I Want Darker!

I realize I let most of the minor irritations slip through, because there are so many every day things which people do that fall into the category of rude, absent-minded, and ridiculous. I’ve been thinking about them, when one of ‘those’ customers whom always find me came yelling.

“I want a darker color!”
I look at a pair of tights he’s holding, and they’re dark gray. So obviously, I ask, “You want a darker gray?” This would basically be black.
“No! I want darker!”
I stand and stare at him. “So you want black?”
“No! Darker! I want darker!”
First, I don’t know why he’s yelling at me, but I did find out later he was a tourist from China. If you’ve been to the restaurants, you learn when they yell, they’re actually just talking.
“Darker! I want darker!”
“If you don’t want black what do you want? A color, name a color.”
“Darker!”
“Brown, navy blue, black…”
“Darker! Black! I want black!”
My eyes roll into my head, as I take the tights he handed to me and toss them aside as a sign I’m not taking his crap when I return. So I go into the back, to look for the tights, and someone tells me we have none. So after letting out a long shriek on the walkie-talkies, I come back out to find if there are any lost on the sales floor. Of course, I find one. Of course, I give it to him in the side he wants. And of course, what does he do?
“I want softer! Do you have softer! Softer!”
I’m no longer in the mood to be yelled at with no reason, or being yelled at with a good reason. “No, no softer. None. Only one.” And I walk away.

Customer Types: Capitalist, Learn the Language

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Angry Cargo Shorts

I’m walking the fitting room, and I see a room with two green cargo shorts. I’m already holding a handful of clothes from yet another room, so I leave it in there to organize what I’m holding. I see a man walk by; he hasn’t been very talkative, nor receptive of help. I walk by his room, and he’s left a pair of green cargo shorts in there. Altogether I now have three cargo shorts, and it’s quite obvious who is trying them on in different rooms. I hang up one size-34 and two size-36 shorts, as he walks in yet again with another pair of green cargo shorts.

As I’m walking out, I hear him yell at me angrily, “Hey you! Where do you think you’re going with that! You keep cleaning out my rooms, and I keep trying on the same pairs of shorts!”
I turn around, glaring at him. “You,” I say, “You keep trying them on and leaving them in different rooms. I’m not the one cleaning them out.”
“No! You are! I came back and my shorts were gone!”
“First, you were in this room,” I point to the room I found two shorts, “Then you were in this room,” I point at the room he just left one short in. “You can have this one again.”
As I turn to close his door, he whirls around staring at me, and slamming his hand into the door keeping it open.
“I’m closing your door!” I tell him sternly, I don’t care how large or how angry he thinks he can be, he’d be sore to find out my limits. I proceed to slam the door behind him. I walk away to tell the manager, and basically all my coworkers about this raging man with low logic skills. Since I’ve been told to stay away from aggressive people, I have someone else watch the fitting rooms for me.

Soon, I see him leaving as he stares at me while walking out; he’s carrying a shopping bag from our store. I tell the cashiers, “Well I guess he bought his shorts.” Then I find the manager in the fitting room, telling her the same thing.
“Oh, that was his shorts? I asked if they fit okay, and he just made a noise and walked out.”

Aww, here I was hoping he’d complain about me, but I guess he realized how much of a dumb munch he was being. I didn’t want to tell him I have a photographic memory about these things, and I could probably redraw all the pimples on his face accurately, even coloring in the bright red ones he has.

Smile, he’s going to live and die in blatant ignorance. If anything is a wasted life, that is.

Customer Type: Big Baby, Capitalist, The Dumb, ESP

Bad English, You Heard What?

A customer comes to the cash-register. I start to scan the items, and she stops me.
“The whole store not on sale?” She speaks some English, but it’s not precise; she has a strong Chinese accent.
I look at her, blankly, “No, only sale-items have an additional discount.”
“No, the whole store is on sale.”
I just stare blankly, saying nothing.
“He said everything on sale.”
I wait for the inevitable, holding my breath. The only ‘he’ workers are standing next to me at the cash-register. So I roll my eyes in my mind, and I ask, “Who?” I actually expected her to point at me, but she trails her hand and points at the manager standing several feet away helping some one.
I chuckle a little, telling her, “It can’t be him, he just reminded us that sales items have additional discount, not regular priced items. It’s not him.”
“No, he said. He said.”
“I’m sorry, sale items have additional discount. Full-priced items are full-priced.”
There is some banter between herself and I, with her husband standing back–even though he’s about a foot-taller and several tens of pounds heavier, he’s obviously not in charge. The hard part is that I’m supposed to believe she ‘heard correctly’ that everything is on sale, while she’s speaking in broken English. I can more easily believe she translated what was said incorrectly.

Later, I tell the manager about the woman, and how she pointed right at him. And as expected, he said he never said such a thing, and she probably heard him wrong. He asked why I didn’t call him, and I told him I’m not one of our whiny co-workers who have to call a manager for everything, “Oh, I need back-up, help me!” I can handle myself, unless I don’t feel like it, then I’ll call a manager, and then slip away into the night.

Customer Types: Learn the Language

Beijing with Love

In another incidence of cultural clash, I was trying hard to help two women who spoke very little English. Basically, they held a sweater, saying, “Size,” then point at another sweater in a different color–saying they wanted one color in the other color’s size. Got it? Good. So far, so good. Except, they kept asking me for help and became decidedly more and more confusing. Speaking to each other, I detected accents of Korean, so I called a co-worker who could speak Korean.

As she approached, they suddenly saw her and started to call out to her, waving her over. I thought it was over, and sighed happily as I walked away. Less than a minute later, the girl says on the walkie-talkie, “They aren’t speaking Korean, I don’t know what language it is, maybe Chinese?”

Okay, so I call over another coworker who speaks Chinese. Yet another exchange ensues, and yet again a failure. She comes up to me saying that she’s never heard their version of Chinese before. They say they’re from Beijing, but their dialect is totally different.

So I looked it up, and I found Beijing’s national language, which is only the dominant language, of course. Mandarin pops up as the first, primary answer. Yet, I also see something called Mandolin. Interestingly, there is also the Guangzhou dialect of Cantonese. Well, we definitely got no where with them.

Although they attempted to buy something, they had no understanding of our sales tax, which amounted to about 4%. After a long exchange of misunderstanding and defensiveness, acting like we’re cheating them, I don’t think they bought their $20 sale sweater, because of the added tax of about $0.80. Yes, eighty-cents. I have something to say, but it would be misconstrued.

Customer Types: The Dumb, Learn the Language

Cultures Clash

I am standing near a Japanese duo who are lost. They decide to ask the most local woman (and I mean local, plus she doesn’t even work at our store) for help. This is the kind of local customer who would consider the mall high-paced, and would rather be on a lonely street, or a beach up north where it’s just everyone who looks and acts like you. I’m not saying she’s a bad person, I’m just saying, she definitely won’t be very helpful. As a statement of this fact, they aren’t getting anywhere, because the woman doesn’t even speak good English, nor do the Japanese men. What happens when two groups try to speak a language neither of them are good at? Exactly. Utter chaos.

To my amusement, her high-school aged son starts to ask loudly, “Is there anyone that speaks Chinese here?” This definitely made me laugh. I almost wanted to find a Chinese coworker who’d arrive saying the Chinese greeting, “Ni hao!” Followed by the Japanese, “Ohayo?” And the English, “What?”

Customer Types: Learn the Language

*Knocks*

Today was special. Suffice it to say, though some call me a stereotyper, the most insulting and degrading ways of getting attention lay always with the Chinese customers. Today was special.

I was in the middle of a stock check for a customer, and the cashier asks me for back-up. The line isn’t long, just one couple with a scarf., I decide I can do a quick purchase and finish my stock check. I go to the register and the man begins by yelling at me, “You take forever!” *Knocks* “Why you take so long?” *Knocks* “You take too long!” *Knocks” “What’s wrong with you?” All the while he is literally knocking, KNOCKING on the counter with his knuckles, glaring at me, spittle flying. While he continues to yell at me, knocking on the counter, I just look at him and say, “You can lecture me, but I don’t care.”

You see, when the company stops making the jeans you love the most–don’t blame me, I didn’t make the decision, so stop saying, “You stopped making my favorite jeans,” because I didn’t make that choice.
When a co-worker forgets to take a sensor off your clothes, and you beep heading out the door, don’t yell at me saying, “You always forget to take off my tags,” because I didn’t do it. I will gladly lecture my coworker or bring you so you can yell at them.
When the cashiers don’t ask for back-up when they should, don’t yell at me. I was there seconds after help was requested. And seriously, yelling at me and knocking on the counter?

If I make a mistake with your transaction, I take responsibility. When I make a bad marketing decision, I take responsibility. But don’t you dare blame me, yell at me, or lecture me about something I have no control over. That is one major ‘wrong’ in a capitalist industry where money is seen as something holier-than-thou, where you think you have the right to do what you want because you’re buying a scarf for $20. If we took one step outside the doors of that business, you would not dare act the same way. You would surely be taken aback if I treated you the exact same way.

So I quickly finish the transaction and leave. Of course, the rude man who expected me to bow down and cower before his $20 purchase, wanted some form of pleasure, so within a minute I hear the manager looking for me. Which I am told I made the customer wait a long time (did I really?), that I was rude (really? I thought we do onto others…), and I didn’t thank him…  For what? Thank you for knocking on the counter, lecturing me because I decided to not make you wait any longer? Thank you for letting you spit on me, and act as if you’re worth more than the money you carry? Because seriously, if you want to play the capitalist game, then you’re really not worth more than your purchase, you have no face, no name, no identity other than the plastic cards in your wallet. I’m sure not going to thank you and hope you come back to buy another scarf next year, unless I can go to your place of business knock on your desk and yell at you for no good reason.

Customer Type: Complainer, Don’t Kill the Messenger, (I feel the urge to make a subgroup for Chinese, since I was also clapped at like a dog in addition to this ‘knocking thing), Modern Slave-Owner.