Retail reflections: asian shoppers
(Hmm...I never see anyone blogging about their retail jobs. Maybe there's a reason for that...)
It's been an interesting 6 weeks at ATL. I don't think I will last very long at this job if i stuck to this 35-hour-week pace. I can probably hang in there just fine with working 10-15 hours a week (maybe 2-3 short shifts), but that's about as much as I can manage before I turn into a vegetable. Still, it's been a good learning experience. I've had to deal with a LOT of different people and situations...this is certainly a tougher shell, and teaching me not to take everything so personally. On a good day, I'll have one or two clients tell my boss that they recieved the best service ever under my care. On a bad day, I'll have another co-worker steal a $500 transaction from under my nose, then snap at me for the rest of the evening...and maybe a handful of evil bitches who steals clothing from under my nose.
There's a few things that have just made me wonder...things that are probably a bit too contraversay to toss onto a_b (though I'm rather tempted).
Let me be entirely racist and stereotypical for a moment--I will back up and qualify what I say: with a few exceptions, the worst shoppers are older asian women.
For starters, they can't remember our names. It's absolutely infuriating when you've been helping someone for an hour and a half, nearly fell off the top latter getting them the 3rd size xs top from the top shelf (because they didn't like the invisible snag of the first one, and the apparent faded color of the second)...and you're $800 behind in sales with 30 minutes left in your shift...and you see her ring up a $400 order. RIGHT after she tells the cashier, "No one was helping me."
Yeah, it's right about them that you want to go up and wrung her neck, and wonder if she'll actually remember you this time.
2 out of 10 asian shoppers will remember my name. I tell them no less then 5 times, especially if they go into the fitting rooms (I find creative ways to name-drop myself...including "forgetting" their names and asking for introductions again, or giving them some pun on my name to remember me by). 7 out of 10 caucasian shoppers will remember my name. *sighs* With asian shoppers, if I want to get the credit for the, I either have to stop by the desk (cashiers), hope that a friend on a cash registrar, and let her know...because the shopper probably will not.
While we're talking about asian shoppers...
Why is it that 70% of the asians in this area can't speak English? I'm seriously not exaggerating. I finalized realized why more then half of ATL are asian: becuase they need us to translate. I use Manadarin at least 2-3 times a day, and there are far more Cantonese speakers here among the chinese population. While over half of the shoppers my age (college, up to late 20's) speak English fluently...it seems that the vast majority can't understand us when we speak English.
I'm just...amazed. HOW do you get by in this country while speaking exclusively in another language? (and how can you be content to not know the major language of your country? It drove me crazy, in greece, not to be fluent in Greek. I learned enough of the most common words to haul myself around, and I was only there for a few months).
My last little gripe against asian shoppers: wow, many of them have some major superiority complexes.
I heard one lady (30's or 40's) tell her teenager daughter (while pointing at me bend over a pile of sweaters) that THIS (namely, me working at ATL) is the reason that she needs to stay in school and do well...otherwise, she'll end up working a deadbeat job. The lady was wearing a state school sweater.
She spoke in Mandarin. I was very tempted, for a moment, to snap around and tell her that I was a valedictorian candidate from a top school, and I seriously doubt that she can find somoene with a better academic record.
I went on folding sweaters. I didn't say anything, of course. There's no point in getting myself fired...and I realized even before I took on this job that people would look down on me--if nothing else, because they can't understand my position *wary smile* I was discussing finals with a co-worker today, and she found out that I'm out of college already. She couldn't believe that I'm working here with a college degree (i don't actually have my degree yet, but that really is beside the point for this conversation). It takes far too much time--and gives way too much of myself--for me to explain it. I just smiled and shrugged and went on folding.
Sometimes, I'm pretty damn grateful for sweaters.
It's been an interesting 6 weeks at ATL. I don't think I will last very long at this job if i stuck to this 35-hour-week pace. I can probably hang in there just fine with working 10-15 hours a week (maybe 2-3 short shifts), but that's about as much as I can manage before I turn into a vegetable. Still, it's been a good learning experience. I've had to deal with a LOT of different people and situations...this is certainly a tougher shell, and teaching me not to take everything so personally. On a good day, I'll have one or two clients tell my boss that they recieved the best service ever under my care. On a bad day, I'll have another co-worker steal a $500 transaction from under my nose, then snap at me for the rest of the evening...and maybe a handful of evil bitches who steals clothing from under my nose.
There's a few things that have just made me wonder...things that are probably a bit too contraversay to toss onto a_b (though I'm rather tempted).
Let me be entirely racist and stereotypical for a moment--I will back up and qualify what I say: with a few exceptions, the worst shoppers are older asian women.
For starters, they can't remember our names. It's absolutely infuriating when you've been helping someone for an hour and a half, nearly fell off the top latter getting them the 3rd size xs top from the top shelf (because they didn't like the invisible snag of the first one, and the apparent faded color of the second)...and you're $800 behind in sales with 30 minutes left in your shift...and you see her ring up a $400 order. RIGHT after she tells the cashier, "No one was helping me."
Yeah, it's right about them that you want to go up and wrung her neck, and wonder if she'll actually remember you this time.
2 out of 10 asian shoppers will remember my name. I tell them no less then 5 times, especially if they go into the fitting rooms (I find creative ways to name-drop myself...including "forgetting" their names and asking for introductions again, or giving them some pun on my name to remember me by). 7 out of 10 caucasian shoppers will remember my name. *sighs* With asian shoppers, if I want to get the credit for the, I either have to stop by the desk (cashiers), hope that a friend on a cash registrar, and let her know...because the shopper probably will not.
While we're talking about asian shoppers...
Why is it that 70% of the asians in this area can't speak English? I'm seriously not exaggerating. I finalized realized why more then half of ATL are asian: becuase they need us to translate. I use Manadarin at least 2-3 times a day, and there are far more Cantonese speakers here among the chinese population. While over half of the shoppers my age (college, up to late 20's) speak English fluently...it seems that the vast majority can't understand us when we speak English.
I'm just...amazed. HOW do you get by in this country while speaking exclusively in another language? (and how can you be content to not know the major language of your country? It drove me crazy, in greece, not to be fluent in Greek. I learned enough of the most common words to haul myself around, and I was only there for a few months).
My last little gripe against asian shoppers: wow, many of them have some major superiority complexes.
I heard one lady (30's or 40's) tell her teenager daughter (while pointing at me bend over a pile of sweaters) that THIS (namely, me working at ATL) is the reason that she needs to stay in school and do well...otherwise, she'll end up working a deadbeat job. The lady was wearing a state school sweater.
She spoke in Mandarin. I was very tempted, for a moment, to snap around and tell her that I was a valedictorian candidate from a top school, and I seriously doubt that she can find somoene with a better academic record.
I went on folding sweaters. I didn't say anything, of course. There's no point in getting myself fired...and I realized even before I took on this job that people would look down on me--if nothing else, because they can't understand my position *wary smile* I was discussing finals with a co-worker today, and she found out that I'm out of college already. She couldn't believe that I'm working here with a college degree (i don't actually have my degree yet, but that really is beside the point for this conversation). It takes far too much time--and gives way too much of myself--for me to explain it. I just smiled and shrugged and went on folding.
Sometimes, I'm pretty damn grateful for sweaters.