Sale Shoppers

There is nothing worse in a retail employee's life then the sale season. While customers love this time of year with all of the 40-75% off sales, for the employees it is hell.

If customers just came in, looked through the sale racks, tried on what they found, gave back what they didn't want, and bought what they did want then it wouldn't be so bad; but they don't.

First, sale shoppers have no humility. If I go into a store and am looking for sale items I will shop the whole store so it isn't obvious, sale shoppers? Nope. They walk right in wearing all of the ugly items we had left over from last season that sold for $4.97 and loudy ask, "where's the sale section!?" They don't even look at the regular price items. Actually no, I take that back. Half of them won't look at the regular price items and the other half rumage through them all and then loudy let you know that they'll come back for them when they're half price.

So they get to the sale section and dive in. Literally. Sale sections are always a small area of the store, often with two rows of product on top of each other, not unlike the customers themselves who clamour around one another trying to find the cheapest items in a size somewhat close to what they actually need. It is also a fact that sale shoppers will go out of their way to find a damaged version of an item so they can get an even further discount. So when you see someone walking down the street and there's a rip in the back, they may have actually bought it that way. Sale sections are always crammed. This is because the store has tried to get out as much of the product as possible because at the bargain prices they're selling it for, they don't want to waste time having to help you find a size that's stored in the back. Sale shopping is no service shopping. Should I repeat that?

Sale shopping is self-serve, no service, shopping!

Sorry but I make too much money to try and help you find that $9.97 t-shirt in a small. If you want it, you get on your hands and knees and find it in the mess. And what a mess it is! With everything crammed in there clothes are constantly falling off of the hangers and customers will drop whatever they don't want on the floor.

Now if this was it then we could handle it but the problem is that these people do think that they deserve service, silly them. They do want you to find the small for them and if it's not at your store, start calling around until you find it. And when you find it? You will hold it for them for as long as they want, not as long as the company policy states. No, sale shoppers don't live by society's rules, they live by their own rules and society has to conform to them. I'm not making this up, it's what a customer told me.

So they've made a scene, made a mess, left a war path behind in the fitting room of hangers and ripped t-shirts nobody else would want, and they make it to cash with their items. What else could they possibly want? Oh separate bags for each? Wrapped in tissue paper and done up like gift bags? Tags cut off, perfectly folded, and a bow tied on it? Of course. Sale shoppers will take advantage of every single freebie they can. Hell they'll even pick up a few of our business cards just so they can get some more free shit.

Oh and then they'll make a comment about how poor the service is in the store and probably phone the hotline and try to get a gift card or free merchandise for the "horrible experience" they had.

All this and what did they get? The product that nobody else wanted at regular price, first markdown, second markdown, even third markdown with an additional discount. I know money is tight for some people and when students come in I feel for them, but a lot of these customers are carrying LV bags, wearing Tiffany bracelets, talking on their iphones. They aren't poor. They're just cheap and rude and when they complain that the staff are turning their noses up at them, they're absolutely right. With every discount comes free attitude, courtesy of your friendly sales associate.

Verbiage

Every now and then we get what I can only assume are scholars in the store who like to point out when we do and do not speak or write something correctly.

Two weeks ago I jumped on cash because there was a mess of people standing around and I didn't know who was next so I said, "I can help the next person." A woman walked up to me and thanked me for saying it correctly. It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about and to be honest I don't think the other customers in line ever figured it out. I said "I can" instead of "Can I" to which I assume she would have said, "I don't know, can you?"

I also received a customer complaint once after helping a customer because when they thanked me I said, "No problem." Turns out that this is wrong because it implies that it actually was a problem. So from now on I'll just say "it was my pleasure" and make everyone feel awkward?

Yesterday I had another woman come up to me upset that the word 'favorite' was spelt without the u. This is Canada and if the company is going to take the time to put everything in French then they should change the spelling to the Canadian version. I told her that I didn't think most Canadians were smart enough to know the difference, to which she took offence, and then went on to give me a speech about how we're losing our cultural identity and need to fight for it. Ah if you're that concerned then stop shopping at a huge American chain! And let's be honest, we lost our cultural identity a long time ago. We are Americans in every way except that when we travel our t-shirts say "Canada by Roots" instead of an American flag with a stag.

Look I get that everyone has their "thing" that bugs them, but if I verbalized my "thing" then I'd be out of breath from telling people to shut up everytime they treat other people as less than them.

Oh and I'm sure that there are plenty of grammatical errors in this blog and quite frankly, I don't give a damn. Shut up.