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

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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

You Need a Card to Enter Here

I was having a discussion/idea the other day. There are tests for many things, like driving, vision-tests, drunk-driving tests, even tests for viruses and medical conditions–and you are left labeled and categorized, sometimes with stamps on various cards signifying your results. I was thinking, we should have a test for rating your mental acuity and your social-interaction skills. If you rate too low on mental acuity (intelligence) or social-interaction (how well you deal with other people), you will not be allowed into retail or shopping environments. You’d be like a 20 year-old trying to get into a bar, “I’m sorry, you aren’t old enough to enter here; go home and get someone to buy you some beer.” In this situation, you keep out the dumb and the socially inept and just tell them, “Go home, order online, and let some automated system deal with your inadequacies, okay? Next in line!”

Because some people just shouldn’t be allowed out in public interacting with other people.

The Mirror

I have read many different theories on mirrors. Some discuss how intelligent creatures can recognize themselves in a mirror, versus other less-cognizant creatures who see a reflection as a competitor, a friend, or a mate yet not recognizing it is them. There are theories which say we develop a sense of self, of being, when we first stare into a mirror–because we are no longer disembodied, but we actually see and know what we look like and in our minds we fully exist from this point on. We see, therefore we are. A mirror does much to tell us about ourselves.

The store I work at has a doorway which divides different sections of our store. I have so many people who walk by that door, look directly at it and then continue walking. They then approach me, asking, “Where is your other sections? I can’t find it.” I tell them they just walked past it, and they reply, “Oh, I thought that was a mirror.” Really? What does this say about you, oh customer?

Oh so curious that someone can look upon a doorway, mistaking it for a mirror, admitting this mistaken fact, and yet they themselves were not in their imaginary mirror–they saw no reflection. Either these people are vampire-lovers, which are in high demand these days, and they found total elation and self-completion in the idea they no longer have a reflection, or there is something significant about intelligence and the fact people can’t recognize they have no reflection in a mirror.

This would be like believing stairs only go down–so how do you get back up? Or asking how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Does a falling tree make noise if no one is around to hear it? Money is power, time is money, yet humanity created both of these abstract concepts and allowed them to control us all. Humanity has forgotten what it has created and lost control over its creation. Ah, humanity, you make me cry. You make me weep.

Intellect and Retail

Yes, I’ve wanted to write a book about retail for a while. I think the comic strip is excellent:
Retail Comic Strip
Either that will become a good cartoon one day, or my idea for a book will be a nice cult movie one day–if written well, which is the current sticking point.
Do you know, retail is one of the places where you benefit from stupidity? You can get rewards and perks for being stupid and ignorant. If you go to the airport and bring extra bags, they don’t care if you ‘did not know’ about their baggage policy. You can’t ask to speak to their manager and say you were unaware of these charges, that your bag weighs too much, that you’re stupid–you’ll still have to follow the rules, not ‘well just this one time’.

If you are a bad parent, abusing your children, leaving them alone for long periods unattended, social services won’t arrive and say, “Well, you’re going to earn extra income now, and we’ll help you out.” *smiles* More likely, your kids will be taken away.

Car Insurance doesn’t let your stupidity be an excuse for accidents, it sure won’t stop them from increasing your premium.

In retail, you can get away with saying, “Oh, I didn’t know. I want to speak to your manager.” Where basically whining allows you to benefit and gain rewards undeserving and inexperienced in other parts of life. This is a place where I believe retail and customer service industries have gone wrong. People should be penalized, just like anywhere else for their stupidity and ignorance. In essence, all retail does is encourage it and allow it to envelop the buying culture. It actually encourages you to be an idiot in order to get benefits–I don’t know is far easier than saying I do know.

People walk into a retail store with a thought or ideal that the salespeople working there are less intelligent than they are. Perhaps the only intelligent people are supposed to be management, which also includes a great deal of previous salespeople that have entered the management team–which is the irony of titles because that means they were once dumb and now smart? One time the snotty woman rattled off a list of different requests, wants and needs at the cash register, then arrogantly said, “Did you get all that? Hahaha.” And I looked at her, and said flatly, “I have an IQ of 150, I got it.” I proceeded to do all her various requests and special discounts, gift receipts, etc., then asked, “Is there anything else?” The condescending laughter was gone, when she replied, “No.” What does it say when you work somewhere where intelligence is actually a disappointment for customers?