the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own
Last night, at TCS, I had an unusually large number of irritating customers.
I walked around with Customer #1 early in my shift and found particular items that he was looking for out of our latest catalog. I could tell he was a grumpy sort, so I went out of my way to be nice and accommodating and tried to make it as painless a shopping experience as I could. We got to his last item and we were sold out. "This ALWAYS happens to me - *SIGH*." I checked the system and we would have more on Wednesday. He was going out of town. I offered to sell him the display. No, it had already been screwed into something. So, he took his cart, looked around the store some more and then just abandoned his cart in an aisle and left without getting anything. Okay, no biggie...
Customer #2 made me lug the huge ladder from the back and get a jar from the top of the bay because she insisted it was bigger than the one on the shelf. It wasn't.
As she was looking at several different jars, she kept testing the seal and saying, "No, they'll get in there." So I politely asked who "they" were. Moths. Some kind of moths. So I asked if she had seen our anti-moth products, and this is the conversation - verbatim:
ME: Have you seen our pest control products? We have a display over in the closet area...
HER: No, you USED to have them over there, but they're not there anymore.
ME: Yes, ma'am, if you'll just follow me, we have another...
HER: There ISN'T ANYTHING over there. I was just over there.
ME: Yes, ma'am, but we also have a display right (motioning toward the HUGE display)...
HER: ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT I CAN'T SEE?
ME: (Walking toward the display) We have a variety of products here...
HER: Oh, so THIS is where you have them now. They USED to be over THERE (motioning toward the Closet section WHERE WE STILL HAVE A HUGE DISPLAY)...
THEN, according to her, what we have doesn't work for her moths, ours only work on clothes moths and hers are something else, but she can't remember what they're called. I show her the WIDE VARIETY of products that we have until she sees one and starts gushing about how awesome it is and loads her cart up. Thank God.
And right at closing, Customer #3 came in who wanting something to put magazines in but it needed to be portable, or maybe not, and a lid might be nice, but not really necessary, and not a magazine file because she wants to be able to see them, but she wants to be able to hide them if she needs to... I started with a file box, but she didn't want plastic, but she didn't want to spend too much and maybe it needed wheels, but maybe she doesn't want to bend that much and it can't be too small, because she has a bunch of stuff, but it can't be too big, because then it would be too heavy... and she ended up buying the file box that I recommended to start with after looking at MANY, MANY PRODUCTS and staying PAST CLOSING by quite a margin of time. All the while, she was letting her two kids run up and down the aisles MESSING UP THE THINGS THAT I HAD JUST STRAIGHTENED AND WOULD HAVE TO RE-STRAIGHTEN.
So, it was a long day, a long shift, and closing took a lot longer than usual.
And today, the pollen is KILLING ME. POLLEN, I CURSE THEE AND SMITE ALL THAT YOU HAVE THAT IS SMITE-ABLE.
I walked around with Customer #1 early in my shift and found particular items that he was looking for out of our latest catalog. I could tell he was a grumpy sort, so I went out of my way to be nice and accommodating and tried to make it as painless a shopping experience as I could. We got to his last item and we were sold out. "This ALWAYS happens to me - *SIGH*." I checked the system and we would have more on Wednesday. He was going out of town. I offered to sell him the display. No, it had already been screwed into something. So, he took his cart, looked around the store some more and then just abandoned his cart in an aisle and left without getting anything. Okay, no biggie...
Customer #2 made me lug the huge ladder from the back and get a jar from the top of the bay because she insisted it was bigger than the one on the shelf. It wasn't.
As she was looking at several different jars, she kept testing the seal and saying, "No, they'll get in there." So I politely asked who "they" were. Moths. Some kind of moths. So I asked if she had seen our anti-moth products, and this is the conversation - verbatim:
ME: Have you seen our pest control products? We have a display over in the closet area...
HER: No, you USED to have them over there, but they're not there anymore.
ME: Yes, ma'am, if you'll just follow me, we have another...
HER: There ISN'T ANYTHING over there. I was just over there.
ME: Yes, ma'am, but we also have a display right (motioning toward the HUGE display)...
HER: ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT I CAN'T SEE?
ME: (Walking toward the display) We have a variety of products here...
HER: Oh, so THIS is where you have them now. They USED to be over THERE (motioning toward the Closet section WHERE WE STILL HAVE A HUGE DISPLAY)...
THEN, according to her, what we have doesn't work for her moths, ours only work on clothes moths and hers are something else, but she can't remember what they're called. I show her the WIDE VARIETY of products that we have until she sees one and starts gushing about how awesome it is and loads her cart up. Thank God.
And right at closing, Customer #3 came in who wanting something to put magazines in but it needed to be portable, or maybe not, and a lid might be nice, but not really necessary, and not a magazine file because she wants to be able to see them, but she wants to be able to hide them if she needs to... I started with a file box, but she didn't want plastic, but she didn't want to spend too much and maybe it needed wheels, but maybe she doesn't want to bend that much and it can't be too small, because she has a bunch of stuff, but it can't be too big, because then it would be too heavy... and she ended up buying the file box that I recommended to start with after looking at MANY, MANY PRODUCTS and staying PAST CLOSING by quite a margin of time. All the while, she was letting her two kids run up and down the aisles MESSING UP THE THINGS THAT I HAD JUST STRAIGHTENED AND WOULD HAVE TO RE-STRAIGHTEN.
So, it was a long day, a long shift, and closing took a lot longer than usual.
And today, the pollen is KILLING ME. POLLEN, I CURSE THEE AND SMITE ALL THAT YOU HAVE THAT IS SMITE-ABLE.