My Nightmare- The Little Person

Dreams say a lot.

So a little person came up to me in my dream, asking for this item. I scan the item, and it says we might have one available. I’m searching, and the little person appears again, yelling, “Did you find it yet?” And I say I’m still looking. So he/she/it, I don’t know what gender this person was, decides to follow me. The person points here, “Did you look over there?” The little person looks there, “Did you check here?” And I try to search, but before I can even start, he’s telling me to look somewhere else. I’m getting overwhelmed by his chattering, so I try to hide in the stock room, but he’s there, too, chasing after me. He won’t stop. He just keeps asking if I found it, and when I say I have not, he keeps telling me to look in different places, demanding me to do it because he’s a customer. At this point, I’m just trying to hide, hoping he walks by without seeing me, but he always spots me. No matter what I do, he pops up and appears, “Where were you? Did you find it yet? Keep looking!” By this point, I’m running, turning corners, looking over my shoulder, slamming doors, but he keeps coming, he won’t stop. He just keeps going on and on, “Why don’t you check over there? Why can’t you find it? Keep looking!” By now, I’m running down a tunnel that doesn’t end. I see windows that look into offices, but I don’t see any doors. I turn corners, but realize I’m just running in a big circle and the little person is right there behind me, he won’t leave me alone. I can’t escape. I can’t escape…

I wake up sweating and tired, turning off my alarm. I am half-thankful my alarm saved me from the little person, but I am also sad, I have to eat and get ready, because I work today.

Dreams say a lot. I know the customers are small people in many ways, but dream of themselves as big, important people. You are greater than others, until you think you are. These people demand, they order, they act like they are bosses; they treat you like a slave, acting like you’re less than human because you are ‘there to serve them’–because society has taught them customer service is modern-day slavery; or I should say post-modern slavery. No matter what I do, they are there, squeezing through little holes, searching for me, so they can belittle me, make themselves feel bigger, and just enjoy the fact they ‘think’ they can tell me what to do, because they have something called money.

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*Sweats* I’m tired.

So I have two very large tourists come in, trying on a ton of clothes–maybe thirty to forty pieces between the two of them–for over an hour. They keep trying on different colors of the same style, and definitely keep trying on different sizes. This is a busy day, and I’m surrounded by customers in the fitting room. They keep requesting handfuls of items, which makes me focus more on them for over an hour, and ignore many of the other customers that also need help (perhaps thirty to forty customers). Although they are nice and cheery about it, they also get more snippy as they try on more clothes.

For one thing, the bigger sister (as they are two large sisters) is the fashionable one (?) and critiques everything her sister tries on–to the point that the smaller sister has to wait for her sister to reappear to ask, “How is this?” To my amazement, since this woman is a size 32, her sister keeps saying, ‘That makes you look fat. That makes you look stumpy. That shows your rolls.” I’m thinking how she won’t look fat when she is short, stumpy and fat trying on all sorts of spandex and skinny, slim pants. It is inevitable. At least some of the styles pulled in a little, yet her sister persisted on criticizing everything as just okay, or worse.

As the hour progressed, I was unaware–because I breathe through my mouth in the fitting room for good reason–that they were starting to sweat on everything, handing it back inside-out. One coworker noted, “Ugh, this stinks,” which grossed me out as I was trying to turn it right-side out. From that point, I left the clothes to sit on the side for a while, so another coworker could come by and innocently fold the sweaty clothes. Perhaps the smell will go away?

Yet, the clincher, after I was facing giant piles of clothes, and all the hordes of customers disappeared–myself tired, exhausted from running back and forth and helping dozens of customers–the smaller sister comes out, breathing hard, “Boy, I sure am tired from trying on all that clothes.” I can just stand and blink, it sure wasn’t a field-day for me.

Customer type: Micromanagement, Sweaty.