The Sweeper.

If you have never played competitive soccer, you may not be familiar with the term.  In soccer, your "sweeper" is your last line of defense before your goalkeeper.  The sweeper is a position you definitely appreciate having on your soccer team.  Not so much on your sales team.

Although my job is not commission based, I am hyper aware of my sales performance.  I am kind of an attention whore.  I like to be the one getting all the praise for my hard work; when I've earned it.  I cannot stand that proverbial creeper anyone in sales has encountered who lurks around listening in on everyone's sales just waiting for their moment to butt in and steal that sale.  Sweeper!

When I have spent a length time dumbing down all the technological jargon and endured the idiotic questions customers inevitably always ask, I should at the very least be rewarded by the increase on my sales performance grid.  Why should I do all the leg work just to have the sweeper show up right in the nick of time and tell that customer, "Oh hey, I see Stef's explained *insert product here* to you.  I bet she did an amazing job.  Well if you're ready, I can ring you up right here."

How do you come back from that.  I'm sure I cannot start an argument in front of the customer as if they were some knock off handbag at your local flea market.  That would not go over well.  What's a girl to do?  

Sweepers across the land, do your own work.  Find your own customers.  And most importantly, stay out of my sales, before I chuck all caution to the wind, refuse social norms and derby check your ass across the store.  Thank you and have a good day.

The Customer Is Usually Wrong.

I want to personally find and subsequently punch in the throat whoever coined the phrase, "The customer is always right." This phrase has turned consumers into whiney, ungrateful, scamming pieces of shit.  It has also made the retail employee's job that much harder.  It is bad enough we have to sift through the misinformation (see my previous post, The Internet Does Not Make You Smart), but add to that their very skewed perception of business ethics and we have a war just to avoid giving everything away for free every time someone launches a complaint.

A few weeks ago, an angry customer came in wanted a refund on a VERY old and abused product. Said customer argued with my co-worker for awhile about how we should refund this because it shouldn't have broken so quickly.  By him dropping it.  In water.  How dare an electronic device not work after treating it with such care and proper use?! After the "lowly sales associate" (his words, not mine) was unable to refund his money, he demanded to talk to a manager.  That's cool, dude.  They are going to tell you the same story....

After he whined about the product's "failure to perform," our manager decided not to refund the customer's money.  It was a ridiculous request so I'm not quite sure why he was surprised..  Well, this guy was PISSED.  We actually thought his spout of random profanities was the end of his tantrum.  We were incorrect.  Instead, this guy pulls out his phone and dials 911.  NINE ONE ONE.  What the fuck, dude?   What has to go wrong in your brain to make you think this is the best use of the number that exists for life or death emergencies?!  Furthermore, what the fuck do you think the police can do about it?  Save for egregious lack of ethics, law enforcement can't really do much.  Enforcing store policy that is available to every customer on their receipt (thus binding them contractually to these terms) is hardly grounds for their involvement.

When the 911 dispatcher picked up, he started screaming at the top of his lungs into the phone, "Yes. Hi.  I am at *insert store I work for here* and they are refusing to refund my money for their piece of shit, defective product.  I need an officer out here immediately.  This is fucking bullshit!  I want my fucking refund.  No.  You send someone out here right fucking now.  I am the customer!  I am always right!"  Clearly they were not on the same page.

Needless to say, 911 dispatch hung up on him.  Moron.

You Will Probably Be Offended.

So here's the thing; not everyone likes kids.  Sure, there is no disputing that some of them are adorable.  That can only be explained by some sort of biological adaptation we have so as to be more inclined to protect and not kill them.  Having an "awwww its so cute" moment in no way should take away from the fact that in general, I, again like many others, do not like kids.

With that in mind, I cannot help but be amazed at the utter stupidity of parents these days.  Because I work with the general public, I have to deal with these people daily.  I am saddened for the future of the human race if this is the level of reverse evolution we have achieved when one childless person such as myself knows more about child rearing than the average parent.

Here's a tip: If your child is in its "terrible twos," leave the fucker at home.  I should not be subjected to their endless need to be making noise.  I am not referring to talking.  Kids at that age should be trying to communicate as much as possible (and parents should be engaging rather than ignoring, but I digress...).  I am referring to the high pitched screams that seem to go on for hours.  What is even more mind boggling is that you think it is completely acceptable to force them to hang out in the mall when they clearly cannot handle it while you search for something you do not need.

Here's another tip: No one but you should have to keep tabs on your child.  I know picking up the latest video game is SUPER important and all, but maybe insuring your kid isn't getting abducted by the neighborhood perv should be a priority.  The last thing you should do is yell at us retail employees because we don't have the answer to the "Where did my kid go?" question.  I am not your personal babysitter.  Remember when I said I don't like children?  I ignore them.  It is YOUR job as their parent to pay attention to their whereabouts.

Oh, another tip, you say?  When your kid decides to destroy the accessory wall at my store, it is not cute.  People have to clean that up and while it may be keeping your kid occupied while you spend the months grocery money on shit you don't need, it is not fair to the minimum wage slave you just made stay an extra hour past their shift.  What would you do if your kid started throwing shit around at your house?

Allow me to leave you with this final thought: When innocent bystanders can smell your child's shitty diaper, it is time to go home.  That is gross.

Why So Serious?

You know the Twitter hash tag "first world problems?"  Kids whining that their high speed internet just isn't fast enough.  Or a recent fav, people bitching that they only got a car and not that iPhone they were hoping for on Christmas day (side note, check out this video).  Never, though, have I witnessed a more perfect display of someone legitimately distraught over one such problem as I did the other day.

My job consist of helping people with their technological illiteracy.  I'm generally a patient person because I understand that a lot of people did not grow up with computers and their ability to understand the way they work is beneath that of my own and my peers.  I don't consider myself condescending or judgmental (at least not to their faces).

A few days ago I was approached by a woman, I would put her at roughly 47, with some questions about adding email to her new smartphone.  She also wanted some assistance setting up an id to buy things from the phone's app store.  It was all set to be one of the easiest things I was going to do all day. In hindsight, I probably should not have even thought that thought.

We decided to start with the creation of a store id.  Since she would have to later verify that by email anyway, it was the most logical order.  During the creation process, the system alerted us that her ID had already been created.  Awesome!  That means this is going to be SUPER easy for me.  Why do I even get my hopes up?  She informs me that she has absolutely no guesses as to what that password could be.  Still not the end of the world.  We finish the password process and head over to set up the email as the new password has been sent to her inbox.

After entering her email address into the phone's mail client, she begins to just stare at the phone as if willing it to make the next move for her.  I desperately wanted to tell her that although the phone is "smart," is it not autonomous.  I resisted and asked her to please enter her email password.  She looked at me as though I had just murdered her kitten and said, "I thought we just went over that I didn't have that password."

Sigh.  "Ma'am, that is a different password all together that we reset.  We are now trying to enter whatever password you would use when you go to check your email on your home computer."

"I don't have a password for my email.  It just works."

Great.  She probably doesn't know THAT password either.  "Okay.  So that password is stored in your computer for your convenience.  However, there is still a password associated with that account.  Would you happen to have a guess as to what it is?  Or perhaps you wrote it down somewhere?"

Now, a rational human being would react by thinking to themselves, "Well, damn.  I should probably reset this password too and maybe keep them written down for safe keeping so this doesn't happen to me again."  This woman defied normality.

Her reaction was instead to drop to her knees, in the middle of a busy retail store mind you, and start openly sobbing.  If you know me even a little, you know that I am socially retarded.  My emotional defense mechanism is to run away when someone else is in pain because I literally do not know how to soothe them.

The end of this story is kind of anti-climactic.  I walked away and let her cry in peace.