Snippets from my daily life, you may not believe them, but they are true - sadly enough. I am inspired by my coworkers to keep records of the crazy things that happen. Peppered within these records are other daily notes. Enjoy.
I was at the dollar store refilling the greeting card section when a customer approached me and asked (with quite an attitude), "don't you guys carry crayons anywhere?"
Usually I explain that I don't work for the dollar store, and instead am a vendor that simply services the store, but I do happen to know where the crayons are located - so I tell her that they are just one aisle over.
"Are you trying to tell me that I walked by it four times?"
So there I was, minding my own business, hanging clothes today. I was to let people in and out of the changing rooms and hang up the clothes they did not want, and the new clothing coming in - simple enough, right? It may not be the most exciting or the most interesting job, but it is easy, and keeps me busy all day, so I do not mind doing it, and I take pride in my work there - I get all of the clothes neatly organized so it is easy for my coworkers to put out. However, being a Saturday all of the customers thought they could help me out my hanging their clothes up on the rack I was working on, instead of setting them on the table on which I TOLD each of the customers to put the reject clothing. So I spent quite a bit of my day RE-organizing the rack of clothing that I had just organized, because every time I turned my back to help a new customer, one of the previous customers jumped in and put something away on my rack... always in the wrong place, unbuttoned, and inside out, not to mention that the piece was generally only hanging from one side of the hanger. That made these items easier to find, but still added to my workload.
At one point I asked a lady if I could take the items from her that she did not want (standing between the rack and the fitting rooms and attacking the customers before they could get to the rack seemed to be my only hope of sanity today - but that was only an option if I wasn't answering the phone, which left the rack open and defenseless *gasp*). She gave me one pair of capris and said that sadly, they did not fit, but the other pair she was holding on to she thinking about. I made some obligatory comment about how that was fine and I would happily take care of them for her if she did decide against them. Why, oh why did I open my mouth? Why couldn't I have just nodded and let her pass? Why did I feel the need to say one more word to her - it only led her to believe she could continue to talk to me, and apparently let her feel that we were a little more chummy than I felt we should be. "You see," she continued, "I love these capris here, but they will only fit if I'm not pregnant." I nodded and tried to escape to my basket of items that needed to be hung - she did not notice my escape tactics and simply came closer, thinking we were meandering to a private corner together for a chat. "I just don't know, you see - my mom said that when she was breastfeeding she never got her period back for at least 7 months after she was pregnant. So I wasn't really expecting mine, but then after just 1 month I started having my period and now I'm not, so I think I'm pregnant and they [referring to the just born and the potentially unborn] will only be 13 months apart and I'm so overwhelmed right now and I'm really bloated and I don't know if I really am pregnant or not, and if I am these will soooo not fit, but if I'm not I can totally wear them if I just stop being bloated. I just don't know what to do!"
Let's start with not telling everyone about your bloated-ness/period problems.
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 6:47:00 PM
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So we recently had the customer who taught us all how to judge a day... and today I had another customer.
Let me just say, I was only on the register for an hour and a half... And yet I still got this customer...
I had completely finished ringing up her sale. She was on her way out the door, with the items she purchased, safely tucked in a bag, her receipt in hand, when she turned around...
*cue the danger music*
Haven't you guys had this store, I mean, not in this location, but in other locations, for quite a few years?
Yes....
I thought so, I remember, when I first shopped at this store, when my son was a baby. He pooped in his diaper and poop shot out everywhere out the back of his diaper, all across the store floor. I just think of that every time I think of your store.
She must have sensed the horror in my facial expression because she assured me that "they didn't make diapers the way they do now."
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 5:50:00 PM
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I had mentioned the receipt guy to a coworker and at the end of the day he came back to me, "Hey, your crazy dude is my crazy dude, too! He's the one who speaks in a different accent all the time, and sometimes switches mid-transaction. One time he was doing an Australian accent and then switched to a slow southern drawl for two sentences and then back, and he didn't even notice!"
I was helping a customer at the registers today when she started talking about some of the clothing she was buying. She had picked out a selection of 6-12 month boy clothes, but none were onesies, everything she had was a button down shirt or sweater vest. She explained that her son-in-law wears nothing but suits and they expect the baby to come out in a 3 piece suit as well. "He'll probably hate wearing these outfits and looking like a geek, but I just have to make him match his father, it's just too cute of an idea." I remarked that the baby probably wouldn't know the difference between these clothes and the more typical apparel for babies since he probably won't be reading fashion magazines yet. She hadn't thought of that...
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 6:29:00 PM
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I worked on the register today - we had 3 people call in and another one come in sick, so everyone was working a position they don't normally do. I don't know if it was the weather or the fact that it was a bland Tuesday in April, but we had some particularly unique customers today.
I had one customer invite me to her child's birthday party in May. Granted, she used to be a frequent customer, and we know her and her child by name - but mostly because we have had to kick her out of the store for abusing her child in our store. Maybe she figured that if I liked her child enough to stop her from abusing, that I must also desire to come to a birthday party for her.
The Receipt Guy was back. He purchased a glass to take to the coffee shop so he wouldn't effect the environment with his paper cup waste. I recognized him this time and was sure to tuck his receipt into his glass immediately upon printing so that it wouldn't blow away or get forgotten like last time. He had put his change on the counter to count it out, but left a penny on the counter. Knowing his need to account for everything with receipts I was careful to point the penny out to him, lest he go crazy later wondering what happened to it! He smiled at my thoughtfulness and pushed it back toward me and with a wink told me I could keep the penny, and have a really nice day. I think he might like me... letting me have a penny without a receipt!
Then came the old man and old lady. They were fighting over who was driving home. The old man had driven to the store and said that since he had to drive on the scary interstate this morning that she should have to do it for the way home. She tried to protest and he told her that his "learner's permit" only allowed him to drive on the interstate for a certain amount of time each day and his amount was up - he'd had his practice for the day. I asked this obviously 70ish man if he had just had his 14th birthday recently (to get the learner's permit). He smiled and told me I'd made his day, then added that if I wasn't about the same age he'd have told me a dirty story. I keep to myself that I'm a bit older - sometimes I'm thankful that I look young for my age.
AND THEN the climax of my day - I'm checking out one person who is complaining that today her hair was being blown into her face today, and the hair tie that she wore this morning broke on her way to the mall, so she had to purchase another one. The next lady in line leans over and says, "Oh honey, you're day is okay. Trust me. I just had to go wash out my panties and dry them with the hand drier in the ladies room."
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 5:03:00 PM
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A local motel brought us their old tvs after remodeling. We typically have around 12 entertainment centers - we currently have 39 tvs - possibly more to come. My brother walked into the store and asked, "Who left the 2 tvs alone?!"
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 10:37:00 PM
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A week ago I was working on a busy day and only ate half of my delicious, multi-layered, homemade sub-style sandwich. It was a masterpiece. Soft bread, perfectly smoked ham, juicy (but not too juicy) tomatoes and the perfect amount of onion and cheese. Sooo good. But because it was such a busy day at work, I only got to eat about half of the sandwich - the other half I left in the refrigerator at work, because I knew it would be there waiting for me the next day.
The next day, it came to lunch time and I grabbed my sandwich from the refrigerator. I had been looking forward to this sandwich all morning - I had gotten up late and missed breakfast. I went to the break room and opened the bag that had my sandwich... and my sandwich had mayonnaise on it. I didn't put mayonnaise on my sandwich, and yet it was covered - and I mean COVERED - in mayonnaise. Then I noticed that the sandwich had been bitten in a very random pattern - I have a habit of biting straight across, this was a very misshapen sandwich... This.... was NOT my sandwich! I went back to the refrigerator and looked where my sandwich had been... no sandwich. I rummaged through the entire refrigerator. No sandwich... someone took my sandwich, and left their sandwich, leaning against my milk and candy bar.
Someone ate my half-eaten sandwich and left me their half-eaten sandwich. WHO eats a sandwich that has bite marks left it in? I haven't found the culprit, but I have my suspicions...
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 3:34:00 PM
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We have a customer who we call the Cat Lady. We first met her when she had hear hair dyed to match her calico cat. It was patchy and a million different colors. She's rather flighty in her manner and always cuckoo.
She bids on our silent auction items, but rarely buys them. The only time she does buy them is when she has scratched out her original high-priced bid and replaced it with the minimum bid - thereby scaring off all other bidders for a week and then getting it for the lowest price possible. Shrewd, but crooked. She criticizes the layout of our furniture, telling us that certain pieces don't want to be sitting in certain places, or that they desire to be closer or further away from other pieces.
Another time she came to our store and found a bird clock. Instead of chiming every hour, it had a different bird sing every hour. We had it marked at $7.99. The Cat Lady wanted the clock - she said her doctor told her it would cure her cancer. However, she claimed to not have enough money to buy the clock, so she wanted us to lower the price. The Cat Lady is a consignor with us, and I KNOW she has over $300 in her account that she could spend with us, or cash out... so I was not buying the idea that she could not afford a $7.99 clock. I finally took the clock away from her and hid it - so she went to my manager and complained that I was keeping her from being able to cure her cancer.
About a month ago The Cat Lady started talking to our new girl. The Cat Lady had brought in some stuff to consign and was given a few things back that we could not accept. She was upset that we would not take some of the items and at one point in her crazy rant asked the new girl to smell her underwear. Oh yes. She did.
She also claims that the reason we do not understand her fashion sense is because she is 5 years ahead in fashion. Yes, ladies and gentleman, in less than 4 years you too will be dying your hair to match your cat. Hoorah?!
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 5:14:00 PM
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Several weeks ago a customer came into our store with 3 board games that he wanted to consign. But there was a catch. He wanted to purchase them back from us after he consigned them. Confused, we asked him to repeat himself. "I want to consign these games, and then buy them back. I need a receipt for them." Me: You need a receipt? Guy: Yeah, let's just say it's sort of a weird-spiritual thing.
We are always willing to set up a new account and gain a consignor, however, with the start up fee, and the consignment split, he was going to end up losing money on the whole thing, over a piece of paper. It just sounded too weird. I thought maybe he was trying to prove that he owned them and that they did not belong to the kid at the bus stop that he just stole them from (or something odd to that effect), but he explained to each of us that questioned his motives that he just needed a receipt to satisfy himself.
Yesterday I had a customer come through my line and ask how much the laffytaffys were. He got three of them and left. I threw his receipt away after he left without it. 5 minutes later he was back, "Did I leave my receipt here? Can I have it?" I dug it out of the trash for him, trying to tell him that we wouldn't have questioned him for stealing the laffytaffys, I knew he purchased them. "No, I'm the receipt guy, remember me? I just gotta have receipts for everything. No reason, it's just me."
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 10:48:00 PM
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Coworker: Hey, who did they give the Oscar to this weekend? Me: Which one? They gave out, like 50 of them. Coworker: The one this weekend, of course. Which one did you think I wanted to know about?!
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 6:53:00 PM
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Customer on the phone while I ring up her purchases: Yeah, I woke up last night and I found a huge mess all over the floor. There was maple syrup, ketchup, mayonnaise, a whole jug of milk, 6 eggs, and Worcestershire sauce all poured on the floor. Max was asleep in bed, and I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Being naughty." I think he was trying to make playdoh.
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 6:41:00 PM
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We NEVER hold items for people. We aren't like a normal department store that has 30 of any given thing, we only have 1, and it doesn't even belong to us - it belongs to the consignor who brought it in. It would be unfair to the consignor to hold something for someone who may or may not purchase the item when others could be purchasing it.
However, after much begging and pleading from a customer yesterday, our manager put a table on hold until the end of the day. The lady insisted she just had to run home and grab some cash to purchase this $149.99 table.
About 10 minutes later another guy approached the table and started asking how much it was. One of our associates told him how much it was, but mentioned it was on hold. Uh oh. This same guy had asked the day before if he could hold the item, but was told no. (because we never do holds) This made him angry. So our manager promised him that if it wasn't paid for that day she would call him and he could have it the next day. That calmed him down a little, but he lives an hour away, so it wasn't perfect.
This morning the first person in the door was the woman who had asked to hold the table "a couple of hours". She said she called the night before and they said they'd hold the tags. Right next to me were the tags and a note that said "hold for a customer who is coming in this morning." So I sold it to her.
THEN my manager came by. "Who sold this table?" She sounded alarmed.
I answered that it was okay, I had sold it to the lady she was holding it for. Since people NEVER come back when they ask to hold an item, I had been really surprised that she came back. She freaked out. "No! We were holding it for the gentleman who was upset yesterday." Me: But she said she called last night and they were holding it today. Her: She never called last night, she is a liar. This guy is gonna be really upset.
She called the guy, he was on his way to pick up the table.. but my manager made up a story about the lady having a family emergency last night and he said he understood.
At 3:30 today the lady came back to return her table. We don't do returns either. The customer insisted that the receipt said nothing about us not doing returns. We pointed to where it says, "All sales final." Customer: But that doesn't say anything about me not getting my money back! Me: It says 'all sales final' that means you can't get your money back. Customer: So what? Now you think you can only give me store credit or something like that? Me: No... you can't. We don't do returns. Customer: It doesn't say anything about you not doing returns, and I want my money back. All sales final means nothing to me. I'm calling my attorney.
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 5:24:00 PM
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A woman went to the local casino on Sunday morning and won $4000. Elated, her first reaction was to yell, "I'm going to (our consignment store) to buy furniture!" And she did...
Also overheard this week... Two customers talking and one says, "Yeah, they won't even let us wear sweatpants to work on Saturdays!"
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 4:55:00 PM
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Daily we get in at least 30 consignors who bring their items in with random laundry baskets, cardboard boxes and garbage or shopping bags. With several thousand consignors in our database every once in a while some one's items get put on the wrong account. But even MORE fun is when someone comes in and CLAIMS that they brought stuff in and the items did not get onto their account. You may make the judgment on the following story.
A woman called asked for the balance on her account. She did not know her account number, so we looked her account up by her name. Samantha Johnson. We had quite a few Johnsons, but no Samantha. I looked up the Samanthas to see if the last name had a typo. Still nothing. So I asked what day she came in, hoping to narrow it down. She gave me the date of her appointment, a couple weeks back, and I checked the appointment log for that day. She had specified that it was an appointment rather than a walk-in. Her name was not on the appointment log, there were no openings in which we could have filled her in.
She had been quite insistent that it was most definitely that particular date, because she'd had another appointment at another place that same day, so it was definitely stuck in her mind... but decided that maybe, just maybe it could have been anytime in a 3-4 day range before or after that date. I checked those appointment logs, too... but still nothing for Samantha or Johnson.
I asked if she picked up the items we did not take from the appointment along with the receipt of what we did take, and she said that she had. Alright! Well, that's simple then, just get the receipt and it will tell what date you came in, as well as what account we put the items on, and we can just transfer them to an account for you! Customer: Yeah, I always keep my receipts from you guys, but I don't really know where the papers are from that day. Me: Do you have the stuff you brought home that day? Customer: Yeah, but I don't think the papers are in there. Me: Definitely give it a look, because that would show what belongs to you and make it very easy for us to retrieve your money & purchases. Customer: I think the papers got lost. I was... uh.. in a car accident, on the way home from your store. Me: Oh my gosh! Are you alright? Customer: Yeah, I'm fine, everyone was fine, but I lost the papers in the accident. Me: Wow! That's really unfortunate. Did your car really get hit bad? Did you lose a lot of belongings in the accident? Customer: No, just the papers. Me: Wow, I'm sorry about that, that's really horrible. But you did say that you have records of the other times you have been in, so that would give us your account number, so we can at least find your previous items and get your account balance and see if we did get your stuff on the right account. Customer: Oh, well, um, my house was burned down when I got home, so I don't have those either.
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 9:02:00 PM
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Customer: Do you have sales on furniture today? Me: No, not today. Customer: But don't you like get rid of stuff after it's been here a while? Me: We do clearance items after 2 months. Customer: So... this item has been here since 02/12, so... what would that be? Me: That's still full price actually. Customer: But it's been here a while! Me: Actually, 2/12 was just over a week ago. Customer: So, is it on sale? Me: No. The customer started to walk away, but got half way to the item and turned around with a sudden thought. Customer: Does theletter 'A' mean anything to you?
Ok... so I'm puzzled, and could really use some ideas on what exactly his last question meant. Was this supposed to be a code word/phrase to get a special discount? Or was he making a threat to kidnap the letter 'A' if I did not help him out with a special discount. Any suggestions would be helpful.
+ posted by Daisy Girl @ 8:36:00 PM
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