Apologies for the last entry’s gramatical and spelling errors. F- from the nuns in the peanut gallery.
I am officially a retail salesperson and I promise you that I wont bore the fuck out of you with dull evil events that happen across the counter at my shop, but would like to make an observation: retail sales people officially have a stigma of being second class citizens. When you come to them, you are wary they’re going to sell you stuff you dont need, or you have a complaint and youre buggered if some two bit store monkey is going to stop you from returning the stuff youve opened and put your chocolatey fingers all over. Admittedly the informed shoppers, the ones who really do enjoy spending time getting information about their purchases and the ones who are patient when you dont have the information that theyre looking for are out there, and to them I say dont bother reading on. You can go out for recess early with a cookie. Toodles. For those of you who storm beligerently into the store, make faces when you have to wait longer than 5 mins when you shop during lunch hour, roll your eyes at a small mistakes made by trainees, dont respond when the counter help say “Thank you”, or just basically treat shop people like dirt, you all need to put your heads down on your desks and take a time out. There is usually one per shift…the one that makes your whole day dive into a neurotic tailspin by a sneering look or off handed comment about your abilities. To these people I say, politely and slowly and with as wide a smile as possible: Ass! Try it…I learned it from a Mr Leatherman Toronto Contestant who said it every time his competitor was finished speaking. You can smile pretty wide and still deliver virtol.
My discovery of this retail class system stems from a mother who had an email print out from her son who handed it to me without explanation saying “I need this”. I retrive said product and she prceeds to drill me on why she needs to buy this for her son as I am asking her for warranty information. Every question (approx 15 from “name” to “How did you hear about the store?”) was an affront to her breathing because she kept on “huff!”-ing at each question. She finished the conversation by asking “Why do I have to buy this?”
The smart ass pop up window opens in my mind “Because its Christmas, you nasty cow.” was the nicest I could come up with but I said instead something about using Apple preripherals with Apple computers contributes to their resale as well as keeps the whole “appley look and feel” consistant. She looks at me like I just said “Because its Christmas you fucking dirty stupid awful cow,” and huffs off. I feel for the child of that mom.
Inversely there are people who love the whole sales process. I know if I had finally decided to shuck out $4000 for a low end G5 I would be all happy and stuff. And these people are the best to deal with.
Okay. I promise never ever to bitch about my retail job again. I might relate weird stories but I will make sure its in keeping with this site’s mission statement. Whatever that is.