Phone calls at our store aren’t typically a matter of giving people directions to our location, providing our store hours or pretty much any quick style question you could have for a retailer. Nah, our average phone order takes between 15 and 30 minutes depending on how many questions the customer has about the bedding they want to buy or price out… or depending on how old and lonely the customer is and how much they really need to vent about their life problems.

The phones where we take phone orders are located in our register ring; and if you’re on the phone and happen to be the only associate in immediate sight, the customer will just walk up and stand in front of you waiting… and waiting… and waiting…

I’ll make eye contact with the customer, smile, nod my head, and maybe hold up my index finger… or something…

…just to indicate it may be a moment before I can get to them. Really, I’m just hoping another associate walks by so I can flag them down because let’s be honest… I’m not going to be off the phone in time to help this customer in front  of me. I’m too busy listening to this old woman ramble and rant about how the immigrants in her building are stealing her packages, and that’s why she needs us to send her orders via some mailing method we can’t actually guarantee because she can’t physically make it down to the mail room.

“Yes, we can ship your order to your house.”

“Is the shipping free?”

“No, there is a shipping fee, which is determined based on purchase amount. Since your order is under $40, shipping will be $5.99.”

“YOU DON’T SHIP FOR FREE?!”

“N… no… it’ll be $5.99 to ship your order.”

“But LL Bean and Amazon Prime ship for free! Why don’t you ship for free?!”

“Because we don’t.” We don’t build shipping costs into the costs of our products, nor do we charge you a monthly fee so you can get free shipping… in all these situations, you’re still paying for shipping. It’s just a matter of how you’re paying for that shipping…

“Well, how can I get you to ship this for free? Don’t you have a first time customer waiver or something?“

“Are you a first time customer?”

“No.”

“Then no. No, there’s nothing I can do. You’ll have to pay the $5.99 to ship this to your home on the other side of the country.

There’s a fine balance when greeting customers at our store. Management tells us we must greet everyone who walks through the door and ask them if we can help them find anything. However, we don’t always know who’s been greeted yet or not by another associate, so we just cover our bases and greet any customer we personally haven’t already greeted (I’m a fan of the “Are you still finding everything alright?” question since it both assumes the person has already been greeted yet leaves room for the customer to ask me for help if they now need it).

What annoys me more than the mandatory greeting is how some customers react to the constant greetings. Most people will kind of giggle or smile pointing out they’ve already been helped. Then there’s those cranky old ladies who freaking lose their minds and flip out on us.

I once approached this woman while she was browsing our slipper selection, kindly asked if she was still finding everything alright; and she snaps at me:

“YOU ALL NEED TO CONVERSE OR GET ON THE SAME PAGE or SOMETHING!”

Apparently she’d already been greeted by several of my coworkers. I just turned around, walked away, and pointed her out to everyone working that day saying, “Don’t talk to that woman. She does not want help…”

The double edged sword to this scenario? We also have those people who may be missed in the commotion of a normal work day, and we’ve gotten hate mail from those cranky old ladies. Yes, there are bitter old people who are so offended that they didn’t get greeted or offered help at a retail store (and they didn’t bother to ASK for help because they don’t think that’s something they should have to do) that they write the company hate mail…

Do people like this really have nothing better to waste their energy on? Really, we either greet them too much or not enough… no happy medium with this. It really just depends on the customer’s ability to handle the attention or be able to ask for it if they need it.

Customer walks up to my register holding a white napkin. She abruptly starts in, “Hi. I bought these jeans here a few months ago, and look!” She begins vigorously rubbing the napkin on the dark wash jeans she’s wearing, lifts the napkin and shows me that some of the dye has worn off onto the napkin. “IT’S BLUE!”

“Yes, I see that.”

“The dye is rubbing right off!”

“It does appear to be doing so.”

“I’ve washed these jeans several times since I bought them and they’re STILL rubbing color off onto things!”

“That particular brand did come with labels warning that the dye is very highly pigmented (as they are a high quality name brand) and that the dye may continue to transfer with initial washes.”

“This pair didn’t have that tag whenI bought them.”

“Are you looking to return the jeans?”

“Iruined my friend’s white couch because I wore these jeans when I went to her house! I was SO embarrassed! I was mortified!”

“Ma’am, are you looking to return the jeans? Do you want a new pair? Do you want a credit?”

“I washed them several times since I bought them and they’re still rubbing color off on everything! My LEGSareblueevery time I take them off! I would have expected this from cheap Target jeans but not from here. Not for how much I paid for these jeans.”

“Ma’am,what do you want me to do about this?”

…apparently nothing. Apparently she just wanted to complain about how the jeans were still turning everything blue… complain in front of eight other customers who were waiting in line to ring up their purchases.

“Nobody can find them anywhere,” this customer explains, “It’s like nobody makes them anymore. Those wonderful cool, crisp percale sheets. They’re just so cold when you first get into bed, and crisssp. Those wonderful 50/50 blends… and they never wrinkle. You just can’t find them anymore.”

“Well, we do sell percale sheets. They are 100% cotton though; we don’t sell any cotton polyester blend sheets, and the nature of percale weaves is that they will wrinkle.”

“Noo, I don’t want sheets that wrinkle.”

“The only sheets we sell that don’t wrinkle are the cotton sateen sheets.”

“Oh, I hate sateen. They’re too soft and they’re warm. Why doesn’t anybody make those wonderful crisp cool percales anymore? There’s SO MANY people looking for them. You wouldn’t believe it, but there’s a whole [web]page full of people looking for real percale sheeting! A whole PAGE!”

I’m honestly picturing this woman looking online and finding only one website where old ladies are talking about the percale sheets their mothers used and how they can’t find those types of sheets anywhere.

“We do have customers who prefer percales because they’re cooler and crisper than the sateen weaves. Most of our customers seem satisfied with our Italian percales or organic cotton percale sheets. However, they do wrinkle.”

“But I don’t want them to wrinkle!”

“Well, this is what we sell. Our only wrinkle free sheet is the cotton sateen, which is why that sheeting line is our most popular bedding collection. The only way to get a wrinkle free percale is to purchase a cotton/poly blend, and we only sell all cotton sheeting. That’s what our customer want. They’ve become very wary of synthetic fibers and chemicals, so the majority of our customers demand all natural fiber blends for our fabrics. This is why we carry the selection we carry.”

“But I want those cool crisp percales. I’m one of your customers.”

“Then I recommend you look into our Italian percales. It’s the closest in texture to the sheets (she brought in pillowcases of the sheets she’s trying to replace) you’re looking for.”

“I bet everything here is made in China, too.”

“Actually, we have percales that are made in Italy (I just fucking told you this… we don’t call it “Italian Percale” for shits and giggles), our organic percale is made in Portugal, we carried sheets made in France and Pakistan, etc…”

“Ooo, where are your French percales?”

“We don’t have any right now. We’ve carried them in the past - usually only in patterned styles.” I show her the style we currently have that’s made in Pakistan that is a near exact comparison between it and the French style.

“So, this one is made in France?”

“No, this one is made in Pakistan. It’s unchanged from how the original French sheeting in this pattern feels. Whenever I have customers looking for a classic, crisp percale, they usually prefer this texture.” She feels the fabric, hums, hahs, and finally agrees that she likes it.

“Where are your sheets like this?”

“We only have this pair of pillowcases. It’s a current item in our catalog, and since we’re an outlet we usually won’t get these new patterns unless they’re returned from catalog orders or discontinued.”

“Where are the regular sheets from France?”

“By regular do you mean solid colors?”

She looks at me like I’m stupid… so I continue, “We don’t carry the French fabric in solids. We only occasionally have it with seasonal patterns. If you want a solid color, I recommend the Italian percale. It’s the closest in texture to these pillowcases.” I show her a discontinued brown pillowcase in the Italian percale pointing out, “We’re no longer producing this color, so we’ve marked it down for clearance. It’s $29 from $79.”

“Do you have that in any other colors?”

“Yes, but those other colors are still current and therefore full price at $79.”

“Well, I can see why that color is marked down. It’s awful.” Beggars can’t be choosers, woman. She goes on complaining, “Oh, why don’t they make those wonderful percales anymore? It’s not like nobody wants them. There’s a whole page of people looking for them! Even on facebook - people keep saying they have to go to yard sales to find those perfect percale sheets. Imagine it - YARD SALES!”

I finally get her over to the register. She’s decided to get the percale pillowcase from Pakistan, but she’s still grumbling about the price and how she’s worried these aren’t going to be the most wonderful pillowcases ever… “If you’re unhappy with them,” I reassure her, “just hang onto your receipt, and you’ll have thirty days to return the pillowcases and get your money back.” She purchases the pillowcases, and keeps mumbling her way out the door how nobody makes wonderful percales sheets anymore that are cool, crisp, and never wrinkle…

Helping a customer while she’s looking at duvet covers. She’s the type of customer who doesn’t necessarily need help shopping, but she keeps talking to you anyway because she… well… likes someone to talk to.

She stops when she gets to this particular blue duvet cover - it’s a textured style that has this stretchy bubble ruching all over the top, which makes the comforter look fuller on the bed. She stops and begins explaining, “I bought this duvet cover a few months back, and I love your products, but I’ve never been more disappointed with one of your products than with that cover. It’s just huge. I bought the queen size for my queen sized comforter, and I swear it must hang at least five inches extra on both sides of the comforter. The comforter just swims inside the cover. Oh! I’m just sooodisappointed…”

She goes on like this for twenty minutes, going onto other topics and then coming back to how disappointed she is with that bubble duvet cover. I look at her and suggest, “Why don’t you just return it?” The woman looks at me in shock, “…I cando that?” I’m thinking, Psssh, yeah.Everybody else does. “Yeah, just let me see if I can find your purchase in our system (I was able to), and we’ll give you a store credit for the amount you paid. You can then use that credit towards buying a duvet cover you’d be more happy with - like that daisy pattern you were looking at earlier.”

The woman’s eyes widen, “…but I’ve been using the cover. I’ve washed it, but I’ve been using it. You’ll still take it back?”

”Yeah, I mean… we won’t resell it. You bought it eight months ago. We’re not going to resell it. It’s just going to go away…”

She pauses, looks at me (still somewhat in shock) and adds, “…but that means you’ll be losing money on that sale, right? I mean, if I return it, use the credit to buy a new cover, and then my old cover just gets sent to trash. Your company will be losing money.” 

“I suppose that’s true. However, you seem to be really unhappy with your prior purchase, so this is what we can do for you so you’ll go home with a product you’re happy with.”The woman was so incredibly happy that this was an option for her. I was still terribly amused that it never occurred to her that she could return the cover even after having used it… hell, we’ve had enough people use bedding for nearly a decade and return it expectingthey’ll get their money back or be able to exchange it for replacements.

Sometimes it’s refreshing to offer such services for customers who seemingly don’t expect they’ll get those benefits.

The woman is suuuuper chatty though. She stopped in again today, and she talked with four different associates before coming to a decision on her purchase. She’s pretty nice. Just a little time consuming.

Helping this older woman (she’s probably in her late 50s/early 60s) put together a bed set from our clearance options. She keeps eying the ever growing pile that another female customer is creating. “Oh, that color’s nice. Oh, I like that pattern,” she says, “Oh she keeps finding all these nice things. She should save some of the bargains for me!”

My coworker is helping this younger woman compile her order, and I overhear bits and pieces of their conversation while I’m still helping my customer. Mention to my coworker when she steps away from her customer, “Hey, that looks like it’ll be a good sale for you.” She replies, “Their family lost their house in a fire. They apparently just got the insurance money to buy an new one and need to replace all their bedding…” I’m like… “Well, that sucks…”

Go back to helping my customer, who now keeps making rude comments about how the younger woman seems to have more than her share and should leave some for the “rest of us” - mainly meaning her because she’s not thrilled with the options we’re finding (mainly because she’s being cheap and doesn’t want to pay for the newer styles she actually likes). “Don’t you think she has enough already? I mean, really…”

I look her square in the eye and inform her, “Their family actually lost their house in a fire. She’s here trying to replace all the bedding for their home.”

Woman’s eyes widen, face drops, puts her hand over her mouth and chokes, “Oh my god… I’m a total bitch. Ohhhhh my god. Here I am going on like a selfish old bag, and she’s just suffered that tragedy. I am an awfulperson.”

Glad you realized it. Have you learned your lesson?

Helped two men and their five and three-year old sons pick out pillows this afternoon. Both kids are on the test bed crowding one dad while he’s trying to test out a couple pillows. The oldest of the boys looks up at the ceiling and calls his dad to look at the umbrellas hanging from the ceiling. The boy flips over on his stomach, looks at me and asks, “Howww did you get the umbrrrrellaaas up there?”
Without hesitation I reply, “With a really tall ladder.”
The one dad cracks up laughing, “Wow. I love how literally you answered that. Took a literal question and answered it directly in a snap.”
“That’s how I roll. I am a very frank person.”


…but seriously. What type of response was he expecting me to provide the kid?

Clock into work this morning, and I see a woman looking frustratedly at a pair of red sparkly UGG slippers. “Do you need some help?” I ask.
“What I need is somebody who’s wearing their glasses,” she pipes, “I can’t tell what size these are. The box says size 10, but it says something different inside the shoes.” She has two size ten boxes on the counter and was trying to see which was which.
“No, these are tens.”
“They are?”
“Yes, the tags inside also show the UK, European and Japanese size equivalents; I can see how that might seem confusing.”
“Okay, so that’s the size I need. Alright! So, I’ll take these and be on my way.” She grabs a piece of paper off the counter and one of the boxes.
“Okay,” I grab one of the size tens and walk around to the other side of the counter to ring in her sale… only to watch as this woman breezes towards the front door with the other pair of tens and exits towards her car. My supervisor and another associate are standing right behind me, and I swing around to look at them confused asking, “Wait… did that just happen?”
“What?” My supervisor asks.
“That woman just walked out the door with those slippers.”
“She came in with a pair of size nines. I think she was making an even exchange.”
“BUT SHE DIDN’T DO AN EXCHANGE… She just WALKED OUT THE DOOR! I think she grabbed a receipt off the counter, but I have no idea what’s going on here. I just clocked in and thought she was going to buy a pair. This is not how I want to start my day. I’m so confused.”
“Just do the exchange. Exchange the nines for a pair of tens.”
“But I don’t know who that lady is.”
“She’s shopped here before. I’ve seen her in here before.”
“Well, that still doesn’t help me. Sure I’ll do the exchange so our counts are right… hopefully they’re right. But SERIOUSLY… WHO does that? Just comes in with one thing and thinks it’s okay to just take something new and call it an exchange? That’s not how these things work.”

Woman (in her late sixties or early seventies) comes into our store looking to buy a featherbed. I inform her that we do not carry full stock of all our featherbeds because they are quite large, and we don’t have the space for them here in the store. “I’m pretty sure most of what we have now are twin size or California king (she wanted a full size), and I think most are synthetic filled. We’ll see if we have what you’re looking for though.” We didn’t. (We’re not even supposed to carry full priced featherbeds. We’re only supposed to have factory seconds.) “I’m sorry we don’t have what you’re looking for. With larger items like this, it’s always a safer bet to call us prior to driving up to make sure we have what you’re looking for in stock or to let us know when you’ll arrive so we can appropriately transfer it to the store for you.”

The woman looks at me disappointingly saying, “Well, I thought it would be a better idea to drive to the store and pick it up here rather than order it online and have to pay for the Federal Express.”

I inform her again that we can transfer in the specific style she prefers into the store so she can avoid paying the shipping, to which she grumbles, “No. I don’t live near here and it was a long drive.” She walks away towards the door and finds the older woman she came to the store with. Her companion comes over to me, pointing her finger at me (I immediately put on my cowface of “I am a rock. Nothing you say can affect me”), and states with a very straight forward yet annoyed face, “I just want to let you know that we drove all the way here from WEST TOWN, STATENAME. I’d also like to suggest you put the correct address of your store on your catalog. We drove to that address first, but the address that’s on there isn’t even for the store- and I had to make a long distance phone call to find out where you really are,” and then she just turned around and walked away.

The address on our catalog is the mailing address for our manufacturing department, call center and business offices; I passed the suggestion on to my manager that we should list our outlet address on the catalogs to prevent further confusion… because old people seemed to have the most difficulty when it comes to calling ahead or using the internet to research product availability, and old people make up the majority of our target market.

All I can say is that it pays to make sure a product is in stock if you’re planning to drive an hour and fifteen minutes to pick up that one specific item and nothing else… and for the love of goodness… don’t shoot the messenger. I just work here.

Wild eyed woman pops a question as I’m walking past her, “Where are your sale bamboo towels?”
“Our bamboo towels are not on sale right now. If we have any discounted towels with fabrics flaws, they will be mixed in with there respective colors.”
“So… where are your sale towels?”
“They’re mixed in with the full priced towel right here,” I motion towards the three sides of our four sided towel shelving unit, “These three sides are all bamboo towels. That fourth side is all cotton towels, some of which are on sale.”
“I want the bamboo towels. Where are the ones on sale?”
“Okay… like right here,” I put my hand on one of the dark teal bath sheets, “I know that these two teal bath sheets have fabric flaws, so we marked them to 30% off the original price.”
“But I don’t want the bath sheet. I want the towel.”
“I understand. I’m just showing you what I know is on sale. Like these two bath sheets, any other sale towels are going to be mixed in with their respective colors.”
“So, where can I find the sale towels?”
I take a deep breath and try not to raise my voice out of frustration, “Ma'am, I honestly don’t know if we have any other sale bamboo towels other than the ones I just pointed out. The best suggestion I can make is that you look through the colors, find ones you prefer and see if any are on sale.”
“So, the price that’s printed on here? Is that the sale price?”
“The printed price is the original price. If an item is on sale, it will have either a written or printed discount percentage on the price tag.” The woman remains quiet long enough for me to scoot around to the other side of the unit. Another woman begins asking me questions about towels and what sets she might be able to put together in neutral colors as a gift. While I’m still talking with this particular lady, the first woman pops out from around the corner with a bright orange towel and bellows, “SO… THIS towel here. Is THIS a sale towel?”
I look at the tag which reads *30% Off $32.00* “Yes, that is a sale towel.
"SO, what price does that come down to?”
Inner thought facepalm, “30% off $32… so, about nine dollars off. It’ll be around $22.”
“Is that the best you can do with the price?”
“This towel has a fabric flaw. 30% is our standard mark down for normally full priced items with fabric flaws.”
“So, that’s the best you can do?”
“………..Yes.”

Over the next hour I watch her putz around the store asking both another associate, my supervisor and my manager about the prices of items in our store. She looks at an eye glass beaded chain (one of those things people wear to catch their glasses in case they fall off/just don’t want to wear them at that moment) and asks my manager, “So? Is this a good quality product?”
“We’ve never had any returned. We generally take that as a good sign,” my manager replies.
“Well, I’m just not sure about the grips on these. Do you think they’ll hold? Have you ever bought one of these? I mean… has anyone who works here bought one of these?”
“Uh, I think Anne might have one of those.”
“Oh? Is she a friend? What does your friend think of these?”
“No, she works here. I’ve never heard her complain about hers, so I suppose they work just fine.”
“Are these on sale?”
“No, those are full priced.”
Woman squints at the price tag, “What’s the retail price on these?”
“That is the retail price. They’re not on sale.”

The woman comes over to the register with her one bright orange towel, her eye glass chain thing, an American flag coin purse and a little telephone wire woven basket. I scan in the latter item, after which the woman asks, “What did that basket ring up as?”
“It’s $24 - full price.”
“Oh, really?!” she frowns, “I didn’t know. I thought those were on sale.”
I show her the tag, “No, it’s full price.” I wait a second as she looks as if she’s debating within herself, “Do you still want it?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty.” She kind of jitters, “I just have to spend forever in this store. It’s my favorite store,” (I swear to God I’ve never seen her in there before in the time I’ve been working at the store) “Do you have a list of all the outlets?”
“Pardon? Do you mean the Freeport outlets?”
“Yeah. Do you have a list? This is only my first stop.”
“Uh… yeah. We have a pamphlet with a map of all the stores downtown.”

Those poor… poor people working at those other stores. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Woman comes into our store today carrying a plastic grocery bag with what appear to be white sheets.
“Good afternoon. Do you have a return?”
“Well, yeah,” woman starts pulling the sheeting contents from the bag, “I bought these sheets from you, and I don’t use them very often really,” (I’ve heard this story line before. And people think they’re original.) “You see, they’ve just worn right down through. Look here… just a huge hole.”
I look at the sheets. There is a huge hole right in the middle of the fitted sheet. “You bought these sheets here?”
“Yeah. I’ve had your sheets before, and they’ve held up just fine. These, I dunno. They must be defective.”
“Hmmm, I don’t recognize this pattern,” it’s a woven white on white polka dot pattern, “If you bought it here, it must have been before I started working here. Let me see if we have a purchase profile for you. What’s your last name?” She spells it for me. No entries come up, “Seems we don’t have you in our computer. Let me just grab my manager and see if she can help you. How long ago do you think you bought these?”
“Maybe a year ago…”
“Okay. Let me just get my manager to help you with this.”

Grab my manager and direct her over to the register. I hate assessing old bedding - mostly because the items that come in have generally are normal wear and tear that happens when you don’t take the best care of the bedding (or they’re about five years older than the customers admit to), and people expect their bedding to hold up like it’s spun from titanium spider silk. I go back to what I was doing while keeping an ear open to hear what’s going on with the current situation.

The woman again unfolds the sheets to show my manager the hole. “You bought these here?” my manager asks.
“Well, yeah… at least I think so,” the woman replies. She digs into the sheet searching for a tag and finds one, “Oh my goodness. This is a Martha Stewart sheet set! Maybe that’s why it didn’t hold up… I’m so sorry. How embarrassing! No wonder neither of you recognized it. You would think that I would have thought to look at the tag before bringing them here.”

We would think you would have thought…

Was educating a customer on our down comforters yesterday. She was kind of shopping around and seeing what options we had. The woman candidly asks me if/when such items go on sale, and I inform her that the fall/winter holiday season is a great time to buy our comforters on sale: “Our annual comforter sale starts in January, and we hold quite a few sales on full priced items this time of year. In store we’ll have sales for Black Friday, Thanksgiving, around Christmas, etc…”
The woman chuckled, “Do you ever do those early bird specials?” I look at her slightly confused. “You know,” she adds, “Like opening up at 4am or something like what other stores do for Black Friday.”
“Oh goodness, no,” I smile, “We only have ten people who work at our store, and all of us like to sleep.” The woman had a hearty yet understanding laugh at my frank statement.

Dealt with a phone customer this afternoon who I’m pretty sure had a five second memory. Imagine this conversation carrying on for twenty minutes:

Customer: “So, you don’t have the pink/multi or the blue/multi [cardigan] in size small, but you have the turquoise and the orange in small?”
Me: “Correct.”
C: “Because I called back on October 2nd, and the woman I spoke with said she’d put the pink/multi on hold for me; but when I called the next day it was gone. Isn’t that weird? It was just gone.”
M: “We only put un-purchased items on hold for up to 48hrs. After that time if we don’t hear back from the customer, we put the items back on the selling floor.”
C: “But I called the next day, and it was gone. Isn’t that weird? It’s so weird. The lady told me to call each week to see if any have come in, so… have any come in?”
M: “No, we only have the pink/multi in medium.”
C: “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And what would you wear with the turquoise?”
M: “… jeans?”
C: “Would you wear khakis with them?”
M: “I don’t own any khakis, so no… I probably wouldn’t wear khakis with that cardigan.”
The woman pauses before asking, “And what would you wear with the turquoise?”
I’m thinking, “Seriously? I just answered this.” I reply, “Probably jeans.”
C: “And the azalea? What would you wear with the azalea? Khaki? Do you like the orange or the turquoise better? I guess the turquoise is busier than the blue/multi… What about the turquoise and the azalea? I suppose the azalea is more versatile. What would you wear with the turquoise? Khaki?”

Rewind… repeat… rewind… repeat…

…Twenty minutes later…

 
C: “It’s just so weird. You have the medium in the pink/multi and the blue/multi, and when I called your store on October 2nd you had them in the small. Then they were just gone. That’s so weird… I might go with the small in the azalea. It’s three dollars cheaper than the turquoise and more versatile… but since I was promised the pink/multi and then it was just gone when I called back to purchase it, which is so weird,right? It’s so weird. Since it waspromised to me, is there anything you can do about the shipping charge? Like waive the shipping charge?”
M: “No, ma'am. There’s nothing I can do about the shipping charge. If we put that cardigan on hold for you, and you didn’t call back within the time you said you would, then it was put back on the selling floor. You do realize this is a retail store, right?”
C: “But I called the next day, and then it was just gone. You had two left, and then it was gone. That’s so weird, right?”
M: “Ma'am, this is an outlet retail store. We sell things. We don’t make promises that certain items will always be in stock; we’re continuously discontinuing and marking down stock.”
C: “So, can you see if you can do something about the shipping charge? I might buy the azalea if you can waive the shipping charge.”
M: “Sure. Hold please.” I leave the woman on hold for a few minutes before coming back to the line saying, “Yeah, we’re not going to be able to waive that shipping fee.”
C: “Oh, okay. I’m going to have to think about that then. Goodbye.”

Apparently five of my coworkers have unfortunately conversed with this woman over the past month. Stories confirmed: Lady is legit cra'y cra'y.

Several days pass:

So, cra'y cardigan lady called back again today… five times… being indecisive if she wanted to buy the tabasco color dress we had on hold for her or the black version the catalog has available. She almost bought the tabasco one we put on hold for her, but she would only buy it if we waived the shipping on this order seeing as we “sold the sweater we ’promised’ her.” She’s naming names now trying to get associates in trouble over the possibility of getting free shipping… over a matter of six dollars.  Had the catalog customer service put a flag on her account so everybody knows this lady is trouble.

*Reposted image that was meant to accompany this story simply because I could not for the life of me find my transcript of this conversation until just now.

Picked up a phone call yesterday from a customer who claims she was sent the wrong items. I pull up her receipt and state, “It seems we sent you a pair of standard/queen and two pairs of king size pillowcases in our Hummingbird Percale pattern.”

“Yes, you did. I wanted the embroidered hummingbird pillowcases. You sent me the wrong items! How am I supposed to go about returning these? You didn’t send me a return label, which should have been sent with the order.”

“Ma'am, we don’t send out return labels from the outlet store. If you look at the bottom of your receipt you’ll find our return address. Just pack up the pillowcases in the original packaging if you still have it, and mail the return to the address on the bottom of the receipt through whichever mailing venue is most convenient for you.”

I already knew what the issue with her order was. We had several customers call the same day as she looking to buy the same product. All those customers gave us the item numbers for the printed hummingbird pillowcases instead of the embroidered style number, which we didn’t have stock of anyway. Catalog customer service didn’t have stock of either, so they sent the customers to us based on the incorrect item numbers they saw we had stock of. Most of the customers we explained the situation to declined purchasing the printed pillowcases before even finalizing their orders.

“But because you sent me the wrong items,” the woman yelled at me, “I shouldn’t HAVE to pay to ship it back to you. You should be refunding my original purchase total with original shipping charge AND I shouldn’t have to pay for the return shipping. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY…”

“Ma'am…”

“I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY…” she was exhausting herself.

“Excuse me, Ma'am.”

“I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR THE RETURN SHIPPING. You charged me THIRTEEN DOLLARS for shipping. YOU SHOULD REFUND ME FOR EVERYTHI-”

“EXCUSE ME, MA'AM. If you’ll listen to me for a moment…”
(She paused in mid scream.)
“We’ll send you a call tag for the package.”

“What does THAT mean?!” she inquires breathlessly.

“That means I’ll request a return label for FedEx to pick up your return directly from your house. All you have to do is pack up the pillowcases and leave them at your door tomorrow when FedEx makes their first pick up attempt. They’ll make three attempts to pick up the package, and we’ll refund your purchase and original shipping when we receive the return.”

The woman suddenly becomes pleasant and sighs happily through the phone, “Oh. Okay, so I can just stick them back in the original envelope they came in and put them at my door?”
“Yes. FedEx will make three attempts to pick up the package. They’ll make their first attempt tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thank you… you have a nice weekend.”

My supervisor looks at me after hearing my side of the conversation and says, “Did you research what happened with that order? You know we shouldn’t give out call tags to people.”

…because what I need right now is my supervisor getting on my case about technicalities…

“I know we’re not supposed to. I tried to get her to just return the package, but she was screaming at me. What else could I do? She wasn’t listening to anything I was saying. She was just screaming at me the entire time.” I picked through our folder of phone order paper files and found the woman’s original order. The associate who took her order had the printed design’s item number listed, so it was a mistake on the customer’s side in giving us the incorrect number for the item she wanted. I knew this is what happened. There was still nothing I could do other than what I did to make the woman stop yelling at me.

I’d also just had an in store customer debate with me over our policy on checking IDs for unsigned credit cards. I’d asked to confirm her mailing address after entering her order (to log it in her customer profile history), and when I asked to see her driver’s license upon noticing her card was unsigned she became all defensive as if I were trying to suggest I was questioning her identity. “Do you want to see my PASSPORT, too?!”
I looked at her shocked, “This is just standard proceedure-”
“OH NO… IT IS NOT! I just…”
“This is just standard store policy, Ma'am. If a card is unsigned, we are required to ask for identification.”
She looks at me with a mix of anger and confusion. “The card is unsigned?”
“Yes,” I show her the back of the card bearing no signature.“
"Oh, I know why that is. I recently made a purchase in England and my bank made me get a new card… blah blah blah” and she trudges off with her package in mid thought.

Seriously, how did I end up with all the grumpy customers in one day?

Customer walks up to me just as I’m about to go on my late afternoon lunch break. She says she’s there to pick up an order for [X person name: We’ll call her Fuddle Duddle], and it should be a couple of bedskirts. She received a call that the order was in. Seems clear cut like any other order we have shipped to the store. I go to our holds area to find the order…

…there’s no bedskirts on hold and no orders under the name the customer gave me. I walk back onto the selling floor to speak with the customer.

“Ma'am, you said your name is Fuddle Duddle? I don’t see any orders out back with that name attached.”
“Well, no. My name is Sue. Fuddle is my friend; I’m in the area, so she asked me to pick up her order for her.”

The next half hour spirals into this confusing mess of misinformation that five other associates attempted to clear up. Sue had come to the store with Fuddle a couple weeks ago and made a few large-ish purchases. Sue said Fuddle was pretty sure she’d paid for the order being shipped to the store, and it just needed to be picked up. I look through our log book for paid for pick-up orders, and there was no listing of Fuddle’s name in the book. I inform Sue that the order may have only been transferred into the store but not paid for; if this was the case, our policy is that unpaid hold items are put onto the selling floor after 48hrs. Sue said Fuddle had paid for the bedskirts. I tried looking up Ms. Duddle’s customer information in our register and through the catalog system, and I found no purchase records at all. “Well, that can’t be right,” Sue said, “We were here in the store. We bought several hundred dollars worth of stuff. We were here for hours. You must have a record.” I informed her that their purchases would be in our records, but they wouldn’t be logged under their names unless we created customer profiles for them. Since their names didn’t come up in our profile search, they’d opted out of having a profile created.

Sue decides to call Fuddle and confirm the information. Sue hands me the phone after a few minutes so I can speak directly with Fuddle. I inquire what style bedskirt it was that she’d ordered for pick up, and she said she couldn’t really describe it. Supposedly it was a plain tailored style, and she had a receipt for the item at home… but she wasn’t at home that very moment, so she couldn’t give me the information on the receipt. She insisted she paid for the bedskirt because she had a receipt, but her friend had also received a call to pick up her order… which she said is, “…a queen sized dust ruffle in white… or maybe it was two twins.” She couldn’t even remember what she ordered. I described a couple of the styles to her, and she suggested our diamond quilted style seemed most likely. I asked if her order could have been logged under anyone else’s name, and she said no… but her neighbor Pierce was supposed to pick it up. So… we had a third person involved in this order? I took down Fuddle’s phone number and the number for her neighbor Pierce, who was originally called and notified about the order, and I told her we’d give her a call once we sort the issue out.

Sue is getting somewhat impatient now because she was there solely to pick up Fuddle’s order (Fuddle lives out of state but owns a second house here in Maine, which is where the bedskirt is supposed to go). Sue looks at me saying, “So, if you eventually find this bedskirt, you’ll have to mail it to us for free, right? I don’t want to drive another 60 miles to come pick it up, and you called Pierce to say it was here and it’s not.” I told her that we would figure out some way to get the items to the customer if she did indeed already pay for them. Sue and her patiently waiting husband decide to leave.

Meanwhile, my coworker pieces all the mashed up information together and tracks down the receipt for Fuddle’s original purchase… which has a queen sized bedskirt on it. “She bought the bedskirt and one matching sham in store, and they left with her.” What could she have possibly ordered? We went back to the holds area. There was a white queen coverlet and one matching sham on hold… under Pierce’s name and contact phone number… and it was unpaid for. I run out the door hoping Sue and her husband hadn’t pulled out of the parking lot yet. They were gone. My coworker gets on the phone and calls the neighbor asking if they can contact Sue before she gets too far away from the store. The neighbor does get a hold of Sue, she comes back and purchases the coverlet and sham for her friend.

Summary: Woman comes in to pick up supposedly paid for bedskirt for her friend. The actual order wasn’t a bedskirt, it wasn’t paid for, and the contact person listed on the order was neither the friend coming to pick up the order or the original customer who placed the order.

Moral of the story: If you spend hundreds of dollars or intend to spend hundreds of dollars on merchandise at a store, especially merchandise that you have to special order into the store, for the love of god remember what you ordered. If you’re going to have someone else pick up the order, make sure it’s the same person you specified would pick it up in the first place. It’s not the customer service person’s fault you, the customer, don’t have your shit together enough to remember what you’re buying or that you lack the coordination to notify us that someone other than your initially designated friend will be picking up your order.

Geez, people…

Peppy song comes on the radio in the store this evening. I started dancing (like I usually do when a fun song comes on in store) while I was in the register area. My coworkers always find this amusing.

I see an older man and his wife walking towards the register counter… the older man also started dancing when he saw that I was. I smiled, greeted him asking, “Can we help you find anything this evening?” He replied, “Yes, we’re looking for a winter duvet. You’re the one dancing, so I’m going to ask for your help on this matter.”

It was a good note to end on. They were a fun couple to assist.

Former coworker messages me:

“Since you are always sharing the ridiculousness of customers, let me share something you missed today:

About an hour into my shift, a woman called and started with the standard; she said her name, the fact that she was in the store yesterday, and she had purchased a shirt (the one that is marked down to $25, and has all those jewels where the buttons are.) I thought she wanted to return it. But no, she was upset because she realized hers didn’t come with the extra ‘bling’ as she called it, and wanted us to take one off of one of the shirts still on the rack and give it to her. Not only that, but she wanted us to mail it to her, because gas would ‘cost more than the shirt is worth.’”

This “extra bling” is a little bag of spare plastic jewels and buttons that come with the shirt that the customer can use in the event a jewel or button pops off the shirt. The customer thought the cost of gas to drive back to the store to retrieve that little bag of bling was more costly than the $25 she paid for the shirt. The cost of us mailing the bag of bling to her is more than the bag of bling was worth… but the customer doesn’t care about that. We’re a business. We can afford to take that hit.

Every month our store does a promotional give-away for people who fill out these information slips and elect to receive our emails and catalogs. One month last spring we had a picnic promotional basket put together, which included some gift items from our novelty selection. One item in the basket was a set of melamine plates that looked like patterned paper plates.

A mom and her two kids walk into the store, and her son, who looks about five years old, walks past this set of plates on display, points at them and quietly interjects through his teeth, “Craaaazy PLATES! THEY’RE CRAAAAZY PLATES!” The kid says this every time he walks past the display. My coworker and I can hardly hold it together.

The mom stops at the register to pay for the few things she’s found, and her little boy keeps whispering to her, “Mom? Did you see the crazy plates? They’re CRAZY PLATES.”

“Yes, dear. I saw the plates. They’re pretty cool looking.”

Boy follows his family out of the store still whispering, “Craaazy Plates…”

When customers would take a bedding article (pillowcases, king fitted sheet, etc…) out of its package so they can see what the pattern looks like overall, then balls up said bedding items and shoves the wad back into the package… or doesn’t shove it into the package but just shoves it between some items on a nearby shelf… or just tosses the item onto the floor. Found an entire silk sheet set strewn across some clearance boxes on several occasions… solid color sheet set. Not like the person needed to see what the pattern looked like. Oh, no. They probably just wanted to roll in the fabric for a moment.

…and the courteous customers who actually bring up the unpackaged items saying, “Hey, I took this out of the package and can’t refold it nicely. Do you mind doing it?” are shocked when we smile and thank them for bringing the items and packages to us. It’s just so much nicer than stumbling upon the messes while wandering the store.

So, there’s this business that opened a few months ago in my town that combines the “dinner and a movie” experience. It’s a movie theater that has tables and serves pub style food and beverages. The pub theater advises customers arrive at least half an hour early since, you know, it takes time to cook the food… and not just cook for your table but for the forty other people there to view that particular movie… and the people in the other four theater rooms that are also ordering food at the same time. Boyfriend and I got there kind of late (as in right as the trailers began rolling), but no big deal. Movie’s an hour and a half long; worst case scenario, we’ll get twenty minutes into the film and then get food.

Anyway, we’re there to see Inside Out, and aside from the handful of young couples there to see it there’s four or five families. Animated film - kids expected for that 5:30pm showing. Kids aren’t the problem in this situation.

I’m busy watching the beginning of the movie when my boyfriend leans over and says, “Wow… what a biiiiiitch. Did you hear that?” I’m thinking he was reacting to something a character said, so I’m a little confused. “No,” I say, “I missed it. What happened?”

“That woman in front of us, whose family just got their food. She was just bitching to the waitress about how her kids’ food came during the movie…“

“What was she expecting? It’s a theater…that serves food… when did she expect the food would arrive? The whole selling point of this place is to eat food while you’re watching a movie.”

Yeah… the woman complained about the food coming during the movie (because apparently she didn’t want her kids to eat during the movie?), and she demanded that she not be charged for the meals… 

We had the same waitress. We gave her a substantial tip for having to deal with that bullshit.

…the response I would get from Massachusetts customers who travel to our state to shop. This response usually comes after I’ve given the customer their order total, and they get upset by how much their already discounted merchandise costs.

“No, that can’t be right. That’s so expensive.”

I break down their order by item, give them the purchase total and provide the sales tax amount applied to the order to give them the total I originally told them.

“Well, we have tax free weekends in Massachusetts,” the woman will usually snark (because it’s usually the wives who point this out).

“Yeah… we don’t have tax free weekends in this state,” I’ll respond. What’s that got to do with the customer’s situation right now? Do they actually think I can waive the tax because their home state offers tax-free shopping opportunities? No. I can’t control the fact that we have to charge sales tax. You shop here, you pay tax, end of story. Stop looking at me like I’m supposed to give you extra discounts. You saw the prices, you have no coupons, you still decided you wanted the stuff, so pay up…

Minor annoyance. Occasionally I’d ring up a customer who happens to be buying one or two small items. Our town has a ban on plastic bags, so the store offers flat paper bags or two sizes of paper handled bags that we’re only supposed to use for larger orders. So, I’ll grab the appropriate sized flat bag for the small order, slide the items into the bag, fold down the edges, and this is when the customer decides to ask,…

“Ohhh, can I have a handled bag instead? Thanks.”

I just wrapped up your order, and now you think it’s the perfect time to reject the bagging method? Mhmmm… ‘kay.Unfolds small flat bag, takes items out, puts items into smallest handle bag that is still 90% empty bag with the stuff in it, so those two items are just haphazardly sliding from one end of the bag to the other when moved.

I’ve had customers buy one small bottle of hand soap or one package of underwear (it’s just one pair in a 4″x6″ package), and the customer requests an 11″ x 16″ handled bag when we have a flat bag specifically sized for small carry-out items like this. You’re going back out to your car.Wutchu need all that bag for? Just take the damn bag I put the thing in and be done with it.

Being an outlet store, part of our stock comes from our catalog returns department. Any opened bedding they can’t repackage to look first quality comes to our store as does other second quality merchandise (factory rejects, vendor defective items, etc…)

A coworker and I are unfolding, checking, refolding and repackaging various catalog returns when we come to this one black cotton duvet cover. We take it out of the return’s packaging, unfold it and see that it’s covered in glitter… it’s everywhere - like a glitter cloud just poofs up when we unfolded it to the center.

GLITTER EFFING EVERYWHERE

Prom night gone wrong (or right?) because you know all those dresses are frikken covered in glitter. Maybe the kids’ birthday party got out of hand, or some brat decided the best place to do their school project was on their parents’ bed…

“Were they doing arts and crafts on their bed, and the mom was like, ‘I’m never going to be able to wash this out! Let’s just return it, say it was defective, and just get a new one in exchange.’ I bet you that’s what happened…”

Then my mind went directly to the people who work in our returns department, and I thought, “Why did they think we would resell this? Who’s going to buy a duvet cover that’s sprinkled with glitter? Nobody’s going to buy this. Send it to the employee store… pffft… wasting our time.”

Former coworker messaged me: “Last night I had a customer come into the store at 5:45 (fifteen minutes before closing) and talked to me for ten minutes about how she sold her gold crowns when she had some teeth removed.”

Yeah, I think I’m good.

This will be my first Black Friday where I’m not working………..I’m so fucking happy.

Contrary to popular belief, Spirit Halloween DOES punish employees for customer theft.

Store managers lose their bonuses, employees get fired, and if a certain location has a shrink percentage larger than 10%, that location will not reopen the following year, meaning those employees will not be asked to come back the following year, because they failed to protect the company’s assets.

So not only are you messing with jobs and pay by stealing from Spirit Halloween, but you’ll be why certain locations don’t reopen the following year.

Think about that the next time you thinkk about stealing a shitty Pageboy wig, a $10 choker, or an entire Sexy Little Red Riding Hood costume.

Me: *pulls into the parking lot at work*

Coworker: *sees me while they’re on their break, and does the Gay Squat™️ to let me know I have been spotted*

Me, rolls up next to them with my music blasting, rolls down my window: WHAT’S UP FUCKER?!

Coworker: WHAT’S UP BITCH?!

The two of us: *hang out in the parking lot like the rats we are, until we absolutely have to go inside*

I’m gonna start barking at customers who try on masks despite our giant signs telling them not to, as well as the customers who say, “Your fitting rooms being closed due to COVID won’t stop me from trying this on in the middle of the asiles!”.

In other news, I had a snot-nosed brat come in today, and look at a Halloween mask. I watched him look at our signs that say “Please do not try on masks.” and ask loudly, “I wonder if I can try on masks.” and then DID IT ANYWAY until his grandma told him not to before looking at me for back-up.

“Due to COVID-19, you aren’t supposed to try on masks.”

“WHAT?! THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

Kid, you’re 10 and wearing a Legend of Zelda shirt. Shut the fuck up you fucking future neck beard, and give me the mask you tried on so I can go pour bleach in it your fucking germ-ball. I know your dumbass can fucking read, because you play Zelda, and I know you read our signs. Grow the fuck up.

Dear shitty brats that came into the store today without masks on and then proceeded to cough on everything as you were escorted out of the store;

When you catch COVID, because you refuse to wear masks during a global pandemic, I hope you recover so I can watch you fall off your stupid fucking trick bike, you future highschool dropout.

HowTHE FUCK are you going to tell me to “stop cursing in front of customers”, when we sell a costume that’s a skeleton with a BONER!!!!

My boss gave me the “You’re in trouble” tone of voice today, and I almost immediately started crying, and I have to work five more days before I get a single, solitary day off.

elliotjonesss:

arabella-ardor:

innithotel:

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