Wow! Go left field !

Still gift wrapping after Christmas, but now the conversation has turned to the weather. That is, the conversation that goes on whilst you wrap a customers purchases, 

 ' I bet you hate gift wrapping when you get home ....' 

is now,

'Isn't it awful, the weather is...'

So just to shake things up, because actually , I don't hate gift wrapping. I love it, wrapping gifts means I am not searching through a giant tip of western, 'Feel good' recycling, looking for stuff I can sell to feed my kids, I decided to say something a bit controversial. 

'Blah , Blah, Blah weather....'

'I don't know sir, on a day like today I find it helps to remember we are on a ball in space spinning round. How mad is that?'

Do you know, he went a bit white and was really quiet until I finished. 

 

Happy Christmas.........

After Mole's brush with karma, one has decided to post only that which we can learn from in a positive way, or that which is charmingly amusing.

So to round off 2013 and to set us up for 2014, here is a lovely little tale from the Institution during the Christmas rush.

Our favourite temp was working among the masses on the fragrance wall when this happened to him,

'Er mate can you help me?'

'Yes sir,what is you need?'

'I'm looking for a fragrance for me girlfriend.'

'Okay, what does she normally wear?'

'Well, when she goes to work, black pants and like a top....'

'Oh ...'

'You know but something else when she goes out..'

'No...I meant what fragrance.'

Sweet!

Hoisted................

'Yeah, so  I write this blog..........it's about how stupid customers can be.......not all of them obviously, just the really bad ones.....like rude and daft.......'

Just part of a conversation I had moments before I became probably the most foolish customer, in what I can honestly say, was the most cringe worthy situation anyone has ever or will ever encounter.
Now, I know some of you have left babies in pubs, farted at inopportune moments, got crossed wires or fallen off the bath naked. But, I bet you have never got your foof waxed then forgotten your purse in a busy city center salon.

'Where is my purse, tell me I haven't forgotten my purse!!!!!!!!!'

Of course I had.

I then had to stand stupidly in front of the salon owner and receptionist whilst we decided what we were to do, all the while ALL of us were aware, I had just had somebody phootal round my nether regions with hot wax. Hats off to them for trusting me to make sure I paid, because god knows what would have happened if they hadn't.
 I don't believe you can just stick it all back where it came from, can you?
What is the no-returns policy on that?

So you see Karma actually in action, you moan about the customer , you become that customer.

Many thanks for the trust and professionalism.

Hoisted on my own petard!

Enter The Mole......

So!!!!!!!!!!
It's been awhile.
 After tracking down 'She Who Must Be Obeyed', to what can only be described as an 'Institution' and I don't mean like, the Queen or Tom Jones or even, Mr Kipling, I'm talking ,'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' here. I thoroughly ingratiated myself, bypassing ones personal catastrophe by simply choosing never to serve 'Cottage Pie ' in my house, into full time work. And after a long silence, I have collected enough data to savagely continue in the manner of which this blog was first conceived.........

I.E. You the customer are wrong. Yes, you are.... and in so many more ways than you were in 'The Hall of Plenty.
So here ,once again  com'eth the stories of woe, the gobsmackingly stupid and the 'you have got to be fucking joking!'
And as a foretaste of this rich vein of dynamic customer behavior from the consultant point of view, enjoy this,
POINTS ;
various meanings from science  to sport , what it doesn't mean is dither around, whilst other people are waiting to use the badly located till, looking in your purse for your points boosters , your extra points , your points card oh , oh , oh and that crumpled receipt you shoved in your pocket and washed but still need validating. No it doesn't, because if you have managed to save nearly two hundred pounds worth of the damn things you will be familiar with the routine. You pay at the end of the transaction. Like Christmas it never moves, it's not a surprise if you say you want to buy something that we then ask you for money and your points card, so why !?! WHY!!!!???!!!! WHHHYYY is every other points related episode punctuated by ' Oh where is it? Where have I put it? Where are my vouchers....?' Does it come as a shock to some people that in the morning their feet are where they were when they went to sleep still on the end of their legs? Because that is the level of drama at my till every day 'Oh, (laugh ,laugh,laugh) there they are, sorry...'

                                    'Get your points card out now before I put this in a bag!'

The Tale of the Wonky-eyed Woman.

Well, hello and how have you been? Mole hasn't blogged in quite some time, due to a sea change. We will gloss over that and break out with a quick event that occurred today.

On serving a very pretty girl with some fragrance I happened to notice that her eyes did not have much simpatico, to those of us that don't speak Euro - bollocks that means they crossed somewhat in the middle. Not wanting to stare, I wrapped her purchase and handed it back with a 'Thank You Very Much ' and a quick glance at the centre of her nose then slightly down to her chest -ish with a sideways crab like motion and a smile.

Half an hour later the Customer Services representative popped over with a complaint. Apparently some pretty lady had complained that I was aloof and had no eye contact. 'Well', I responded, 'She is right, but I was trying to be polite because she was cross-eyed.'
'Was she?' came the reply.
'Very, didn't you notice?' I asked.
'No,' she replied, 'I never looked at her.'

?

Attitude adjustment!

Whoa! Sometimes even I do not know what blokes see in the painted jades, that drag them from shop to shop acquiring more frivolity to drape themselves in.
Today for example, I met the most pussy whipped man on the planet.

'Roger Shut Up! Now I want this lip gloss replacing with one of the same colour!!!'
'Sorry madam we can only find you something close, because we don't make that anymore.'
'But that is too dark. No! I want ....'
'Darling, she did say they don't make that....'
'Roger ... I said be quiet.'
EMBARRASSED SILENCE
'Madam, this is as close as you are getting.'
'Yes, yes I have been through this before...'
'Here dear this is very close.'
'Give me that!' SNATCHES LIP GLOSS FROM HUSBAND 'It's not the same.'
'I know madam I told you we don't make that anymore.'
'Huh! For goodness sake...'
CONSULTANT (ME)  PUTS BACK ALL MAKE UP AND WALKS AWAY
'Err I'll take it!'
STOPS WALKING, RAISES EYEBROW FOR MAGIC WORD.
'I'll take this.'
'Fine. If you would just follow me...'
'Roger move...Just put it in a bag!'
'I'm sorry?'
'Put it in a bag.'
'I'm sorry?'
'I said put it in a bag...'
LONG SILENCE.
'.........please......'

All I can say is she better bloody well give good head with an attitude like that, because if I was Roger, I would hold a pillow over her face still she stopped bucking, then get the first flight out of the country and spend my pension on prostitutes!!!!!!

A meeting of frivolous minds.....

'Hello do you need a handy wipe madam?'
'Oh yes please, I was just looking to replace this lipstick with something a bit lighter.'
'How about this one?'
'Yes, that's really nice, but you know the texture is a bit.......vaseline...y.'
'Mmm well madam, that is the finest Shea butter we can provide to lock in hydration.'
'Very nice, still a bit greasy though.'
'Yeah I know , not everyone likes the texture.'
'Mmm how about these they are a bit more matt.'
'Yep.'
'By the way, what is a Shea?'
'You know what, I'm not exactly sure.....but whatever it is, we milked it and turned it into butter just for you madam.'
'Ha! Well, that's marvellous. I think I'll have one of those thanks. I don't suppose you can tell me why they are so expensive these days, I mean it is only lipstick...'
'Oh madam, these are wrapped in the sweat from a fairy's wings.....'
'Well in that case, I better have two.'


Other customers to take note!!! There is nothing wrong in having a sense of humour.

Normal Transmission Resumed.

Sorry there hasn't been much of a posting frenzy of late, but with all the changes to Blogger and the kids  S.T.A.T.S ( Very traumatic time for parents, one needs a translation into real speak of the reports that appear telling you in binary code how your child is progressing through the school system. I believe that is where my children go, I mean they could be working for MI5 for all I know.(( I wouldn't let them work for MI6, neither of them have a penchant for the inside of a sports bag.))
So anyway, just a note to let you know normal transmission will be resumed a.s.a.p.

MOLE x

Doing the Double-Dip.

Right, it is official. Mole's Economic Barometer reads 'Double Dip.'

Just a few indicators that the retail front is as fit as an arthritic limbo dancer;

1)When ten percent day rolls around , we practically have to send out a taxis to fetch customers to the store.

                                                                            &

2) When you ask if a customer would like the lip-liner that matches the lipstick they are buying, they shoo you to the till in reply.

Otherwise we are still shifting lipstick by the bucket load.  ( Little known fact, we sell more lipstick in times of recession)

There we go, complete fiscal break down of the high-street, via your friendly local tut pushers. Hoping for our own programme on BBC 2, which we would illustrate said phenomenon via pie charts coloured in with eye shadow .

Yes, we bloody know it's sunny.......

Yes, thank you, we know it is sunny outside.
We can tell.
 Do you know how?
Because , you are wearing a maxi dress and sandals. Now take a good look at every consultant in the store and once you have got past the smacked arse faces that we are displaying, notice the tightly gripped jaw lines as we slam your purchases into our Luxury paper bags. We are more than aware of the weather outside, but we are also sweating our balls off in tights, mixed fabric skirts, jackets, t-shirts and maybe the odd woolly top.
Please excuse us, if we are bitter, but the closest any of us are going to get to a tan is San Tropez and fifteen minutes in a park over our sandwiches with a couple of drunks on a park bench nearby to add to the atmosphere.

Hurrah!

''Eyebrow Gate''

You don't half hear some things over a gluten free egg sandwich and dishwater tea from the machine in the canteen.
Apparently, I say this because I was not there to witness 'Eyebrow Gate', one of the counters that offers a quick sadistic touch up to your brows had a nasty experience this weekend. A customer had her eyebrows waxed then freaked out completely, threatening to sue because her eyebrows were wrong. Now the poor girl that had waxed them explained that they were as the client had asked for them to be and that they were certainly not too thin, but after ten minutes of being screamed at she burst into tears. The manager who had to deal with it, also got shouted at and had to placate the woman with a gift card of indeterminate value.

Unfortunately a customer who had witnessed the whole affair, then told the manager that she had just seen the same woman doing exactly the same thing in another store two hours earlier.

Wow! Go on Mary Portas get stuck into that one.

Call me old fashioned.....

I have a few 'life catch phrases',
'I don't mean to be rude...' (Clearly about to say something painful.)
'In my opinion...' (Because I, like everyone else, am entitled to one whether anyone likes it or not.)
'Call me old fashioned but....' ( I'm not!)
'To be absolutely honest....' (My code for, 'you brought this on yourself.')

And what relevance does this have to anything? Good question, today a bloke came to the counter with his wife and kept repeating the phrase,
'You know what I hate about....'
Make up, fragrance, bottles, just about everything until he said, 'Sales staff, or ''consultants'' ' (Using the finger gesture) So I said,
'No sir, enlighten me.'
And he said,
'They are such a bunch know-it-all's. I mean, all I want when I buy something, is to know what is in it, what it does and where to put it. That's all.'

His wife and I were truly enlightened.

My guilty secret....

I doubt none of these peoples credentials, it's just that, at one time or other I have secretly wished to kick all of them in the face. Sorry X

Wasting time....

Honestly, we are not care in the community you know!

The amount of people that mess us about, talk crap, or just utterly waste our time, beggars belief. If you get one person who says, 'Oh, I have got one of your lipstick's' you get ten.
Bloody hell! We don't breed them like puppies you know. We really do not care how that lipstick is getting on with you and your family, how many times you have taken it out and how it behaved at your cousins wedding........WE WANT YOU TO GET ANOTHER ONE.

                                                          WHY?

                                      Because we work in shop, Shop, SHOP, GET IT!

This is not the museum of make up, we are not here to stand about displaying things like a magicians assistant waiting for fat guy in a cummerbund to appear out of an overly large box. We are sales staff. The usual function of a shop is the opportunity for purchase, mostly involving our goods and your cash. Frankly, you could give me brass- bloody- buttons or magic beans, I really couldn't care less.
 We don't want to hear your story unless you happen to be clutching a lovely fifty pound note and then, believe me, I will dance like a monkey to whatever tune you should wish to hum.

It's been a hard day !

Age and beauty.

After a dismal afternoon where we barely noticed if the doors were open to the public, one of our colleagues decided to take drastic action.
Commence Operation - Badger the Customers at Home. Off she went with the phone book and with some minor success sold a few bits to post out. Then she called Betty who turned out to be 86, nevertheless this lady wanted certain items supplied. It was a lovely conversation until it came time to pay and then the vagaries of age became a problem. Bless Betty, she couldn't read her credit card because her eyes were bad but her husband, who could read it, couldn't speak because he had lost his teeth.
They eventually managed and Betty can expect to smell wonderful sometime soon; in her own words,

'It's the only bloody sense we both have left love..'

We love you Betty X

A Curiously Misheard Moment.....

It's been a while, so one must forgive me as we have been busy breaking She Who Must be Obeyed, almost cutting off a fingernail in a leg shaving disaster and wearing out Miss Marple. Add to that two colds, one pair of split trousers , some sick children, three paramedics on bikes, gas 'n air, morphine, one very strangely strung out temp and there is  January, right there in a great big whacked out nutshell!

After the excruciating effort of re-cordinating the entire counter we had a much needed chuckle this week. Miss Marple had what she though, was a pretty easy request to match a lady up with a foundation colour. As ever she found the perfect shade and said,

'Okay, so you are forty beige madam.'
'I'm what?'
'Forty beige.'
'What?'
'Forty beige madam.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes madam, you see it completely disappears into your neck, that's the best colour for you.'
'And that one is...?'
'Forty beige.'
'Really, that's it's actual name?'
'Yes, look here on the box.'
'Oh... Forty Beige!'
'Yes, madam forty beige.'
' I thought you were saying Foreskin.'
'!......?!?'

Merry Christmas X

Well that was fun!
Merry Christmas to all of us in retail slavery, may your feet recover quickly and let us hope we don't get too many returns for the New Year.
Constantly repeating the phrase,
'No, I'm afraid we can't accept that back without a receipt,' is really code for, 'I don't give a shit if you don't like it, you should be grateful you got it.'

Remember, there are children who's idea of joy is finding a bit of plastic they can sell on a huge heap of our recycling.

Merry Christmas X

Ho, Ho, Ho.....

Oh my, did I have to laugh this morning.
Along with the snappy shoppers that frequent the early days of December, there is also the beginning of  Car parking Hell. This is when people who don't get out much decide to bring enormous saloon cars to the Hall of Plenty and arse around in the car park, causing any consultants that have not added a extra 45 minutes to their day to be late.
Apparently the corner space on the first level, which anybody with a car larger than a match box avoids, is just crying out for someone in a saloon Crappola to fanny about with until a queue forms and nobody can get through the barrier. The horns start tooting, the Crappola driver gets all pink and sweaty, then the wife starts nagging until they give up and shoot off, only to bump a 4x4 badly parked at the top of the next ramp.
Do they go straight to the top of the building ? No, they keep messing with spaces till someone bullies them to tears and they park badly in a Disabled bay.
Well, today in anticipation of the nightmare that is the car park, I set off early and got quite a show from a business woman in her sporty 'Smug Mobile' (Audi) and a Silver Fox in his giant 'Cock Cart' (some sort of gigantic BMW thingy) The Cock Cart was so massive it took a three point turn to get it up the ramps. With a very angry business woman hot on his heels in her natty Smug Mobile, he started to get a bit flustered by the fourth floor with no sign of a bay large enough to receive his mighty vehicle. Positively leaping up and down in her car, the woman wound down her window and started hurling abuse. I just had to listen, so off went the radio in time to catch,

'.....ucking arse wipe , shift that shit car now you tosser. I bet you have a tiny cock!!!'

I don't know if the Silver Fox was aware but he scraped his car up the next ramp and almost threw it a 45 degree angle into a Disabled space. She drove up behind him and waited till he got out before she screamed,

'You complete dick, if you can't drive it you shouldn't fucking own it....'

Still laughing!

Stop....think.

Just think for a minute.

Then stop;

Interrupting us when we are talking to other customers.

STICKING PERFUME BOTTLES UP YOUR NOSES!!

Complaining about stuff we don't make anymore.

Complaining about things we don't have in stock.

Complaining about having to wait for two minutes to get what you want.

Pulling your face when we can't wrap things with the speed and the dexterity of a Dutch National wrapping a joint in one hand.

Acting confused when you are about to pay and keep checking the items we picked up, showed you, repeated to you and explained to you.

Putting the wrong numbers into  the chip and pin machine.

Forgetting your cards and leaving them in the chip and pin machine.

Now think again.

See it's easy, there are other people in the world and we too have busy lives.

What is the problem......?

Oh, people please! Let's get a grip shall we, it's only shopping. There is no need to tut, sigh or roll your eyes in despair.
We are people too and I think we have earned the right to be treated with respect.
What is the saying? Treat others the way you want them to treat you....

If yesterday was anything to go by, you all want to be patronised, belittled, snapped at and ignored. Now I don't work as a Dominatrix but if it gets you through the day,  'She Who Must be Obeyed' can arrange for us to get hold of some Gimp Masks and we'll spank you senseless whilst you choose your lipstick if you want.

 

DO YOU WANT GIFT WRAPPING!!!! DO YOU???