The Self-Esteem of Babies

I never liked having other people take care of me. I learned to cook as soon as I could. I learned to do my own laundry. I learned to keep order in my own life. I grew up as an individual, in the sense that I had a certain pride for myself and my own well being. I liked knowing I could rely on myself for my own needs. I don’t need someone else washing my dishes or putting away my clothes, I’ll do it if I want and when I want. There is the saying, we are taken care of as babies, then before we die, we are taken care of again–because at the start and ending of our lives, we just can’t do it, we can’t take care of ourselves.

As a person working in retail, there are certain levels, limits to which I can understand customers, and then areas where it’s like they’re babies and I’m wiping their buttock after they take a poop. I can think of the mother and daughter who came out of their fitting room, looked at me, then looked at each other, and then started to laugh. As they walked away, I looked into the fitting room and they left all their clothes on the floor, and all the hangers in disarray. Obviously, they had some intent in their actions, perhaps thinking, “Well he’s paid to clean it up, isn’t he?” There are the endless customers who leave destruction in their wake, not even knowing how to lift a stack of clothes to grab the size they need–far easier to just yank that extra-large out of the bottom of the pile, right? Someone here is going to clean it up, right? Someone has to. Do we have the same ideas when we litter or pollute? Someone else will clean up this mess. It would seem many people do believe this ideal.

I possess something which seems utterly rare, it’s called self-esteem, it’s called self-pride. I have a sense of well-being about myself. I don’t see myself as a slob, although I admit I can be lazy, but I see no reason to be a slob in public. I don’t litter and throw my rubbish around idly. I don’t even throw away my recyclables if I know I can take it elsewhere. I especially have no need littering in retail establishments, destroying their folded piles and leaving waste in my wake. I always take my own clothes back, fold my shirts as nicely as I found it, and to the surprise of salespeople, I refuse to let them put anything away.

I don’t need slaves. Even if I were rich, I’d be working alongside people doing work. I see no purpose in making people do things I can do. It would hurt my own self-esteem feeling that someone else has to clean up after me. I would feel like I were some big baby if I couldn’t even do something as simple as keeping order and balance. It would be comparable to soiling my underwear and having someone clean my butt. Of course, I alluded to that metaphor already, didn’t I?

Somewhere in the mind and mentality of humans there is a need or want to be treated as a child, or have someone slave over them. Some people call it pampering, which often comes with a certain price-tag. There are other poorer people who seem to believe the cost of money is beyond the cost of being human. The point where you start acting like a child–whining to get what you want, consciously leaving a trail of disaster behind you, and believing, truly believing the customer is always right–you have issues which really need to be addressed, especially if we want to have an evolved society one day. For other people who dream of having someone slave for them, I probably have no words to express my feelings. Desperate, ridiculous, and humiliating come to mind, and this is me comparing you to the word ‘human being’.

I could pray and wish for a world where people are raised with a sense of awareness. Where people are proud to do their own work, to bring as much balance and peace to the world as possible, people who would strive to find equality between human beings. Until then, I’ll be content cleaning up your mess, because obviously you lack the self-esteem, awareness, and respect to do it yourself. I assume you’ll return to diapers as soon as possible, too.

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Justifying Obesity

“This is the United States, why the hell don’t stores carry larger sizes?”

My customer goes on a tirade, yelling about the fact we do not carry his size 40, and beyond–I also assume other stores in the mall also do not carry his size. He’s so upset while ranting about the size of American people and the fact obesity is so rampant and thus stores should cater to them, his wife is patting his shoulder calming him down. After justifying his obesity for the store, and venting his frustrations at me, even though I honestly tried to help him find is size in black slacks, he throws his clothes down and walks out of the store. Now, I felt about compassionate for him, though not as much as I do for short people whom cannot even fit our shortest clothes and must either hem everything shop in the children’s section nor people whom have extra large thighs or calves or rear-ends, for these are often genetic in origin. Some obesity is genetic, we know as a country, especially the United States of America, this argument only goes so far because many of us were raised on fat and grease, fast-food, unhealthy eating, and growing up with the worst habits possible because of our wealthy spoiled social self-beliefs. Shall I include smoking, too?

In a country where ‘super-size me’ is an epidemic being curbed, you’d wonder if society is being helped out by making it harder to acquire the largest sizes; where extremely heavy-set individuals must pay for two plane seats to ride, if they do indeed take up two seats; even the ideal of having a super-heavy duty-sized car comes with additional taxes and prices just because of their sheer size, which is obviously a detraction, but still worth noting. I don’t often hear an argument from large people who fly on planes saying, “I only wear size 44-pants and XXXL shirts, I can only fit so much in a suitcase, obviously you shouldn’t charge me for extra luggage, because this is a vacation I’m going on I need a minimum amount of clothes and it won’t fit in one suitcase!”

Honestly, when I first started working in retail the topic of size came up, and the cost of clothing. I did argue that larger sizes should cost me, of course I was surrounded by much larger coworkers whom were upset with my remark, and of course took this in the most illogical way possible, commenting how fat people are already ostracized and discriminated against–as if gay people, and straight men aren’t discriminated and prejudiced in the fashion world as well? How many times do I have to act more girly just to make a woman believe what I’m telling her? Or how many times I’ve been passed up by a customer so they can ask a sloppy dressed new-girl her opinion just because she lacks a penis?

Either way, let us say you walk into a fabric store and you find a roll of fabric you love for $5. You find another roll of the exact same fabric, yet lo-and-behold, you can get two yards for the same price! Would this make sense to you? Would you pay for one-yard of fabric for $5, if you can get two-yards of the same fabric for $5? If you pick the first option, I really need to find something to sell you. Obviously, you’d want more fabric for the same cost. When I’m shopping for denim fabric in the sale section, do you think I’m going to buy the smallest sizes available? Not when I can purchase the largest size and get twice as much fabric for the same cost. You know, some companies are catching onto this, they may call it shrink, but they will charge more if you request larger sizes, because realistically it costs more for more fabric. Hopefully they charge less for the smaller sizes, too. They don’t offer a ‘super-size’ for free (unless it’s a special deal) and they definitely won’t charge you the same price for the kid’s meal. Why? Because of economics.

Also economically speaking, if we consider medium to be the median or middle-size, and this size was chosen as the average size of most human beings in the region–thus American and European sizing is different (I hope you already knew this). Depending on the market in the surrounding area, medium should be the first size to run out–small and large should be secondary, and thus extra-small and extra-large would be the hardest to sell. Time-and-again I used to have extra-extra-large customers come in and raid the sale section, amazed at all the deals they could find–because no one was buying them, because so few customers came in looking for it. Economically speaking, to remain profitable I would make the extraneous sizes harder to acquire. Yet, the sizes are still available online for purchase, which today’s customer didn’t find comforting.

Returning to the subject at hand, justifying obesity, defending obesity, sometimes society does things which I personally acknowledge. The movement away from the popularity of smoking for example, wonderful. The social outcry to environmentally friendly, astounding. The American movement to stop being the most overweight country, to bring health and consciousness back into our lives, and trying to break through the hurdles of self-created weakness and lack of accountability with one’s personal well-being and social inadequacies, especially on a world-class scale, I approve. Just as much as customers need to learn how to treat other people like human beings, they also need to break through other beliefs they grew up with and stop using them as crutches. Some of the most brilliant people emerged from the poorest regions of the world. It is not because they allowed the world they were born into to control them, it is because they capture their own self-worth and belief to take them where they wanted to be.

 

Son of a B!!!

I find myself on register duty again. It’s definitely not one of the good days, as people have been extra rude and complaining to the managers about confusing promotions, to which I only think, “See, even when you’re fifty-years-old you can act like a baby.” Either way, a woman approaches the register with an older shirt, it’s already on clearance, and she has a gift receipt. Her husband stands next to her, quietly, subservient to her will.

“I want to return this. I can just get a gift car, right?”
“Yes.” I look at the receipt, and it’s old; months old. Thankfully, it also states in the fine-print the date the receipt is no longer valid–a month ago. So I scan it, and I ask if she still wants the gift card. The total is less-than five-dollars. Closer to four-dollars and eighteen-cents.
“That’s all it’s worth!?”
“Yes, it’s past the return date. So it goes to the current selling price.”
“But I have a gift receipt!”
I point at the date listed at the bottom, “It expired a while ago.”
“Well I’m taking it back!” And she grabs everything violently, and walks away.

Before she can even take five steps, she stops and yells, “SON OF A BITCH!!!” Her face is blood red, and her husband has to rub her back calming her down. I hear her complaining about the return policy, and yelling, “I guess I’m not getting my denim today!” It’s a long-sleeved T-shirt you were returning, it’s not even worth one-third a pair of denim at full-price. She continues yelling as she leaves the store. Surely, someone should have given her a gift of stress-management courses or meditation classes by now. I mean, life must be a huge wad of sorrow and pain for her.

The next customer looks over at the woman casually, then looks at me, smiling, “Well she’s pleasant, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is,” I laugh as I start to scan the clothes to purchase.

Customer Types: Big Baby, Don’t Kill the Messenger

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

Find it, Find it!

I’m walking around, minding my own business; I’m also working, which means my business is dealing with customers.
“Excuse me,” a woman comes up behind me.
I greet her, and she says she’s interested in this shirt she saw. I walk with her to find the shirt, which is now on sale. She’s excited, asking me to please find it, because she wants it very badly. I search through our sale wall, but I find nothing. Nothing is in her size, and the mannequin is wearing a shirt too large. She asks me to check in the back, because she wants it really badly. If I need to, she also wants me to call other stores, just in case. She has to have it!
I search in the back, and there it is, hiding. I bring it back to her, triumphant. She cheers and claps. She’s so happy to have the shirt. She looks at it, finally holding the shirt we’ve been looking for. She looks at the price-tag and looks at me. How much is it?

I go to the register and scan the price. It’s about $30, and I tell her this.
She looks at me, looks at the shirt, then pushes it at me.
“Nevermind, I don’t want it.” Then, she leaves.

If I were a knight errand slaying a dragon for my princess, only to be rejected after I succeed in this titanic endeavor, I think I’d go princess slaying instead.

Customer Types: Capitalist, Micromanagement

Not Sale

One day, during a major Holiday sale. We were overwhelmed by the sheer number of sale-mongers that came out of their anti-social chamber-caves to shop. The entire store was turned upside-down, shook around, and left a disaster. I work quickly and efficiently to try and maintain order; I consider it a game. Can I put clothes out faster than customers can try it on and destroy it? On days like this, I have no chance.

So I’m holding a large pile of folded clothes, and I have to put some away. The only open space is this huge table which was once full of clothes, which are now in nasty piles, falling on the floor. I place the pile down quickly, assuming I have about five seconds time to put the sale items on this table; the rest of the clothes is full-priced waiting for relatively untouched homes.

Immediately, two or three hands reach out and start to fumble through my beautifully folded pile. I yell, “There aren’t sale items, they are full-priced!” In a matter of moments, the hands disappear, the clothes falls back down, and the monsters disappear, looking for weaker, cheaper prey to devour. Moments like these teach you something about sale-mongers, and how to control them better.

Customer Types: Capitalist, Lowered Expectations, Piggies

$9.99 Markdown

I am rather protective of the tools we use for marking down products. In general, I have no reason to be, since as much as I’ve heard rumors of people peeling off stickers putting them on other items, only to say the item was ‘found like this, marked down like this’, I have only seen this happen once. There are times I can bend the rules to my advantage, so people can’t abuse a situation. Yet, they are also times, where the customer wins by bending the rules. I just don’t like when they win, and we both know they shouldn’t have.

I’m at the register and a customer brings me, literally, a heap of about eight different items–t-shirts, tops, pants, and even denim. She starts off by saying, “These prices are unbelievable! Is this the right price?” She shows me one item, it’s marked $9.99. I scan it, and it is actually $14.99. I tell her I must honor the price on the item, but I make sure to look at the item, so I know to check later if they are all marked incorrectly. She hands another, asking if the price is right. Yet again, $9.99, this time the price discrepancy is $19.99. I tell her she’s found quite the bargains, and that someone is going to get in trouble for marking these items wrong (and amazingly, all in her size). The irony begins to take a toll by the time she hands me the next item, a pant, marked–wait for it–$9.99. This time, the price difference is more than $20, and I stand and look at her. She has a hard time looking at me, and says, “If these are marked wrong, I will pay the right price, I don’t mind. I just thought you would give it to me for the price marked. But if that is wrong, then I will pay the regular price.”

There are scenes in movies and television shows where the antagonist tries too hard to be flexible, willing to help, and open in their crime that they make themselves stand out even more. I only make comments about how amazing it is that she, and she alone, found all the same sizes of both tops and bottoms all at the same price. Because, each of her items were marked $9.99. So either she’s very lucky, or a greedy idiot who only realized her mistake marking everything the same once she got to the register. But as I said, there are certain rules I cannot break–if an item is marked wrong, we must honor that price.

So I complete the transaction, overriding all the prices, giving her a savings of nearly $100. My gaze upon her is strong, and without humor, as she keeps saying she found them like this, she was amazed they were such a good deal, and how she’d be willing to pay the regular price. I tell her she’s done a good job, and let her leave with her ‘savings’. I search every single item she bought, making sure to check every single tag, and not one, not one of them was marked incorrectly at $9.99. Somewhere, somehow, she must have gotten her hands on a price gun and marked everything wrong. Ever since then, I’ve taken it seriously when I put down a price gun, because you never know when some greedy moron will mark everything $9.99. These days, if someone tried that, I’d definitely make a big scene about it, it’s just too bad I don’t have a coworker that can cry on cue and make it seem like she’s going to lose her job because of these petty thieves. I doubt it would affect them much, but at least once in a while they should face the people who have to pay for the price of their stealing.

Customer Type: Agreeing to Disagree, Capitalist, The Liar, Rhetorical

I See It’s On Sale

I’m standing near a table folding, and a woman comes up to me asking, “Everything here, it’s on sale, right?”

Usually such a question is rhetorical, but here she points at a sign on a bench, then waves at a table near it. (Just so you can understand, there is a larger table where the main product is placed, and then there are lower benches near or around the table–like satellites, or moons around a planet.) One bench has a sale sign, and it’s half-hidden by the higher, larger table–so all you can see is the top of the sign, which says, “Sale”. You can see 3/4ths of the word.

I try to tell her the bench is on sale, but the table is not, otherwise a sign would be on the bench and the table. I show her what I mean by placing the sign on the table (which also says, “Sale, Select items”), saying, “This would mean the table is on sale.” Then I put it back down on the bench and say, “This means the bench is on sale. And it says select items anyway.” She keeps arguing with me, saying, “But I can see the sale sign from here! I can see the sale sign from here, that means everything is on sale.”

First, while her jaw is going ‘blah-blah-blah’, I’m thinking, “Okay, the sign is a little big, but it isn’t even on the same table. Well, actually, it’s been there for a while now, and she’s the first person to get confused in over a week, making problems, and getting weird about it. You know, some people live their lives causing this kind of trouble for themselves. They just create stupidity.”

Then, I’m thinking, “If a wall nearby says sale, it doesn’t mean everything in the area is on sale. You can’t point and say, ‘Well I can see the sale sign, that means everything is on sale.’ Who says that, other than this woman? Even when a window says sale, it doesn’t mean everything in the store is on sale.” We’re just arguing semantics, and a customer’s ability to demand stupidity. I tell her everything on top of the table is going to ring up full-price, because it is full-price, but the sale items on the bench, they’ll ring up on sale. It’s not like I can change that fact.

Yet, she goes on about being able to see the sale sign; that it’s misleading marketing; that I was trying to trick her into buying something that’s not even on sale; that now she doesn’t want to buy anything at all. I’m sorry, you caught me in my dirty tricks; I wanted you to take something to the register and think its on sale, as if you would not whine and cry when you get there saying, “I can see the sign!” I am left to assume such threats and insults work to scare someone into changing their mind, saying everything is on sale? I just shrug and say, “Okay, but if you change your mind all this stuff on the back bench is REALLY cheap.”

I remember telling my boss about the dumb, fat woman, saying she’s a size-12 and she wanted a new pair of denim on sale, because she could see the top of a sign nearby. My manager replies, “She’s not that fat!”
“Well, because she’s so dumb,” I tell her, “That makes her fat-ter.”

Customer Types: Big Baby, The Blind, Capitalist, Don’t Kill the Messenger, The Dumb

Memorial Day, Yay?

I don’t know what Memorial Day or any other holiday is to customers, but it is one of those special days where people come out acting more rude, demanding, and disgraceful as human beings. Or maybe holidays are the few times those lower-end humans come out of their caves and interact with society, defining their severe lack of social skills as they decide to go shopping, and act like total assholes while there. Then they hobble back to their caves, and go back where they belong, away from other human beings. Yay for Holidays meant to honor humanity, pride, and respect! We give great honor for things people fought for by acting like pricks. Congratulations.

Trouble This Way Comes

One of our customers who shops often is walking toward me. If I had ESP, an alarm in my head would go off whenever I see her. Instead, I automatically feel irritated, especially since I’m trapped at the cash registers. She has a bag of returns, of course. She also has a pile of clothes she wants to buy.

“I want to return these bras, they didn’t fit. I took off the tags, but there in here somewhere.” She dumps the contents on the counter. There is a black and a white bra, rolled up and twisted. I can already see her hair is clinging to the black bra. I already know I need to write damage tags on these, after I wash my hands. She doesn’t let go of the receipt when she hands them to me, because she also bought shorts, and now they are on promotion, so she wants a price adjustment for them. In addition, she wants to get all these new shorts, too.

Since she was making the transaction complicated, I decided to just split it. So I tell her, I’ll return the bras first. So I quickly scan them in, grab the bundle with the tips of my fingers–as I don’t want to rub my hands against the inside of those cups. Believe me, if you were standing there looking at her, you wouldn’t want to either. I print out a receipt for the return, and start on the shorts.

I scan it, and they are over-the-deadline. She normally can’t return them and obviously it’s too late for any price-adjustments, but I tell her I’ll pretend she’s returning them and buying back new ones.

“But I don’t have them to return.”
“It’s okay, I have the receipt, I can do it for you as an exception this time. I’m trying to help you out.” In reality, I just want to get rid of her as fast as possible. Truly, she doesn’t have the items, yet I can still use the numbers on the receipt to allow her to return them and buy them back with the new price.
“I can’t just get a price adjustment?”
“I said it’s over the deadline, the computer won’t allow it. I’m doing what I can to give you some money back.”
“Okay, do what you have to.”

So I find the shorts on the list and return it manually, then buy it back.

“What’s this, what are you doing?”
“I am returning them, and buying them back so you get the difference.”
“I don’t understand, but whatever.”
This time, I say okay. I’m losing patience with her stupidity and mix of arrogance and rudeness, when I’m already doing what I’m not supposed to–just to get rid of her.
“I have more items that you can return on that receipt that are cheaper now.”
I sigh loudly, and say, “Okay fine.” Now, she’s pushing my buttons.
“I’m just being greedy now,” she laughs.
“Yes, you are,” I tell her flatly, and give her a look of distaste.

Once I work those out, she asks about the bras, and I tell her I already returned them, and credited it back to her card.

“No!” She yells at me, “I wanted to use them towards this purchase! I don’t want it returned on my card!”

I stand and stare at her for a moment. I see a line of customers staring at us, because I’ve been working on this ridiculous transaction for so long, for Ms. Greedy–I hope there is no Mr. Greedy, because he’d have to be pretty stupid to marry her. So I ask for back-up at the register. I go to try to cancel her transaction, but the computer won’t allow me. So I have to ask for a manager to come, which takes a minute. I tell her a manager is coming to cancel the bra returns.

“I don’t understand. What are you doing?” Why do you understand nothing, woman? How have you survived in this world for so long?

“The manager needs to cancel it, then you can use the bras you’re returning to pay for these,” I point at her shorts. She looks at her watch, and sighs. I start to scan in the new shorts that she’s buying, while she keeps asking what I’m doing. I’m really too tired to keep explaining the same thing over and again. Who pays her bills? Definitely not her, she wouldn’t even understand what a bill is. She says this is so complicated–actually, it wasn’t complicated until you made it complicated, woman. The manager arrives, cancels the transaction, and we start at the very beginning. I return the bras and the shorts she does not have, I give her the price adjustments, and hit total. She keeps saying how it’s all so confusing, and I just make my blank face and pretend I can’t hear her. It would have been simple, if you weren’t so stupid.

So she pulls out her credit card, and pays for it using the same card which had been credited by the bras–the same money is going the same way. Now, she’s really pushing the edge of stupidity. Now, what I don’t understand is the difference between returning the bras and getting credit back on her credit card, and then buying the shorts. How is that different from returning the bras and using the credit to make the shorts cheaper–because it’s the same total at the end. It all goes back and comes from the same bank account.

This is one time, I’d need to use some thoughtful input, because none of my coworkers saw the difference, other than making things complicating, which customers are utterly good at.

Customer Types: Agreeing to Disagree, Capitalist, The Complainer, The Dumb, ESP, Guessing Game, Lowered Expectations, Micromanagement