Divide and Conquer!

Two interesting customers enter the store. I hear someone say, “They were here for three days already!” Well, we’ve also had a sale going on. Basically, the sale is everything is on sale, 25% off the entire store. Hopefully, you understand how this works, you get 25% off everything. This discount is advertised throughout the store, in the windows, and of course, for the last three days.

So one of the two women comes up to me and asks, “Excuse me, how does the sale work? Do I get 25% off one item, or do I split it between everything I buy?”
I stare at her blankly for a moment. This must be a stare I give several times a week, to a variety of different customers, with an array of bewildering questions thrown randomly at my head. “You get 25% off everything you buy.”
“Oh, okay.” She turns and walks away.

Okay, pause, what just happened? It took me several minutes to even deduce what she asked me and what her brain was thinking. In the end, I convinced myself, for whatever reason, she believed the discount would be split between all the items she buys. Thus, I would give her 10% off one item, 5% off another, and we’ll say 10% off another, reaching a grand total of–wait for it–yes, 25% off! Okay, sure. Wow, that’s just borderline not-intelligent-at-all.

Customer Types: The Dumb, Lowered Expectations,  The Riddler

Advertisement

When can I Return a Non-Returnable?

A woman comes to the cash register carrying three tops, all of which are on sale.
“Can I return sale items?”
This is a popular question and rather reasonable. So I look through her three shirts, and one says, “Final Sale.” I tell her, “This one is final sale, so you can’t return it.”
“I know that!” She snaps at me, “I’m talking about the other shirts!” She states this in a tone of my ignorance and the fact I obviously don’t grasp her firm understanding of logic.

Let me pose this question, “If a final sale item is not returnable, and a regular sale item is not returnable, what differentiates the two items?” Because this is the ridiculousness of her question, if she ‘knows’ final sale is final. So I ask you, “What does she think non-final-sale sale items are?” Perhaps they are non-returnable sale, unlike final sale, which are also non-returnable. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense!

I lift the two normal ‘sale’ items, and say, “You can return these.” I wanted to say, “I’m sorry, you can’t return sale items, but you can never, ever return final sale items.”

Customer Types: Don’t Kill the Messenger, The Dumb, Rhetorical, The Riddler

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

English 101: All versus One

Hello students, today’s lesson is an easy one, if you can read English. Are you ready? All is everything, all is everyone, all is basically all. One is singular, one is by itself, thus one stands alone. Got that? Good.

A customer comes with an older coupon, which is still good, giving her 25%-off one regular-priced item. I go through the transaction, and she’s buying three items, two are regular-priced and one is sale. We always give the discount for the most expensive regular-priced item. I tell her we actually have a special for today only–40%-off instead of 25%-off. She seems okay with this, but of course, you can never tell with these kinds of people. So I go through the transaction, and she stops me.

“Wait! That’s not right! That’s the same discount I’d get for 25%-off!”
“What?”
“You aren’t giving me any savings, it’s better with 25%-off!”
I blink, and wonder why I”m faced with such utter brilliance on a daily basis. I explain to her there is no way 25% is greater than 40%-off.
“No, it’s not a better discount!”
So I go back and I show her the discount, and I even pull out a calculator to show her the price of 25%-off and 40%-off. Obviously, in any world except for advanced mathematics, you can argue the 40% discount is far better. She’s still yelling at me, getting angry at me.
So I say flatly, “Fine, I’ll do what you want, okay? I was trying to be nice, but I’ll give you the discount you want. 25%-off.”
So I change it, watching the total increase as I showed her several times with the calculator. Then she yells stop again.
“What are you doing?!? Isn’t this for all items?”
I roll my eyes without rolling them. I point at the coupon, I want to say, “It’s printed in English.” At the very top, the first line, “25%-off one regular-priced item.”
“Oh, I thought it said all items.” She gets violent with the credit card machine, swiping it. I tell her to stop, because we have to get back to that screen, as I say, “So I guess the 40%-off is better.” There is silence. “Now you can swipe.” NO apology, just like there was no thank you I even offered to give her a better deal. This was my first customer of the day. Oh, be sure, be quite sure, she helped make the rest of the day FANTASTIC! Utterly fabulous, thanks lady.

Customer Type: The Blind, The Dumb, Learn the Language, Unapologetic

I Only Play a Blond On TV

So there were two women, one who very brusquely came to the register digging through the counter saying, “Where are your coupons. I want a coupon. Where are they?” Thankfully, being wise as I am, I already pulled the daily special away and put them in my pocket. I decided it would be incentive to give to customers who aren’t sure they want to buy, and for customers who are kind, nice, and courteous–I mean, good customers really should be thanked. A customer like this would never have gotten a coupon willingly, but I decided, “Hey, she’s blond, acting rude and demanding, maybe she’ll spend some good money.” Not. Anything is farther from the truth.

I tried to help them several times, and finally, after finding their cheapest items possible, one of the blonds arrives at the register without her friend.
“Oh, where is your friend?”
“Are you talking to me?”
I think, “No, I’m just staring directly at you speaking.” I say, “Yes.”
“Oh, I thought you were talking to that thing on your ear.”
I think, “Yes, I ask my coworkers where their friends are all the time, it makes perfect sense.” I say, “I need to press this button here to use it, I can’t just randomly start speaking on it.”
She has no response, perhaps because she can’t process my vocabulary. I mean, I only have a degree in English.
“I was asking where your friend went.”
“Who? What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your friend was just standing outside your fitting room door waiting for you, like two minutes ago.”
“Who are you talking about? What friend?”
I think, “Seriously? You two came in together. She brusquely asked for coupons, and I know more about her than you do?” I say, “You came in together.” Did you look up the word ‘brusquely’ yet?
“Oh, her. I don’t know,” she states flatly, with a rude tone.
At the same time, her friend comes around the corner. I roll my eyes without rolling my eyes. I finish the transaction using the smallest words I could possibly think of, even then, it was a rough transaction. Next, I deal with her friend, which is no picnic. Neither of them were very exciting, but surely, sales, discounts, and promotions bring out the very best customers imaginable. These people make retail exciting, and society move backwards.

Customer Types: Capitalist, The Dumb, Lowered Expectations

Coupon Literacy

I’m at the register, the bane of my existence, and we have special coupons, which give a pretty good discount on regular priced merchandise (You can read this as full-priced, non-sale items, etc. Yet, knowing society, people will choose the dumb options on how to interpret clear English. Because you know, they ask, “How long will this be on sale for?” And they could mean marked-down product–which never return to full price–or they could mean promotional items, which return to regular price eventually.) I got side-tracked, where was I? Oh yes.

A woman comes up with a bundle of items on promotion–read this as items on sale, because they aren’t regular priced if they’re not full-priced, right? (I mean today, I had to deal with cheap people who wanted me to mark items back to regular price, since they were on sale, in order to get the coupon savings, which amounted to roughly $1 savings. Congratulations for you! Big saver! Bring out a banner! I just love how special promotions bring out the sale-mongers who decide their I.Q. has dropped twenty points in order to shop.) Either way, I ring up the woman’s items, and I tell her, the register will remove the promotional price–thus the item becomes full-priced/regular priced; this is actually automatic–and then she’ll get the discount off the regular price. (This comes out to about $2 savings, lucky lady!) To which, the woman angrily yells at me, “How can you do that? Where does it say that? I want to read it!” (There really should be a test for people to be allowed to shop in person, with so many people lacking social skills. One question should be repeated twice, “Can you clearly read and understand your native language?” “Are you sure you can read English/native language?”) I point at the coupon, of all things, it isn’t even in the fine print, it says on the very top, ” Regular Priced Merchandise.” To which she complains, mumbling to me saying, “You should have made it clearer! I wouldn’t have even come in if that were the case. I wouldn’t have even bought this!” I love when it’s my fault.

If that is a threat, I don’t know if I care. Does it look like I have a thousand ripples of pleasure having to deal with your stupidity and lack of literacy where you can’t even read English? Do I really care if you’re trying to make me responsible for not only your greed and lack of intelligence, but also you pointing your finger at me as if it’s my fault? I didn’t teach you to read, nor did I teach you to use this lack of logic, nor did I make you come trying to money grub super-discounts and getting items for free. Some people actually do have to pay for their rent and feed themselves in this world, woman.

Of course, all I said was, “Please swipe your card.”

Customer Types: Big Baby, The Blind, Capitalist, The Dumb

Sales Report Gone Blonde?

At the top of the hour, the manager usually prints a report of the hourly sales, tracking, etc. I’m in the middle of the transaction with two blonds, not fake bleached, but real, and not smart, but real. (Okay, that made me laugh a little.) So, they’re having this conversation, showing the depth of their grammatical comprehension, “Like, I told my friend, you know, like, don’t do that, that’s so stupid, you know.” It’s just empty banter threatening to make my eyeballs collapse into the back of my head.

I hear the manager ask me to print out the sales report on a nearby register, which I do, while still scanning in the items the girls are buying. The slip is hanging from the register, as I continue to scan in the last items. One of the blond girls reaches over, ripping the sales report out, and stands there reading it.

Of course, this makes all my coworkers gasp, and even telling them the story, they all gasp. Yet, I decide with great understanding and clarity, that this girl wouldn’t even know what she’s looking at. After several seconds, I tell her, “Oh, thank you for grabbing that for me.” And she hands it to me as if she’s doing me a favor. Yeah, thanks a lot. You’re FAB! Muah, darling!

Customer Type: Capitalist, The Dumb, Lowered Expectations

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

Retail Law

It is said within Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Though not the best adage of choice, it was the easiest to find.

I know not the name of this law I have in mind, but there is always that one idiot that will misinterpret or incorrectly read something. Don’t Get Me Wrong, Part 2 is a good example of this theory. For there shall always be that one person that misreads a sale sign, after it’s been up for several days, and cause all sorts of problems, where coworkers run around like chickens without a head, managers become aware and alert like dogs smelling bacon, and I am left rolling my eyes that one stupid person can cause this much trouble.

I myself have learned to deal with these people appropriately, without calling the entire store for help. Just the other day, and old woman comes up with a hat. She places it calmly on the counter, as I scan it. She looks at the price, and I’m already ready for her reply.

“What? This isn’t on sale?” She sounds like she’s just found out her diamond ring is zircon.
“No, this is full price.”
“But the sign,” she points vaguely in the direction where I know the hat is. It has sat there for over a day, near our signs announcing the store sale–‘Take an additional blah-blah percent off all sale items!” Hurray for sales, right? They do bring the best of the people out of their caves into the bright lights of society, which they have so little normal, proper interaction with. Those people who lack social skills. Those people who are only brought out by sales. Those people who are obviously the least irritating people to deal with. Not. “The sign says it is on sale!”
“The sign says sale items have an additional discount.”
“The sign is right above the hat.” Actually, it’s hanging on shirts above the item, which used to have a promotion on those shirts. [I am left to assume, she would have had the same argument even if the original sign said, “Special, All Shirts 50% off!” “But the sign says the shirts are 50% off, why isn’t this hat also 50% off, it’s right next to the sign.” Pfft.]
“The sign is an announcement.” I point all around the store, which might be the first time she’s looked up from her feet today, breaking her hunched-back finding she’s actually a homo-erectus. Lo-and-behold, signs are on virtually every fixture announcing the additional discounts on sale items. “It is telling people all sale items have an additional discount.”
“It was right above these hats!” She glares at me. I have no idea if she’s trying to use force or her age to get a discount.
“If it was on sale, you would get the discount.” I am unmoved. “If you sign up for a card, you can get a discount.”
“Fine, I don’t want it.”
“Okay,” I take the hat, turning around, and putting it on the counter. I turn back, finding her still glaring at me, as if her admittance of ‘not wanting it’ was supposed to make me balk, and shudder, quivering under her power of trying to rape us of the money we are already losing by having this ridiculously high sale discount. Woman, we’re already taking a loss just selling these sale items, why would I want to sell full-priced items at such a discount?

Obviously she hasn’t read this: Diminishing Returns.

So she stares at me more, without saying anything. This continues for about ten more seconds as she walks away, and looks at each and every sign announcing our sale. I have no idea if it sunk in, but those signs were everywhere, and none of them said, “Hey, these are on sale!” “Hey, everything is on sale!” It always saddens me when I find people have lived this long being ignorant and no one has ever set them straight, or at least taught them to have some sense of embarrassment when they act like they’re stupid. I rather not ever be caught acting with stupidity, or be seen as cheap, too. But, that is just me.

Customer Types: The Blind, Capitalist,  The Dumb

The Scavenger Hunter

When a woman or a man comes to me saying they’re looking for some clothes for certain weather, they want certain details, colors, etc. and possibly several outfits to mix-and-match with–I am more than glad to help. This is called Building a Sale. We can walk around and discuss what colors they already have, and what will add to or expand their collection. We can talk about the places they’re visiting and where they are from, to get an idea of what is versatile and has long-lasting use. It is my pleasure to find them some of the coolest items we have, some of the most interesting choices and color palettes.

When someone comes to me with a random shirt out of the sale area which has been out for weeks, asking me to find another color or size–I am less than glad to help. Especially, when they follow me around. Especially, especially, when they pick up more items and then ask for that, because they have developed the mutant power to find the last one of every item as long as it isn’t in their size. Really? Maybe you need a mutant seeing-eye-dog who can smell sizes for you instead? I have customers that actually want to buy something.

There is an old woman who comes with her daughter and without missing a beat, they will send me on more scavenger hunts than a pirate holding a map with one-thousand giant, red ‘X’s written on it.
“I want that scarf, where is it? Do you have more?” When I can’t find it, noting they are two on mannequins, I go and pull one down. “I want the other one, too.” She needs both of them to compare, but will eventually give one back so I can climb back up and put it on the mannequin again. I walk away, and a minute later, “These sandals, do you have them in a size-8?” There is only one left in the store, and it’s the wrong size, so I tell her. “So you don’t have any in a size-8?” She asks me rudely and exasperated, as if she’s been looking hard–but instead, she had someone else looking for something for her while I looked for the shoes. I snort silently, as I tell her it’s probably on a mannequin. So I go around, lifting our twenty pound mannequins in front of her, crouching on the dirty floor, trying hard not to drop them as I check their feet; she follows me around, watching. They are all size-9. By the time I make it to the front of the store and have checked nearly a dozen mannequins, she says, “Oh you poor boy, nevermind already.” After asking me to find a pair of shorts, a belt, and a bag, she pulls me yet again and points at a display way up on top, “I think I know where the sandals are.” My face is blank, but I get the sandals, and amazingly, they are the only size-8’s left in the store, used as display pieces. They needed to put pins in the sandals for this display, and I take them out, handing them to her, and she starts to ask, “Is this okay…” As I walk away. I really don’t care, if you don’t want them, just throw them somewhere. I already destroyed five visual displays for you. I look around at all the other customers who are actually buying things, and actually need real help, but instead I’m stuck with this old woman.

I go into the fitting room saying I can’t handle this woman anymore. All I’m doing is scavenger hunts, for nearly an hour, and the place is busy. So I trade places with the person in the fitting room and they go to the sales floor to find the woman. “Where is she?” “Trust me, she’ll find you.” Of course, you already know whats going to happen. While I’m hiding in the fitting room, she arrives with her daughter to try on everything I had to pull off, pull down, and pull out for her. I clench my fists and bite my lip as I give them their room. “I can’t find them,” my coworker comes back. “Yes, because obviously, she had to come and try it while I’m in here.”

So we switch again, and I run to the front of the store to hide. Gosh, guess what, she comes looking for me in the front of the store to find something else for her. My eyes roll into my head…

The very next day, I’m working, and seriously, she’s there again. She greets me with a look of disdain, “Oh, it’s you again!” Wow, I was thinking the exact same thing! We must be soul-mates. She automatically asks me to find some shorts she can’t find, thankfully they’re too big to be on a mannequin. I search everywhere and find nothing, saying maybe a shoplifter stole it. And then, I look in the same pile she’s standing by, and it’s right there. Wow, now she’s being a pain-in-the-butt and a waste of my time. I run away to hide for a while, and as expected, when I appear on the sales floor she’s standing there and says, “There you are, I need you to find something…”

Why? Seriously, why? I hate being reduced to a retail slave.

Customer Type: Capitalist, Micromanagement, Scavenger Hunter