Shop Soiled: Us and Them.
Since the dawn of time (between nine and five thirty, late night fighting on Thursdays) a war has been fought. Where there are people selling, there are people buying. But law has decreed that these two sets of people will seldom see eye to eye so there must be constant conflict in the arena that is the shop. And like all wars there will be no winners, just bloodied corpses and shattered, hollow victors. Retail Wars. (Available soon on PS3 and XBox 360.)
Unfortunately, life in the trench of retail is far from ideal. We not only have to deal with constant barrages from the customers as they find other new and terrifying angles to assault us from, we have directives from head office who are safely ensconced in their ivory tower. There, they do everything in their power to help the customers. That is to help the customers find ways to attack us and make our lives hell. For instance: we will frequently have offers on books stating that there is up to half price on our top thirty hardbacks. However, the words ‘up to’ will be rendered so miniscule so as to be nearly invisible to the naked eye. Cue a nice huffy complaint every twenty minutes from a disatisfied customer demanding they get the latest Bernard Cornwell for next to nothing. Then there will be the one hardback in the chart that has no discount at all. This happened to me last week when an irate old biddy pulled one of only three non discounted books from the chart and demanded that she get it for half price. I told her that it wasn’t half price and by law only seventy five percent of offer stock has to be discounted. Huge strop follows at me (because obviously it’s me that sets the prices for our nationwide business outlets) as the customer tears at my heart with those doom laden, terrifying words:
‘I shan’t be coming back in here again.’
At that moment I ask myself, my heart shuddering and a look of astonished disbelief etching itself across my face, what now? How can it be that the world still turns, people celebrate birthdays and do things like sing or whistle when such loss occurs? The weird thing is that they think I should care. They think that the searing rejection they have just spouted is going to affect my life and that of the company. The lady then walks off with an air of smug accomplishment. The great thing is that she thought she had won. No dear, I win. I don’t have to listen to your plaintive wailing ever again over such piffles, I still get paid and you’re stuck next time you want a convenient place to buy your Daily Mail because you’ve boycotted the only store in the high street that sells it. You’ve made your bed, dear, and you’ve wet it.
Other customers will try to win the battle betwixt retailer and shopper by using the failure proof method of sheer idiocy. There’s a three for two offer paperbacks so why not ask the shop keeper if that means they have to buy three of the same book? When an offer informs that it’s three for two on all books why not pick up a random book and ask ‘does it include this one?’ There are stand out winners in the thick customers department though, and they are our most ubiquitous member of modern society: The Chav.
There has never been more unnatural pairing in the world than a chav and a bookshop. Chavs very rarely venture into bookshops because there is nothing for them there. They don’t like books and they don’t know anyone except their probation officer that reads so there isn’t even any point shop lifting books because what can you do with them? Most of them aren’t even heavy enough to break car windows with. However, there will be occasions when our feral brethren will venture into the world of print. The main reason is when that esteemed literary genius Katie Price has a new novel out. This will prompt a few overweight chav girls to drag their boyfriends into the book department, to shout at you demanding the new Jordan book which they can’t find even though they’ve looked under b (for book) on the shelf. The one other reason chavs venture in is if Jade Goody has died and there has been a quickly released biography that cashes in on her tragic end. I actually caught a chav nicking this on the day of release though. I didn’t know true sadness until that day. Except the day that I overheard a couple of thick chavs approach the graphic novels section wondering if that meant they were sex books.
At the moment there is one cast iron way to annoy this particular bookseller which involves minimal effort: walk to the till and buy a copy of Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’. Double the effect by asking if it has come out in paperback and you get full marks and get to see my ears go red to boot. Try it today, you can always get a refund when you realise your terrible mistake.
Shop Soiled: First Impressions.
I hadn’t slept. I had spent the night looking at the clock but no amount of willpower could stop the time advancing towards the stomach fizzing horror of starting a new job for the first time in thirteen years. I finally rose to spend the next hour pacing around, drinking coffee and then experiencing the joy of seeing that coffee reappear due to the amount of retching going on.
What a baby.
Somehow I found myself out of the flat and was little short of amazed that my legs were carrying me towards my destination even though my mind and spirit were still under the duvet whimpering pathetically. Then, somehow, I arrived.
I went up to the books floor where I presented myself to a new colleague, an older woman who greeted me rather coldly. I was then escorted upstairs as I waffled on about something or other just to try and stop thinking about needing the toilet. I found myself in the staff room where two colleagues sat silently reading the tabloids; I was glanced at and ignored – just another recruit, more cannon fodder so nothing interesting. I tried hard to look nonchalant and tried harder not to fart.
A few minutes later the manager came and got me and seemed astonished that I’d turned up. That made two of us then. I was shown into the office and asked to sit tight whilst she went off to get my file. That was the last I saw of her as it was a flustered yorkshire man that re-emerged from the door, not her. He introduced himself but looked rather irate that he had to deal with me. This was an assistant manager. At that point the phone rang and he answered it and spent the next few minutes complaining that he had to do a bloody induction and it wan’t his job. I shifted nervously as I assumed the role of everyone’s pain-in-the-arse.
Finally I was noticed again and then had my induction. This entailed lots of scrawling one’s name at the bottom of numerous bits of paper that outlined how I was no longer in possession of my basic human rights as I was becoming a drone for a major corporation. We also had a chat about where I’d come from and my long stint in retail, which turned out to mirror assistant manager’s. He had been in the company’s employ ever since he was a young lad but didn’t seem too happy about it. I was then furnished with a ream of paper with tiny writing on, and told to sit in the staff room and have a good read, and to take as long as I need. I couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone wanted shot of me.
So I retired to the staff room to learn about how it is apparently bad to sell cigarettes to nine year olds, that the money in the tills isn’t mine, that abusing customers is frowned upon (damn) and general obvious comments about how to breath in, followed by out (repeat as necessary). I read it all in about twenty minutes and I was stretching it out too – I didn’t want to seem that I hadn’t read it and reappear in the office looking like I couldn’t care less. Therefore I had a ‘coffee’ and flicked through a newspaper, but felt all of a sudden like I would appear quite thick if I hung around in there too long. After forty minutes I sought out the assistant manager and I was greeted with surprise.
’That was quick! Are you sure you’ve read it? Have you understood it?’ He asked. It seems that whatever I do will be met with surprise, with a dollop of suspicion thrown in. I then begin to believe I’d neither read it properly nor understood it. I was not having fun. My ‘early’ reappearance in the office to await instructions seemed to throw everyone and they had little idea of what to do with me, so I was sent out to lunch so they could find someone who would not be too bored to till train me that afternoon. Half way through my first day and the nerves had been replaced by a feeling of depression, which felt like an improvement of sorts.
After lunch I am asked to await further instructions in the staff room. In the room are two girls, one of which has been selected to till train me. I introduce myself and then listen to how she is too tired and bored to bother teaching me anything. Great stuff. I spend the next hour pretending to comprehend processing gift cards, club cards, credit cards, vouchers, lottery payouts, refunds, company cheques, hard cash, coupons etc on the incredibly convoluted computerised till system that crashes every five minutes. It was all so bewildering and I hadn’t even made it on to the shop floor. But during all this I discover that the girl who is teaching me is really nice and chatty, sarcastic and laconic. We will get on just fine, and it feels good to have an ally finally. Then the manager, whom I hadn’t seen since she fetched me from the staff room that morning, comes in to speed the training along and catches us chatting and not working. Ooops. Therefore training is now over and I am told that I will learn better on the shop floor. But instead of the books floor I am cast into Hades downstairs, where the relentless slog and streams of customers will ensure that my knowledge of how to work the tills will be enchanced, or I’ll have a nervous breakdown.
I am dumped onto a till next to a middle aged man amongst the teenagers, whose job it is to keep an eye on my floundering ineptitude. I seemed to spend the whirlwind of the panicky afternoon permanently tugging at his sleeve like a little schoolboy asking him how to do everything, as customers look at me pityingly: a grown man trying to learn how to work in a shop, ludicrous. I felt like I was a bit special needs. After a couple of hours, the man goes on a break and it’s the girl that first taught me who replaces him. It feels like a reunion with an old friend so I greet her warmly and then proceed to slam the metal till lid down on her finger, thus nearly fracturing it during the following transaction. She is not pleased and in rather a lot of pain. I apologise profusely but neither of us feel any better.
Finally six o’clock arrives.I’d made it. The end of my first day, but I wished it was my last. But it couldn’t get worse.
Right.
Shop Soiled: Mutual Loathing.
A sport you can play if you don’t work in a shop is the ever so popular Antagonise the Staff. There are many ways in which this can be achieved, just use your imagination. Or, actually, don’t use any imagination or thought at all so you can be effortlessly infuriating and incredibly stupid without breaking into a sweat.
Here are some suggestions: Why not phrase an impossible question such as: ‘There’s this book about a man or a woman that I heard reviewed on the radio at about half past eleven last night, and it’s about a murder or a holiday or something. It’s a paperback or it might be a hardback. I’m not sure if t’s fact or fiction. It could be a biography. Have you got it?’
Another way to cause trouble is to queue in the wrong place, therefore pushing in. Then when the cashier informs you of your error as the tutting from the other shoppers reaches a crescendo, have a go at them for not having enough signs even though they don’t read them anyway…
I had a woman that had a mighty strop at me not long ago, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. As a queue of people built up on the left (the ones that were miraculously in the correct place) I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, someone hanging around by the lottery machine to the right. I looked and there was an old woman just standing there. I honestly assumed that she was waiting for the old man that I was serving so, when I’d finished with him and signalled for the next person, she storms over instead. Upon informing her of the correct place to queue she bellows: ‘You KNEW I was waiting, you SAW me standing there! I’m next.’ She storms to the back of the actual queue and then things get better. The man I’m serving is returning items which can be time consuming so the old bird stands there huffing loudly. This amuses me and I become prepared for war.
Her time arrives and she marches to the counter, slams down a bunch of lottery slips (it would be another ancient lotto fiend – my fave) for me to feed through the machine. I remain silent and process the slips. She snatches them out of my hand and slams the money on the counter. I inform her politely that she is being aggressive and rude. She grumbles at me, sneering, and snatches her change.
‘You know it’s rude to snatch?’ I tell her.
‘You KNEW I was waiting!’ Plaintive wailing is her notable talent.
She moves to leave and I say: ‘The very best of luck with your lottery madam’ in my best sarcastic and posh tone. She stops in her tracks, turns and shoots two fingers up at me. I burst out laughing which wasn’t the reaction she was hoping for and she storms off to the right to leave the shop.
‘That way is the up escalator madam, but feel free to try and run down it if you’re feeling fit.’
Her face is one of fury and she chooses to ignore me. She momentarily disappears and I then notice that she has left her lottery tickets on the counter. I allow myself a wry smile. Watching an old lady in a self inflicted rage trying to storm out of a shop but getting it all wrong was just lovely. She reappears sporting a new face colour that Dulux might have labelled ‘Magenta Rage’ thanks to her failed descent of the escalator.
‘You forgot these Madam.’ I shout as she scurries the other way, waving the tickets in front of me. And then she storms over again and I knew what was coming. She flashes her hand out and grabs for them. SNATCH. Only I’m not playing ball and don’t let go of the tickets and the puse old bat is left clutching thin air. One last chortle from me and she’s off. I have never seen her again. I bet she bloody well won the jackpot.
You can also be the customer that just waits for any given moment to kick up a storm. Deep into the chaos of the books department over the Christmas shopping period I was asked a question to which I did not know the answer. The girl that I thought may know was on the till and serving one of the many shoppers that snaked in a relentless line around the shop. I go behind the counter and begin to quickly ask her but am stopped immediately by a rather sour faced posh woman who says:
‘Er, excuse me. It is rude to have a private conversation when I’m being served.’
‘This is a work related question which I need to know the answer to to help someone else.’ I reply.
‘It can wait until I’ve finished.’
‘Madam,’ My hackles rise, ‘if I waited until there were no customers before I ask my work mates questions I will be waiting until February.’
‘Do you get points for sarcasm like that?’
‘You do Madam. You get a Sarcasm Clubcard’. She asks to see a manager as I stride off to have a bit of a scream.
Next time I will summarize a few more tried and tested ways to hassle the minimum waged members of your community. Happy shopping.
