Customer disservice.
Or rather, disservice from a customer.
I've spent the last month or so working part-time at a tuxedo shop (way to put that degree to good use, Simon!). It's nothing massive or world-shattering, but it pays and the work is something I can keep up with.
But we don't just carry men's tuxes; we've got tuxes for children. And children, as we all know, are my kryptonite.
So around 5:30 or so, a woman comes in lugging a bassinet under one arm and towing a boy behind her with the other. She declares that she wants to have her older son fitted for a tux, for such-and-such a wedding. I find the order form, start filling things in. This was when I got the first sign that something would go wrong: any time the kid so much as started to peek over the desk, the mother would scold him and tug him back.
In other words, the kid hasn't had his nap today, he's probably spent all day running errands with Mommy and is growing increasingly fidgety. Mommy, of course, doesn't understand why her kid won't sit still and behave--after all, she's not tired, so why should he be? This means that every thirty seconds or so, she's snapping at him.
Seems like everything's going okay ... the pants fit, the shirt fits, the jacket fits, and after a good chunk of hemming and hawing, we find a vest that fits. And then comes ... the shoes. Turns out the kid has short, wide feet. So toddler-10s are too narrow for him, and she declares that toddler-11s are too long. I go digging through the bins of children's shoes (which, far as I can tell, haven't been properly sorted in ages) trying to find a pair of 10-1/2s so we can exhaust the possibilities. And as I'm coming back with the pair in hand ... I find her on the phone, talking to another tux shop.
I really hope I don't need to point out how rude that is.
Meanwhile, the baby in the bassinet keeps threatening to cry from boredom. At long last, she declares that she's going to look for another store with the right kind of shoes. I give her a polite nod and apology and move on to the people who are returning a half-dozen tuxes, most of them hung on the weakest hangers.
I've got a headache tonight.
I've spent the last month or so working part-time at a tuxedo shop (way to put that degree to good use, Simon!). It's nothing massive or world-shattering, but it pays and the work is something I can keep up with.
But we don't just carry men's tuxes; we've got tuxes for children. And children, as we all know, are my kryptonite.
So around 5:30 or so, a woman comes in lugging a bassinet under one arm and towing a boy behind her with the other. She declares that she wants to have her older son fitted for a tux, for such-and-such a wedding. I find the order form, start filling things in. This was when I got the first sign that something would go wrong: any time the kid so much as started to peek over the desk, the mother would scold him and tug him back.
In other words, the kid hasn't had his nap today, he's probably spent all day running errands with Mommy and is growing increasingly fidgety. Mommy, of course, doesn't understand why her kid won't sit still and behave--after all, she's not tired, so why should he be? This means that every thirty seconds or so, she's snapping at him.
Seems like everything's going okay ... the pants fit, the shirt fits, the jacket fits, and after a good chunk of hemming and hawing, we find a vest that fits. And then comes ... the shoes. Turns out the kid has short, wide feet. So toddler-10s are too narrow for him, and she declares that toddler-11s are too long. I go digging through the bins of children's shoes (which, far as I can tell, haven't been properly sorted in ages) trying to find a pair of 10-1/2s so we can exhaust the possibilities. And as I'm coming back with the pair in hand ... I find her on the phone, talking to another tux shop.
I really hope I don't need to point out how rude that is.
Meanwhile, the baby in the bassinet keeps threatening to cry from boredom. At long last, she declares that she's going to look for another store with the right kind of shoes. I give her a polite nod and apology and move on to the people who are returning a half-dozen tuxes, most of them hung on the weakest hangers.
I've got a headache tonight.