Nightmares of Working in Retail Ch. 1

With my awkward social skills, it’s no surprise to most people that I work in retail. When you go shopping, you can almost always bet that you’ll run into an incompetent sales person when you need help. Or, frankly, you don’t want anyone to talk to you. This I can understand as a shopper, because I don’t need your help finding a piece of clothing that’s going to look good on my awkwardly-shaped body. That’s basically a fruitless effort. The answer is nothing, so don’t lead me to the trendy oversized tee shirts, or the ripped mom jeans that don’t hug in any of my good places. My sales persona is a completely different beast. I’m going to bug you about all of your deepest desires and passions, all while wearing a beautiful smile on my face that is only genuine about 50 percent of the time. Good days usually afford me a confrontation or two. I’m going to start telling you about them. While I do my best to not say no to my customers, there are sometimes where you’ll catch me doing the job I am more than happy to be doing.

I can tell you that I sell jewelry, because that part is crucial to the interactions that I’m going to tell you over time. I clean jewelry, I do my best to fix jewelry, and I do a lot to please the interesting people that come into my store. Today started off with a particularly displeasing colored bracelet. The bracelet, for lack of a better word was black… I don’t think it’s ever supposed to look like that unless she’s literally dragging it between her two butt cheeks. She hands it to me and proceeds to ask me, “You do something about this, right?” Yes, ma’am I will put on gloves and do my best to not let this infect my skin while I soak it in every chemical that I have access to. First, disinfectant for good measure. I have no idea where that’s been. Then I will soak it in jewelry cleaner for as long as I can before the bracelet disintegrates. Then the praying commences. Lucky for me, it came out much lighter than the shade I received it in, and the woman seemed pleased with me. One point for me!

Let me tell you, customer service voice is exhausting. Witch customer number two came in today with an exchange she wanted to make. She came in with a product that we do not sell in our store, and claims to have been told by our corporate that she can exchange it in our store. Her receipt had the name of the other store in very legible font right in front of her face, yet she exclaimed that I would help her. Slap that good ole salesman smile on, and open up my ears a bit for this screeching being. So, you bought this in another state, and you want to exchange it here, because you don’t like what you bought? Why did you buy the bracelet madam? Why did you try to switch it up while knowing that you appreciated a different type of jewelry? People drive me bonkers sometimes. Lady, I’m sorry now that I couldn’t do what you wanted me to do, and that you have to go all the way back down to Florida to exchange it for the bracelet that you would rather have. I hope you enjoy the trip the second time. Cheers!

Don’t get me wrong, I live for the real connections that I make with so many people, but sometimes people can just ruin my outlook on the world. I don’t come up in your places of work and speak to you like you’re the stupidest humans on the planet. I am quite competent, and here’s a secret: if you’re nice to me instead of screaming at me, I’m more likely to help you out.