2 out of 2 and some personal space...

It doesn't seem possible on the same day that two people could do the same thing.

However they did.

A very nice lady decided to follow me around the counter as I served her.
 Harmless you may think, but when you move to fetch a tissue and suddenly they are right there, all up in your personal space, it is a bit disconcerting. You move to the drawer for their items, they are right behind you. But oh, one of the items is over the other side of the counter. You trot over to get it. They follow as closely as possible. So you have to bend to the bottom drawer and whoohoo! they have moved even closer.
At this point you have two choices, leap over the fragrance counter in front of you with the athleticism of Red Rum. Or, swing round thrusting the item forcefully at them. Mild harassment over, we are off to the till.

The very nice lady not only followed me to the till but right behind the counter, over to the bag drawer and back to the business part of the till utterly unfazed.

Thinking that this was as weird as it got I left for lunch, only to return an hour later to discover Miss Marple and a family of four in the same place. Mum, two kids and Dad all in a line behind the till!

People please!

You have a place - IN FRONT OF THE TILL.

Our space, your space. We like our space, so stay in yours.
 The last thing I want is to bend down for a foundation and find a family of five trying to use my tights with me!

Some people.....

So, it's Sunday and things are going fine, slow, but fine. And then the phone rings. Who could it be? Who could wish to speak to us on a Sunday? What delightful things do they want to know?

I will tell you, it was some bloody woman whose phone kept breaking up, so much so that I could hardly hear her. When I said,
'I'm sorry your phone is breaking up, I can't hear you properly.'
'Yo......shhh....aaarkk....'
'No I didn't catch that madam.'
'Haa.....my...and...'
'Pardon? I'm sorry maybe you should call back , this is a very bad line.'
Then loud and clear down the line came one sentence.
'Well, you will just have to listen carefully then, won't you.'

Yes, my finger did twitch over the reciever. Yes, I did think, 'fuck you you arrogant cow', but you know what I did, I sucked it up and replied,

'Of course I will listen carefully, that is my job, to listen attentively to your needs madam.What else can I do for you?'
She wanted me to check what colour face powder she would need.
Now how in the name of Barbara Daly am I supposed to do that, over a phone, on a bad line with the customer presumably hurtling down the motorway and she didn't even know what colour her foundation was?
On a daily basis customers point at orange lipsticks and say,
'Oh I love that pink,'

So Madam was told that she would be a mid-tone. She never thanked me.

Rude and stupid!

1 in 3

Since posting about customers following me to the till, we have been watching for the tell tale body movements that give away the moment when a customer realises we don't actually mean, follow us behind the counter. The sudden little jerk as they keep following you into the small 50cm space between the counter and a massive display that faces forward. That unconscious realignment of  brain function and the quick scurry back to opposite side of the counter where they spot, and ignore, the chip and pin machine and wave their credit card at you in embarrassment.

The current statistic is 1 in 3 customers. That is pretty high don't you think? But what does this mean?

Well, I guess it means that 1in 3 people are really not engaged with what they are doing at that moment and I find that pretty darn scary. Just think what could happen if they were driving a car, or your solicitor, or even your doctor.
 I know it seems trivial but as a student of human behaviour I find it fascinating that 1 in 3 people will just blindly follow you anywhere if you happen to be wearing a uniform.

Filthy Young Things....

I'm not analy retentive, nor do I have O.C.D. I believe, like all non-freaky mums, that a certain amount of dirt is good for us, building antibodies and creating resistance to the outside world. I wouldn't go so far as to encourage my children to eat their own boggies but I don't carry antispectic wipes in my back pack. Yet I do insist that they wash their hands and that they don't pick up things off the floor.

However, if you have spent anytime watching reallity T.V in the past ten years, you should be more than aware that there are people out there who don't clean, themselves, their homes or their hands. In fact if you read my blog, G strings and Jazz Hands, you will be more than aware of the unconcious grubby probings we witness.

So WHY- I ask in capital letters that should alert the reader to the strength of my feelings - WHY , do women come along to makeup counters and refuse help from a consultant, then just pick up a lipstick and stick it on their lips?

Not having laser eyes that burn off bacteria on lipsticks I cannot, nor can my colleagues, stop customers catching Herpes, E-Coli, that nasty bottom bug that went around, Noro Virus?

There are people in this world that do not wash their hands after using a public toilet. If they come to our counter and try a lipstick on their hand, then you try it on your mouth you have those germs around your lips. What happens if you kiss your boyfriend with that on, or god forbid your baby.

' It's okay, I am just trying this on.' is not the answer to my forceful , 'Can I help you?' which is actually Consultant speak for,
'Put that lipstick down ya dirty tart!'

Other things for sale......

It is not often with two children, that I get to watch the news first thing in the morning. In between small animals that live in a digital world and weird pre-teens that live in and out of a digital world, I got to flicker between news stations today and do you know, there appears to be something else on sale out there in the world;

Billions! Terror!Fear Old Age! Cuts, terror! Taxes!Cheryl Cole! Review, terror! Billions or terror! Fear Billions! Tax Billions! Billions of old people in terror! New Hair Cole! Debt Terror! Let us know your view! Terror! Sausage reunion Cole Terror! Fear Olympic ticket terror! Shopping fear for billions!

Suddenly we have stopped talking and started shouting. Even the culture bits of the news are LOOK AT THIS, not enough culture terror!!!!!

No wonder people are traumatised by everything. They scurry through the Hall of Plenty diving at counters like their life depends on it and I can sort of understand why. If the first thing I saw every morning was this over-hyped, dramatic news I would be scared too.
And since when did we start talking in Billions? I'm pretty sure when first quoted the Olympic Games were costing Millions, if I changed the price when a customer got to the till from twenty quid to two hundred there would be hell to pay, so somebody needs to get a grip of that.

But I suppose if this is the new way of the world then who am I not to join in.

You will die without that blusher!Mascara terror! Mattify! Old skin terror!!!!! Fragrance Fear, terror!

Let there be light......

Hu-bloody-rrah!
When customers behave as they should, nobody asks for free stuff or treats you like a second class citizen and your corn plaster stays stuck in place, that is a day to remember.

Smooth as a botoxed forehead!

All praise yesterdays customers and their cash...... Amen.

Bad advice from experts......

As a responsible consultant I was perusing a magazine about the latest trends in wedding makeup, been a busy year for natural faces thank you Kate and Wills, anyway I came across a really interesting little article.
Martin - I can get anything cheaper - Lewis says that to save money on your wedding you should get your makeup done on counter for free.

Okay, Umbridge taken there and I don't mean a fictitious village from Midsummer Murders.

 Firstly all companies on the high street charge a redeemable booking fee for makeup appointments. Why?
Because their highly trained makeup consultants are there to make money. We work in shops, not museums, charities or bargain give aways. To spend the money it takes to make an artist responsible for the most important day of a brides life, means that the company needs to recompense that money by selling the products.
If you are going to spend between £500 and £5000 on a dress then why are you skimping on your face, and frankly I find it quite insulting on behalf of all qualified makeup artists, that their services and abilities should be so trivialised.

I've said it before and I will say it again, you cannot bargain for a blow dry so why should you be able to bargain for makeup that lasts you all day and will last a lifetime in the photographs - if you stay married!

This will explain the upsurge of women that are shocked when we tell them the price of our booking fee, because that is not what they were expecting.

 Get your facts right money man !

Enter T**t of the year.......

You would think that after all this time blogging we would have reached a place where the weirdness of shoppers can no longer shock, outrage and generally freak us out. But NO......

Enter the Hall of Plenty one young man who beats all of the others. A man to whom the word 'no' is not simply a red rag but a pair of firm toreadors buttocks in brocade knickerbockers, to a bull. In a spectacular show of ignorance he flipped out over.....wait for it........a deodorant. Yes, a deodorant, one that didn't even belong to us. Miss White had the audacity to explain that he needed to return his purchase to the company who made it. A company that employ people to make sure their logo is displayed worldwide, a company who trains its own consultants to take a return of it's products, a company six yards away, who know if their product has been used by a customer. Not to us who are limited to the products our company make, all one hundred different lines that we are experts in.

Apparently, we all need retraining because rather than lift sir up and carry him on a solid gold platter about the Hall of Plenty, throwing rose petals in his wake, we simply pointed him in the right direction to deal with his problem.

There is an etiquette across the shop floor concerning returns - we don't just take other peoples stock back without getting them to check it. We don't know what other peoples stock looks like brand new. If it is sealed in plastic, no problem, however it is only fair to inform the particular counter if someone has brought something back because they may have no good reason for it and that stock goes back on to the system thus changing the sales figures.

Unfortunately, sir did not like any of the advice he was given, flipping out all over the counter and various other members of staff, some of whom were just staring innocently at the scene he was causing. Ranting about  verbally 'agressive' staff, 'awkward' behaviour and 'antagonistic attitudes', one did have to swallow the question of why he could not have used any complaints that didn't start with the letter A, as it would probably have made his head explode.

It turned out, he was parked on double yellow lines - our fault of course. He spends loads of money in our store - funny we had never seen him before. He knew his rights - pity he doesn't know ours, and he was going to complain to EVERY ONE in the chain of command above us. Mrs Pankhurst was pointed out as particularly 'antagonistic' for not giving him the home phone number of the Overseer, something that could have left her unemployed if she had.

Oh, go boil your head sir! It was a deodorant! Walk the twelve feet back to where you bought it and return it yourself. We are not here to listen to your elaborate bullshit about why you don't want the thing, just to save you some embarrassment over returning it. You said it yourself, you are 'Parked on double yellow lines....' Well, if you are too cheap to pay for parking , then don't buy designer deodorants!

 The whole rehearsed nature of his complaint and the fact that he knew what the structure of command  in a department store was, smells of somebody who does this to get recompense from major brands and snivelling apologies.
I know some people don't believe it, but they are out there, professional complainers who get hundreds of pounds in apology gift cards by causing fights with staff.

We have a word for them .... ARSEHOLES.... that starts with A as well.

Reccession what reccession?

Stop the press!!!!!
The luxury goods market in the UK is due to improve by 53%. A certain handbag company has had pre-tax profits of £35 million......

So why are the customers still being rude?

Just a thought.

The customer is always........

When you work in retail, you get used to the quiet times, the constant nagging to get more money into the tills, frequent squeals of 'How much!!!!' Yes, mostly from husbands when they realise that lip gloss is the price of the debt Greece is currently experiencing.

But I don't think I will ever get used to the strangeness of people. Mrs Pankhurst approached a customer looking at the makeup stand, with a tissue for the customer to clean off her hand. From the amount of vigorous scrubbing at the makeup, she assumed the woman would be covered in eyeshadow or blusher. Strangely she wasn't. So Mrs Pankhurst asked her if she was looking for something in particular...... and the woman replied thus........

'No I don't normally use your makeup but I like this.'
'Err this?'
'This pink colour here.'
'Which?'
'This blusher... look it's lovely,'
'What blusher?'
'This here...'

Point, rub on counter, rub on back of hand, wave in Mrs Pankhurst's face.

'It's gorgeous.'
'But....that... there isn't..... I'm sorry madam that isn't a colour it is the plastic of the counter display.'
'No it's just what I need, something that light.'
' No ....It is a plastic patch....... it isn't.......Madam would like to take one?'

Who are we to argue with the customer?
 After all, they are always right.

Oh, you really have got to laugh........

Very short blog this one. Let us just reflect with a wry smile.......

 For the past two weeks I have been saying , 'Would you like to follow me to the till,' when the customer and I have finished the niceties and we get to the grubby business of money.
And, do you know what ?
So far six people have actually tried to walk behind the till with me.... !

Ten little things.....

1) If somebody is telling you about a product you asked about, do not speak everytime they say something.
'This foundat....
'Yes, ahhmmm'
'ion has...'
'yes has ahmmm,'
' a matt...'
'I like a shinny..'
'OkayI'amstillspeakingwhydon'tyouwaittill.....'
'Foundation but not too heavy,'
'I'
'Yes ahmmm.'
'Have'
'What do think my colour is?'
'Finished.'

2) We have said it before, but obviously not loudly enough. DON'T sniff fragrance bottle tops! They are a vacum and all you can smell is what was sprayed before. But the person before you who stuck it up their nose may have.....ANYTHING... that can be passed from nasal membrane to nasal membrane. And for the man who said , 'Well it's  alcohol.' NO stupid, the alcohol is on the inside of the bottle, the nose rotting disease is now on the outside.

3) We do not care if your friend is bed-ridden and can't get to us. We don't just give samples away.

4) How can we put make -up on your face if you won't lift up your chin? When Miss Marple has to squat to put make up on your face, you have some serious confidence issues.

5) When a company stops doing a product don't wait two years and then come to a counter and ask staff if they have some old stock. All cosmetic's have a sell by date, but a punch in the face when you winge about the product not being made anymore - that image does not have a sell by date, that is fresh everday!

6) Saying 'Sorry to interupt' when staff are standing about waiting for you does not make us feel guilty, as if we are standing gossiping, it makes you look needy. Man Up Shoppers.

7) When you have bought a product and then use it. You cannot get your money back if it is not in saleable condition. Yes, you could come back and say you have a reaction but you cannot just bring it back all messed up for no reason. We will stand and stare back at your angry little face and the more angry you get, the more reasonable we get. Because even though you threaten to write an angry letter about bad service, we don't care. NO, we really don't, because we are following store policy and you are a tosser.

8) Shops are not nursery or school playgrounds so when your  rampant toddler runs straight into a sharp corner, Tough! Since when did we start a creche? Get a grip of your children or even better, leave them at home.

9) We don't like it when your teenagers stick their fingers in products and smear them all over the counter. Why, because somebody has to clean it up and clearly you are a crap parent because you don't make them aware of that. So good luck when they stick you in a home with specific instructions to hold that pillow down till you stop kicking. You made your own bed....

10) We are not servant's. I know it is tricky, and that many people have weak wrists from all that shopping, but you can put your own credit card into the chip and pin machine. Waving it at me or shoving it across the counter, with a talon like claw in crimson, is no good, why? Because the machine is on your side of the till. You are looking round it to brandish your plastic at me, and, nobody cares when you do the ,
'Oh I am so ditsy...., ' routine, getting out two different note books, dropping them, putting your number in the machine wrong so many times , we have to start again. We despise you, all of us, everyone in the queue, the customers, consultants, cleaners , security staff. It is only four numbers, learn it.

A gift.....from a Scatology Major.

Over at the Hall of Plenty we now feel that we have heard it all, not just on our counter but the other purveryors of face altering goodies too. At a meeting to improve our customer service skills we did what all good cosmetics consultants do, exchange information.
(DON'T even think we were gossiping whilst a pasty trainee manager donned a hat and sparkly waistcoat in an attempt to get us 'on board' with positive, customer friendly body language. See the Portas factor is simply making good people humilate themselves, whilst we look on in a manner that can only be described as jaded.)

Apparently, and it did NOT happen in our store, somebody opened a new treatment room in a store and a disgruntled employee left them a special present when they had leave to make way for a new beautician...... Keep thinking......., yes. Only they hid it and it wasn't immediately found.

Now  I have seen and heard a few things; the image of a dwarf with a hoover attached to his knob was probably the worst image burnt into my memory, but to actually be that pissed off that you would drop your pants, curl one up, tuck it in a tissue and hide it in a crevice that is just WRONG!

And not very customer friendly.

Highwayman and super-injunctions......

The news has been deadly boring this weekend, mostly because of the 'old news' about another cheating footballer, and really nobody cared till he tried to protect his image. Except for his wife, that is.

Now here in the Hall of Plenty we see a lot of this type of thing. It isn't unusual for a man to come up with some elaborate bullshit about not being able to remember what fragrance his wife (Mistress!) wears. The sweaty top lip is a good indication of an 'infidelity shopping spree.' An even bigger giveaway is the embarrassed silence as he is told the price of his 'Lovers' discretion, you see his wife would never expect anything so expensive out of the family coffers, not with bills to pay!

All this puts me in mind of one Christmas when we met the Champion of all Cheaters at the counter. Up rocks a cheeky chappie with a wad of cash and a cocky mate with attitude. Now my feet had pre- Christmas court shoe fatigue - if you have never experienced Christmas retail in the boom years, this feels like running the London Marathon in stilettos over marbles- so I was not in the best of moods. Off they started with their flirty banter that I was supposed giggle at, however, like the stony- faced bitch from their nightmares, I was not playing ball. The more they tried, the higher the eyebrow rose and the more extravagant the purchase became, until in a final attempt to impress me, cheeky chappies friend blurted out,

'He wants something for his girlfriend as well as his wife,'

I may have had sore feet but my balls still worked,

'Well sir, I suggest you buy them both the same fragrance or you will get caught when you come home and believe me, if you don't buy your girlfriend something as big as your wife, you will get caught anyway.'

Suddenly I had their respect. I was a woman to fear, I knew the secrets of the ultimate cheater and had passed that wisdom on. Still, his hands shook as he passed over seven hundred pounds in cash......

I keep my mask and guns under the till, the horse you will find round the back of the building!

WHY ?????

Why exactly, are customers so arse-achingly stupid?

From - 'Do you work here?'
'Yes madam I work here, I don't usually stand around in a uniform with a company logo on it , wearing a badge that states my name quite clearly next to my company's badge, under a great big sign with the companies logo on it, unless I am working. Otherwise I would dress like a clown just to make sure nobody could mistake me for a shop worker and shop for over sized shoes in peace.'
To -' Where are your lipsticks?'
'Right there on the great big black makeup stand that is approximately six foot long and full of makeup  that you just walked past. And whilst we are on the subject of things you are unaware of, you just butted in whilst I am serving another customer and you are standing behind the counter.'

 I cannot understand how people who are intelligent enough to earn money to spend, get themselves dressed in the morning, drive, feed themselves and move with relative coordination of limbs, can be so thick. And they really are!

'Where are the lifts?'
'Right there, under the sign that say's lifts with the big slide'y doors.'
'Where are the doors?
'Over there, the big silver swing'y things other people are using to enter and exit the building.'
'Do you sell cards?'
'No, I sell makeup, that is why I look like a drag queen in an ill fitting uniform.'
'Are all these fragrances different?'
'What do you think? They all have different names and they are all different colours. Could it be possible that we would just put the same smell in all of them?'
'What do these lipsticks do?'
'Well, mine do the dish washing and sometimes they hoover up, but mostly they work as a lap dancer because they don't have any qualifications and they got pregnant at 14, so whilst they study to be a nurse they strip. What do you think they do?'
'Do you think I will like the coffee shop?'
'What! How the fuck would I know? Do I look psychic? Is the name Sally Morgan written on my badge?'
'Which one of these lipsticks would suit my friend?'
'What friend, oh, she is not here. Well, considering I can not see her and the only person in this conversation that knows what she looks like is you, why don't you tell me what you think your friend would like and I will just stand here and keep patronising you.'

We have decided that should one of us win the lottery, we would come into work and just say all of those things until we got fired then divide up the money.

On trying to be a smartarse....

Some people are not cut out to perform practical jokes, I am one of them.

 My Father, the inspiration behind my latest escapade, on the other hand is a master at it. From hiding in the airing cupboard when my sister and I were children - we had been really naughty and were not taking discipline at all seriously so he said he would flush himself down the toilet. We got hysterical until we found him twenty minutes later on a shelf in the cupboard. (No, he is not a dwarf but he is the reason I am traumatised by them!) - To putting small light bulbs up his nose and pretending he had sneezed. Hiding in the ivy by the kitchen window was a great favourite, this works especially well if you have eyes that get wider like Gonzo on the Muppet Show and a handy bare bit off window through which you can protrude those eyes at your rowing daughters fighting over the washing up. Oh and enough patience to wait until they turn round and see you, resulting in much broken crockery and screaming.
A lifetime of being leapt out at and quizzed by lateral thinking games, luckily has not left either one of us a gibbering wreck but we are prone to pushing people inside duvet covers  and thinking this is hilarious.
So when I discovered, on the one weekend I had my parents round for Sunday lunch, my father had escaped  I was thinking to find a picture of him ( another great favourite- slipping small passport sized photos of himself into the corner of picture frames, that don't get discovered for ages) but no. That night, after I had steamed up the bathroom having a shower, a message appeared on the mirror in the steam. From it's content I can only assume it was meant for my son, anyway it got me thinking, how very clever......hmmm...

Maybe I would get Miss Pankhurst back for her recent indiscretion. She had bought dried cherries and put them in the drawer at work, maliciously leading me into thinking there was something sweet behind there and when I stole one, it was no pleasure at all because it tasted like dehydrated rabbit pooh!

So I concocted a cunning plan. Only, there is no steam in work and when you run back and forth breathing on the makeup mirror it un-steams just as quickly. Apart from looking like a retriever with asthma, I also banged my nose on the mirror thus changing the message and had to explain my behaviour to a bemused floor manager.

That shall be filed away along with the time I thought I heard 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'  and Miss Marple in the service lift, so I stuck a carrier bag on my head and did a tap dance when the doors opened, only to see a lift full of unamused fashion staff who stayed there for a full thirty seconds until the doors closed.

Chaos at the tills!!!!

Sometimes the Hall of Plenty is awash with utter chaos. Like yesterday....

Watching Dippy Peacock struggle with a bunch of metallic balloons shaped as lips was a guilty pleasure for us all. Like an extremely camp version of the balloon seller in Mary Poppins, the poor lamb had to attach them to his display stand and was only saved from drifting three floors to ladies wear by the timely intervention of a colleague.

Somebody on one of the counters perforated their own eardrum with a cotton bud in a freak accident that even I, with my varied imagination, cannot quite comprehend. Apparently, she had it in her hand as she emptied a bin bag and it managed to go down her ear canal as she stood back up.....?

 What are the chances of that happening, like EVER?

Slipper Mouth managed to insult one of the new consultants in a gaffe I have yet to get to the bottom of.

A woman tried to bring back an eye pencil to us that had clearly been used, I could kind of tell by the way it had no point and a cat hair stuck to it, but she insisted that it hadn't. Even if I was to believe her, the fact that she was wearing it as she was talking to Miss Marple and I made me just a tiny bit Captain Peacock and we sent her away.

A rambling idiot entertained (frightened) us all for a brief while at lunch time. She was beeping and walking backwards, staring at people then smiling for longer than was strictly necessary. Yes, she may have been autistic but from the size of her pupils I think it was more chemical than genetic.

 And where were security at this time?
They were pushing water bottles stuck on a stick to customers trapped for forty minutes in one of the lifts!

Our till then decided to act like something from Poltergeist by randomly displaying the number 2 over and over again until it gave up and crashed, and two customers wanted to try on lipsticks at five minutes to closing, then complained because we hurried them even though the store was closed.

After being trapped behind the counter by an overexcited Twiddle Blink,  who wanted to check she still had an appointment for her prom and cross questioned me about who was going to do her make up, and having bronzer shoved in my face by a woman with a silly high pitched voice, I was ready to lie down on the floor and just wait till Monday.

It has been known for the cleaners to discover the dried out carcasses of Consultants that have crawled under the counters to die.

Osama, Obama, Oh Boy!

Well, thank you very much Barrack Obama. Not only have I spent my entire week telling the kids why a Royal wedding, which was beautiful by the way, is important to our country but I have now had my parenting skills stretched to the limit explaining why it is okay to shoot someone who is responsible for the deaths of thousands, yet it is not okay to get Navy Seals to shoot someone who bullies 'boy childs' sister at school!!
As if that is not enough, there was furious debate in the Hall of Plenty as to whether it was moral, necessary etc, etc....that led up a curious winding conversational path to a remark about the graphic treatment of Saddam Hussein in comparison to the Nazis at Nuremberg. And I quote,
'Let's have a bit of dignity, you didn't see Harry Allen throwing shoes at the Nazis before he hung them!'

The real result of all of this is a heightening of the security status in the Hall of Plenty from 'General Indiference' to 'Check out that Burberry Bag!' Which actually involves our crack team of security guards, or as they like to be known , the 'Polyester Flying Squad' checking in our drawers for water, sweets or cake. Those well known threats to National Security!

In the meantime, we have decided getting L & R and your postcode tattooed on our feet is probably the only constructive thing we can do in the face of a terrorist attack. It is a strange old world!

For the want of fresh air!

I am by nature a revolutionary, yet in reality you will mostly find me watching a conflict from my armchair. In our family we are armchair athletes, religiously watching the Olympics and experts in all disciplines. Armchair tennis players,watching Wimbledon with the dedication and discipline of Andy Murray (There are always strawberries.) and confirmed armchair Generals. There is no war anywhere in the world my father has not settled down in fatigues to watch on Sky News moment to moment.

So when a whisper of revolution circulated the Hall of Plenty, I surprised myself. Trapped in an atmosphere of over heated consultants, tormented by the current heatwave and bound by the polyester that ties us to our counter, the thought of storming the boiler room on mass was pretty attractive, I can tell you.

The heat is killing us even with the doors open.

Unfortunately, somebody pointed out that if qualified workers could not get more than an unenthusiastic waft out of the air-con, we with our experience in face tweaking, nail painting and excessive knowledge of colour combining were highly unlikely to improve the situation.
So we must bear up, not move too fast in case our outfits flare up in the heat and use a lot of store stationary to fashion make shift fans.

Customers, drifting through in their maxi dresses dragging along their husbands with fallen arches who insist on wearing flip flops (UGLY. Men's feet, especially pale ones, look like a massive arse in a g-string when they wear flip flops.)could do more to help.
Mainly by not saying,'Oooh your not closing are you?' on a sunny Bank Holiday, at the end of a long shift, almost causing the consultants to faint with dehydrated rage.

Seen as it's Easter and quite a time for all religious peoples, hows about some one performing a miracle on our air conditioning?

The Cat-Crap Chronicles and 'What's that supposed to mean...?'

WARNING ! PLENTY OF SCATALOGICAL REFERENCES IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH STOP READING!
This morning the 'Tiny Hands' and I watched in a horrified breakfast stupor as one of our neighbours cats curled up a massive one and wrecked our beetroot seedlings by covering it up. As I had a day off from the Hall of Plenty and being the very bitter gardener that lost a lot of edible crops last year to cat pooh, I decided to take affirmative action. I wrote a note that I posted through every letterbox on both sides of our alleyway to the cats owner. The cats owner has just gripped me in spectacular fashion by my compost heap,I think I may have caught her coming out to clean up the pooh I had flung into the alley. Anyway she waved my letter at me and demanded,
'Did you write this.'
'Yeah,' I said.
'Well what is this supposed to mean?' She pointed to a sentence in the letter.

"....and so when I discover which cat belongs to whom, the owner will receive it's cats crap back in a lovely plastic bag on their doorstep."

Now, I am pretty sure that is about as transparent as a sentence can get. So when I told her, she called me,' arrogant'
When I said, 'Tell me something I don't know!' She called me a 'cat hater'
Which I think is absolutely out of order, anyone who knows me knows that I greatly admire anything so arrogant, independent of spirit, cruel, hunts for pleasure and that plays with it's prey before killing it.I simply dislike the wholesale crapping on my raised beds.

Which brings me to my point since when has, 'What's that supposed to mean?', been such a conversation get out clause. Recently everyone has been saying it. The cat owner, customers as you tell them that their skin is actually dry not oily and the woman on the shop floor who was having an affair for 18 months, then moaned about her husband getting suspicious. When a colleague said,
'Don't you think he has cause to be, you have been shagging someone else!'
Said..... and I quote,
'WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?'

If you are already stating the bleeding obvious what else needs interpretation? Is it a statement people make while their brains absorb the
information. Is it something they randomly say because they can't quite believe anyone would say anything so obvious to them, or are they really that stupid?

It means what it say's and it doesn't mean anything else!