Tuesday 11 December 2007

Give Shopkeepers A Gift This Christmas

So, it's that time of year again. The shops are packed and busy, open longer and considerably less pleasant places to be, no matter which side of the till you're standing.
We all know how stressful Christmas shopping can be, but for many shopkeepers its nothing short of hellish. A long, grinding event that sucks away any trace of festive cheer and goodwill.

So I say spare a thought for the guy behind the till this year. The guy who's had it shoved down his throat since the start of november. The guy who's had to listen to those irritating Christmas songs at least nine hours a day, every day for the past month.

I say give him or her a gift. A small gift, that doesn't cost you a penny. This year, don't bitch and complain because he doesn't have what you want, or because you've been in a queue for a long time. Just give him or her a nice smile, a please and a thank you, and be about your business nice and quickly. Don't waste time nitpicking over details you know don't matter, especially when the shop is busy. Just leave him be. Remember that you'll be home and comfortable in an hour or two, but he's still got the rest of the day, then all day tomorrow, and the day after. He'll probably be working Christmas Eve, or Boxing Day, or both. Take some pity and be nice, even if it's just for the rest of the year. Make a shopkeeper's life a bit easier, even if it's only for a couple of minutes.

This isn't a personal request. Yes, I hate Christmas in shops too, but frankly my place isn't where you'd really go to buy gifts. But I have been there before, and know the pain of those poor souls trapped in those busy Christmas hellholes.

Remember, just a smile, good manners and an absence of time wasting. Make someone's Christmas a little happier for a few seconds.

The Expectant Silence.

First of all, yes i have been incredibly lazy and not updated for nearly a month. I can't whinge at you people all the time. Well, alright I could. I just don't want to.

Today I'm going to cover a phenomenon that i have encountered ever since I started working retail, no matter where or for what company. The expectant silence. The pregnant pause, if you will. Or perhaps more of a pause expecting to be impregnated. Although not literally. Obviously.

This occurs when, shock horror, you are not able to help someone. Allow me to elaborate. A conversation may run thus:

Customer: Do you sell flourescent lighting tubes?
Me: No, i'm afraid we don't.

*Insert long silence here*

The customer is clearly expecting something more. Perhaps they are hoping that staring at you for long enough will change the laws of physics and reality as we know it, thus changing the result of their enquiry to something that suits them better.
It's fair to guess that perhaps they're hoping for a little more help, like where they can actually find what they're looking for. Like that's my problem. However, nice and kind as I am, if I can help them, I will. This does, admittedly, seem to make them go away.
Except sometimes I really can't help their either. Sometimes I'm faced with something I either can't identify, or just simply don't know where you could buy one. I mean let's face it, if you don't know, it's entirely possible that I don't either. I am only human after all. So I will apologise, and simply tell the truth.
The silence continues, coupled with that strange half-expectant, half-vacant stare (although to be fair, that's Standard Customer Face #1). At this point I'm simply at a loss for how to terminate the conversation in a polite, professional manner. I'll try apologising and reaffirming my inability to help again. Nope, they're still here. I can't quite figure out what else they want from me.
Sometimes they'll go as far as to get angry at me. Which is a little unfair. I'm almost certain it isn't my fault. However this does give me the excuse to avoid the whole 'polite, professional' bit. If you're mean to me, I feel qualified to completely ignore you. Swear at me on the phone, for example, and i will simply hang up. Sometimes I prefer it when people are rude. It makes it easier to be rude back.
However we're still stuck with this customer, who still seems to want something, all the while staring at you in a way that reminds you of a cow that isn't sure why you're in its field. You know the look I mean. Go find a cow, then you'll understand.
So how do I get out of the situation? To be honest, I still haven't figured it out. It usually ends in an awkward communication breakdown, and me finding an excuse to move away.

I want to get this straight though. This isn't a rare occurance. I'll generally be faced with at least one every day, generally though I could encounter anything from one to ten over the course of a shift. It happens on the phone too, only without the staring. Or at least you can't see it.

I'd like to finish on a closing thought, but I don't appear to have one.

Wednesday 21 November 2007

The Joy Of The Education System

I have, for a while now, worried about some of the standards of teachers in local schools. I wouldn't trust some of them to boil and egg, let alone prepare children for work and life in the outside world.

I encountered a teacher today (and on previous days), who apparently teaches electronics to his children. He does not appear to be an intelligent man, but thats possibly because he hardly speaks english. This alone bothers me. How can you teach children if they can't understand you? But thats an argument for another time, in another place.
My problem is with the questions he asked me, and the information he couldn't give me. Put simply, he needed a resistor for a circuit he was building for his class. He couldn't tell me what value he needed, and there are quite a few different values, which makes guessing impossible and inadvisable.
This alone is mildly worrying. What is seriously worrying is that he expected me to know. He expected me to be able to work it out for him (i could have, but he still didnt give me nearly enough information to work with) and tell him precisely what he needed, as he wasn't capable. When i explained i couldnt do this with the information he was giving me, he told me i should know because 'you're the professional'.
What?

At this point i had to point out that i wasn't, in fact, a professional. I told him 'Sir, i'm a shopkeeper who gets paid minimum wage, and therefore doesn't recieve any training. You clearly earn a lot more than me, and you teach electronics. You should be telling me what you need, not the other way around.'
Now i ask you: if you had/have children, would you be happy to know that their teachers were getting all their information from a slightly angry, minimum wage earning, untrained shop assistant? The fact that i could have worked it out for him if he had given me a little more information is irrelevant. It's not required of me to know, i've just learned from other people. I'm almost certain a teacher should be better trained than that.
And of course, let me look at some other facts:
- I speak better english, and more clearly than he does
- I appear to know more about electronics than he does
-I'm hoping i smell better than he does
-I don't need something repeated to me five times before i listen to it
-If i need something, i generally know what it is i need before i buy it, through prior study and research.

So why does he get the flashy car, and i get to take a bus? What went wrong here? If i'd known it was that easy to get a degree, i would have certainly gone to university, but i seem to have mistakenly believed that to be a teacher you needed to be, y'know, really clever?

It seems i was wrong. And that makes me a little angry, not for me, but for those poor kids who can't possibly be getting a proper education.

Friday 2 November 2007

Signs Of A Healthy Mind... I Hope.

It's entirely possible that you're sick of retail:

- If you spend your free time imagining various ingenious deathtraps in which to ensnare your customer before they could reach you.

- When viewing the cluster of customers gathered around the counter, and approaching you from other parts of the shop, your are instantly reminded of that zombie movie you saw once.

- When not at work and actually going to a different shop, to buy things yourself, you find yourself trying to avoid the other customers in case they want to ask you something.

- When at another shop, the sound of their telephone ringing both annoys you and fills you with an overwhelming need to answer it, or at least throw it at something.

- When you start avoiding normal people in the street, because you fear they are going to want you to serve them.

- When you've trained your brain to ignore customers while they talk endlessly on, and only switch on when certain key words are spoken.

- If you posess the desire to give someone a serious electrical shock via the telephone they're using to bother you right now.

- If you wish you could install some device onto the door, so that customers would have to pass a basic intelligence test before they could gain entry, thus permanently barring 90% of your customers, who have the mental capabilities of a sock puppet. Or a piece of lumber.

Monday 29 October 2007

On Discounts

This is another of my numerous pet hates. I have a lot of pet hates really. Possibly enough to form a Menagerie of Hate, but thats another story.

There are certain circumstances under which a discount is acceptable. Ex-display products for example. Or products with damaged packaging, no problem. If you're buying a lot of stuff that comes to a decent total (like £200+ at least), and you're nice, i may also then consider a discount.

I will not give a discount for the following reasons:

-If you've seen a single item you like, and want to pay less. If i was going to hand out a discount on a single £180 item, why bother pricing it at £180 in the first place? (bear in mind i am not asked 'could i have a discount?' but am instead asked 'how much discount will you give me?' as though i intended to charge you less than sticker price all along)

-If you are incredibly tight-fisted and can't see your way to paying the full price for what you want. For example, I have been confronted with situations like: "£9.99? That's a bit expensive. Will you give me discount?" The answer will be no. A thousand times no.

-If you've bought more than five items. As i've said before, thats fine if those items are a few hundred pounds worth. However, if the combined sum is under £20 don't even ask. I don't care if you 'bought all this stuff' it's still not worth any money off.

-If you haven't brought enough money. Just... no.

-Because the product has been opened. Sorry, but it's still new, and in full working order. The packaging is in good condition. Not to mention that it was you that opened it in the first place.

These examples, and countless more besides, are all completely genuine. It's amazing how many people think they're entitled to a discount for no apparent reason. It's not as though i like them in any way.

People! Prices are there because thats what you have to pay for the product in question! Discounts are the exception, not the rule!

Oh, and don't go moving a product to a different peg, so you can use the 'you have to honour the sticker price' argument on me. That's only true if the sticker price for the same product is different to what the till rings up. I can tell if you move it, you know.

Thursday 25 October 2007

I Wish I Had An Idea-Hammer...

...which i could use to physically drive information into the brain of a customer.

Consider today. He needs a certain cable. This certain cable will not work properly if run for a length of over three metres. Sadly he needs at least six, preferably ten. Fair enough, but tough luck unfortunately. I offer the altenative solutions, but they aren' adequate. At this point, normal people accept the fact that what they want simply isn't possible, and perhaps retire to think about other ways around the problem, or ways to use the solutions i've offered.
Of course some people aren't that simple. They repeatedly insist that they need it to be longer, as though coninued repetition alters reality. They also repeatedly offer the concept of joining two cables together. Each time i explain that doing such a thing really doesn't alter the nature of the problem. That signal still needs to travel the length of the cable. Still, i can understand the mistake the first time, but fifteen minutes and thirty repetitions later, It's starting to wear thin. I eventually failed. One imagines he'll be back to return the extra cable and the coupler tomorrow.

Secondly, it never ceases to amaze me that someone can tell me over and over again how much of a hurry they're in, jiggle around impatiently, and still manage to dither around and waste quarter an hour of my time. They'll happily arse around for ages reading the small print on the side of a box, then comparing it to the small print of a different box, and obsess over a tiny detail nobody ever cared about, yet then fidget around restlessly and moan when it takes more than five seconds to print a reciept.

Lastly, it amazes me that a customer can come in, and give me the tiniest possible information about the product he seeks. When this proves to be too little information to act on, he gets annoyed and wants to talk to someone else. When he gets to the next memeber of staff, he magically comes up with much more detail on what he wants. When this still turns out not to be enough, or that we dont do exactly what he needs, he wants to talk to yet another person. When this person arrives, he suddenly changes the details altogether, asks for a completely different product, finds and gets what he needs, and sneers at the first two staff member as though they were idiots. This might be some strange superiority fettish, but I haven't managed to secure confirmation yet.

Friday 12 October 2007

The Worst Five Minutes Of The Day...

... Are surprisingly the last.

You'd think that the promise of going home would make these five minutes a deleriously happy festival of anticipation. They are instead a tension filled, slow moving hell that can determine one's mood for the remainder of the evening. This is due to that insidious beast... The Last Minute Customer.

The Last Minute Customer is the bane of my existance. He has hundreds of different faces (and odours). He doesn't appear to care that you want to go home. He doesn't care that you don't get paid after six. He'll gladly wander in at three minutes to, and pretty much refuse to leave until he's finished being served. This can take anywhere from five minutes (minor irritation), to half an hour (seething rage). If you try to hint to him that you might like him to go home now, he will ignore you. If you dare to do so much as outright chuck him out, he will explode in a fit of rage and complain to your head office.
He might not even buy anything. He'll gladly fart-arse about and waste your time, and do all the normal crap that customers do all day (only now it feels 100x more excruciating) without shame or apology, and still not spend any money.

Sometimes you will thwart him. You will get that door closed and locked before he makes it. But it isn't over. He will knock on the doors and windows, rattle the door handle, wave and shout at you, demanding to come in. Even if the shutters have been put down, he will still try to force the door open. If you just happen to unlock the door for a moment, to let your last customer out (another Last Minute Customer, successfully ousted), he will attempt to force his way in. As though that will earn him the right to be served.
I'd like to take a moment to point out that this is not the case. We're not running some grand challenge. We're not trying to lock that door to challenge you, to see if you can make it in and get served. We're doing it because we're finished. Entering the building does not alter this, i promise.
In one case, we actually had a guy come round to the back door, half an hour after closing, and had the cheek to complain (and threaten to complain to head office) because we wouldnt give him a refund. Bear in mind the tills weren't just closed, but cashed up and locked in the safe. I wasn't there personally, but i would have asked him just how he planned to word his complaint. 'They wouldn't give me a refund when I knocked at the delivery entrance half an hour after closing' wouldn't carry much weight, i imagine.

A lot of Last Minute Customers are difficult refunds. This is because they know you are much less likely to argue, as you want to go home. This is a false assumption. We know your game, and hate you viciously for it. You're more likely to get sent home and told to come back another time, or we'll simply choose to send it away for testing, which can take several weeks. You want to waste our time, we're only too happy to waste yours.
Now i know some people are working, and don't get out until we're nearly closed. This is not a valid excuse in my opinion. We sell next to nothing that could be described as an 'essential'. I don't see why your average person couldn't wait a day longer for anything they could buy from us. Therefore, i propose they do what i do. Go shopping on a day off. It makes sense you know.

Remember: When a store's opening hours are 9 till 6, or 10 till 8 or whatever, those are the hours it is open for. 6pm is not the time you need to arrive by to get served, it is the time we are finished, completely and totally. It is the time from which the company no longer pays us. Now I have a hard time caring about the average customer when i'm being paid to do so. Why i should care for free is beyond me. So do not arrive at a shop two minutes before closing, and expect more than two minutes service. If you need half an hour's service, arrive at the store more than half an hour before closing. It sounds simple, but apparently it isnt.

On a completely different note, when a customer points to a battery charger, and asks you what it is, or specifically points to the sign that says 'battery charger' and asks what it is, how do you explain it without using the words 'battery' or 'charger'?