1. Please and Thank You
A man approached me last night at work. He was well-dressed in pressed slacks and a heavy wool coat. His beard was trimmed and neat with flecks of gray. His wool hat set precisely on his head. His wife, or what I assumed to be his wife, walked three paces behind him looking shy and unassuming. I was stacking sleeping bags. The store was busy, but not hectic. He walked up to me and stood approximately 5 inches from my face. Standing in between two display bins, I felt a bit trapped. He held a rolled map in his right hand, lifted it to my face, and asked, "Where do they laminate maps now?"
There was an urgency to his request, the kind of urgency I recognized. Customers are often befuddled by how often the store "moves" around -- ski shop in one corner, the next time the customer comes in, the ski shop is moved into an opposite corner. This customer had searched for the laminating machine where he once remembered it only it wasn't there. In fact, it hasn't been there for years as the store discontinued offering the service. "I'm sorry," I responded, "We no longer have a laminator." He rolled his eyes. I saw the arc since I was still "trapped" between two display bins, a wall at my back, and his well-groomed beard 5 inches from my face. He turned and walked away. Not a word, just a huff. His wife spun hesitantly on her sheepish heels and looked at me quickly before bowing her head and staring at her husband's fast-paced feet walking out of the store.
2. Wait your turn
I helped a very nice young man choose a sleeping bag for his girlfriend. He had questions about length of the bags, loft of the down, durability of the fabric. I answered each in detail and deliberately while he worried about cost versus quality.
A woman approached carrying an expensive backpack and carrying a shopping bag filled with clothes she'd selected from upstairs. Behind her, her tall, teenage daughter talked on her cell phone and curled her ponytail around her long fingers. "Does this come in a better color?"
At first, I didn't realize she was talking to me. I'd been in mid-sentence with the young man, explaining the advantages of a down sleeping bag over a synthetic one. He looked at the woman and then at me, taking a step back to give her room. I stuttered. "Uh, I'm not certain. Which pack do you have?"
The pack department sits on the opposite side of the store from sleeping bags. While I work in packs on occasion, I had no idea about the colors we offered in the various bags. My head spun on the details and then I caught myself. "I'd be happy to help you as soon as I finish helping this customer," I said to the woman, but the man shook his head and said, "Oh no, go ahead and help her." He deferred and I let him.
I walked across the store and checked the computer. "It only comes in that color," I told the woman. "Well, what else do you have that she could use?" She nodded to her daughter who was still on her phone. "Uh, what does she need the pack for?" I asked and for the next half hour I helped them select a pack, fitted it to the daughter who refused to get off her phone, and all the while worried about the man who waited by the sleeping bags.
In the end, the mother bought a $400 pack for her daughter along with two expensive down coats, three pair of exercise pants, endless shirts and sweaters, and two pairs of shoes. After ringing her up, I headed back to the sleeping bags where the man still stood looking at some choices. "I'm so sorry," I said, "I didn't expect that to take so long." He smiled. "It's okay. Some people are very demanding. What can you do?"
Yeah, what can you do?
3. The most expensive is not always the best choice
I love working in the travel department. Customers who shop there are often on their way to somewhere interesting. Thailand, Cambodia, Kenya, Guatemala -- their stories are often colorful and they have very specific needs. There are many options for the world traveler -- an assortment of luggage from the standard carry-on to wheeled bags that turn into backpacks. Most customers want to know the options, though a few come in wanting a certain brand name.
A man came in last night and asked, "Do you have the Victory (fake name) line of luggage?" I showed him what we had, the red line of expensive options. He opened each bag, looked inside, and pulled on the handles. "Yes, this is what I want." Five different bags sat before him. "You want them all?" I asked. "Yes."
I was shocked. We had other options on the floor, options more than half the price and just as good if not better. The total for the 5 bags was well over a thousand dollars. Surely he wanted to look at comparable luggage -- luggage that was, frankly, better made and far less expensive. "Are you sure you don't want to look at some other options?" He pushed one of the bags toward me, "No. I only buy Victory bags." And then he turned and walked toward the cash register.
The bags he'd examined laid splayed and open on the counter and the floor. I realized after a bit of hesitation, he wanted me to close them up and haul them to the register. I did it, of course, what else was I to do? He paid with a platinum credit card and asked if I could carry the bags to the garage. I did, of course, what else was I to do? I loaded them all into his Lexus SUV (he didn't offer to help, he just watched) and I closed the hatch of his car. He drove off without a nod of any appreciation.
When I returned to the sales floor Dave, who has a witty sense of humor smiled, "Take solace in the fact that he just purchased the crappiest luggage for the highest price and it will most likely fall apart on his next trip to Paris and all of his silk underwear will fall out in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton." I laughed.
4. Clean up after yourself
For a half hour after the store closes, the employees are to "zone" their departments. In other words, straighten things up. This can be particularly important after a busy day when items are scattered about and half open. In the Travel department, it means placing bags back on their hooks, zipping up open zippers, and restocking the traveling knick knacks. In Optics, we must straighten the items in the display cases and wipe the glass of those cases clean with a wet cloth. In Packs we restack the packs against the wall and hang the displays on the appropriate hooks. We're given a half hour, but it rarely takes that long so often the supervisors will come by and ask us to help out in another department.
A few weeks ago on a closing shift, my supervisor came by before we closed and asked if I could "zone" the hats and gloves at the front of the store for the last half hour of my shift. There weren't any customers in my department (Travel), but at the front of the store there were customers aplenty searching for a warm hat and warm gloves for the changing weather.
We carry a wide variety of hats and gloves. Too many in my opinion, and their organization is random. Typically, they are organized by brand, but there are at least 50 different brands and the categories are blurry on their displays. By the time I got to the section, most of the hats sat on the bottom shelf of the display, scattered about like forgotten children. Even the top of the displays were covered in hats, stacked in precarious piles.
I gathered up all the randoms and put them in a shopping basket and began the tedious task of finding a home for each of them. Customers shopped around me and as I muddled through the arranging, customers pulled more hats from the display, tried them on, and then put them back...not at all where they got them from. I followed one woman around for more than 15 minutes and watched her try on hat after hat, pulling it from it's hook and then tossing it onto the bottom shelf of the display or stacking it on top.
At one point I said, "Are you still interested in these hats?" holding a pile in my hand.
"Oh," she mumbled, "No," and tried on another hat, looked in the mirror, and threw the hat onto the bottom shelf.
I picked it up, put it in my basket and bit my tongue.
I went back to shelving the hats in their proper place, working my way down each aisle only to find more hats randomly tossed along the shelves and on top of the displays. It was a losing battle.
I returned to my department after my half hour of "organizing" and said goodbye to my co-worker, Jeanett. "You look frazzled," she said.
"I've become the mad hatter," I laughed. "Never agree to zone the hat section when they ask."
"Oh, you haven't learned to run the other way when they come looking for you at the end of your shift? Trust me, it's worse in clothing. Those dressing rooms are a nightmare." We smiled at each other as I headed to the time clock to check out.
5. Not everyone needs to know your business
A couple looked at new packs last week. Both young, the woman was very, very thin and the man, rather short and pudgy. She tried on packs while he sat off to the side talking on his cell phone. She was determined to fit into a large pack measured by the length of one's torso even though it clearly did not fit her. Marion, a co-worker, did her best to help. "That's a really wonderful pack, but it's not quite your size."
"Why not?" the skinny woman asked. Marion did her best to explain how packs were fitted -- how the length of the torso mattered and how, despite how it might feel, a pack should sit on the hips, which contrary to the current lo-slung pants style, was significantly higher than one might imagine. Marion flashed me a few looks, rolling her eyes and shaking her head slightly whenever I looked over. Eventually, I joined her to see if I could help.
"We leave tomorrow," I heard the man on the cell phone state. "Yeah, she's getting her pack now."
Marion, always pleasant asks, "Where are you headed?"
"My boyfriend works for Bill Gates and he's giving us a trip to Asia as a gift for all the work he's done for Microsoft," explained Ms. Skinny.
"Oh, that's cool." Marion was clearly faking her enthusiasm.
"Last year," Ms. Skinny continued unprompted, "He took us on his personal boat to the Caribbean. He's such a wonderful person."
I busily arranged scattered packs on the floor and tried my best not to look at Marion lest I break out laughing.
"We've traveled all over the world," Ms. Skinny continued, forcing the waist belt of the pack as far down on her hips as she could possibly push it. "We're going to meet Bono next month and have trip planned this summer to float the Grand Canyon with Steven Spielberg."
"And you leave tomorrow for Asia?" Marion asked.
"Yes, that's why I need a pack." Ms. Skinny looked over at her boyfriend who was still on his phone and tipped her head in search of approval.
He moved the phone away from his mouth and said, "Whatever you want, honey. Bill's paying for it all."
At this point, Marion's loaded the pack with weighted bean bags and sent Ms. Skinny on a walk around the store to see how the pack felt. Ms. Skinny walked away pushing the waist belt down way past where Marion had fitted it.
"Do you really think they're going with Bill Gates?" I asked.
"Hell no," Marion responded. "And if I didn't have any integrity, I'd fit that pack so it hurt like hell 10 minutes after she started hiking."
It took over an hour to sell a pack to Ms. Skinny and her cell phone boyfriend. In that hour, names were dropped like pennies. There wasn't a celebrity they didn't know or a fancy or exotic place they hadn't been to or were going to within the next few months. I hung around for most of the fitting to support Marion in her efforts to fit the pack properly, but in the end, Ms. Skinny purchased the largest pack and insisted it felt better strapped below her hips.
"I really like this pack," she kept saying, "I just wish it came in a blue. Do you have it in blue?"
"No," we both chimed in. "They don't give color choices with packs like these."
"That's too bad," she said, "I'll have my boyfriend call the company and complain."
You do that, Ms. Skinny, you do that.
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