I wasn't sure what there was about her that didn't look quite right. Nothing obvious - no squint or limp or blotch or unnatural color in her hair. No loud jewelry, no overt smells of cigarettes, booze, sweat or too much perfume. She made her way around the store quietly, picking over some things in a desultory way before putting them back.
Her wavy brown hair fell to her shoulders; her blue eyes were highlighted with (I thought) too much inexpertly applied eyeshadow, and she wore a little blush and lipstick, but nothing obtrusive, flashy or of questionable taste. she wore dark blue cotton pants, brown leather shoes and a cheap top made of polyester, with horizontal stripes in varying shades of plum and pink, which made me think of the color of boysenberry yogurt.
She was just a tubby little woman, a little mousy, out for an afternoon's change of scenery. She didn't strike me as a local; the locals who come into the store are either the wealthy second-home owners who dress with muted ostentation and walk with an air of haughty carelessness, or the natives, multi-generational Vermonters who come in to look but not usually to buy. Encouraged to work in the shops, the natives are usually incapable of paying the prices for stuff they - we - have to sell.
This woman seemed to be from Away. Her two companions' appearance confirmed this for me. The elder had on too much makeup and wore her brass-blonde hair in fat curls that looked fresh from the hot rollers. The younger one - daughter of one of them, I assumed - scuffed along behind, sullen and bored and lonesome, her unkempt bleached hair hanging in her eyes, no doubt sticking in the gummy mascara. She chewed a piece of gum with her mouth open, looking not nearly as sophisticated as any member of the herd of cows on the outskirts of town. Her low-rider jeans crinkled in pale-blue faded lines on her slim hips, and flared out over her worn sneakers to trail in a damp and ragged fringe at her heels. Her pink-flowered nylon shirt didn't quite reach her jeans, exposing a pale stripe of belly with a bit of gold winking in her navel. Over this fetching ensemble she wore an old denim jacket several sizes too large, drooping off her shoulders and hiding all but the tips of her fingers, Sparkly magenta nail polish, candy-pink glossy lipstick and and a small pewter death's-head pendant around her neck completed the outfit.
The girl and the hot-roller-curly-haired woman (who was utterly nondescript aside from her hair) bickered quietly and constantly (the girl was bored, the woman wanted to shop, the girl was tired, the woman wanted to shop, why can't we, because I said, etc. etc.), while the dark-haired woman wandered placidly around the store, paying no attention whatsoever to the skirmishers in her company. The mother and daughter (must have been!) finally left, griping at each other all the way, while the woman in the striped shirt continued her rounds of the store.
Something still seemed "off" about her. Was it her placidity in the company of a brewing storm? Most people I know would have told one or both of them to shut up, told the girl to go put on some clothes that fit, and comb her hair, for god's sake, and would have told the woman to stop dragging the girl around, and let her be by herself, and ask whether she could remember being sixteen...
I could not figure out what was odd about the woman. It wasn't that she was tubby; I've seen lots of rotund people before, from pleasingly plump, to comfortably solid, to amazingly obese. She was none of these. She was... tubby. That was the word for it. Like I girl I'd known in grade school, who went by the nickname "Tubbles".
And then it struck me - that was it. This woman, whose face showed at least four decades of care, laughter and worry, had the same body-shape as a tubby little third-grader. A bit larger all around, of course - she was at least five-foot-three - but the same cylindrical upper body, hardly any bosom.
The usual comfortably solid matrons I've seen are just that - matronly, with a bosom like Margaret Dumont. This woman... well, I dunno.
--
Then there was the tall woman who looked like a misplaced character from a fantasy novel. No, not one of those curvy, wicked enchantresses from comic books and sword-and-sorcery, but a lovely, kind face and blue eyes that were gemlike not in color or quality, but in depth and humor and wisdom. (I am elaborating and exaggerating, of course, but she really did have a very nice way about her.) Dressed in unremarkable clothes, she stood looking aver a shelf of towels.
Long, dark, wavy hair, some caught in a silver clip, some braided, some hanging loose, reached to the middle of her back, and was tinged here and there with gray. She looked like a Sage, a Sorceress, a Wise Woman, and Elder.
But for all I know she may have been an investment banker. Or a truck driver (I kind of doubt this). Or a timeworn picker-up-after-other-people's-children.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Random bits
Observations notes in the store. Dates in no particular order.
~~~
Jan. 27, 2010
A woman came in the store today, a silly-looking woman. When she first stepped in, I thought, "you look ridiculous!"
At first I could only see the large donut of black fur around her head, and as she walked toward me, I wondered about her stilted, mincing, stiff-kneed gait. She asked me in a raspy voice if we carry wine glasses (because of course linen shops always carry glassware). As it happens, we do have a couple dozen, a discontinued pattern, but not what she wanted. She stumped? stalked? around in her weird gait, and I looked down at her feet, encased in very narrow-soled boots with a wedge heel at least 4" high - too high for her to walk with any sort of natural stride, so she clumped, stomping the soles of her feet down flat with each step.
She wore leopard-print pants of some crinkly material, drawing attention to her pencil-thin legs and ridiculous boots. Her jacket wasn't too awful (at least it wasn't quilted!) - sort of coffee-brown, hooded and belted, and short, not covering her stilt-legs at all.
Her face - perhaps it was the result of Botox or facelifts, perhaps a bout with a nerve disorder, but her face did not move as it should. Her blonde hair - dry, lusterless, straw-like - stuck out long, ragged and uncombed from beneath the fur donut.
Totally out of place. Dressed to show off - she had probably never not dressed to show off. She was pleasant enough, for all the palpable reek of cigarettes that hung around her. But she dressed to make an impression, and she certainly did. Not the one she wanted to make, I'm sure.
~~~
July 7, 2009
Hot day - first hot day in over a month. Real summer at last, after 6 weeks of cold and wet weather.
A stick-thin woman comes in the store wearing lightweight linen pants and a sleeveless top, and knots a long woolly scarf around her neck.
--
A man blusters in, as energetic as a spidermite, with his soft-spoken wife trailing in his slipstream. He asks for a washroom - I direct him to the nearby public loo. He leaves, she stays and I ask her if I can help her find anything. "Oh, no," she says, apparently unnerved by the offer. "My husband has definite ideas."
When Husband comes back, all crackling, zipping energy, he tells her what he likes, not paying any heed to her preferences. He picks the sheet pattern, scoffing at her timid suggestions, and only conceding to her when she reminds him of how many pillows they have, and so how many shams they need, and what size. He vetoes her choices of towels and bath mats. He then pays, restlessly searching through all the incidental POS (point-of-sale, not piece-of-(ahem) stuff) items - soaps, sachets, trinkets - while I wait to see if he's going to add anything to his purchase. Then he vibrates with impatience as I finalize his sale, and he scribbles a hurried dash as a signature and herds his spiritless wife from the store. He reeks of self-importance and self-consequence. I do not like him.
--
Here is a woman with voluminous hair, easily doubling the size of her head, and slightly flattened as if she had it done yesterday and slept sitting up in a chair. She wears a coordinated pants-set - blue pants, and a blouse with huge pink flowers on it. Squeaky little voice, thick makeup that does not quite hide the leathery texture of her too-long-tanned skin. Huge necklace and earrings of silver starfish set with tiny multicolored rhinestones and beads. A Florida lady, living for the pleasure of shopping and lying on the beach.
--
Overheard, Date unknown:
Man: "I don't think you should put your sunglasses on to evaluate whether it matches. Take your sunglasses off."
Woman: (pause) "It doesn't not match."
--
January 2005
They came in late one winter day - about 5.30pm, an hour after dark. The little girl, aged four or five, was dressed in a pretty pink jacket, her butter-blonde hair mussed and tangled in the puff of white fuzz that encircled her hood. Her white snow boots seemed too heavy for her feet, and she scuffed wearily after the woman. "Mommy, I'm tired. Can we go home?"
"I'm shopping," the woman said, not looking back at the little girl. "You said you wanted to come; now you have to wait until I'm ready before we go home."
"But Mommy, I'm tired."
"You spent all day skiing. No wonder you're tired."
They circled the store, and every time to woman stopped to examine something, the little girl leaned or sat on something, so tired she could barely stay on her feet.
They finally passed in front of the counter. The woman wore her black hair sleeked into a severe knot at the back of her neck. Her high-heeled boots added another four inches to her height, and her chocolate-brown sable coat rippled in shining folds around her. Mouth downturned; eyes hard and cold. I could not determine her age; she may have been thirty, or she may have been fifty. She wore makeup so thick and carefully applied that any telltale wrinkle or frown line (as I could not imagine her having smile-lines) was completely plastered over. I had the impression that she was around thirty-five or so, but the makeup made her look older.
She swept by without a glance in my direction, but the disconsolate, tired little girl, scuffing along in her mother's wake, looked up at me with big, sad blue eyes, fatigue making slate-gray smudges beneath her eyes. I gave her a smile, but she was too tired or shy to respond, and scuffed on after her sable-draped mother. How could anyone not have seen, or cared, that that poor little kid needed to have a warm bath, a cup of hot soup, with animal crackers, and be snuggled in a blanket, and rocked to sleep?
~~~
Jan. 27, 2010
A woman came in the store today, a silly-looking woman. When she first stepped in, I thought, "you look ridiculous!"
At first I could only see the large donut of black fur around her head, and as she walked toward me, I wondered about her stilted, mincing, stiff-kneed gait. She asked me in a raspy voice if we carry wine glasses (because of course linen shops always carry glassware). As it happens, we do have a couple dozen, a discontinued pattern, but not what she wanted. She stumped? stalked? around in her weird gait, and I looked down at her feet, encased in very narrow-soled boots with a wedge heel at least 4" high - too high for her to walk with any sort of natural stride, so she clumped, stomping the soles of her feet down flat with each step.
She wore leopard-print pants of some crinkly material, drawing attention to her pencil-thin legs and ridiculous boots. Her jacket wasn't too awful (at least it wasn't quilted!) - sort of coffee-brown, hooded and belted, and short, not covering her stilt-legs at all.
Her face - perhaps it was the result of Botox or facelifts, perhaps a bout with a nerve disorder, but her face did not move as it should. Her blonde hair - dry, lusterless, straw-like - stuck out long, ragged and uncombed from beneath the fur donut.
Totally out of place. Dressed to show off - she had probably never not dressed to show off. She was pleasant enough, for all the palpable reek of cigarettes that hung around her. But she dressed to make an impression, and she certainly did. Not the one she wanted to make, I'm sure.
~~~
July 7, 2009
Hot day - first hot day in over a month. Real summer at last, after 6 weeks of cold and wet weather.
A stick-thin woman comes in the store wearing lightweight linen pants and a sleeveless top, and knots a long woolly scarf around her neck.
--
A man blusters in, as energetic as a spidermite, with his soft-spoken wife trailing in his slipstream. He asks for a washroom - I direct him to the nearby public loo. He leaves, she stays and I ask her if I can help her find anything. "Oh, no," she says, apparently unnerved by the offer. "My husband has definite ideas."
When Husband comes back, all crackling, zipping energy, he tells her what he likes, not paying any heed to her preferences. He picks the sheet pattern, scoffing at her timid suggestions, and only conceding to her when she reminds him of how many pillows they have, and so how many shams they need, and what size. He vetoes her choices of towels and bath mats. He then pays, restlessly searching through all the incidental POS (point-of-sale, not piece-of-(ahem) stuff) items - soaps, sachets, trinkets - while I wait to see if he's going to add anything to his purchase. Then he vibrates with impatience as I finalize his sale, and he scribbles a hurried dash as a signature and herds his spiritless wife from the store. He reeks of self-importance and self-consequence. I do not like him.
--
Here is a woman with voluminous hair, easily doubling the size of her head, and slightly flattened as if she had it done yesterday and slept sitting up in a chair. She wears a coordinated pants-set - blue pants, and a blouse with huge pink flowers on it. Squeaky little voice, thick makeup that does not quite hide the leathery texture of her too-long-tanned skin. Huge necklace and earrings of silver starfish set with tiny multicolored rhinestones and beads. A Florida lady, living for the pleasure of shopping and lying on the beach.
--
Overheard, Date unknown:
Man: "I don't think you should put your sunglasses on to evaluate whether it matches. Take your sunglasses off."
Woman: (pause) "It doesn't not match."
--
January 2005
They came in late one winter day - about 5.30pm, an hour after dark. The little girl, aged four or five, was dressed in a pretty pink jacket, her butter-blonde hair mussed and tangled in the puff of white fuzz that encircled her hood. Her white snow boots seemed too heavy for her feet, and she scuffed wearily after the woman. "Mommy, I'm tired. Can we go home?"
"I'm shopping," the woman said, not looking back at the little girl. "You said you wanted to come; now you have to wait until I'm ready before we go home."
"But Mommy, I'm tired."
"You spent all day skiing. No wonder you're tired."
They circled the store, and every time to woman stopped to examine something, the little girl leaned or sat on something, so tired she could barely stay on her feet.
They finally passed in front of the counter. The woman wore her black hair sleeked into a severe knot at the back of her neck. Her high-heeled boots added another four inches to her height, and her chocolate-brown sable coat rippled in shining folds around her. Mouth downturned; eyes hard and cold. I could not determine her age; she may have been thirty, or she may have been fifty. She wore makeup so thick and carefully applied that any telltale wrinkle or frown line (as I could not imagine her having smile-lines) was completely plastered over. I had the impression that she was around thirty-five or so, but the makeup made her look older.
She swept by without a glance in my direction, but the disconsolate, tired little girl, scuffing along in her mother's wake, looked up at me with big, sad blue eyes, fatigue making slate-gray smudges beneath her eyes. I gave her a smile, but she was too tired or shy to respond, and scuffed on after her sable-draped mother. How could anyone not have seen, or cared, that that poor little kid needed to have a warm bath, a cup of hot soup, with animal crackers, and be snuggled in a blanket, and rocked to sleep?
Sunday, July 11, 2010
A safe outlet
I decided to start this blog in addition to my "Pen and Ink" blog in order to separate the dullness, dreariness, frustration, and other negative stuff that surrounds my job from the good things I want to write about in P&I - art, writing, food, gardening, nature, family and friends.
Work does give me a lot to write about; retail is rife with subjects for essays, stories, comic operas and nihilistic ponderings. This blog will give me a place to vent, laugh, despair and ridicule to my heart's content without polluting the nourishing stuff that is real life, lived out from behind the counter. Here I can write about PIA customers, clueless corporate honchos, Demanding Twits, Entitled Harridans, Horse People, Ski People, and The Scary Sweaty Psycho Guy Who Wanted to Try On the Silk Nightgowns, among many others.
I will begin by reprinting a post I made this spring in P&I, about a particularly obtuse and demanding woman who was my nemesis for a couple of days in April.
Work does give me a lot to write about; retail is rife with subjects for essays, stories, comic operas and nihilistic ponderings. This blog will give me a place to vent, laugh, despair and ridicule to my heart's content without polluting the nourishing stuff that is real life, lived out from behind the counter. Here I can write about PIA customers, clueless corporate honchos, Demanding Twits, Entitled Harridans, Horse People, Ski People, and The Scary Sweaty Psycho Guy Who Wanted to Try On the Silk Nightgowns, among many others.
I will begin by reprinting a post I made this spring in P&I, about a particularly obtuse and demanding woman who was my nemesis for a couple of days in April.
No Jury of Retail Workers Would Convict Me
NOTE: This post was first published in my blog "PEN AND INK" on Thursday, April 22, 2010:
Mrs. F. and her husband were in the store a couple of weeks ago to buy sheets. She wanted something neutral but brownish for a guest room. After rejecting the few neutral patterns we have on sale (and god forbid she buy something in the full-price line), she and her husband latched onto a loud, eye-bending, ugly-as-hell, brown and beige zebra-striped pattern. They liked the sheets (because they were cheap), and then bickered at length over what coverlet to get - or get a duvet cover instead of a coverlet? Which pattern duvet cover - the zebra stripe, or a very ugly brown/beige/black plaid? A solid beige? Cool beige or warm beige?
After an hour or so they nailed down which one they wanted (zebra sheets and plaid coverlet), and then decided that they needed a dust ruffle, and started in all over again with the bickering and indecision. By this time, I wanted a stiff drink (and I don't drink!), but the fun had only just begun. See, with a dust ruffle, there is not only the bed size, but the drop to consider - the distance from the box spring to the floor. There is no standard size; it varies depending on the thickness of the box spring and height of the bed frame. I had to explain this. I had to explain why a queen, California king or twin won't work on a double bed; I had to explain box pleat v. ruffled; I had to explain plateau v. panel skirt, and how to adjust the drop on a panel skirt. Mr. F. got this idea fairly quickly, but when I tried to explain it to Mrs. F., she stared at me, totally bewildered. I felt as if I was trying to explain it to a pigeon or a goat or a jar of mayonnaise or something which has a total lack of comprehension.
After a lot more explaining (on my part) and bickering (on theirs), and comparing and waffling, Mrs. F. decided on a plain sand-colored skirt, but did not know the drop she needed. So they bought the sheets and shams and coverlet, and said they'd go home, measure and call or come back to buy the skirt.
Later that afternoon, Mr. F. came back and bought the 18" full-size solid sand ruffled skirt. Good riddance, I thought as he left, to both the hideous sheets and the PIA customers.
Then - this past Sunday, Mrs. F. called. The skirt was the wrong size. Labeled full, it was a twin. She'd opened it, thrown out the packaging and had it ironed. Could she still return it?
Deep sigh. If something is mislabeled, and the customer bought it in good faith, then of course we have to take it back, so I said yes. She said she'd be in Thursday, when I'd be there all day, because she didn't want to deal with my manager Mandy. I have a feeling that she knows Mandy and has dealt with her before, and since Mandy does not give any quarter to fools, did not want to deal with her again.
So this morning I was running around, trying to fill special orders and do a big pile of shipping, when Mrs F. came in with the skirt draped over a cleaner's hanger. I apologized for the mislabeling (not my fault, of course, but y'know) and, assuming she did not have the receipt, set about trying to determine how much I was going to have to refund her. But before I'd done that, Mrs. F. started in.
"Do you have a birthday gift for my daughter?"
I paused, thinking, am I supposed to give your daughter a gift?
"She's kind of artsy," she continued in her faint, uncertain voice.
I said that we don't have much that's really "artsy" (it is a linen shop, after all), the only thing being a book of panoramic photos of Paris. But Mrs. F. had her eye on a small, thin terry bathrobe, recently marked down from an obscene $310 to a slightly less obscene $186. She flipped the tag over and read it. "Is that the price? Good god! Get out of here! Can't you do any better than that?"
Here I have to pause and say something. Bargaining at a flea market is fine. Bargaining at a farmers' market, if you are buying enough stuff, can be acceptable.
But you DO NOT go into a high-end (or low end, come to think of it) shop and haggle with the sales clerks. This is NOT the Souk in Marrakesh! The sales clerks are at the bottom of the retail authority totem pole, and do not have the authority to knock off a few bucks or a few percentage points from the price. It is akin to going into a school and haggling with the teacher's aide about tuition. You might wear down some of us through your single-minded persistence, but though you may save a negligible amount, you damage your karma, and leave the store with the sales staff hissing insults and making faces and rude gestures at your retreating form, and making crude and unkind remarks about your IQ.
Back to Mrs. F.: I told her that this pattern of robe was just marked down and is at 40% off, firm.
"I want something for under a hundred dollars," she said. Whether she realistically expected me to knock $87 off the $186 price, I do not know.
So away we went, around and around the store. "Any small robes other than this? How about any extra-smalls? How about this one? Can you give me a better price? Is there someone you can ask to find out if you can reduce the price? How about small PJs? No? can you go look in the back? Can you call the other stores and find one for me?"
I finally said, loudly, "I don't have the authority to lower the prices! I only work here part time!"
I think that finally got through to her, but she went back to the first robe and hemmed and hawed, and complained and whined (whining is SO unbecoming in adults), and finally, just to get rid of her, I said, "I can bring it down to $150, but I CAN NOT make it any less than that."
She sighed and grimaced and finally said she'd take it, though it was expensive and probably too big ("Are you sure you don't have this in extra-small?").
So... I went back to trying to find out how much she'd paid for the damn dust ruffle (remember the dust ruffle?) while she looked the robe over.
"Oh, it's damaged," she said. "Look at this - it's damaged."
I squinted, peering at where she was plucking with her manicured nails, exacerbating a place where a single loop of terry stuck up about half a millimeter above the rest. "I still can't bring it down to less than $150."
"Do you have another?"
I know that we don't; this is a onesie. But I went to the back room and tore robes off the shelf, seething, wanting to punch the wall (at the very least). Then I heard her coming, and figured she was on her way into the stock room, so I threw the robes back onto the shelf and returned to the front. "I'm sorry, that's the only one."
"God damn it," she said. I felt the same way. If I could have sold her a fresh robe and shoved her out the door, I would have, in a heartbeat. But I knew I was going to have to do a return on the dust ruffle with no sale to cancel the hit I'd take in dollars. Again I resumed trying to find the price of the refund.
A forlorn hope: "Would you happen to have your receipt, so I can refund the correct price?" But of course she didn't.
Deep sigh.... I finally just took a guess and said that I thought that $75 sounded right, and she agreed. It was probably too much, but I didn't care. It would be worth the extra money just to be rid of her.
So as I was ringing up the refund, the FedEx guy came in with some packages, and Mrs. F. accosted him. "Can you tell me where the ----- ---- is?"
He hesitated, looking a little alarmed. "The ----- ---- Spa?"
She said yes, the spa, and he gave her directions, which naturally she didn't understand, so he had to start over. He glanced at me, his eyes big; I looked back at him the same way.
I was ringing the refund - hands shaking - pushed the wrong button - had to start over. Scribbled an illegible signature for the FedEx guy and sent him on his way, and finally got the refund to go through. Mrs. F. was now impatient and in a hurry to get to her appointment at the spa she didn't know how to find. She told me to call other stores and find the robe she wanted, and send it to her - she TOLD me, did not ask. I jotted her number on a paper and said I'd call right away. (Not going to. To hell with it; it'd only encourage her.) She finally left, saying "Have a nice day."
"Too late," I said, hopefully loud enough so she heard.
Now, there are people I genuinely like to see come through the door: Mrs. E, a sweet, soft-spoken Frenchwoman, and her sister M, are my favorites, the nicest people you could hope to meet; Mr. and Mrs. L from Massachusetts; the L's from New York; Ava S., who never spends less than $1000 and is funny and pleasant, if a tad frenetic; Mr. B, a flouncy, expressive, effusive gay man who is more feminine than I am. There are also Mary S. and Judy H., both fellow retail workers; Judy in particular is always sympathetic and ready for a good mutual gripe.
Then there are people like Mrs. F., who make me want to scream and swear, make me think that going out in the yard and dropping a sledgehammer on my foot would be more enjoyable than one single minute more spent in retail. Then there's Mrs. L.B.G., who flits around the store with the same amount of native intelligence in her eyes as a Snickers bar, who once kept us 45 minutes after closing on the Sunday of Black Friday weekend, asking "Is this powder-roomy or bathroomy?" and "What color is this?" and "Will my granddaughter like this?" and (swear to god) "Is this pretty?" and then had the effrontery to complain about the size of the bow I had tied in the ribbon on the package that I was in no way obligated to wrap for her. "Oh, I'm so disappointed," she said sadly, with light flashing off the almond-sized diamond on her finger. "The bow is too small."
Linda intervened, seeing that I was about to tie a very small bow indeed around Mrs. L.B.G's neck. I went to the back room and tried not to have an infarction, while I could hear Mrs. L.B.G. saying, "Some people have such a short fuse. All I want is a pretty gift to give. Is that too much to ask?"
Then there's L.G... but she's fodder for another post - maybe even a whole blog of her own.
I think I've blown off my head of steam... the cup of strong chamomile tea I just finished helped, too. Hungry now... time for lunch. 12:29pm
-----
After I scribbled this in my notebook, I went to warm up my lunch, and found that the soup I'd brought had "gone off", and mice had raided my box of crackers, leaving me with nothing but a Rice Krispies treat and a jar of peanut butter for lunch. I hung the "back in 15" sign in the door and headed for the car, when someone drove in. I was then badgered for 25 minutes by a woman with an appallingly nasal voice who wanted something sleek and elegant and black & white, but cheap and disposable because her husband is a slob. She kept standing too close to me, too.
When she left I made a dash for the supermarket and got soup and a salad at the deli, and for a blissful hour got to sit still, savor my food, thinking the day had to improve from here.
Then at about 2.30pm, Mrs. F came back!!! She was fresh and relaxed from the spa, and asked if I'd heard back from the other stores about her robe. I lied - said I'd called and left messages but hadn't heard back, and would let her know as soon as I found out what was up. She whined, and grimaced, and said she wanted me to call them NOW. Backed into a corner, I hadn't any choice, so called one outlet - no luck. Called another - got put on hold for nearly 10 minutes - pacing, with Mrs. F. following me as I paced.
The 2nd outlet had one, thank all the gods and goddesses in the firmament! Then Mrs. F. had detailed instructions - where to send it, how to send it, how to wrap it, enclose a card, take price off, make sure it gets to NY by the first of May, etc. etc. etc. I assured her it would all be taken care of, and she finally left, and at least she did thank me for my trouble.
Then about 10 minutes later she called and reminded me to be sure the price was removed before the robe was sent.
Incidentally, the robe is going to someone in an apartment overlooking Central Park, to wear at her beach house.
You know the show "Dirty Jobs"? I have a mind to tell Mike Rowe that he should spend a day in retail, being badgered, insulted, sneered at and ordered around by rich, whining, spoiled, clueless airheads with elephantine senses of entitlement. I'm sure he'd prefer scraping out garbage trucks, kennels and bilges. At least the filth he gets into washes off.
_____
When I got to work on April 28, I learned that Mrs. F's daughter didn't like the robe, and wanted to exchange it.
After an hour or so they nailed down which one they wanted (zebra sheets and plaid coverlet), and then decided that they needed a dust ruffle, and started in all over again with the bickering and indecision. By this time, I wanted a stiff drink (and I don't drink!), but the fun had only just begun. See, with a dust ruffle, there is not only the bed size, but the drop to consider - the distance from the box spring to the floor. There is no standard size; it varies depending on the thickness of the box spring and height of the bed frame. I had to explain this. I had to explain why a queen, California king or twin won't work on a double bed; I had to explain box pleat v. ruffled; I had to explain plateau v. panel skirt, and how to adjust the drop on a panel skirt. Mr. F. got this idea fairly quickly, but when I tried to explain it to Mrs. F., she stared at me, totally bewildered. I felt as if I was trying to explain it to a pigeon or a goat or a jar of mayonnaise or something which has a total lack of comprehension.
After a lot more explaining (on my part) and bickering (on theirs), and comparing and waffling, Mrs. F. decided on a plain sand-colored skirt, but did not know the drop she needed. So they bought the sheets and shams and coverlet, and said they'd go home, measure and call or come back to buy the skirt.
Later that afternoon, Mr. F. came back and bought the 18" full-size solid sand ruffled skirt. Good riddance, I thought as he left, to both the hideous sheets and the PIA customers.
Then - this past Sunday, Mrs. F. called. The skirt was the wrong size. Labeled full, it was a twin. She'd opened it, thrown out the packaging and had it ironed. Could she still return it?
Deep sigh. If something is mislabeled, and the customer bought it in good faith, then of course we have to take it back, so I said yes. She said she'd be in Thursday, when I'd be there all day, because she didn't want to deal with my manager Mandy. I have a feeling that she knows Mandy and has dealt with her before, and since Mandy does not give any quarter to fools, did not want to deal with her again.
So this morning I was running around, trying to fill special orders and do a big pile of shipping, when Mrs F. came in with the skirt draped over a cleaner's hanger. I apologized for the mislabeling (not my fault, of course, but y'know) and, assuming she did not have the receipt, set about trying to determine how much I was going to have to refund her. But before I'd done that, Mrs. F. started in.
"Do you have a birthday gift for my daughter?"
I paused, thinking, am I supposed to give your daughter a gift?
"She's kind of artsy," she continued in her faint, uncertain voice.
I said that we don't have much that's really "artsy" (it is a linen shop, after all), the only thing being a book of panoramic photos of Paris. But Mrs. F. had her eye on a small, thin terry bathrobe, recently marked down from an obscene $310 to a slightly less obscene $186. She flipped the tag over and read it. "Is that the price? Good god! Get out of here! Can't you do any better than that?"
Here I have to pause and say something. Bargaining at a flea market is fine. Bargaining at a farmers' market, if you are buying enough stuff, can be acceptable.
But you DO NOT go into a high-end (or low end, come to think of it) shop and haggle with the sales clerks. This is NOT the Souk in Marrakesh! The sales clerks are at the bottom of the retail authority totem pole, and do not have the authority to knock off a few bucks or a few percentage points from the price. It is akin to going into a school and haggling with the teacher's aide about tuition. You might wear down some of us through your single-minded persistence, but though you may save a negligible amount, you damage your karma, and leave the store with the sales staff hissing insults and making faces and rude gestures at your retreating form, and making crude and unkind remarks about your IQ.
Back to Mrs. F.: I told her that this pattern of robe was just marked down and is at 40% off, firm.
"I want something for under a hundred dollars," she said. Whether she realistically expected me to knock $87 off the $186 price, I do not know.
So away we went, around and around the store. "Any small robes other than this? How about any extra-smalls? How about this one? Can you give me a better price? Is there someone you can ask to find out if you can reduce the price? How about small PJs? No? can you go look in the back? Can you call the other stores and find one for me?"
I finally said, loudly, "I don't have the authority to lower the prices! I only work here part time!"
I think that finally got through to her, but she went back to the first robe and hemmed and hawed, and complained and whined (whining is SO unbecoming in adults), and finally, just to get rid of her, I said, "I can bring it down to $150, but I CAN NOT make it any less than that."
She sighed and grimaced and finally said she'd take it, though it was expensive and probably too big ("Are you sure you don't have this in extra-small?").
So... I went back to trying to find out how much she'd paid for the damn dust ruffle (remember the dust ruffle?) while she looked the robe over.
"Oh, it's damaged," she said. "Look at this - it's damaged."
I squinted, peering at where she was plucking with her manicured nails, exacerbating a place where a single loop of terry stuck up about half a millimeter above the rest. "I still can't bring it down to less than $150."
"Do you have another?"
I know that we don't; this is a onesie. But I went to the back room and tore robes off the shelf, seething, wanting to punch the wall (at the very least). Then I heard her coming, and figured she was on her way into the stock room, so I threw the robes back onto the shelf and returned to the front. "I'm sorry, that's the only one."
"God damn it," she said. I felt the same way. If I could have sold her a fresh robe and shoved her out the door, I would have, in a heartbeat. But I knew I was going to have to do a return on the dust ruffle with no sale to cancel the hit I'd take in dollars. Again I resumed trying to find the price of the refund.
A forlorn hope: "Would you happen to have your receipt, so I can refund the correct price?" But of course she didn't.
Deep sigh.... I finally just took a guess and said that I thought that $75 sounded right, and she agreed. It was probably too much, but I didn't care. It would be worth the extra money just to be rid of her.
So as I was ringing up the refund, the FedEx guy came in with some packages, and Mrs. F. accosted him. "Can you tell me where the ----- ---- is?"
He hesitated, looking a little alarmed. "The ----- ---- Spa?"
She said yes, the spa, and he gave her directions, which naturally she didn't understand, so he had to start over. He glanced at me, his eyes big; I looked back at him the same way.
I was ringing the refund - hands shaking - pushed the wrong button - had to start over. Scribbled an illegible signature for the FedEx guy and sent him on his way, and finally got the refund to go through. Mrs. F. was now impatient and in a hurry to get to her appointment at the spa she didn't know how to find. She told me to call other stores and find the robe she wanted, and send it to her - she TOLD me, did not ask. I jotted her number on a paper and said I'd call right away. (Not going to. To hell with it; it'd only encourage her.) She finally left, saying "Have a nice day."
"Too late," I said, hopefully loud enough so she heard.
Now, there are people I genuinely like to see come through the door: Mrs. E, a sweet, soft-spoken Frenchwoman, and her sister M, are my favorites, the nicest people you could hope to meet; Mr. and Mrs. L from Massachusetts; the L's from New York; Ava S., who never spends less than $1000 and is funny and pleasant, if a tad frenetic; Mr. B, a flouncy, expressive, effusive gay man who is more feminine than I am. There are also Mary S. and Judy H., both fellow retail workers; Judy in particular is always sympathetic and ready for a good mutual gripe.
Then there are people like Mrs. F., who make me want to scream and swear, make me think that going out in the yard and dropping a sledgehammer on my foot would be more enjoyable than one single minute more spent in retail. Then there's Mrs. L.B.G., who flits around the store with the same amount of native intelligence in her eyes as a Snickers bar, who once kept us 45 minutes after closing on the Sunday of Black Friday weekend, asking "Is this powder-roomy or bathroomy?" and "What color is this?" and "Will my granddaughter like this?" and (swear to god) "Is this pretty?" and then had the effrontery to complain about the size of the bow I had tied in the ribbon on the package that I was in no way obligated to wrap for her. "Oh, I'm so disappointed," she said sadly, with light flashing off the almond-sized diamond on her finger. "The bow is too small."
Linda intervened, seeing that I was about to tie a very small bow indeed around Mrs. L.B.G's neck. I went to the back room and tried not to have an infarction, while I could hear Mrs. L.B.G. saying, "Some people have such a short fuse. All I want is a pretty gift to give. Is that too much to ask?"
Then there's L.G... but she's fodder for another post - maybe even a whole blog of her own.
I think I've blown off my head of steam... the cup of strong chamomile tea I just finished helped, too. Hungry now... time for lunch. 12:29pm
-----
After I scribbled this in my notebook, I went to warm up my lunch, and found that the soup I'd brought had "gone off", and mice had raided my box of crackers, leaving me with nothing but a Rice Krispies treat and a jar of peanut butter for lunch. I hung the "back in 15" sign in the door and headed for the car, when someone drove in. I was then badgered for 25 minutes by a woman with an appallingly nasal voice who wanted something sleek and elegant and black & white, but cheap and disposable because her husband is a slob. She kept standing too close to me, too.
When she left I made a dash for the supermarket and got soup and a salad at the deli, and for a blissful hour got to sit still, savor my food, thinking the day had to improve from here.
Then at about 2.30pm, Mrs. F came back!!! She was fresh and relaxed from the spa, and asked if I'd heard back from the other stores about her robe. I lied - said I'd called and left messages but hadn't heard back, and would let her know as soon as I found out what was up. She whined, and grimaced, and said she wanted me to call them NOW. Backed into a corner, I hadn't any choice, so called one outlet - no luck. Called another - got put on hold for nearly 10 minutes - pacing, with Mrs. F. following me as I paced.
The 2nd outlet had one, thank all the gods and goddesses in the firmament! Then Mrs. F. had detailed instructions - where to send it, how to send it, how to wrap it, enclose a card, take price off, make sure it gets to NY by the first of May, etc. etc. etc. I assured her it would all be taken care of, and she finally left, and at least she did thank me for my trouble.
Then about 10 minutes later she called and reminded me to be sure the price was removed before the robe was sent.
Incidentally, the robe is going to someone in an apartment overlooking Central Park, to wear at her beach house.
You know the show "Dirty Jobs"? I have a mind to tell Mike Rowe that he should spend a day in retail, being badgered, insulted, sneered at and ordered around by rich, whining, spoiled, clueless airheads with elephantine senses of entitlement. I'm sure he'd prefer scraping out garbage trucks, kennels and bilges. At least the filth he gets into washes off.
_____
When I got to work on April 28, I learned that Mrs. F's daughter didn't like the robe, and wanted to exchange it.
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