customer appreciation week, part 2

toothless wednesday
All the rednecks came out Wednesday afternoon.  Mullet-haired parents and their snot-nosed brood came in countrified clusters to find clearanced camo pants.  I was straightening a stack of shirts (for the twentieth time) when this tall man in a trucker hat and ratty shirt with the sleeves cut off yelled across the department, "Damn, Carol, just git the kids some pants.  I'mma go to the pickup and smoke a cigarette!"

Of course you are.  I'm sure it has easy access too, with the amount of teeth he had missing, he could just shove the thing in without exerting the energy to open his mouth.

Then this lady came in and when I saw her from the back, I thought she was younger judging from her attire.  She was in a tight blue top and denim capris with bedazzled butterflies glued on each back pocket.  She wore matching blue socks and knock-off low top Converse.  Her thin blond hair was short and curled at the ends.  I guessed from her frame she was mid-thirties, still too young to be wearing such an outfit but who am I to judge?  I can't dress myself, either, and look like crap on a daily basis so whatever makes her comfortable.

But when she turned around, she was more like in her late sixties.  She looked like the witch from Snow White.  You know the hag who hands her the apple?  Yeah, that's what I was working with, except this fashion conscious lady had less teeth.  She was on a matching blue slide-style cell phone when she walked up to me.

"'Scuse me," she said.  "My son wants to talk to you."  She jutted her phone in my face.

I took it.  "Hello?"

"Hey, yeah, I'mma lookin' fer a certain kinna dress shirt," he yelled into the phone.

Oh, fun.

"Y'all had dem shirts and ties in a box the other day when I came over yonder.  My mama said she couldn't find 'em.  Y'all stick got 'em?"

We were standing right in front of them.  How did she not see them?

"Why, yes we do."

I help the guy find a dress shirt and hand the phone back to the lady, which she promptly stuck in her nylon fanny pack.

Later that day, a regular klepto customer came in and I'm going to have to dedicate an entire entry just for her because she's a bucketful of crazy and drops pearls of comedy from her dry, thin lips.


thursday's worst for last
I asked my work girlfriend to help me dress two mannequins in my department because I am awful at fashion and she's so good at it.  We were chatting away and putting clothing on one of the mannequins when this old man in one of our sport coats shuffled up to us.

"Hey, how are you, sir?" I asked.

"Well, are you all just gonna stand there talking or are you gonna help me?" he asked.  He was hunched over, his face splotched and saggy, his glasses plain and thick, a baseball hat on top of his head.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," I said.  "I didn't know you were back there.  What can I help you with?"  The sport coats were on the other side of my department.  I was standing at the entrance that most people use to come into my area and I didn't see him enter so he must have went through another way.  It was slow in the store and when I went to dress the mannequin, nobody was in my department.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to have some help with this coat if y'all would stop standing there talking like you own the store."

My irritation was slightly tickled when he first walked up to us and made the comment about us standing there but I let it go because I didn't notice him come into my department and it was my fault for not greeting him.  Fine.  I let it go.  But when he mentioned it a second time, that angered me.  I already apologized.  What more did he want?

"Didn't y'all hear that bell ringing earlier?" he asked.  He was referring to the fitting room buzzer that goes off when someone comes in or out.  I didn't know that was a signal for me to follow him in and unzip his pants for him.

"My apologies again," I said.  But this time I felt like I needed to defend myself.  I kept it pleasant, though.  "We actually weren't standing around but as you can see, we were dressing this mannequin here."  I held up the shirt that I was unpinning as he walked up.  I take pride in the fact that I don't stand around and talk, like so many of my co-workers do.  I always keep busy.  I just happened to be busy with another co-worker at the time he saw us, which might have looked slightly incriminating but after I explained things to him, I hoped he would cool off a bit.  "What can I do for you?" I asked again.

"Well, this sport coat is too long, you see," and he jutted out his liver-spotted hands for me to see the jacket reached past his knuckles.  It looked a little big around the stomach as well.

"Oh, okay, well what size is it?"  I looked at the sleeve and saw it was a long.  "How about we see if we have a regular in that size.  The sleeves won't be as long on that one."

"Son, what's wrong with you?" he asked.  "I'm about six inches taller than you are.  A regular is gonna be too short for me."  His mouth crinkled into a frown and his sparse eyebrows raised in irritation.

That was it for me.

"Wow, sir, I guess I just can't get anything right for you, can I?"  I was surprised by what I had just said but the fever that was coming off of him was so unnecessary that I couldn't help but to react.

"You shouldn't have said that, buddy."

"I'm sorry, sir.  Let's see what we can find for you."

He took the sport coat off and shoved it at me as we walked over to where the others were located.

"Let me show you that regular isn't going to fit," he said.

"No, you don't have to," I said.  "It's just that if a long is too long, it seems reasonable to try on a regular to see how that fits.  But if you don't think it will, then that's fine."

"No, I'm going to show you.  What's your clothing education?"  he asked, the question laced with condescension.

"Would you like me to call a manager over to help you, sir?" I asked.

"Yeah, that'd be good.  Get someone smart."

A fire bloomed in my chest.  I literally stopped and looked at him in disbelief.  He just called me stupid.  Where was this coming from?  I already apologized for not galloping over to him in a split second to assist him.  What more did he want from me?  How could I atone for what he obviously considered a deadly sin.

"Fine," I said and walked away.

"Hey, buddy, come back," he called out.  I turned around and he waved me over.  "Come back.  Let me show you.  I'm trying to help you out."  For some reason, I went back to him instead of just getting a manager to deal with his crochety ass.

"No, sir, you're berating me is what you're doing," I said.

"You shouldn't have said that, either," he said.  "What if the company sent me to check on your customer service?"

"Well, then I guess I failed, didn't I?" I said.

He tried on the regular coat and sure enough, it was too short for him.

"Okay, I see that," I said.  Then I reiterated that I didn't think a regular would fit him but merely suggested we could try that size on, just to see.

"How long have you been working here?" He asked, condescension in full force, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Way too long," I said flatly.

"I think I'm gonna keep the one I had on," he finally said.  Of course he was.  He put me through all of that just to keep the coat he had on when he first shuffled up and scolded me.  So, what was the point in calling me out in the first place if he could clearly take care of it himself?

He shuffled away and once again, my tongue ran away from my good taste and I said, "Thank you, sir, have a great day.  Thanks for letting me know how awful I was."

He shouted to me, "Something else you shouldn't have said, buddy."

"It's the truth," I shouted back and walked away.

You all have to realize I do not talk to customers that way.  I am sweet as freaking pie and really shy as well.  I'm not confrontational at all and usually let people walk all over me but I couldn't stand letting that guy get away with that kind of abuse.  I already hate my job to the point of wanting to drive off a bridge instead of drive home at the end of the day and it had been a long week and I had already dealt with one rude lady and horrible smelling man earlier and this guy was the last straw.

I went back to the mannequin and my work girlfriend said, "Oh, my God, what was wrong with that guy?"  Her eyes were huge.  I went on to tell her what happened and her mouth dropped.

"Oh, hell no," she said when I mentioned the part about him wanting someone smart to come over.  "What was just uncalled for."

"I know," I said.  Then I noticed him come back.  "Are you serious?" I asked out loud.  "Here comes round two.  Bring it!" I said to her.

"I need a belt," he said as he shuffled past us.

"You see where the sunglasses display is?  They are past that point."

"I don't see it."

I sighed silently and escorted him to the belts.

"You know," he said.  "I worked for a company for years and always loved when I had clients who thought they were better than me, you know?  Talked down to me."

I felt like I had been hit by a surprise right punch to the face.

"Are you insinuating that I think I'm better than you?" I asked.

"Yeah, I am."

"No sir, how?  I don't think I'm better than you at all."

"I need a size 42," he said without responding to me.  I grabbed it for him and said, "Sir, I'm sorry if I offended you but..."

He waved his hand, cutting me off.  "Here, take this," he said shoving the belt at me.  He didn't even want to hear what I had to say.  No apology, no defense was going to be good enough for him.  He was an asshole and wanted to be an asshole and didn't want to hear anything I had to say.

He checked out with me and then his son came from another department.  Oh, no, not another one.

"He needs a sport coat, too," he said.

Are you kidding me?

Yeah, he was serious.  We went over there and immediately the flop sweat set in because I am not even very good at doing coat fittings for men.  The truth is, with our shoddy quality clothing coupled with everyone's odd body types, no one is going to find the perfect fit.  That's just the way it is but normal everyday people don't understand that, much less the old man from hell. 

Mercifully, the guy and his son changed their minds and they finally left and didn't return.

faded friday
Surprisingly enough, nothing happened yesterday.  My defenses were up full force.  Every old man I saw I wondered if it was him back for more.  Or I wondered if they would be just as mean as him.  I realized the universe had granted me a reprieve so I could simmer in the anger that had accumulated over the course of the week.  I told stories of these encounters to my co-workers who weren't there and they all listened, bug-eyed.

One said, "I thought I had bad luck but damn."  That pretty much summed it up for me.

I was so upset that I went out and bought a pint and a half of cookies and cream frozen yogurt.  Even in my misery, I tried to be somewhat health conscious.  Only 4 grams of fat per serving instead of the usual 8-10.  But low fat doesn't matter when you eat the majority of it in one sitting.  I didn't but I certainly ate more than I should have.  I felt sick, lethargic, and still depressed over the week.

I'm a good person.  I'm a good employee.  I do my job like I should and I don't get in trouble.  Yet, I keep getting punished by these crude and cruel customers, these people that make my already crappy job even harder to endure.  And despite my diet, the only thing that could soothe me was ice cream.  But it didn't soothe anything, only add to the mounting pressure of anger and confusion.  It's always me.  I'm always getting trapped in these situations, always dealing with the worst of people.  It doesn't help my already fractured view of the public.  Only reinforces it.

"How can you dislike the general population so much, Brannon?"  That's how.

Everyone has been coming up to me and saying it's a wonder I haven't started drinking.  And I agree.  I might start soon.

Escape.  Running away like I always do.  Self-medicating the pain of failure and circumstance.