes, it’s a V-neck sweater.”
“So it’s on sale?”
“No, the T-shirts are on sale.”
“It says it costs $15.”
“It says regular-price is $15, but if you buy two T-shirts they are cheaper. The original price on these sweaters are $40, not $15. They aren’t even the same item.”
“I don’t understand. They’re the same.”
I point at the sweaters, lifting one up. “This what you brought me.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a sweater. It’s long-sleeved, see the sleeves? It’s thick, feel it. It’s warmer, this is a sweater.”
“Yes, I like it.”
“Yes, and this,” I lift a T-shirt, “It’s a T-shirt. Look, it has short-sleeves.” I show her the short-sleeves. “Feel it, it’s light-weight cotton. This is a T-shirt, this one is on sale.”
“I like this one though,” she points at the sweater.

*Sigh* Eventually, I get her to buy the sweater for the regular price, since it isn’t even a T-shirt.

Customer Types: The Blind, The Dumb