retail vent

I work in retail, which is a story in itself, but we won't go there. Right now I am just venting about one particular day in retail history: my first Black Friday. Retail veterans will laugh at me, but it was a helluva day.

First off, if you are in retail, you will work Black Friday. Period. You don't ask for it off, and if you call in sick you had better have lost a limb. The flu is no excuse. As a matter of fact, the flu may be a benefit working this day because you can feel good about infecting all those rude people you encounter.

The biggest thing I want to vent about is the unbelievable sloppiness people demonstrate on this day. I mean REALLY people! Do you just throw your clothes arond? Don't answer that. I don't think I want to know. But okay, even if you do throw your clothes around, does that mean it is right to throw around clothes that don't even belong to you??

I spent most of the day folding sweaters. The same sweaters. Over and over. People come by and just slob up the whole stack and then walk off without buying anything. One of my other major occupations was putting stuff away in the right place. Here's a clue for you shoppers. If you decide you don't want something, give it to a salesperson. Don't just put it on any random rack for the salesperson to (hopefully) discover. That's just plain lazy. Better yet, put it away yourself if you change your mind.

The other gripe I have is the rudeness people exhibit when in large crowds of people. Now, I work in a somewhat genteel store. We cater to adult women, not teeny-boppers, so one expects a certain level of maturity from the customers. Wrong. Age does not guarantee politeness I am finding. One woman argued with me about the price of her pants, insisting that the largish sign that read "Sweaters 50% off" was confusing because it was placed on a shelf above the pants, and therefore should apply to the pants also. Apparently the word "sweaters" was not clear enough for this brain surgeon. The real kicker is that the pants were 40% off anyway, so we are talking about a 10% difference. Not a big deal, but one would think we were talking about life and death the way this woman argued with me.

Which brings me to stupidity. I don't know if we have a large number of idiots where I live, or if our area is truly representative of the general population. I hope it is just the former. Anyway, I had the mother of all stupid comments the other day from a very non-rude person. She very sweetly came up to me and asked, "Um, that sign that says sweaters 50% off? Does that mean that the sweaters are 50% off?" I was sincerely tempted to smile back and say, "No." Since I value my job, meaningless as it is, I just smiled back and said, "Yes". Sometimes I hate my job.