Family Colors

A man comes up and asks for a pant on a mannequin. It is just a basic grey khaki. So I show him where it is on the wall–yet again, I see the bright light issue, where the light sometimes makes the color look more prominent, whereas the mannequin is sitting in a dark shadow. So obviously, I already expect his reply.

“No, it’s not the same color. It looks different.”
Okay, sure, now you know more than me, why because you’re the customer? Are you the one who works with this clothes all the time? Are you the one who dressed the mannequin? Is this your specialty? I just tell him it’s the same color, and not to worry, it’s just the lighting.

Obviously, he doesn’t believe me. So he gets his wife and children and show them the mannequin and the pants. Then shows them the pants in the wall, the one I ‘claimed’ is the same color. And he gets her to agree the pants aren’t the same.

Really? Is having your family agree the color is different going to suddenly make them different? Is it suddenly going to transform into some similar shade of grey before our very eyes, like a chameleon there to trick our minds, making a joke of our lower intellect?  I’m sorry, it’s not going to happen. I don’t care if your entire family arrives in a van, and they all say, “Oh, you’re right, it’s not the same pant. The salesperson is lying to you because he doesn’t want you to make a purchase, because obviously he doesn’t need money to survive, to pay for rent, and eat. Obviously, he just wants to trick you and make you buy a pair of pants by deceiving you and tricking you, because he has nothing better to do with his time, let alone his life.” Yes, that’s it. You’re right, the grey you want is actually hiding, because it doesn’t want you to buy it. You are a genius, and so is your family, since you dragged them into it. Pray none of them need to pick paints the next time you redecorate your home.

Customer Types: Agreeing to Disagree

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The Lighting Lies!

Today, another one of ‘those’ customers came–the kind that are snotty, rude, arrogant, and ironically, they think they’re smart. (I’m not an astrophysicist, but I have an IQ of 150, so I’m not dumb by any account.) I don’t understand how and why a customer can walk into a retail store, thinking they suddenly know more about the product, the availability, and the details of clothing than the people actually working there. I laugh, I laugh loudly; even though I am prone to act like I know nothing when I deal with these rude people. The customer is always right, right? I don’t want to prove them wrong, even when they are wrong, right? Right. I mean, they walk into stores hoping the people working there are more stupid than they are, right?

A man finds me in the fitting room, in the back of the store, because obviously all my co-workers are at the cash-registers, so he’s already moody and rude, “I couldn’t find anyone on the sales floor! Come with me.” And as usual, I am also to blame for this. Thanks a lot co-workers.

So we go to the front, and first, he asks if the shorts are on sale–because, you know, there are signs on all of the shorts saying that all shorts are on sale. I tell him they are all on sale. When a sign says, “All shorts,” it’s generally all shorts.
Then, he shows me cargo-shorts, saying, “I can’t find that color!”–as he points all the way up to khaki shorts near the track-lighting.
“Oh,” I tell him, “The light is just tinted yellow, it is this color here. The lighting makes it look different.” I show him the khaki shorts, near the green, the blue, the gray–you know, all the colors here are totally different.
“It doesn’t look like that color. It’s not the same.”
“Trust me, the light is tinted, we only have these colors,” and I show him double-exposures–where we place the same color twice, “Because we have so many. It is this khaki one here.” Again I show him the khaki that’s hanging up on the wall.
“No, it isn’t!”
I try to get on my tippy-toes, and reach up, placing the short next to it–and even I can see it changes to that color.
“No, it isn’t the same!” So he’s down to yelling at me, because obviously, he knows what colors we have available, and I don’t know anything; because as a customer, you suddenly have a far vaster and knowledgeable pool of wisdom and experience. Just because people work retail, they aren’t idiots–even if some of my coworkers go to college and have advanced Biochemistry classes, but act like they they’re totally brainless children at work, that doesn’t mean they don’t know anything. It just means they don’t care, which is just as bad.
His wife cuts in, “Yes, I can see, it’s the same short. It’s the same color.” Finally, some sanity in a world of stubborn, idiotic  jerks.
So I shrug and say, “Well, you don’t need to believe me if you don’t want to.” Placing the khaki back, I turn to walk away.
He yells at the back of my head, “So they are on sale, right?”
“Yes.” I hiss, but continue to walk, not turning around.

Customer Types: The Blind, Don’t Kill the Messanger, the Dumb, Guessing Game