Where is your Flare Jeans?

We’re utterly busy and a woman comes up to me, with a tone of attitude, “Where is your flare jeans, I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Oh, they might have moved it.” So I walk her to where it used to be, and there it is, still in the same area. “Here it is.”
“That is not flare jeans!” I’m taken aback by how sure and how arrogantly she states this.
I bend over, picking up the jeans, turn over the tag and show it to her–it reads, “Flare jeans.””
Why question the people who work there, about the product they work with? And why does no one apologize when they’re so totally wrong? Is it that sales people are either wrong or invisible, but never right?
And, she signed up for a credit card, which means we’ll be seeing her again, real soon! There is no end to the feeling of thrill.

Customer Type: The Blind, The Dumb, Unapologetic

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Walkie-Talkie Stalker

One day, I was walking around in the store, and I hear an unfamiliar voice on the walkie-talkie.
“Hey, you lost something.”
I look around, but I don’t see any new people working today.
“Hey, you.”
I look around, but no one is talking to me. I decide to go about my business, thinking one of the salespeople are playing games with someone.
“You, in the black dress. You’re bending over, folding clothes. I see you. I’m right behind you.”
Okay, that’s definitely not me, but I know who they’re talking about. I go up to my coworker, who models during her spare time, and ask her what’s up. I see her looking around, she’s flustered and angry. She tells me she doesn’t know who is talking on the walkie.
“I see you folding clothes, over there in the black dress.”
“I don’t know who that is, but it’s f-ing annoying,” she tells me. “Hello, who is this?” She says on the walkie.
“I see you,” the voice says again, “I’m right behind you.”
Soon, this older, Caucasian man man walks up to her, saying someone must have left this laying around, and hands her a walkie-talkie. He laughs saying he was just joking around. It was he who spoke on the walkie. She doesn’t say anything as she takes it from him.

After, she and I have a conversation about how creepy that man was. Especially, the fact he thought it was okay and fine to say those kinds of things, like a stalker, for everyone to hear, while referring to her. How oblivious was he to understanding just how scary, and possibly illegally immature he was being? I mean, I know some customers view us as modern-day slaves, there for their amusement, to abuse, to use to get things, and otherwise boss around to make themselves feel bigger than they really are in their real mundane lives, but there are times when you just cross the line–but how do you not know it? How does someone think sounding like a creepy stalker in a public place, where someone is working, how is that funny or appropriate? Because Retail Law does say these people will always appear, and there will always be at least one of these people who do or think these things are right. Oddly, mostly everyone else just thought it was a coworker and disregarded the situation entirely, ignoring the entire conversation. Of course, that says a lot about us, too, doesn’t it?

Customer Types: Capitalist, Modern Slave-Owner, Sexual Discriminator

You Need a Card to Enter Here

I was having a discussion/idea the other day. There are tests for many things, like driving, vision-tests, drunk-driving tests, even tests for viruses and medical conditions–and you are left labeled and categorized, sometimes with stamps on various cards signifying your results. I was thinking, we should have a test for rating your mental acuity and your social-interaction skills. If you rate too low on mental acuity (intelligence) or social-interaction (how well you deal with other people), you will not be allowed into retail or shopping environments. You’d be like a 20 year-old trying to get into a bar, “I’m sorry, you aren’t old enough to enter here; go home and get someone to buy you some beer.” In this situation, you keep out the dumb and the socially inept and just tell them, “Go home, order online, and let some automated system deal with your inadequacies, okay? Next in line!”

Because some people just shouldn’t be allowed out in public interacting with other people.

A Cart, like a Donkey

Rarely, and I mean rarely, do I see a customer with a full-sized shopping cart walking through the mall. I don’t know where they find these things, who lets them borrow it, or if they are such shopping enthusiasts that they had to buy their own. I imagine some people buy so much stuff, they just can’t carry it. Yet, this still isn’t necessarily a socially ‘okay’ thing to do. Their shopping cart becomes like a donkey. And like a donkey, I’m sure certain stores would turn them away. *Ahem* High-end. The poor donkey-cart has to carry all those bags, being pushed around, laughed at, and stared at all day long. Really, who takes a shopping cart into retail stores? Its one thing being required to make space for wheelchair accessibility, but these things are like Hummer in a world of wheelchairs. They bang things, they move fixtures, and once they stop moving, there is no way around them–not that any cart pusher has moved very fast anyway, right?

Walking around pushing their donkey-cart, I don’t know why, but these people always have a certain look to them. Like today, the woman with her donkey-cart had it full of thrift shop and cheap-shop bags–a good thing to flaunt, right? I mean everyone is staring anyway. Let everyone know, since they’re already looking at you and your donkey-cart, “Hey, not only am I classless, but I am cheap, too!” In the fitting room, she had to announce her arrival by yelling at me three times. Because of her precious cheap clothes, she had to change with the fitting room door open–and believe me, she was trying on everything, so everything was coming off. Horrid, absolutely horrid. Thankfully she was wearing what was left of a bra. So after she was done trying on her intimate apparel, yes, intimate apparel! I walked into the room and was suddenly thrust into my childhood.

I imagined sitting with a blank sheet of colored craft paper, grabbing at my coloring tools. When you open the box, and inhale the smell of crayons–you know where I am taken back to. The entire room reeked of that crayon smell, the bad kind. It was like someone broke little pieces of crayon and left it everywhere, aging for fifty years, rubbing it into the walls. All the clothes were covered with that scent, and everywhere she went, there it was–like a bad habit we try to lose, it just follows you. It is ironic, considering her cart smelled nothing like a donkey, but she just had to smell something awful. Needless to say, I let someone else grab her clothes out of the fitting room, fold them, and put them away.

Customer Types: Lowered Expectations, Piggies

Do I Know You?

I have an issue. It is a weird issue, but one nonetheless. My issue is about rude customers, who come all the time. I mean, you know them, you probably know their name; many of them definitely know my name–asking rudely, “Wow, how long have you worked here already?” Yeah, thanks a bunch. *I pinch your cheek very hard* Many customers who come all the time, they’re happy, they’re cheerful, especially since they know I can help them find anything, and point out the good deals. I generally do this for repeat customers, because I think it’s good for business. I generally stop doing this for repeat customers that need to stop coming, because they benefit the store  far less than the little they actually purchase. They make people feel like slaves. They make people feel bad about themselves. They take smiles away from co-workers, who take smiles away from others. They make the world a worser place.

There are customers, I greet them, each and every time, I say, “Welcome back!” or “How have you been?” They glare at me in return. They act like they’ve never seen me. I can even ask how the pants they bought are working out, or that jacket has been useful. They still give the cold shoulder. They still treat you and me like shit. Some customers come every week and do this. They get mad no one helps them anymore–I wonder why. They get mad no one wants to grab tons of sizes, only for them to return it all saying they’ll buy it when it’s worthless and on sale, and instead buying something ugly, just because it’s cheap.

I don’t get these people. I don’t understand how their minds work, or where they think they fit into society. I know, personally, people like this help to keep our society stagnant, moving backwards. They fight the tide of social unity and interpersonal interaction. I want to find their parents and ask them, “Why?”

Customer Types: Capitalist, Modern-Day Slave Owner

Intellect and Retail

Yes, I’ve wanted to write a book about retail for a while. I think the comic strip is excellent:
Retail Comic Strip
Either that will become a good cartoon one day, or my idea for a book will be a nice cult movie one day–if written well, which is the current sticking point.
Do you know, retail is one of the places where you benefit from stupidity? You can get rewards and perks for being stupid and ignorant. If you go to the airport and bring extra bags, they don’t care if you ‘did not know’ about their baggage policy. You can’t ask to speak to their manager and say you were unaware of these charges, that your bag weighs too much, that you’re stupid–you’ll still have to follow the rules, not ‘well just this one time’.

If you are a bad parent, abusing your children, leaving them alone for long periods unattended, social services won’t arrive and say, “Well, you’re going to earn extra income now, and we’ll help you out.” *smiles* More likely, your kids will be taken away.

Car Insurance doesn’t let your stupidity be an excuse for accidents, it sure won’t stop them from increasing your premium.

In retail, you can get away with saying, “Oh, I didn’t know. I want to speak to your manager.” Where basically whining allows you to benefit and gain rewards undeserving and inexperienced in other parts of life. This is a place where I believe retail and customer service industries have gone wrong. People should be penalized, just like anywhere else for their stupidity and ignorance. In essence, all retail does is encourage it and allow it to envelop the buying culture. It actually encourages you to be an idiot in order to get benefits–I don’t know is far easier than saying I do know.

People walk into a retail store with a thought or ideal that the salespeople working there are less intelligent than they are. Perhaps the only intelligent people are supposed to be management, which also includes a great deal of previous salespeople that have entered the management team–which is the irony of titles because that means they were once dumb and now smart? One time the snotty woman rattled off a list of different requests, wants and needs at the cash register, then arrogantly said, “Did you get all that? Hahaha.” And I looked at her, and said flatly, “I have an IQ of 150, I got it.” I proceeded to do all her various requests and special discounts, gift receipts, etc., then asked, “Is there anything else?” The condescending laughter was gone, when she replied, “No.” What does it say when you work somewhere where intelligence is actually a disappointment for customers?