Secrets of Retail
By J.W. Martin
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 J.W. Martin
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* * *
To my brothers and sisters still on the battlefield of retail.
“It’s ironic that retailers and restaurants live or die on customer service, yet their employees have some of the lowest pay and worst benefits of any industry.”
- Howard Schultz
Chapter 1
The world is full of stupid people. Really dumb people. People so idiotic that they make me feel like I deserve a Nobel Prize in every category, but the guy who’s supposed to give me the awards isn’t smart enough to work a phone book and give me a call.
During my life I’ve learned many terms to describe these people. Idiot, bonehead, moron, buffoon, dimwit, dunce, dumb-ass. I could go on and on. However, there’s one term in my personal vocabulary that I’ve come to associate with an extremely dumb human being: customer.
For years I worked in the exasperating world of retail. Essentially I was a salesman, but today, every simple, straightforward job title has to be dressed up with some ridiculous, extravagant, politically correct, purely useless label. That being said I was not actually a salesman; I was a Customer Service Sales Representative. For those of you who aren’t sure what that means, it means I was a salesman.
I worked at one of those big box electronic companies. The kind of company that builds a huge 30,000 square foot store at each location. The kind of store that has a demonstration model of every single product they sell for hordes of customers to paw at and cover with their grime and germs.
Originally, the job was supposed to be for just a couple of months. I ended up serving time there for six years. I took a position on a part-time basis while going to college. I was good with electronics and I was comfortable talking to people. It made sense.
College was a whole other headache. I couldn’t find a course to hold my interest for more than a couple of weeks. I quickly developed a bullshit theory that real world experience was worth more than education. At least, that’s what I told my parents. The real philosophy I had come up with was that drinking beer and playing video games was way more fun than going to class.
I dropped out of school permanently and started looking for a real job that would allow me to make a difference in the world. That lasted for about a week.
The store offered me full-time hours once they heard I was out of school. I reluctantly accepted since it would allow me to make a little more money until I found a real job.
Working full-time meant I was only looking for a real job part-time. Each week I put a little less effort into job hunting. By the end of my second month as a full-time retail employee I retired from job hunting and tried to convince myself that working retail was a real job.
The more I worked at the store, the more things I found that I liked about the job. The store managers quickly started referring to me as an example employee. As time went on I realized that was like someone saying you just won the Special Olympics but you’re not retarded.
Over the next year, I worked my way up the chain of command and rose to the respectable rank of Computer Department Supervisor. That probably doesn’t sound like much, but there were a lot of pointless positions I had to go through to get to supervisor, and had only a few more useless positions above me.
That’s when I started to think this real job could turn into a real career. I was working a job I could tolerate, making a fairly decent wage, plus benefits and a quarterly bonus just for being a supervisor. After a little time more promotion opportunities could make themselves available and I heard store managers made a very nice salary.
It wasn’t long before I found a problem with the whole scenario. As it turned out you can’t have a job in retail for long while maintaining your sanity. Retail experience shows you a side of people and, to a smaller extent, the world, that is both shocking and disheartening. Working in retail for too long will leave you frustrated and cynical with all your faith in people destroyed. Just like me.
You might wonder how someone can get so frustrated or why one could become so cynical and what happens to make a person lose all faith in mankind.
Truthfully, it doesn’t come down to a single incident. It was a slow process. Years of the job chipping away at the soul.
Recounting the whole thing seems a bit pointless and boring. Besides, all the highlights happened a few years into my reign as supervisor, and just before finally getting an opportunity to become an assistant manager.
Before I get to that, let me go back and tell you about the first incident I can remember when I realized just how far down I had fallen.
That incident’s name was Chantelle. We had been together for far too long. Before that particularly disastrous relationship had been a few months old, she cheated on me with some guy from her office. Instead of yelling at her and ending the relationship like a normal human being should, I used it as a free pass to cheat on her whenever I wanted. That’s how much I cared about the relationship. Now that I think back, it was long before that when my levels of cynicism reached their height, but it was one of my first moments of realization.
On that night of realization we were standing in my apartment arguing about moving in together. She was upset because I had never asked her to move in with me. I was upset because I didn’t want her to move in with me.
She always thought she was better than me because I worked in retail and she was a secretary, or as she would say, an executive assistant. I’d make a lousy secretary. I’d probably get fired for telling my boss to go fuck himself when he tried to send me for coffee and bagels.
“I just don’t understand you, Wade.”
That’s me, by the way. Wade Williams. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself sooner, but I lack focus. Chantelle used to say things like that all the time.
“We’ve been together for, like, two years. We should be living together. It just makes sense.” Every word sounded like she was whining.
Maybe it does make sense for couples that have been together for two years to move in together. What doesn’t make sense is to move in with someone who drives you fucking nuts.
She was twenty-four years old and still acted like a high school girl. I would say she also had the intelligence of a high school girl, but I hope high school girls are smarter than that.
“What are you scared of?” she asked.
This was all happening on my day off, ruining what I had left of the night. I hated having my days off ruined. I should have been stretched out on the couch playing XBOX. I was always honest with her, whether she wanted to hear it or not, but with her ruining my day off, I wasn’t pulling any punches.
“I’m not scared of anything. I just don’t want to live with you.”
“Oh, that’s great. You don’t want to live with me. Maybe we should just break up then!” She was bluffing. I called her bluff.
“That sounds good. Let’s do that.”
She started crying. She cried all the time and I hated it.
I think it was the way she was brought up. As a kid, when she wanted to get her way, she must have thrown temper tantrums. If that didn’t work she would then turn on the waterworks and based on our relationship, and her behaviour as an adult, it must have worked every time.
It worked on me countless times before. I had tried to break up with her on three prior occasions and each time she started crying and laying down thick layers of guilt.
That particular night was different.
“If you’re going to cry, would you mind doing it out in the hallway?”
“We were supposed to be together forever!”
“Trust me. We were never supposed to be together forever.”
“So, that’s it? You’re just giving up?” This was always the first phase of her guilt trip. Six more phases would normally follow, but not that night.
“Truthfully, I gave up a long time ago,” I said. “Now, I have the rest of the night off to relax and I don’t want you ruining that. We’ve talked through everything there is to talk through, so the only thing left is for you to fuck off.”
She stood there speechless, trying to find something else to say to make me feel guilty. In these moments, it always seemed to take a long time for her to say something. Some would say she was delicately arranging her thoughts and carefully thinking about how to word her next sentence. I think it was because she was dumb.
“Don’t you remember how many times you told me you loved me?”
Part two of the guilt trip train.
I didn’t keep track of the amount of times I told her I loved her, but if I did I would wager it would add up to be the same amount of times we had sex.
With two cars of the guilt train down I realized I didn’t have the energy to battle through another five.
“Listen,” I said looking at her the same way you look at a child to make sure the kid is listening to what you’re saying. “It’s not you, it’s me. You’ve changed, I’ve changed, people change. We’ve grown apart. I’m holding you back. You’re holding me back. You’re just not that same person I fell in love with. I don’t feel the same way about you anymore. We need to spend some time apart. A lot of time apart. I think we should be just friends, and there’s someone else.”
I couldn’t believe I had never thought of this tactic before. Anyone can refute one reason for a break-up, but who can come back from all the excuses? She continued to stand there and I began to see that I was going to need to put the final nail in the coffin.
“And you’re getting a little fat.”
Her mouth dropped open and she immediately spun and headed for the door. On her way out she kicked over my DVD tower, spilling movies everywhere. I didn’t care.
Chapter 2
After spending the rest of the night playing video games and re-organizing my DVD collection, morning came and it was time to go back to work. I had the closing shift, which had its good parts and its shitty ones.
You got to sleep in and didn’t have to do very much cleaning, but you had to deal with more customers and stock the shelves at the end of the night.
Friday.
Friday shifts were an oddity. Without any particular reason a Friday could be extremely busy or completely dead. And either way no one would be able to explain why the traffic was what it was.
At the beginning of an afternoon shift the store was pretty dead. Even if there were some customers wandering around the store, I would generally avoid them for the first half of my shift. At least the first couple of hours.
I was hiding in the lunchroom pretending to work on my department’s schedule when Rory, a fellow department supervisor, walked in. His department was simply called Audio. It consisted of stereos, MP3 players, boom boxes, etc.
“What’s up, Dub-dub?” Rory bellowed at me. Dub-dub was his nickname for me. It evolved from Wade Williams to WW to DoubleW to Double Dubs and finally to Dub-dub. He thought it was clever. I thought it was fucking stupid.
“Hey, Rory. Nice to see you.” The only good thing about Rory is that you could be as sarcastic as you wanted and he never picked it up. Ever.
“You stuck closing this bitch with me?” Rory asked.
“Yeah. It’s you, me and Mikey.” Mike Colburn was the department supervisor for the repair technicians, and one of my closest friends.
“Sweet. Have you heard the new Sony 5-disc I got in my department. It packs, like, 1500 watts in this really compact case. I’m telling you, it’s incanny.”
He meant uncanny.
“Yeah, I’ll have to check that out.” I had no intention of checking it out.
“Awesome. When you see Mike, tell him I want to get this fucker closed on time tonight. I’m gonna be hitting the bar, looking for some ladies and getting me some action, if you know what I’m saying.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” I said, just as Mike walked in.
“Tell who what now?” Mike asked.
“Oh, yeah. Mike,” I said. “Rory wanted me to tell you that he wants to get the store closed on time tonight, cause he’s going to hit the bar, look for some ladies and get some action.”
“Oh, well if you see Rory tell him I’ll do my best,” Mike replied.
“Yeah. I got the message. I’m standing right here,” Rory said.
“Oh, hi, Rory!” called Mike, as though Rory had just walked in the room.
“Oh, Rory,” I joined in. “Mike wanted me to tell you he’s going to do his best tonight.”
“You guys suck,” Rory said, sounded defeated, and left the room.
“What are you doing in here?” Mike asked me.
“Hiding and pretending to work on the schedule. I got a half hour out of it so far.”
“I bet you can get another half hour out of it.”
Most of the supervisors in the store had tricks for avoiding work. Working on the schedule was a classic that we all shared.
Secret of Retail #2: The higher rank you achieve in the store, the less actual work you have to do.
“I haven’t seen you around lately. Where’ve you been?”
“I had a few days off. Took my lady to the falls. It was fun.”
“Did you have all kinds of crazy sex in seedy hotel rooms? Did you do the ultraviolet light thing to see all the other dudes’ blown loads? Did you bust out your S & M gear?”
“So this is where all the supervisors are hiding.” Laura was standing in the doorway looking at us. She worked at the customer service desk at the front of the store.
“That’s right. And now we must kill you,” Mike said.
“Funny guy,” said Laura. “Listen, I need one of you to come to the Customer Service desk. There’s a woman trying to make a return and demanding to speak to a manager.”
Customers always demanded to speak to a manager any time they ran into the smallest bit of resistance. If a customer wanted to get something that wasn’t on that sale that week, but had been on sale the week before, they’d demand to speak to a manager. If something was sold out, they’d demand to speak to a manager. If they couldn’t seem to lose that five pounds they said they would back in January, they’d demand to speak to a manager. And in Laura’s case, if they were told they couldn’t return something, they’d demand to speak to a manager.
Of course, the staff had been trained that customers who want to speak to a manager should speak to a supervisor first, and the supervisors had been trained to do everything possible to prevent having to involve an actual manager. It all goes back to the Secret of Retail #2.
“Rock, paper, scissors?” I challenged Mike.
He thrust a fist towards me, and on the count of three his scissors beat my paper.
“Two out of three?” I asked.
“Fuck that. You lost. Go service customers.”
“Damn.”
Before I get to the recounting of this customer, allow me to give you a tour of the store I spent so much of my time in. The lunchroom that we were all hanging out in was situated at the very back of the store. I think that was done on purpose so employees had to walk all the way through the store when they got to work, and then again when they were leaving work. This provided customers extra opportunities to bother an employee who just wanted to take a lunch or a smoke break. Most employees resorted to wearing a coat or sweater when making the long walk. Most of the time it served well enough, but when it was really busy even covering the store uniform didn’t seem to stop customers from asking for help.
The break room exits onto the track. The track runs all around the store and touches every department. It’s made up of a giant circle, encompassing most of the store, with an additional walkway going right up the middle of the circle. This effectively cuts the store into six smaller pieces. Four of them reside outside of the large circular path, one in each direction, and the other two are inside the circle.
At the back, near the break room is the computer department. My department. I can’t complain about its placement. It makes for easy access to duck in and out of the break room.
Tucked in the back corner of my computer department is Mike’s tech bench where all the computer repairs are done. Right beside the tech bench were the doors to the store warehouse.
If you follow the path to the left you’ll find the home theatre department on the outside of the path. Home theatre quality surround sound systems, DVD players and more big screen TVs than you’ll see in any other store.
Across from the home theatre department, on the inside of the track, is an area shared by the digital camera department and the mobile department. Digital cameras not only had digital cameras, but also video cameras and few film cameras that were more relics than they were products. Mobile sold cell phones and all the little gadgets that go with cell phones.
Taking the path to the right from the breakroom you’d find Rory’s audio department just outside of the path.
The area across from that was dubbed Media and consisted of video games and DVD movies.
At the very front of the store were several cash registers. Tucked right in between the audio department and the cashiers area was the customer service desk and the employees only section. It was a small back room where a little bit of stock was kept and a door that led to an even smaller office which we all called the manager’s room. Mainly because the managers always hung out in that room. They didn’t have to come up with tricks for avoiding work. They simply had to walk into that room and close the door.
As I walked from the lunchroom to the customer service desk I thought about the vicious circle that the customer service industry had brought upon itself.
I also thought about how much I hate clichés. However, there is one that applies: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It was a simple enough concept. Businesses compete in order to win customers, and more importantly, customers’ money. In order to win the public’s patronage, a store trains their employees to go out of their way to make a customer happy. That customer is thrilled to get such great customer service, tells all of his or her friends and returns over and over.
However, before long that level of customer service that was considered great becomes expected. All the other retail stores start doing the same and that level of service becomes the standard.
Businesses and employees are now required to raise the level of service again, and go even further out of their way to win customers. Again, customers are thrilled, and again that level of service quickly becomes expected, and soon thereafter, the new standard.
Rinse and repeat.
When I got close enough to the customer service desk to see a rather large lady standing at the counter with her arms crossed and a pissed off look on her face, I suddenly really wished that I had picked rock.
Chapter 3
“Ma’am, this is Wade, he’s going to help you out,” said Laura quickly, and stepped back from the counter and away from the large lady.
“Hi, there. What can I do for you today?” I said trying to smile, but doing a terrible job.
“Are you the manager?” she demanded.
I could have explained that I was a supervisor, and assure her that I would do everything I could to provide a solution. And I could have told her that in the unlikely scenario that I am unable to help I would promptly find someone who had the authority to help. However, with some customers it’s just much easier to say, “Yes, I am. What can I do for you?”
“I want to return this.” She carelessly tossed a MP3 player on the counter. “This piece of shit!”
“Is there a problem with it?” I asked, acting concerned.
“Yeah. It’s a piece of shit.”
“Alright. Well, I’m going to do everything I can to help you, but there’s no need for swearing.” I had no problem with this woman swearing, but asking customers like this to stop swearing always pissed them off and made me feel a little better. “Is it broken?” I rephrased.
The woman sighed loudly, in place of swearing. “Yes. It’s broken.”
“OK. Let’s take a look.”
I began taking the MP3 player out of its box when the woman interrupted. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to test it.”
“Why? You don’t believe me? You think I got time to go around trying to return shit for no reason?”
Some people do, and they loved to hang out at our store.
“I believe you, ma’am. But I need to test it to see if I can find a problem a little more specific than ‘it’s broken.’”
Some statisticians in Sweden completed a study on North American retail.
I’d make a lousy statistician. I’d probably get fired for making up all the results. Who wants to talk to thousands of people just to find out the answer is pretty much what you thought it was going to be?
The results of the study said that 50% of electronics returned under the reason of ‘malfunction’ had no problem at all. The study also showed that the average consumer spent 15 minutes trying to figure out an electronic device before completely giving up. And since people will never admit to failure, they bring it back to the store and say stupid things like ‘this is a broken piece of shit’.
When I checked something a customer was returning, it was very rare that I was truly trying to narrow down the problem. Most of the time I was checking to see if the device was perfectly fine and the customer was too dumb to work it.
“I can tell you exactly what’s wrong with it,” said the lady. “It won’t play.”
This lady thought that was actually helpful advice.
It took me 90 seconds to find out there was absolutely nothing wrong with the lady’s MP3 player. It turned on without an issue and I rolled my eyes when I saw her playlist consisted of the Backstreet Boys and ABBA.
I brought the MP3 player over to the lady, had her put on the earphones and hit the play button. I heard the music start playing and tried not to grin.
At this point of the average return, most customers would ask a few more questions about operating the MP3 player, thank me and be on their way. But, there are some customers that would persist on saying something like this lady was about to say.
“Well, I still want to return it.”
The reason was because she was embarrassed. Customers like the lady don’t like the idea that they couldn’t figure out how to use an MP3 player, and they hate the fact that I made it work in less than two minutes.
“I just don’t like this one. It doesn’t sound very good. I don’t really like the colour, and the earphones are uncomfortable in my ears,” she lied.
Customers like this will give any reason to save face and complete the return. Usually, the same customers will come back to the store a few days later and quietly purchase the same item they returned.
“OK. So we’ll do the return,” I said.
“That’s what I want, but this one over here says I can’t.”
By ‘this one’ she had meant Laura, who was still standing behind me, but I hate when people are that disrespectful.
“I’m sorry. This one?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The girl standing behind you.”
“Oh, Laura. I’m sorry, I was misunderstanding when you said ‘this one.’” There’s a certain level of sarcasm you can use with customers before they can call you on it. I was pushing the boundaries. “Why did Laura say you can’t return it?”
“She said I need a receipt.”
“Oh. Well Laura’s absolutely right. You do need a receipt.”
“Well, I don’t have one.”
“We need to see one.”
“Why? I bought it here.”
“There’s no way for me to know that, is there?”
“How many other stores sell this MP3 player?”
“Last I checked, six.”
“You made that up.” She was right. I did make that up, but it was probably pretty close to accurate.
“Here’s the deal. Our policy says I can’t let you return this MP3 player without a receipt, but because we care about our customers and appreciate your business,” It always took a lot of control not to laugh while saying that. “Here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to let you return the MP3 player for store credit.”
That was my plan the entire time. With that type of customer I had to make her think that I was going to fight her the whole way on the return. That way, when I offered store credit, she would have been grateful to get anything out of it. If I had started out offering store credit, it wouldn’t have been good enough. She would have insisted on a cash refund.
“Fine. Thank-you.” Her words were brimming with reluctance and hate, but I pretended to appreciate the formality.
“Have a nice day.” At that point in my life, those words no longer had any meaning.
I left Laura to process the return and headed toward the warehouse to continue hiding.
Chapter 4
Nothing was really going on back in the warehouse, which was good. Fewer people around meant I didn’t have to work nearly as hard at looking like I was working hard.
The warehouse was huge. At least half of a football field huge, with large, steel shelves 15 feet high. When the warehouse was full it held nearly double the stock of all the product held out on the floor.
I heard some commotion in the back corner and went to check it out. Mike was arranging the stock of big screen projection televisions.
“Who roped you into actual work?” I asked.
“We got a surplus of big screens, so Jameson sent me back here and told me to figure out a way to fit them all back here. He gave me the ‘By any means necessary’ line.”
“What an asshole.”
We actually had two managers in our store; a sales manager and a store manager. Kevin Jameson was the store manager. He outranked the sales manager, and he really was an asshole.
“Yeah. I got two left and the only space left in the whole warehouse is on the top shelf.”
“I’ll get Big Bertha.”
Big Bertha was a hydraulic lift used to put heavy items on the top shelf, and it was the most fun you could have at work.
When you used Bertha you got to ride with your cargo up to the top shelf. It was even fun to be the guy on the ground. Once you’re friend was up as high as Bertha would go, you could hit the emergency stop button, cutting all power to the machine and leave the warehouse with your friend stranded and helpless.
Mike was on the top shelf, strapping the televisions in place when Jameson burst into the warehouse, bellowing. “Colburn!”
Kevin Jameson was a short man, but made up for his lack of height with a rabid pugnacity. Along with being an asshole, Jameson loved to pick on Mike and did it every chance he got.
“What are you doing back here?” Jameson demanded. “You’ve got a line up at the repair desk!”
“I’m putting these TVs away,” Mike explained. “Like you asked me to.”
“Williams. What are you doing back here?”
“Just giving Mike a hand.”
“Shouldn’t you be on the floor selling something?”
From time to time, Jameson attempted to pick on me, probably because I was good friends with Mike. The bad news for Jameson was that I almost always found a way to make him look stupid when he tried.
“That is a good place for me to be, Jameson,” I admitted. “But, you see, Mike is using Bertha to put those televisions on the top shelf. According to the Big Bertha rule book, and company policy, he has to have a spotter. Otherwise, it creates an unsafe working environment.”
He turned his attention back onto Mike. “Get down from there, so both of you can get back to work.”
“Sure,” Mike agreed. “I just have to finishing strapping this TV in place.”
“Nope. I need you two out there now.”
“What about the TV?” Mike asked.
“I’ll get that taken care of. You need to get out there.”
Just by looking at Mike’s face I could tell he had a dozen things that he wanted to say to Jameson, but he kept his mouth shut.
As Mike and I left the warehouse together I quietly said, “Hey, we’ll take lunch in an hour, head across the street and I’ll buy you a beer.”
“Make it two,” Mike said.
I spent the next hour trying to explain to an extremely elderly couple that if they wanted to buy a computer to play ‘the solitaire game’, they should save themselves a thousand bucks and buy a deck of cards.
Mike and I walked across the street to The Draft, a pub style bar and restaurant. We liked it there because it was laid back. Free peanuts were everywhere, and the shells belonged on the floor. There was always some decent music playing, but it wasn’t blasting the way it was in night clubs.
We sat ourselves at our usual table and waved at one of the girls behind the bar. They knew us well enough that they’d be bringing our drink order to the table before even saying ‘hello’.
“Jameson is such a dick,” Mike started to vent.
“You don’t have to tell me. I’m pretty sure that’s in his job description.”
“I just hate that he always has it out for me.”
“You’re an easy target,” I explained.
“How so?”
“You don’t fight back.”
“I fight back,” Mike was getting defensive.
“Ok. Let me rephrase. When you fight back, you make it personal. You get upset. He feeds off that. He likes to make people insubordinate and then give them shit for it.”
“He likes to suck cock. That’s what he likes to do.”
“I’ve heard stories,” I joked. “Next time he tries to pick on you, just keep it professional. He’s so dumb that he still has no clue about the policies and guidelines that were set by head office. You do. Use that against him.”
Most store managers worked their way up through the chain of command. Not Kevin Jameson. He came from an outside company and was hired as a store manager. I heard a rumour once that he used to sell furniture and gave a really good deal to one of the managers from our head office and got a job in return. Either that, or he slept with someone to get it. I don’t know which is worse.
Even after being the store manager for over a year he would still regularly run into policies or procedures that he didn’t know very well. Each time, he would claim that he was still a little new to certain aspects of the job. Most people knew all the aspects of a job after a few weeks.
“I can’t think about policies when he starts at me,” Mike said. “I get so angry that I just want to scream obscenities about his mother.”
“Whose mother are you abusing?” said Sarah, our waitress, as she brought us our drinks. “You guys having the usual?”
We both said yes and Sarah was on her way back to the bar.
“Well, Mikey, if worse comes to worse we’ll get a couple of masks, drag Jameson out of his own house and beat his ass on the front lawn.”
We heard a female voice from behind me. “Sounds like something I’d expect out of you.”
It was Becky, our fellow co-worker and supervisor of the store’s mobile department.
“Hey, Beck. You hang out here when you’re off duty?” I asked.
“What do you want? It’s cheap to play pool here.”
“You here on a date?” Mike asked.
“No. Just here with some girlfriends.”
“Too bad I have to go back to work,” I said, using my most arrogant tone. “I’d really enjoy hanging out with you and your girlfriends. Check your forms. Make sure you’re all using the right stroke.”
“Charming,” said Becky. “Maybe another time. See you guys later.”
She walked away, smirking.
“I love that girl,” I said.
I really did. Becky was the kind of girl who was easy on the eyes and a lot of fun to hang out with. It’s like she was one of the guys with a great rack.
We spent the rest of our lunch making fun of Jameson on every possible aspect, while I flirted a little with the waitresses. The only bad thing about a great lunch break was that you still had to go back to work afterwards.
Chapter 5
The second Mike and I walked into the store, Laura, from customer service, was waving me down. Thinking she had another bitchy customer for me to deal with I quickly looked around for a way out.
I spotted a beautiful girl browsing the DVD section. She was the kind of girl I could believe to be my dream girl, if I believed in that sort of thing. I did kind of hear Dream Weaver playing in my head when I looked at her.
I was about to approach her, to see if she needed help finding a movie, or maybe finding a guy to watch the movie with, but Laura was walking directly at me. “The managers said for you to go and see them as soon as you get back,” she informed me.
“So?” I asked.
“So. You’re back,” she shot back, and quickly walked away, calling over her shoulder. “They’re in the manager’s room.”
Big surprise. Manager’s were always in the manager’s room. As I said before, that’s why we called it the manager’s room. It’s official name was actually something like the Sales Development Office. But it went from being an office to a room and instead of developing sales, managers sat on their asses.
The room wasn’t very big. It simply had a long table and enough chairs for 8 people to sit at the table. Along one wall there were a couple small bookcases filled with binders of company policies and procedures. If you looked at the binders close enough, you could’ve seen dust forming.
The walls were adorned with motivational propaganda provided by head office. Sales charts that had very little meaning, graphs that predicted the company’s future success, and a poster of that stupid little cat holding onto a tree branch for dear life.
What they did in there was anyone’s guess. My guess was hiding from customers. Essentially the same as me, but I had to work much harder to hide. They had a designated spot. That seemed like an unfair advantage to me.
When I entered the manager’s room Jameson was talking with Lewis Bailer, the store’s Sales Manager. They were talking about the U.S. Open. Despite the laziness he was displaying now, Lewis was a good guy and good manager. He was fair to the employees and handled customers well.
Since he was half of the management team, Jameson liked to allow him to sit in the manager’s room so they could talk about meaningless shit. I can’t blame Lewis for taking advantage of it. I probably would have too, even if it meant talking with an asshole like Jameson.
“Lewis. Kevin,” I acknowledged. “Laura said you wanted to see me?” I had my suspicions as to why.
“Here. I need you to take this,” Jameson said, thrusting a clipboard into my hands. My suspicions were right. “And be sales lead for me.”
Company policy said there always had to be someone filling the role of sales lead. The sales lead was supposed to be aware of the current sales totals and compare them to head office’s projected sales. When the store was lower than the projected, the sales lead was supposed to pull sales out of his ass until the numbers were even again. Then the sales lead was to go around the store and let the staff know how the store was doing for the day. The staff was always really good at pretending to care.
Most of the employees were part-timers who just took the job while they were in school, so most of them didn’t know what the sales goal was and didn’t care. They also weren’t real heart broken when a customer wasn’t getting the help they wanted. Which lead into another sales lead duty: coax sales people out of their various hiding places and shove them in the direction of customers.
It was also company policy that this role was supposed to be done by managers and should only ever have been handed off to a supervisor in times of extreme need.
I guess discussing the PGA warranted extreme need. Tiger was winning.
I took the clipboard and headed out to the sales floor. The numbers said we were behind in sales. I tried to care. There was a time when I did care.
I walked down an aisle of boom boxes and got ambushed at the end of it; Rory popped up out of nowhere.
“Dub-dub! You here to check out that Sony I was telling you about?” he asked.
“I wish I could, but I was just handed sales lead. So, I have to get out there and,” I searched my brain for a good excuse. Any excuse. “Whatever. Show me.”
Rory led me down another aisle. “Hey, have you talked to Christine lately?” he said sounding nervous.
“No. Haven’t you?”
“Well, I’m not exactly the most lavacious guy in the world.”
He meant loquacious.
Christine also worked for the store. She was a part-timer and had recently been spending a lot of time with Rory.
“Aren’t you her boyfriend? Or at least one of them?”
“Yeah, we were going out. But we’re totally just friends now.” He transformed his manner from nervous to cocky. “I mean, we still have sex and everything, but we’re totally just friends.”
“Sounds awesome.” Again my sarcasm went undetected.
“Anyway, so this is the one,” he said stopping in front of one of the boom boxes. “You like Coldplay?”
“Not really.” I really don’t.
“Yeah, but, through this,”
Before Rory could finish his sentence, a page boomed out over the intercom.
“Wade, can you come to the computer service desk? Wade, to the computer service desk, please.”
“Sorry, Rory.” I grinned and walked away.
Mike was standing and waiting for me at the computer service desk.
“You owe me,” he said.
“At least one. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me too much. I let you squirm a little before making the page.”
“Dick.”
“Hey, is that the sales lead clipboard?”
“Yeah. I’m here to motivate you so that we can strive to beat our target numbers,” I said mockingly.
“Oh yeah. How are you going to do that?” Mike challenged.
“I have a motivational speech prepared.”
“Do you? Lay it on me.”
“Do better.”
Mike and I stood in silence for a few seconds.
“That was great,” he said. “I’m riveted.”
“I’m bored. How long until we can kick everyone out?”
“Two and a half long hours.”
There weren’t very many people to kick out that night. Normally, there would have been a small rush of customers after dinner. After that, most people were busy having a social life.
The computer nerds would usually spend their Friday night with us, but they’d just hang out in the computer section talking amongst themselves excitedly about gigahertz and refresh rates.
After two and a half hours of pretending to care about customers and their needs we said goodbye to the last one and locked the doors.
Jameson’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Wade, I need to see you in the manager’s room.”
When I entered the manager’s room, Jameson and Lewis were in the exact same spot they had been in before.
“Did you update those numbers?” Jameson asked.
“Yeah. About 10 minutes ago.”
“Good. Let me take a look.” I slid the clipboard across the table to him. He studied the numbers quickly, nodding as he took them all in. “Not bad. Could have been better, but we’ll take it.” He stood up and smiled at me, not knowing how much of an asshole I thought he was. “Right?”
“I guess.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and continued to smile like a jackass. “Listen, you’re opening tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I like having my really dependable guys in Saturday mornings.” He was about to ask me for something. “Could you do me a favour?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I think Lewis and I need to have an off-site meeting. We have a few sensitive issues to discuss. So, I’m going to give you my keys to close up the store tonight. I’ll just get them from you sometime tomorrow.” It was Friday, so they were probably going to eat chicken wings and drink beer at Hooters.
“Sure. No problem.” We always closed the store faster when Jameson wasn’t there, anyway.
“Thanks, Wade. Lewis, I’ll meet you out front. I just have to grab my coat from the lunch room.” Jameson said and left the room.
Lewis stood up and stretched the kind of stretch you do when you’ve been sitting for a long, long time.
“How’s it going, Wade?” he said.
“Alright. Just looking forward to getting the close done so I can have my own off-site meeting.”
Lewis smiled. He knew that I knew they weren’t having any kind of meeting. He also knew that I didn’t really blame him for taking advantage of Jameson’s favour.
“Hey, I’m in tomorrow morning too. So, don’t worry about opening procedures. Sleep in another half hour.”
Like I said before, Lewis was a good guy. If only Jameson was a little more like him.
I unlocked the front doors for Lewis and Jameson and went to make sure people were stocking shelves instead of standing around talking.
Thirty seconds later I walked past a group of three part-timers standing in a circle talking.
“Hey, come on,” I said. “At least pretend like you’re working.”
Back when I was a part-timer I had all kinds of tricks to make it seem like I was working. I would take a piece of paper and write down a few items that I needed to get from the back. Then I could just slack off until someone asked what I was doing, then I would show them the list and say I was on my way to the back to get those items.
My favourite was just to walk around holding onto product. It always looked like I was taking it somewhere. It either looked like I was stocking a shelf somewhere, or a shelf was overstocked and I was taking something back into the warehouse.
Once again I made my way back to the computer service desk. Mike was tidying up the work bench, which was littered with tools, small screws and little bits of wire.
“Well, the managers are gone,” I announced.
“Bastards.”
“At least no one will be looking over our shoulders tonight.”
“You’re in tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. Open shift. You?”
“Nope.”
“How the hell did you get a Saturday off?”
“Traded a shift with Becky.”
“Lucky dog,” I said. Although Saturdays off weren’t any better than any other day off. If you wanted to go anywhere, you were sharing the time with most of the working world. Stores were packed, restaurants booked, all the good DVDs were already rented.
Going somewhere in the middle of the week meant you just had to dodge senior citizens. That’s a whole other topic on its own.
“I think we’re good to get out of here. The store’s about as clean and stocked as it’s going to get tonight,” I said.
“Good. You want to grab a couple beers?” Mike asked.
“As good as a beer sounds right now, I’d better not. I do have the morning shift tomorrow, and I have to stop by the grocery store on my way home.”
“Groceries at this time of night?”
“Yeah. Lendo’s is open twenty-four seven.” I chuckled. “How’d you like to work there?”
Chapter 6
One of the strangest things that sticks with you when you work retail is a constant sense of camaraderie with any other employee of a retail or customer service environment.
Walking through Lendo’s grocery store that night I couldn’t help but give a nod of respect to a stock boy. Since I was still wearing my store uniform the stock boy returned my nod of respect and nothing needed to be said.
His nod acknowledged that he wasn’t going to answer any idiotic questions and my nod confirmed that although I was giving him respect I wasn’t about to help him put a case of peas on the shelf. The nod was also a confirmation that we both knew the same thing to be true: Customers were a pain in the ass.
My grocery list consisted of Doritos and Pizza Pops. Truthfully, my daily diet consisted of Doritos and Pizza Pops.
As I was staring into one of the freezers in the frozen food section contemplating if I wanted pepperoni flavour or deluxe, a man walked up beside me wearing a stupid look on his face.
“Excuse me, but can you tell me where I can find barbecue sauce?” the man asked.
Secret of Retail #7: Never wear your retail uniform into other stores.
For some reason customers could never tell the difference between one store uniform and another.
I pointed to the store logo embroidered on the breast of my shirt and said, “Sorry. I don’t work here,” and went back to contemplating the Pizza Pops.
The man continued to stand there and traded his stupid look for a shocked one. He opened his mouth to spew more stupidity at me. “I don’t think you should be wearing your uniform in another store. It might confuse people.”
It obviously confused this guy.
“I came here straight from work. I don’t normally dress in my uniform to go grocery shopping.” He was defeated, but as truly stupid people often do, he kept fighting.
“A police officer wouldn’t wear his uniform when he’s not on duty.”
I’d make a terrible cop. I’d probably get fired for blatantly abusing my power and trying to elicit bribes.
“What makes you any different?” the stupid man continued.
I didn’t want to get into an argument like this. I just wanted to buy some junk food and go home. I didn’t want to have to verbally slap this man, but it was about it happen.
“I don’t fight fires and I don’t catch criminals. I sell fucking electronics. And it’s not my fault that you got confused. I’m wearing khakis and a black golf shirt. All the employees here wear black pants and red smocks. That’s not even the same type or colour of clothing.”
Again, that should have been enough for him to realize he was defeated.
“I don’t think…” I cut him off. It was time to end this.
“Not to mention, I’m standing here looking at products and have a basket full of groceries in my hand and you’re looking for barbecue sauce in the frozen fucking foods aisle!”
The man’s face turned a bright shade of red. He opened his mouth to say something, but instead glanced around at the freezers on both sides of us. He gave me another stare then turned and continued his search for barbecue sauce. I was betting he’d try fruits and vegetables next.
Moments later I was placing my items on the conveyor belt of the express lane. The girl behind the checkout looked very bored. He name tag told me her name was Kate.
“How are you tonight, Kate?” I asked.
She looked at me with her utter boredom and replied. “Fine, Wade.”
I smiled and glanced at my own name tag. She was sharp.
“Right. The name tag,” I said. “For a minute there I thought you were a genuine psychic. I was going to ask you what I had for breakfast this morning.”
She rolled her eyes and started ringing through my groceries.
“I have to apologize for that last joke. I have this problem where I think I’m really funny, but I tell crappy jokes like that.” The corner of Kate’s mouth twitched a little.
“It was pretty bad,” she agreed.
“I bet you’re looking forward to the end of your shift.”
She let out a sigh. “You have no idea.”
“I think I do. I felt that way an hour ago,” I smirked again. “Must be tough working in a place that’s open 24 hours.”
She finally smiled. She was pretty when she smiled.
“Yeah. Over-night shifts are the worst. I’m done in an hour though, thankfully. I’m dying for a cigarette and a coffee.”
“Oh, I’m about to have one of each of those things, right now.”
She laughed and playfully hit me on the shoulder. “Come on, now. No teasing.”
“I owe you some money, don’t I?”
At that point her attention was so focused on me that she forgot she was ringing my groceries through.
I handed her some money and she quickly gave me back some change.
“Well, I’m glad you’re rough night is almost over, Kate. I hope you have someone waiting to buy you that coffee. You deserve it.”
“Not tonight. I’ll just make some when I get home.”
“That’s too bad. I’m going to be at that little coffee shop a couple doors down. If you feel like stopping in there maybe I’ll buy you that coffee. Maybe.”
She smiled even bigger, and I walked away without another word. I didn’t need another word. She’d be there.
After working retail long enough, I developed a gift for talking to any girl who also worked retail. I knew the things to say to make them relate to me and feel that I related to them.
In that grocery store, I knew exactly what to say to Kate to get her to meet me for coffee.
I sat in the coffee shop for the next hour enjoying a well-made cup of coffee and the silence of late night.
There was only one other man in the coffee shop and the girl behind the counter.
Kate walked in a half hour later than I thought she would. I saw immediately that she had gone home, changed and done something different with her hair.
“Here for a free coffee,?” I said.
She quickly sat down at the table, smiling. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”
“I was just about to leave,” I said, and watched a little disappointment creep into her face. “But I guess I can stay and have one more.”
I ordered two more coffees and brought them back to the table.
We carried on for a half hour with some useless small talk. I hate small talk. You can’t learn anything about anyone with small talk.
After a minute of silence, I looked Kate in the eyes and asked, “What do you want to do?”
She opened her mouth, but couldn’t speak.
“With you life,” I continued.
“Oh! With my life? I don’t know. I want to go to school for something, but I can’t find a career path that can hold my interest.”
“I know what you mean. Have you narrowed it down to any areas?”
“No. Not really. How about you?”
“Not as far as school is concerned.”
“What do you mean?” She sounded intrigued.
“I know one thing about my future. I don’t want to be ordinary. College offers a lot of different options; a lot of great options. But each one of those careers is being filled by tens of thousands of people every day. In a lot of cases, hundreds of thousands. Even the professions deemed to be better than the rest. Take lawyers for example. You have to go to school for several years and be dedicated to your studies if you want to make it, and once you do make it you have to put in a ton of hours. And still, there are more lawyers than you can count in just about every city on the planet.”
I’d be a terrible lawyer. I’d probably get fired since I can only carry on an argument for so long before I end it by telling someone to go fuck themselves.
I continued. “I want to do something with my life that stands out. I want to write a song that reaches the top of the charts. I want to write a book that becomes a New York Times Bestseller. I want to direct a movie that wins an Academy Award. I don’t want to do something good with my life. I want to do something great with my life.”
She stared at me in silence. It wasn’t all a lie. I did want to do something great with my life. I just didn’t have the talent to do any of the things I mentioned.
“My place isn’t far from here,” Kate said, once she got her breath back. “Do you want to come over for one more coffee?”
In the grocery store, I knew exactly what to say to Kate to get her to meet me for coffee. In the coffee shop, I knew exactly what to say to her to get invited to her apartment.
Coffee was never served. We started kissing as soon as we were in the door of her apartment. We made out for an hour. Kate was a pretty good kisser, but I was getting bored with kissing.
There was no hesitation when I pulled off her shirt. She didn’t flinch when I tugged at her zipper. I saw a soft smile appear on her face when I unhooked her bra. By then she was down to her underwear and more than willing to remove them herself.
After a marathon of positions, we laid on the bed beside each other breathing heavily.
Kate snuggled up to me and started to whisper in my ear. I wasn’t listening. I was busy considering the rest of the night. I asked myself, Should I stay with her the night, make her a quick breakfast in the morning and head home with just enough time to get ready for work, or should I go home right now?
I was still considering my options, and singing the Clash inside my head, when I turned and looked at Kate. She was still talking to me.
“I can set an alarm to give us enough time for a great morning before you have to go.”
I put a big, slightly goofy, grin on my face. “Actually, I think once was enough for me.”
She was so angry. Inside of a minute she had me standing in the hall outside of her apartment completely nude with my clothes in my arms. I couldn’t help but laugh.
It was my own situation I was laughing at. However, Kate, thinking the laugh was directed at her, ripped open the door and screamed at me. “Fuck you, asshole!”
“Yeah, maybe,” I replied to myself.
Two doors down the hall a middle-aged woman opened her door and popped her head out into the hallway to stare at me as if I was the strangest sight she had ever seen.
“Hi, there,” I said smiling. The middle-aged woman just stood there and stared. I dropped my clothes on the floor, leaving me completely uncovered, and started to get dressed. The middle-aged woman watched for a few more seconds before finally retreating back into her apartment.
In the grocery store, I knew exactly what to say to Kate to get her to meet me for coffee. In the coffee shop, I knew exactly what to say to her to get invited over to her apartment. In her apartment, I knew exactly what to say to get myself kicked out.
I admit, I felt a little like an asshole, but it was 3 AM and the morning shift was already going to be hell. I didn’t want to think what it would have been like if I had to get up even earlier only to expel more energy.
Besides, she was an express lane check out girl. Relationships like that are best kept to 8 hours or less.
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