Negative Nancy

We are all familiar with this sort of person. They speak negatively, pessimistically about everything, and approach situations from a position of doubt, disbelief, or any of the many emotions which make others feel down.

“Excuse me, I don’t want to be a pain, but can you help me with these pants, I can’t understand a thing.”
So I go to her, and I explain the sizing. She seems to be under the impression the larger the size, the longer they are, and I point to the length indicator, telling her each pant is the same length.
We go to look at our denim. And again, she remarks on how the larger sizes are going to be longer than the smaller sizes. And again, I remind her, there are clear indicators saying the length on each pant, so the smallest and the largest are the same length. She waves me off in disbelief, saying they are longer. Perhaps it would help if you grabbed the correct sizes, Nancy? I should have grabbed a super-long small, and a super-short large size, and said, “Oh, this is a defect, we should take this away. No slim people are this tall.” At least not in her reality.

All during this time, she keeps yelling her daughter’s name, we’ll say it’s, “Margaret.” Her daughter has remained in the same spot the entire time I’m helping her, mind you.
“I don’t understand the sizing of these.”
“Well, the first number…”
“Excuse me, Margaret! Oh, please continue.”
“The first number is the waist size, and the second is the length.”
“Margaret! Come here. But the larger sizes are longer, I don’t see the point in putting lengths, it serves no purpose.”
“Each sizes has different lengths…”
“Margaret! Stay close to mommy!” Then she turns to me and say, “We’re visiting from Japan, and over there you don’t need to worry. Now, we’re in the United States, so someone could just come up and snatch her away when I’m not looking. It’s not as safe here, I always need to keep an eye on her. Margaret! Or else, someone will just come and steal her.”
I laugh, and I tell her it’s generally safe.
“Maybe because you live on an island. Margaret!”
So I decide to take her to a fitting room.

A few minutes later, I ask how she’s doing.
“I hate everything! But it’s not your fault, so don’t worry.”
I’m not. I’m more worried how your child will grow up, since you’re a strange Caucasian woman from Japan.

Customer Type: The Deaf, The Racist, The Rambler

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Trying Hard to Be Mad

I’m folding, while nearby an angry, red-faced wife is trying to control her young son and daughter, who are jumping around, yelling and screaming. Her husband and mother (or mother-in-law) comes up to her saying what great deals they just got.
The husband comes up showing her a bag full of clothes, “Wow, honey, we had such a great deal!” He lifts up his son, and the daughter runs to the grandmother.
“Well, how much did you spend?” The wife asks flatly, unimpressed.
“It was under $40 for the whole lot,” the older woman replies.
The wife looks perturbed, “Well what did you get?”
“Those shirts we showed you, they were only five bucks! We got several of them in all.”
“Yeah, it was unbelievable, you have to check it out!” He tries to point out some clothes to her.
She sighs, asking angrily, “Did you even get a good color? You didn’t get a good color, did you?”
He shows her some of the colors. She looks at them and just shakes her head.
Again, unimpressed, she says, “They didn’t even have black or gray in your size?”
“Yes, they did,” he pulls them out to show her, “All of them were under $5.”
She rolls her eyes, “Oh, whatever, let’s just go.”
The husband tries to show her some of the good deals, and she turns around leaving the store.
“Honey! Where are you going?”
“We’re leaving, now!”

Gosh, she’s so lovable, I can see why he fell for her.

Customer Types: Big Baby, Guessing Game, Lowered Expectations, Unapologetic

The Old Man and the Bag

Chapter One.

He was an old man who wandered alone in his flip-flops through the mall I work and he had in his pocket eighty-four dollars and seventy-nine cents always without buying anything new. In the first forty days he bought and returned the same bag over and over again. But after forty days we were without his bag, and my managers had told me that the old man was now definitely and finally crazy, which he showed by yelling at me, yelling at himself, and I had called the managers to deal with him, because his bag was gone, and he was mad. I had seen the old man come in each day to buy a bag then return it, saying he’d come back and buy it later and I always had some naive coworkers help him, listen to him rambling about his son and daughter, who probably do not exist, while holding onto the bag he’d buy and return, then buy and return again. His clothes dirty, aged and wrinkled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.

The old man was thin and Asian with deep wrinkles on his forehead, which creased whenever he spoke. While yelling at himself, he once left his clothes and Walkman in our tables, and then went away, forgetting he even did so. We returned it to him when he came back again. He came today, asking for his bag, but it was not there. We had finally sold them all. He yelled at me, telling me to prove they were all gone, to show him there were no more. Is this an oxymoron? He would not stop yelling. I ruined his habit, his daily routine which made him feel safe, for he is a crazy man that I once pitied and humored for his loneliness. Yet, I despise being yelled at and threw him to a manager instead. From now on, I will not be helping him anymore.

It’s All Your Fault, Mommy!

I am on the sales floor and there is a mother with a stroller and her daughter is walking nearby. Inside the stroller, the woman has her large son sitting up–and he’s far too large to even be in a stroller at this point, so I assume she’s training him for a life of laziness. Her large son decides to lay back–I guess she had too many bags (probably five or six) hanging from the handles–he shifted all the weight to the back, so the stroller fell backwards. He hits the floor and a lot of screaming and crying ensues. The mother struggles to lift the stroller while trying to get her son to stop crying. As all of this is happening, the woman’s daughter (3-4 years old) points and screams at her mother, “It’s your fault, mommy! It’s all your fault!!!” This continues for several minutes. Screaming, crying, and “It’s all your fault mommy!”

Now this is a moment to remember.