Friday 4 June 2010

Approachability

The Gods see fit every year, to haul us out of the Hall of Plenty for some training, ego massaging and a Cosmetics based treat. Ours is always fun, if not slightly hypnotic and there is, as ever, something to be learnt.
This year it was Approachability. We are in a recession , so being approachable has never been more important.
After lots of interesting fun and games, some news and a good lunch, we all returned to the Hall of Plenty fired up with brand enthusiasm and determined to be approachable.
Yes, determination combined with approachability.
'She who must be obeyed', led her troops in a soul destroying series of events, that left us an empty desert island amongst the sea of customers in the Hall of Plenty
Popping up enthusiastically and offering a deaf old lady a tissue, is actually guaranteed to make her scream with shock and be taken away with a suspected heart attack. Not endear her to you.
Creeping up to women browsing the makeup bar, like the Child Catcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang with shinny lip gloss in hand , only makes them flee else where.
Saying you admire someones coat, jewellery or outfit,  makes them suspicious and then leave slowly, so you won't just randomly talk to them as they go.
And when a regular customer says,
'Okay, you lot can stop smiling now, its actually very disturbing.'
One can only assume our natural, slightly grumpy, irreverant humoured approach is the way to go.
Let them try to rebrand that!

Wednesday 2 June 2010

Lamb Chops.

Ah, Mutton Season.
The sun has emerged bringing with it that rarest of customers, Mutton and not just the desperate divorcee in her teenage daughters clothes. We are talking hard core, sinewy Mutton, the aged gold digger gone to seed.
 Stick thin pensioner's that force new hips into skinny jeans, teetering carefully on expensive designer platforms, false nails clattering in delight at the Cruise wear Corals arrayed across the counters.Fluttering ancient blue lids at the almost dead Sugar Daddy, to obtain the latest trendy lipstick they smear haphazardly across augmented lips.
False breasts strain against delicate grey skin, like bowling balls in 10 denier tights, as they peruse the skincare, hoping that cellulite creams will support the flappy buttocks years of dedicated anorexia has left.
With carefully constructed hair, they totter from counter to counter catching up with the latest trends, veneers glinting in the store lights, manipulated snouts sniffing out the most extreme , most expensive items, dead Daddy can buy.
These women will grip on to youth harder than Ranulph Fiennes in crampons.
A secret pleasure for us is to bleat as they pass by, alerting our colleagues to whip out the most expensive or garish of items at the Fountain of Youth in the Hall of Plenty.