Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Lame Retail Day

Today I will tell two very lame stories, because I am not live enough right now to do much of anything (like type, I just made five errors in that sentence that I had to go back and fix).

First Lame Story:

A man is standing by the Bible and barks (like a dog) out to my co-worker:

"Where are your large-print Bibles?"

Co-worker: (remaining chipper) "Right behind you."

Man turns around, is STARING at the large print Bibles. "Where!" He barks again.

Co-worker (no longer so chipper and quickly becoming annoyed. What, am I some underbrush creature that you should bark at me like the dog you are?) walks over, points in front of the man's nose and says, "the large print Bibles are right there." It doesn't matter how many times you have to do something like that. It is ALWAYS awkward.

So the gentleman looks at the Bibles while my co-worker safely places herself back behind the registers. We think there will be peace and tranquility, but that's just silly, because we live in the World of Retail after all.
"Are theses all of your Bibles?" the man shouts (even though we're within whispering distance).
"Yes," I answer (because I fear for my co-workers safety.) "The Bibles we ordered haven't come in yet because of the snow." The man does not deign to look at me, kind of humphing to himself. (Yes, customers do not realize that having snow fall up to our ears, having to close two days in a row, and having no orders for three days, will affect the orders we receive.)
"Thank you," the man barks one more time and waddles out the door.
"Yes," my co-worker mutters, "we do have the Bibles, we just were hiding them from you."

This is where we hide Bibles and our Penance cards from customers.

Lame Story Two:

I am busy putting giant piles of books away. I am like my sister and enjoy looking like Gus while I carry books around. Although, most of the time I feel like I'm running away from an evil cat who is trying to steal my tail from me, and I don't even have a tail. Anyway, so I am putting books away (imagine that, actually doing my job?) and I hear a customer come in. He sounds vaguely familiar because we have a couple of regulars. I am not so familiar with the voice, though, that I jump up and chase him down and demand to know how he is doing. No. Instead I continue doing my job, putting books away in alphabetical order. When I am done I go back to the front of the store where the customer is looking at half-price books. He sees me. I see him. I smile friendly, but I am not paying much attention to him because my dad just texted me and it turns out he is there to pick me up and I am not even close to being ready to go.

The man chortles. Yes. Chortles. I thought that was a noise only babies were allowed to make, but not so. I give the man a questioning look. "Yes?" my questioning look is asking.
"So, I see you're hiding from me."
*Sigh* Can customers say more awkward things? I think not. It turns out this is the gentleman I met while working in Staples. I don't know what it was about Staples, but the building just drew the most bizarre people through its doors. It was like a bug trap. I ended up having conversations with strange and friendly artists, a jolly detective man, and then there was this customer, whom I had a lengthy debate about speaking in tongues with. Yup. Awkward. This man was a whole lot of awkward.
I smile in his general direction while I try to grab my coat while clocking out at the same time. I'm not even sure what I said, or how he responded, because I was running out the door. Garbage cans. He probably thinks I hate him. Who knows what he'll say next time I see him? Probably something along the lines of, "So, I see you were running from me?" Yes! I run from creepy people!

"Run! Run! Run!"

Which reminds me of another story. The day before Awkward Day I was all bundled up in my coat, my lunch bag and water bottle in hand, and my scarf wound around my neck. I am heading to the back to ask my boss a question real quick and a customer asks me: "Do you work here?" Uh, lady, whether I work here or not is irrelevant, because I am obviously not available to cater to your every need. I pointed her in the direction of my co-worker who was NOT bundled up like an eskimo, and the customer had the audacity to look miffed. Miffed? I'll show you miffed...

It is sad that "Karate Chops are Not Allowed"

9 comments:

Summer Frey said...

Mmm...I don't miss my Borders days, even if I did work in the coffee shop.

Philistines should not be allowed in book stores!

Sarah Ahiers said...

hahaha! These stories make me miss working in retail. But only a little bit. Because while they're funny now, i know i was driven to be a much meaner, shorter tempered person.

Also, i bet you could build an awesome fort out of all your hidden bibles

Austin Gorton said...

we do have the Bibles, we just were hiding them from you.

I don't know about you, but our store tries to keep ALL our books in the mythical place known as "the back". That way, we can't sell them to customers. Because that's not what our business is all about.

Stupid customers...

Also, isn't how sad how some of the grumpiest, crabbiest people are looking at bibles or religion books?

Seems like they should, generally, be the nicer people, on the average.

Unknown said...

@Summer: If Philistines were not allowed in book stores, who would shop?

@Falen: I so want to build a fort now. Mwahahahaha...

@Teebore: but our store tries to keep ALL our books in the mythical place known as "the back". That way, we can't sell them to customers. Because that's not what our business is all about.

That just made me snarfle. Ahahahaha...

Blam said...


Co-worker ... walks over, points in front of the man's nose and says, "the large print Bibles are right there." It doesn't matter how many times you have to do something like that. It is ALWAYS awkward.

Yeah. If you can't find the large-print Bibles right in front of you, your vision problems are probably more significant than you're admitting.

"Are theses all of your Bibles?"

"No. Some have been proven." Hahahahahahahahaha!!! Sorry. I'm not making fun of you, really; we all typo.

"So, I see you're hiding from me."

Oh geez. I just cringed so hard the house shook.

VW: Slyce — Stallone's pizza shop.

Blam said...

Summer: Philistines should not be allowed in book stores!
Don't they write their own Bibles?

Rebecca T. said...

Oh my werd. Your lame stories are better than my stories. CL and I were reading this on break at work and I think I have pudding on my screen from a burst of laughter :D

Unknown said...

@Blam: Oh geez. I just cringed so hard the house shook. Ahahahaha...

@Sonshine: PUDDING!!

Hannah said...

I'm with Falen, when I hear your stories I almost, ALMOST miss working retail. So much bitterness, so many delightful tales. And it's funny that people who never worked in a bookstore never quite understand why it's ridiculous to come up to customer service and say, "I'm looking for a book." Well...obviously.


@Sonshine-mmmmm, pudding.