Customers drive me to the brink of despair and beyond. Some days, everything's too much.
They'll rip open up the plastic bags on the comforters, pull out a comforter, then try to stuff it back into the damaged plastic casing, behind the blankets, as if to hide it. As if nobody noticed. As if nobody noticed a big, blue elephant crouched among the flat blankets.
They'll take out towels of one brand and mix'em with towels of the same color, another brand. It's not their fault, really, they can't see the difference between one brand and another. For that matter, most of the help can't see the difference, either.
In the handbag department, they'll try on handbags, maybe 10 or 20 at a time, then leave them on the floor. Some customers will just walk along the row and push all the handbags to the floor, as if in spite.
They'll take more than the allotted 6 garments into the fitting room and leave them off the hanger, inside out, crumpled in a heap on the fitting room floor. You can find two or three dozen pair of jeans this way. Only 10 minutes after you last looked in the fitting room.
They'll miss the toilet, leaving crap on the floor, crap in the fitting room and crap on the staircase.
In the jewelry department, they'll remove the pierced earrings from the backings, and leave the cardboard backs all over the floor. Sometimes, they'll even leave with the earrings on their ears, with no cardboard backs in sight. We call this shoplifting.
In the Juniors' department, young girls are the worst. Anyone with a teen-aged girl can testify to this. They'll take the jeans off the table, jeans off the clearance and jeans off the expensive rack into the fitting room, and leave without buying a single one.
In the men's department, well, now, that's a different story. The men are perfectly neat, having been trained by their mothers and wives to put everything back. So, I've no complaints there.
Some days, it's really too much. But then I spy a young, spry stock boy and all my frustration disappears.
Oh, look at those muscles as he rips open boxes with his bare hands. Why, he'll crush the biggest boxes with his arms, and then rip open the tape with his teeth.
He smiles when he works, and he's handsome to look at. He's strong, strong, strong.
The customers may drive me to the brink of despair and beyond, but I'll take a stock boy any 'ole day of the week.
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Comments: 75
I don't look at stockboys, but only because I have 21- and 18-year-old sons, and it feels kinda creepy. (Although my son does have this really cute friend!)
Imagine the comments I would get if I wrote your article and finished it with:
"But then I spy a young stock girl and all my frustration disappears.
Oh, look at those legs as she stretches up to reach the top shelf.
She smiles when she works, and she's pretty to look at. She's hot, hot, hot."
My point isn't that there's anything wrong with what you said. There definitely is not. My point is that if a woman looks at a guy it's "cute" and if a guy looks at a younger woman he's a perverted freak.
Come to think of it, some guys are perverted freaks so I'm not actually sure what my point is.
Keep smilin Kathryn!! thanks for sharing.
My latest customer beef is a guy who says he's helping me by taking books off the shelf because they are out of alphabetical order and bringing them to the counter for me to reshelve in my "free" time (if that isn't a misnomer, I don't know what is!) Or when customers are balancing their coffee cup in one hand while my books . . . .don't get me started!
it's all your fault, Kathryn!
for jake & carl, how 'bout cute stockboys and stockgirls? jeez, you're a tough crowd...
Hehe I don't stare at anyone, my wife will wack me!
*wanders off to oogle the stock boy*
:o)
I am a bartender and I also tip a dollar on a $.50 cup of coffee, I also worked retail so I am very aware of putting things back in the right spot! If only everyone had to work a service industry position before going to college, people would be more appreciative to the hard work that the service industry performs.
I like this question: But I guess management won't let you walk up to them and ask them to pick up the items they are throwing everywhere will they?
In my opinion, this 'nice' thing we have going on contributes to our 'not so nice' culture. Why shouldn't the store employees be encouraged to ask customers to behave while in the store? Why should the malls permit teens to loiter and buy nothing? I believe there's a level of decency we have a right to expect, and ask for when not received.
Of course, to your larger question, being afraid of legitimate confrontation does contribute, as you so succinctly put it, to the 'not nice' culture of being allowed to get away with social behaivior murder. When teens loiter in stores they are followed and watched; teens generally don't spend much and often destroy more than they spend, so their customer behavior isn't high on the ratchet scale.
There is a level of decency society should expect, and this should extend to customers of all types. That gives me an idea for a more serious story on customer behavior...
I have worked resets and merchandising in the big box stores and if you could not laugh you would want to walk up and bob someone on the head. But what the hey, people will be .............. .
I watched this woman one day as soon as I was finishing up a merchandising job in the plumbing department.
I had just displayed 20 toilet seats that took several hours to do, when up walks a woman with a empty shopping cart, me thinking she was going to purchase a toilet seat. Not so. She proceeded to not only look up at the displays, but started removing one seat after another out of the box underneath the display and placeing on the floor. When she had all the seats lined up on the floor, I walked up and ask her what she was needing, when she felt I was rushing her into a purchase and said, Hrumph, and started walking away. I ask what she was going to do with all of the toilet seats laying on the floor.
She told me to take care of the mess if thats what I thought it was.
FUNNY? YES, but very rude. When she could have purchased one or more by just looking at the samples above the merchandise.
Tom Thomasf
starsystem2002@juno.com
Men are neater in a store. Not perfect, but better. Women do most of the housecleaning and don't want to do that when they get to a store.