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

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Legal Precedent

There is an older woman who comes in and always, always has some problem, or demands something in her favor, even if it is against our policy, and even ethically wrong. Today, it’s busy, I have customers to help, and she comes with her daughter and drags me to find things and do things. Really, there are fifty customers and only one of me. I find the belt they’re looking for, then she wants me to get sandals off a mannequin.

She wants a certain size, and I tell her, “Our mannequins only wear larger sizes, it can’t fit that size.”
“Well can you check the other mannequins?”
What, I don’t speak English? I just told you, it doesn’t fit the size you’re looking for, so it is an impossibility for any mannequin to be wearing that size. “Our mannequins only wear the larger size, it can’t fit that size.”
“Don’t you have more in the back?”
“It’s two days until Christmas, our stock is totally out. Everything is on the floor.”
I go and ask my manager for confirmation, and yes, “No mannequin wears that size. It can’t fit.” So I tell her about this customer, who is always high-maintenance and demanding.
Instead, the woman finds another manager to ask, “Can you check the mannequins if they have this size?” This manager asks the manager I just spoke to, and this woman gets two more confirmations that we don’t have her size.

Let me rewind to the last time she came to the store, and the reason why I won’t put up with her anymore. We had a special sale, during a certain time in the morning. She comes in the night before asking to speak to a manager. You need to ‘check-in’ at our store using a phone application (app) and you can qualify for the special sale.

First, she says she doesn’t have the application, so it’s unfair against her. A manager points out, you can go online, and any phone or computer–even the stores in the mall which have computers–allow you to use this application to ‘check-in’.

Then, she says, “I have a job. I have to work every day from nine-to-five. I can’t come in to this sale. I can’t make it.  This is discrimination! I work at a law firm! This is a legal precedent. I should know! I want to speak to your store manager!”

To which, the store manager is having a conference call, and she said she’ll wait. The whole time, she’s arguing with the manager of the fairness of the sale, and how it works against her. Again, threatening the company as being discriminant against her because she doesn’t have a phone application and she can’t come in because she has a job. Eventually, the store manager does arrive, and tells her the exact same thing she’s been told. And they have a ‘civilized’ argument about it, where the store manager consistently says, “No, it doesn’t work like that. If you can’t make it, find someone else. You aren’t getting the deal.” She continues to argue, saying she’s going to call the company. My store manager says she’s fine with that, and gives her the corporate number.

Fast-forward to today. She’s standing there, pointing at me, while speaking to my manager. The other manager is waving at me to hide. Later, the manager comes to me and says, “She was complaining about you. She said you were so horrible today, you must be in a terrible mood. Usually, you’re so nice and helpful. But today you weren’t helpful at all, and you were so rude.”

Well, lady, I’m not going to be nice to you anymore, you aren’t worth my time or my energy. You are a waste of the time and energy of just me, and my store. I hope your legal precedent and your law firm teaches you more, because you sure don’t know a lot about anything–other than being rude, demanding, stupid, ignorant, irritating, and frankly, I have the right to refuse service, and I refuse to be your slave again. Go panhandle your worthless crap to other people.

Finally, as ‘thanks’ to the manager who helped her, she bought her a shirt as a gift. Obviously trying to curry some favor with at least one of our managers because every single other manager knows what she’s all about. Of course, we can’t accept gifts at our store, as it is legally and ethically wrong, so my manager returned it after she left. I’ll show you legal precedent…

Customer Type: Big Baby, The Capitalist, The Complainer, Micromanagement, Tattle Tale

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

That’s Nice to Know, You Must Be Very Proud of Yourself.

I must try to contain myself as I write this, since today was one of those customers that make me question why I’m still in retail and why I put up with people, who in all truth, I would go up to and tell them what’s what. I’m not someone who would whisper to a friend, “Wow, she’s being awfully rude, don’t you think?” I point, and exclaim so others can see, since that’s what rude people want, right? An audience? I say, “You are being really rude.” There are people, like today, that make me want to be able to just quit, and do what I really need to do–put them in their place.

So this old, white woman asks me for capri-pants, the kind that go to your knee. As a fashion person, that description is… Do you know? Bermuda shorts. Those are longer shorts, that usually end around the knee. So I showed them to her, and she glared at me, “No, that’s not it!” As I try to explain what she asked for, she moves me aside saying, “Nevermind, I’ll ask her.” One, I hate gender discrimination, I don’t care how old you are, you learn to live with the times. The fact society moves in such slow periods is the fault of people like this, those people who ‘liked the old days better’. They have villages for you people who want to live your own way, capturing moments in time, but then, there sometimes they smother you with a pillow. Second, as I turned, I prayed, I prayed on Easter Sunday, that this woman wasn’t heading towards the only white female working on the sales-floor–because we have a diverse and multi-ethnic staff, and we live in a culture that is equally diverse and complex. Of course it was the white girl, and that makes it gender and racial discrimination.

So she walks to the girl, who is obviously busy helping other customers, and doing stock checks. I tell her, this girl knows panties and bras–without her turning to look at me, I get the response, “That’s nice.” I tell her, “I am the person that puts out the merchandise here.” And she turns to me, and says in the most sarcastic, sardonic, and rude tone, “That’s NICE to know, you must be VERY PROUD of yourself.” Then turns away again. Anything I say from that point is met with a, “That’s nice.” I hear her telling the girl as I walked away, “I used to shop at the old store before it closed…” With customers like you, it’s quite obvious why it shut down.

I have been dismissed. So I tell the girl, and everyone on the walkie-talkie, “If that woman needs any help, I have suddenly forgotten everything I know.” I was also so irritated, I was shaking, so I went into the back to breathe. But it didn’t help. I couldn’t work in that part of the store, so they switched me for over an hour. After which, the girl comes to me saying, “What was up with that woman? She was crazy, and she was a real b—-.” She went on to explain how the woman kept asking for things that don’t exist, like shorts that are tight at the top and wide at the bottom, know the name? I’m done handing out clothing titles for today.

This is the sort of person, I see as holding society back–making it backwards. The fact she has lived this long without someone correcting her–if I did not work there and I witnessed that, you can be sure I would have corrected her–this is more than the fault of her parents raising her incorrectly, unintelligibly, and narrow-minded, but also society for allowing her to grow and mature and be a ‘human being’.

My recent visit to New York showed me that I have been slightly naive in dealing with rude people. Some people are smart enough to know they’re rude. I consciously know when I am being rude, so don’t think it’s a mistake when I am. Nor am I that much of a buffoon to try ‘acting’ like it was a mistake when it wasn’t. Yet, it is a conscious choice. We make a choice, like in those awful Armageddon movies where the world is ending so we ‘unite together’. We know we can. We could do it this very day, this very moment, uniting as a civilization, but we don’t. We don’t see a reason to. And as much as we can act ignorant to this fact, we know we make that choice to be rude, stubborn, irresponsible, ignorant, and ungrateful as human beings. Each time we do it, we know we are in effect creating, prolonging, and nurturing the unevolved world and society that we live in. Each person we allow, each friend and family we allow to continue being this malevolent human being, is another candle that needs to me smothered so that one day, we can be a true and real world of human beings.

Customer Types: The Deaf, The Dumb, FashioNOTsta, Guessing Game, Lowered Expectations, Micromanagement, Modern Slave-Owner, The Racist, Sexual Discriminator, Tailor-Made