Stealing is stealing. I’m sorry. Yet, some boldfaced people use legitimacy, and some lying, to bend the rules and steal in wholly different ways. As many people know, I don’t like cashiering because I believe cashiers only work to take money away from the store–in the form of discounts–and do not do much to add to the sales, or amount people buy. They are like used-car salesmen trying to sell people what they didn’t know they needed–discounts and credit cards.
A customer comes up, she’s a regular, and up until now, I always thought she was a reasonable shopper. In recent days, I’ve been trapped as a cashier against my will, because people aren’t available to work. She comes up with a leather bag. This is the same leather bag she bought only seven days ago with a huge discount coupon. How do I know? Because I sold her this expensive item thinking, “Wow, she spends money easily.” Well I was wrong.
She was returning the bag, saying she lost the receipt. I looked at her skeptically. I told her we can look up the transaction with the credit card we used, because I was the cashier who helped her and gave her the discount. I told her we needed to be fair. She couldn’t remember what credit card she used. I remembered. This, I pulled up the transaction, and she had saved over fifty-dollars ($50).
What she had ‘attempted’ to do was return the item without a receipt, hoping to get a merchandise credit for the full amount, since the item was still new. She was trying to cheat the system by saying she lost the receipt with the discount, just so she could get $50 more to spend. This, my friends, is a liar and a thief. She just doesn’t think she is. The worse part, if she runs into a novice or unaware cashier, they would have given her the merchandise credit, and she could just say, “The cashier did it, I didn’t do anything wrong!” I also hear she comes in trying this scam all the time. In this case, a cashier did save money for the store. No discounts for you lady, sell crazy someplace else!
A man comes up to me with two leather belts, and his wife is standing behind him.
“I want a larger belt. This is extra small and this is small, but they are too small. I need a larger size.”
“Okay.” I take one of the belts to go check in the back, and I turn to walk away.
“Wait!” He yells at me. As I turn around, he starts to talk angrily, “Do you understand me? Do you know what I’m talking about? I want a larger size, these are too small! I want it bigger!”
“Yes,” I reply. While inside, I say, “What the hell is your problem, you dumb-ass. What else can you mean by larger size? You want one that’s a foot-wide so you can cover your face? You want me to come back with a giant square of leather that you can wrap around your waist and use it like a skirt? What the hell. Maybe I should look for a giant brick of leather so your wife can wear it around her hips like an accessory. I could even come back with a real cow, asking if this is enough leather. I don’t even understand what else you could even mean when you show me an extra small and a small, then say you need a larger size. You sir, are a moron.”
So I go to the back, and I actually do look for something large and leather, like a bag, so I can come back out and say, “Uh, here you go, durr, this is larger than a belt. Um, this bag, good. This you want, sir? Be good for you. I see leather smell cow inside me toes.” *licks elbows*
Sadly, we have nothing amusing, not even a belt.
I tell him we don’t have a larger size.
“So you don’t have a larger size?”
I wanted to turn around and yell, “Wait! Do you understand me? Do you know what I’m talking about?” Because obviously, we aren’t speaking English.
Customer types: The Dumb, Micromanagement, The Questioner
So a Korean customer is standing there, trying to ask me about sales. We have discounts and sales on sweaters throughout the store.
“So all the sweaters are on sale, right?”
“Yes.” We go through cardigans, turtle-necks, and all types of sweaters. And I assure him, all sweaters are on sale.
He points at a leather jacket behind him, “So that’s on sale, too, right?”
I stand there for a moment. I don’t know what to think. I just say, “Between you and me, we both know a leather jacket is not a sweater.”
We stand there and look at each other for a while. I don’t really know what else to say.
—–
This reminds me of a story from a coworker a week before. Another group of Korean customers were in the store, and we had a similar sale on sweaters. We tell them the sweaters are on sale, and one of the men asks, “So these are on sale?” And he points at a wall of shoes.
“No, all sweaters are on sale.”
The man turns to a wall of scarves, “Oh, so those are on sale.”
“No, sweaters, those are scarves.”
I eventually find out the man speaks perfect English, so I have no idea why he is acting like he doesn’t understand anything we’re saying. Oddly, he also has issues with leather jackets. He approaches me with a leather jacket, because we have that amazing additional 40%-off sale items. (I really don’t like huge sales, it brings in the best and brightest.) He asks if this is on sale, and I look, and the item is marked down, so I tell him it is 40% off of $150. Then he says, “How much is that?” By now, I’m really just tired of how much his brain is on vacation, or how much he wants to look like he doesn’t know anything. I ask him if he really can’t do the math…
Internally, I think: It would be, for slower people, 40% of $100 is $40. 40% of $50 would then be $20 (because $50 is half of $100). Are you still following?
I tell him, “It’s $60 off.”
And he suddenly collects his wits, and says, “Yes, you’re right.” Gosh, really? I am? At least I don’t mistake shoes and scarves for sweaters.
Customer Type: The Deaf, The Dumb, Learn the Language
A customer comes to the register, she’s already sassy, sarcastic and rude–which is a promising sign, right?
She throws a leather jacket on the counter, smirking. “How much does this cost?”
I grab the tag and show her.
“Oh, it’s right there? So expensive, is this even real leather? It doesn’t feel real.” She examines the jacket while making more comments. “I’m sure you don’t know, but is this available online? Can you find out for me?”
“What size?”
“A small.”
“Yes, it is available.”
“Oh, you can see that? Really now? Can you see other stores, too?”
“Yes.”
“Since you don’t have a size small in this store, I want my daughter to go to the store near her to try it on. But I don’t want her to waste her time going all the way to the store if it isn’t even there.”
“It says we might have small in our store, I can go and check in the back.”
“Oh? You can do that for me? Be a dear.”
So I leave, and let my co-worker deal with finding the other store.
I find the jacket and my co-worker rushes by me. I find out she wants to know about a store in Corte Madera, California–but our system is unable to search that far without direct information or a direct number to locate it. He’s a bit upset by how she was speaking to him–wondering why he can’t find the store–yet, no one has even heard of that part of California, or knew a store even existed there. While he searches, I go out to give her the jacket.
“This looks like the right size. Did you find out if Corte Madera has one, too?”
“I haven’t even heard of Corte Madera.”
“Honey, your store should let you leave the island, and visit California once in a while, then you’ll know a little more.”
My jaw drops. For her knowledge, I spent several years there, I just never visited the crack of land known of Corte Madera.
Customer Type: Capitalist, Micromanagement, Modern Slave-Owner
Memoirs of a Retail Salesperson 