Its in the Crotch.

I was walking around greeting and helping customers, when a woman comes up to me with a tone of anger.

“Excuse me, do you work here?”
“Yes, I do, did you need help?”
“These pants over here, I can’t find the sizes. There are no labels.”
I look at the wall of pants, and their hung to hide the labels, which merchandising thinks is ugly. So the sizes are on the back of each pant on the waistband. This is what I show her.
“Why did you do that?” Yes, I did it. I also created economic slow down on my vacation. “How are we supposed to find the size? Where is it again?”
Um, I just showed you, it’s in the back of the pants, I think to myself.
“I still can’t find the size.” She lifts up the leg and looks into the crotch of the pant.
“I”m sorry, the size isn’t on the crotch. I just showed you it’s on the back of the pant, here.”
“Oh. Well I want that blue one in a size zero! Fine me one!”
Lo-and-behold, on the very top of the pile is a zero. Not only this, but it was turned around backwards by another customer with the zero blazing like a rising sun. “It’s here, on the top,” I point at the size, “It says size zero.”
“Oh. Okay.” Then she walks away.

I’m so thankful I have to deal with people whose only purpose in interacting with me is to complain about something they don’t even want and aren’t even interested in trying on or buying. Thank you so much. Really, is this why you exist as a customer? Because if this is the reason, and she wasn’t a young woman who hasn’t learned manners and grace, she was an older woman with some sort of wisdom built into her bones. Why do you not learn as human beings to treat other people with some level of respect? This isn’t something you can blame on anyone else, not society, not your parents, but only on yourself–to take responsibility for who you are, and how you act.

Customer Type: Micromanagement, The Riddler

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Shoplifter: The New Kids

“Folded clothes will eventually be touched;
But buying customers are here right now.”

I might have been schooled today by young shoplifters who unknowingly played the stealing game better than I. For one, we’re having a big visit tomorrow, so many people were spending time folding–yet, as big managers have said before, “I don’t care if the store looks like a tornado hit, if there are customers, and you make money, I’m happy.” Who cares if you folded the entire store beautifully, if you spent the entire day ignoring customers? Seriously, I was working my butt off today, trying to make money–our store has been having trouble, people have been losing hours, and yet the people who could be helping coworkers earn more hours are just standing around folding.

This struck a huge chord once I realized there were shoplifters. One of the new coworkers later said, “Oh, I said hi to them.” AND? No announcement of their arrival? Not a care to keep an eye on them and treat them like customers? Shoplifters and thieves have a hard time stealing if there is actual customer service going on around them. I was amazed when I saw them casually walking in the back of the store with their bags full and they were smiling and having fun. Why? Because no one was around them, at all. I rushed by, because I was helping several customers at one time, and said on the walkie-talkie, “THERE ARE SHOPLIFTERS IN THE STORE! They are obviously enjoying themselves, because their bags are full!” Everyone else sprung to action, because they saw who I saw, and instantly recognized them as shoplifters. As I’ve said, it’s sad when shoplifters look like shoplifters. Even worse, there were four of them!

I tried to finish with my customers, but I was burdened with too many, while trying to keep an eye on these shoplifters–even though I’m not trained to deal with them, I’m expected to deal with them. So I’m searching for a bag to get the price, seeing three coworkers at the cash register as I groan to myself. I walk by the shoplifters swearing, saying I’m looking for a bag–which ironically, I know they picked up one of our bags and filled it with clothes. They started to talk to me, saying, “Whoa, you just swore!” I talked to them about ‘the bag’ and refused to leave the area they were in–it was quite obvious they wanted the clothes in the front of the store.

Eventually, I had to move. No one was helping me deal with them, and I actually had customers waiting for me in the fitting room. This always irritates me to no end. As I turn to walk away, they leave, with the bag. Here, they were in a win-win situation. There was no tag on the outside of the bag–they are inside–so I couldn’t say, “Hey, that’s our bag!” They can just say, “I already bought it!” Nor can I legally look into their bag, even if it beeped when they left–although, it didn’t beep because these bags had no sensors on them, nor did the clothes they stole have sensors. I was in a helpless position, and all I could do was stop them from stealing more clothes. Instead, I grabbed all the bags of the same type and put sensors on them immediately.

I then had to leave for my lunch break. In that time, they actually returned twice–with us communicating to all the other stores nearby that these people are shoplifters. I was amused to hear, they came and tried to steal something, but they beeped at the door. Later, I found they tried to steal another one of my bags, but threw it in a corner when it beeped. At least I saved that bag. It just becomes tiresome when I have to deal with these shoplifters, and work hard to sell to customers, while I have to watch other people walking around ignoring customers, folding, and generally not carrying the weight of their own paychecks. Retail is killing me.

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

“I saw it in the window!”

A frequent customer comes up to me asking about a promotion that ended yesterday. I tell her it is no longer on sale, and she replies that the sign is still up in the window. I go and look, lo and behold, it is still up! No one took the sign down! This is not entirely surprising, as I say, “We need to work to share responsibility more than pass the blame.” The key is sharing responsibility for the store.

I ask someone to take the sign down, while I continue to help the customer, “Well, I guess you’ll be the last person getting that sale. Haha.” I hope we’ll be laughing together, but of course, she totally misses the wit in my statement.
“No, I saw it in the window!”
“Yes, I’m telling you that you’re getting the sale price.”
“I saw it in the window. I want it for that price.”
“Why are you disagreeing with me when I’m agreeing with you?”
“But I saw it in the window.”
“Yes, and I’m giving it to you for that price.”
“So I’m getting it on sale? Because I saw it in the window.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to pay full-price, because it said it was on sale. I saw it.”
I blink, I have nothing else to say.
“Can you hold it for me, I have to go and come back in an hour.”
I blink again, wondering why we like frequent customers so much.
“And I’m still going to get it for that price, right? Because I saw it in the window. Don’t forget!” Oh I won’t forget, how can I forget? You never bought the item while it was on sale for a week. You waited until it was no longer on sale to desire it, and seeing that we made an error, you’re still getting the sale price, but you still want to wait to buy it? Yeah, I’m not going to forget you.

Customer type: Disagreeing to Agree