Ohhh customers....

After a very long, busy Saturday, I'd like to take some time to rant about customers. Of course we need customers to stay in business, but sometimes I wish we could just have one day when we didn't have to deal with customers' nonsense. Here are some of the things that drive me insane.

1. When a customer asks me to get something down off the wall for them, they can never exactly describe what they want. They'll point to a wall half way across the store and then look at me like I know exactly which shirt and the size that they need. When I ask which one, they'll say "The red one," even though there are 10 different red shirts on the wall. Ohhh ok, being psychic is part of my job description.

2. I also love when a customer signs their name for a credit card on our little credit card screen and then forgets to press "Ok." When I remind them, they push "Ok" once like a regular human being, and then when it doesn't go through immediately they start jabbing at it with the pen harder and harder like that's going to make the machine work any faster.

3. Readers before I go any further, let me just clarify something. If you need a fitting room unlocked when you are shopping, please just politely ask a sales associate. DO NOT just stand in front of the fitting room with a blank stare on your face like you have no idea where you are. It's even worse when I go back to check on the fitting rooms and there's a line of 8 people waiting while all of the rooms are unoccupied. What the hell were you all doing? Did you think the doors were just going to unlock themselves if you stared at them long enough? Use some common sense....please.

4. My favorite customer questions are when they start asking for a specific item that they saw in the store 7 months ago. Their description usually goes something like this, "Um, I saw a shirt in here around Christmas time, I think it was red or it might have been yellow, and um, it had long sleeves, but it could have been a tank top, and it was kind of long, but not really that long, and it was a weird material, and um, it was red, do you still have that?" No.

5. I also love when customers think everything is on sale. Just because we have a clearance section, that doesn't mean everything remotely near the clearance section is also on clearance. I had a customer ask me today if an entire wall was on sale. Um, do you see some kind of sale sign on it that's invisible to me? Why would we have random sale items scattered throughout the store? Just to screw with people? Hmmm, maybe we should start doing that. ;)

Another day at the circus tomorrow.....

I love my job.

Exhibit A

Now that I have introduced the staff to you, I would like to provide some hard evidence to prove exactly what I am dealing with. Although my stories may seem exaggerated, I can guarantee that 100% of it is true. After two years of working for this company, I have started collecting little "artifacts" that will help me remember the nonsense I put up with day after day. These pictures are some of my most recent artifacts. Our new manager, Lindsey (The Genuine Retard), made this poster for the backroom describing our new jeans.
At first glance this poster may seem perfectly normal, but let's take a closer look.


Our new jeans are called Celeb. I have yet to figure out what a "cleb" is, but I'm pretty sure we don't sell it.

Scary, right?


I love my job.

The Current Management Team

Vicky- The Mysterious Foreigner
Vicky is a decent manager, even though she has a hard time speaking and understanding English. She covers it up well by answering most questions with "Maybe." Newcomers might not catch on, however after a year of working with her I'm convinced that she only understands about one third of what I say. When talking to her, you get the feeling that you might be talking to a brick wall. Such as, "Vicky, did you see our goals for August? They seem like a real stretch. We're going to have to start pushing the employees to sell on the floor." Vicky's response, "Maybe."

Lisa- The Quiet Accomplice
Lisa and I are good friends with the same sense of humor. We like finding faults with our company and treating everyday at work like it's a trip to the circus. She might not be as vocal about it, but trust me we're on the same wavelength.

And then there's me, The Innocent Bystander, I know our company like the back of my hand and nothing surprises me anymore. I can bullshit with the best of them and I enjoy spending my days doing as much nonsense as possible.

The Store Managers

My store has had three different store managers in the past six months. I'd like to introduce them to you...

1.) Samantha- The Loveable Lunatic
Samantha was more than just a little bit crazy. Her moods were extreme. And when I say extreme I mean that she could go from being your best friend to a blood-sucking monster in two seconds flat. She thought it was perfectly normal to stay all night at work doing manual labor and couldn't understand why other employees refused to stay past midnight. Her cell phone was always dead, she had fungus on her stomach, never wore a bra, and was always late by at least an hour. She was also known to do breathing exercises in the back room when things got too stressful for her. She was the best manager we ever had.

2) Jamie- The Raving Bitch
Jamie was our second manager and the biggest bitch on the planet. She wasn't running a clothing store, she was running a Nazi concentration camp. She had the unique ability to be able to find something wrong with every single employee. She hated our merchandise and complained to anyone who would listen about how "fat" she looked. Jamie yelled no matter how close you were to her. I guess no one ever taught her the difference between "inside" and "outside" voices.

3) Lindsey- The Genuine Retard
Lindsey is our new manager who I'm 99% sure is a retard. She's great at having anxiety attacks for no particular reason, rearranging the back room, and not listening to a word anyone says. However, she still has problems spelling her own name, counting money, and reading directions. I haven't quite been able to pinpoint the exact problem with Lindsey, but my guess is that she could be a compulsive liar, psychotic, or just a moron.

I'm going to hell for this.

Welcome.

Welcome to my blog. The idea of a blog about my job has been perculating in my head for a long time. I've been working in a clothing store for two years as a manager and although retail, in general, sucks, I have found a way to keep myself occupied at work. Most people try to rush through their workday, performing mind-numbing tasks with brain dead co-workers and then complain about it to friends. I, however, like to treat every minute that I am at work as a learning experience on people's stupidity.

I like to think that I have a love/hate relationship with my job. I'll admit that 50% of the time, I really do love it. For the other 50% of the time, I love to hate it.

*All names have been changed.*