I’m in the process of putting away clothes, and a woman stops me. She’s dressed in a basic T-shirt–and by basic, I mean one of those free shirts you get from volunteering at activities, not one you’d pay for as athletic and comfort-wear. She is also wearing an aged, khaki short, and dirty tennis shoes. I am telling you this because as a salesperson, you can get an idea of what your customer might be looking for based on their ‘wardrobe’–because many people come to shop in what they feel comfortable in. Some people will dress beautifully to shop, because they feel ‘comfortable’ looking good when they go out; the same with people who wear Ts, old shorts, and dirty tennis shoes. With this information aside…
“Excuse me, do you have any navy blue T-shirts?”
I stand for a second thinking about her question, and observing what she’s wearing, as I look around me. I answer her, matter-of-factly, “No, I’m sorry. We mostly have these shades of light blue, and these other shades, but no navy blue.” I point out the styles of T-shirts nearby, and the color assortment we carry. I tell her how the season is currently vibrant colors–and for those who know Spring, this includes pastels, etc.
She just looks at me, and turns, maybe 45-degrees. She doesn’t even take a step away from me, and asks the nearest coworker, “Excuse me, do you have navy blue T-shirts?”
Seriously, what the hell? I’m standing right here, I can still hear you. So my coworker takes her on a ‘journey’ around the store to show her all the shirts she ‘won’t’ want. By ‘won’t want’, I mean literally, I just explained her outfit, and my coworker is showing this woman all these frilly navy blue tops, and other tops which don’t match this woman and she wouldn’t even appreciate. Even worse, my coworker turns and asks, “Hey, this is navy blue, right?” Because the woman is arguing that it’s not navy blue. Seriously, if she doesn’t even know what color ‘navy blue’ is, why is she looking for it?
I answer distantly, “Sure, if you think so. Yeah.” I just walk away.
You see, as a customer, when I’m looking for something specific, I hate when salespeople give me the run-around and ‘try’ to push a sale on me showing me ‘other options’. If I ask for a silver cardigan, I don’t want to be shown red, white, or blue cardigans. I don’t want to be shown a mock-turtle neck. I don’t want to see polos, nor do I care about your specials or sales. I’m looking for a silver cardigan, if you don’t have one–say you don’t have one. Don’t waste my time. Let me look for what I need, and if anything, tell me where I can find my cardigan. Thus, I tell people if we have or do not have what they are looking for, and I give them advice where to look–if I know anyplace. I would not be like a coworker trying to show ‘other options’ which aren’t even what I asked for.
I’m at the register, the bane of my existence, and we have special coupons, which give a pretty good discount on regular priced merchandise (You can read this as full-priced, non-sale items, etc. Yet, knowing society, people will choose the dumb options on how to interpret clear English. Because you know, they ask, “How long will this be on sale for?” And they could mean marked-down product–which never return to full price–or they could mean promotional items, which return to regular price eventually.) I got side-tracked, where was I? Oh yes.
A woman comes up with a bundle of items on promotion–read this as items on sale, because they aren’t regular priced if they’re not full-priced, right? (I mean today, I had to deal with cheap people who wanted me to mark items back to regular price, since they were on sale, in order to get the coupon savings, which amounted to roughly $1 savings. Congratulations for you! Big saver! Bring out a banner! I just love how special promotions bring out the sale-mongers who decide their I.Q. has dropped twenty points in order to shop.) Either way, I ring up the woman’s items, and I tell her, the register will remove the promotional price–thus the item becomes full-priced/regular priced; this is actually automatic–and then she’ll get the discount off the regular price. (This comes out to about $2 savings, lucky lady!) To which, the woman angrily yells at me, “How can you do that? Where does it say that? I want to read it!” (There really should be a test for people to be allowed to shop in person, with so many people lacking social skills. One question should be repeated twice, “Can you clearly read and understand your native language?” “Are you sure you can read English/native language?”) I point at the coupon, of all things, it isn’t even in the fine print, it says on the very top, ” Regular Priced Merchandise.” To which she complains, mumbling to me saying, “You should have made it clearer! I wouldn’t have even come in if that were the case. I wouldn’t have even bought this!” I love when it’s my fault.
If that is a threat, I don’t know if I care. Does it look like I have a thousand ripples of pleasure having to deal with your stupidity and lack of literacy where you can’t even read English? Do I really care if you’re trying to make me responsible for not only your greed and lack of intelligence, but also you pointing your finger at me as if it’s my fault? I didn’t teach you to read, nor did I teach you to use this lack of logic, nor did I make you come trying to money grub super-discounts and getting items for free. Some people actually do have to pay for their rent and feed themselves in this world, woman.
Of course, all I said was, “Please swipe your card.”
Customer Types: Big Baby, The Blind, Capitalist, The Dumb
There is a man sitting on a mannequin box, which is meant for mannequins and isn’t supposed to support his kind of weight for a long time. (Once, I had the utter joy watching someone sit on the exact center of one box, before we could stop him, and that guy took out an entire display. He offered to pay for it, but we don’t work that way. Too bad. I would have said $300! Haha.) Today, this man looks like an idiot and totally acts like one–don’t you love those people? So he’s sitting there, with his legs spread as wide open as possible so people have to literally walk around his feet, with his arms crossed as he glares at people, looking them up and down with his bloodshot eyes. You already know he’s an image of godly beauty, right? Sure, yeah right. And when you’re kicked by a horse, it doesn’t hurt. Actually, he looked like a mugger you’d find in a dirty alley right before they attack you. Obviously, people were trying to avoid him.
He was not supposed to be sitting there, but I was still new at the time, I didn’t have the gusto I have now. I just asked if he was doing okay. In return, he just glared at me, saying nothing. I’m actually supposed to say, “You can’t sit here. Please, you need to get up and move. Thanks a bunch!” These days I’d probably just say, “Hey, that box can’t handle your weight, can you get up before it breaks and you have to pay for it? Thank you.”
Either way, he’s sitting there for a long time, and I mean a long time, so I am left to assume either he’s homeless and wants to sleep in the box later or his wife is somewhere taking her sweet time shopping, she might not even be in the store anymore–and with a husband like that, I’d want time away from him, too. As much as possible. So again, I ask if he’s still doing okay, since I’ve walked by him about ten times already–as these mannequins are placed in high-traffic areas; his feet and his staring at customers is getting quite annoying. He’s creating a person traffic-jam, as if he cares.
Twenty-minutes later, he’s still sitting there, and obviously no one else has said anything to him. It’s a busy day, so everyone seems to be at the registers. A final time, I ask if he’s still okay, trying to give the hint that he needs to move on–go squat in a cardboard box in the alley or something, you’re wasting retail space, and making it look rather unattractive.
He turns and yells at me, “Why? You doing okay? Huh? You doing okay? What, you still doing okay?” He says some expletives including f-words, ‘f-you’ and gets aggressive with me. This is one of the first times I felt my insides explode, where I wanted to tell him off–not out of fear, but if I needed to, he’d have an entire mannequin swinging at his forehead. I was still not used to the obnoxiously low intelligence of the customers we deal with daily, and their utter lack of social skills. Later, I find out from supervisors in such situations I am empowered to act, and if I am not able to speak up, a manager would have asked him to leave the premises and not return. Their money isn’t good here anymore.
Of course, I go to find a manager since I’m flabbergasted, and of course, by the time I return with one, he’s already gone. This is one reason I take things into my own hands. Too many customers tend to forget everyone is a human being, even if we work in retail store and customer service–the customer and the salesperson is still human, not master and slave. We also forget these are rules we created. “Once the customer crosses a line, they aren’t customers anymore”–this too is only a perception and belief because of social norms. The roles can always reverse.
Customer Type: The Dumb, Don’t Kill the Messenger, Lowered Expectations, Piggies
A woman and her husband have a credit card strip which doesn’t work–its been de-magnetized–so I have to input it manually and then slide it through a machine which makes a physical copy of the credit card number. (It basically rubs a receipt against the credit card.) I tell them I’m doing this.
The guy laughs, replying, “Manual labor?! Ha-ha! How terrible for you!”
I just replied, “Yeah… Ha-ha… Thanks a lot…” I wanted to slap him in the face with the credit swipe machine.
You know what’s manual labor? Turning over that card and calling the number on the back to request a card that actually works! Compare that to the amount of time each cashier has to take manually entering your number and verifying it, times by each time you use that card–and you see how many people’s lives you’re wasting in addition to your own, because of your blatant, haughty laziness. This is the difference between members of society whom are progressive, and those who are backward-moving donkeys that ensure our social evolution is slow and tedious. Manual labor is obviously lost on you, but capitalism is not.
This move I call, “The Sasquatch” is repeated so many times, every day, every week, that anyone working in a fitting room would know it. After trying on clothes, the customer sees you, walking by, holding clothes they don’t want. And they turn, ever so slightly, acknowledging your presence inadvertently, knowing they should hand you the clothes–even if your hands are lifted towards them like a homeless street urchin begging for pennies–then they walk by you and toss the clothes anywhere they damn well please (kind of like how they’d pass a homeless street urchin and throw their money somewhere wasteful, the irony!). But they always have to do that turn, that look which says they know what they should do, the know what the right thing to do is, then they just do something else. I’m not a fan of The Sasquatch.
“I know you won’t have what I’m looking for, but I might as well try.”
“Okay.”
“I’m looking for sweaters.”
I bring her to our first sweaters–crew-neck style.
“No, I’m looking for a V-neck style.”
Okay, sure, I can understand that. So bring her to our V-neck sweaters.
“No, I want the ones with buttons.”
Okay, maybe she’s no fashion-expert, she doesn’t know a sweater with buttons is called a cardigan. So I bring her to our cardigans.
“No, these are too light, I want them thicker.”
Okay, maybe she’s visiting somewhere cold. So I bring her to our heavier cardigans.
“No, there’s no collar.”
Okay, now this is getting irritating. So I bring her to our cardigans with collars.
“No, you don’t have what I want. But hey, at least I tried.”
Really? Did you? Even a little? I think not.
Customer Type: Agreeing to Disagree, The Riddler, Self-Fulfilling Prophesizer
Memoirs of a Retail Salesperson 