No, the customer is NOT always right, especially when they are just plain wrong. Get over it!

Back 3 or so years ago I posted about My Contribution to American Commercialism while working at Bed, Bath, and Beyond during college. I have since moved on to working at a small, family owned, online retail store that sells various outdoor gear such as boots, socks, gloves, hats, and gardening tools.

This is my 3rd Christmas season with this company and every year the madness gets worse. That’s good for the company, of course, because it means they are selling more stuff and thus making more money, which is why retail establishments, online or otherwise, ultimately exist. Nevertheless, if you think consumerism is bad during the rest of the year, just wait until the holiday season.

Christmastime is when all the really nasty people come out of the woodworks. One example of this is the week before Christmas when the last-minute-overnighters appear. Now if people want to procrastinate and wait until the last possible minute to order Christmas presents online, that’s their problem, and we’re happy to do what we can, of course. The issue comes in when we can’t. Meaning, it’s just too late. Somehow, people think this is the store’s fault, not their own. This isn’t just at Christmastime, of course, but it’s more prominent around this time because by golly, it’s a Christmas gift, and if it doesn’t arrive on time it is the End of the World™. And as we all know, the End of the World™ means that the customer has every right to treat the employees of said online business with every bit of un-Christ-maslike malice, hatred, and nastiness that they can generate.

Because as we all know, getting and giving stuff is really what Christmas is all about. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand how disappointing it can be if you are unable to obtain a present for someone in time, especially for a child, who doesn’t always understand (though we sell very few items that one would give to a child). But it’s really no need to break down into toddler-like tantrums. As adults, we would like to think that we are mature, able to handle disappointment, especially over minor issues, with grace, and move on with life. After all, these are lessons that we were supposed to have learned as a child, when a tantrum over disappointment might be expected, to a certain age. Nevertheless, we were punished for tantrums as a child, so that we would learn the appropriate, mature way to express ourselves toward one another. Christmas consumerism would suggest that this lesson was never learned by a frightening percentage of the adult population.

Of course, it’s not just Christmas when these folk appear, and it’s not just the last-minute-overnighters. It’s also those who think that the package may not arrive in time, so they resort to nasty emails right after they place their order insinuating what horrible rumors they will spread about your company if the package doesn’t arrive in time. It’s also the week-after-Christmas people who apparently didn’t know how to read a shipment chart, and so blame you when their package didn’t arrive on time, even though the information displayed on the website clearly stated the cut off date, and they ordered afterwards. It’s also those who receive their package, find out that the boots didn’t fit, and insist you must pay the shipping for a new pair and for their return because your website sizing chart was “wrong.” Because after all, their experience must be normative for the rest of the world. About 10% of our shoes come back for exchanges and refunds do to size. 90% go by our charts and they fit just fine. But, we should change the chart. Just for them. Because if it has been their experience, it would just be thinking outside the box a little too much to imagine that it wasn’t everyone else’s as well.

So, in conclusion, I am sad to report that nothing much has changed since I first posted about American Commercialism three years ago. Whether it be sitting at a desk replying to customer emails, or standing behind a counter ringing people out, the tendency of human beings to treat one another in a most unloving way remains the same. Ironically, it gets even worse at Christ-mastime.

Update: As it turns out, Volusion could either restore everything or nothing, but not just a piece of the information they keep (such as the RMA’s). And obviously we didn’t want to lose orders and such by going back to a previous entire backup. Back to manual entry.

This is Calvin’s new nickname for me (the name is from Stargate for the uninformed). Why, you ask? Well, today I managed to delete every RMA (return merchandise authorization) from our database at work. How, you ask? Well, I went to delete the one at the top of the list, and it so happens that the top check box for the delete column is in fact, not the top RMA but a “select all” check box. I knew this of course, but sometimes I do things on the computer faster than I think. This would be one of those days, where the result was disasterous. I checked the top box, clicked Saved Changes, zoomed past the box that popped up saying, “Are you sure you want to delete all 307 records?” and about 1 second after I hit the mouse button, my brain caught up with my fingers, the box that had just popped up flashed before my eyes in my memory, and I realized what I had just done.

My co-worker thought this was highly amusing, as normally she’s the one who makes silly mistakes. I’m sure our webmaster/tech guy found it a little less amusing.

So I spent all day manually entering the RMA information into a spreadsheet to be imported back into the shopping cart software. (I at least had the foresight to click the back button and print the page so I had a hard copy of what I had just destroyed.) Then, upon import, we discovered that the shopping cart renumbered all the RMA’s because the RMA_Number field is an auto-assign. What this means is that they don’t match the RMA numbers that people have in their possession to return items with - our homespun “online exchange form” where people submit their requests isn’t inherently linked to the shopping cart software, we just have the form start where the shopping cart leaves off. The mismatch of numbers, of course, would make it a pain to match returns with the proper order. There are more complications as well, but I won’t go into it.

Needless to say, our webmaster is now on the phone with Volusion to see if they can somehow fix this mess I made, since they should have a backup…theoretically.

Wow, this week has gone fast. I don’t know why, exactly, but I for one don’t mind - Friday is my favorite day!

Work has finally slowed down some. I came back from our little week vacation and found it just as hectic as when I left, this time due to all the returns coming in! But, time is running out for that sort of thing, and I’ve had time this week to do other nessecary things that got put on the backburner during the mad Christmas shopping frenzy. All the same, I look foward to every Friday, and it is here again! Well, with that said, I need to get to work.

Wow, has work ever been busy. Since Thanksgiving, every week has become busier than the last. So much so, that for the first time since taking this job in March, I’ve begun to feel a little stressed about work! Don’t get me wrong - I still like my job, but, man, has it been crazy. The orders just keep piling in, the phone won’t stop ringing, my inbox is overflowing with emails, and of course there are the ever present customer issues that just seem to loom over me. Lost UPS packages, two left boots, no gloves, backorders coming out the wazoo, and when will I get my order, when will I get my order, when will I get my order!?!?!?

I, for one, will be thankful when this is all over. Of course, it’s good for business, as every holiday season is for every retail business, but I could not keep up this pace for more than a month. I’d go crazy. (And I wouldn’t have to - if it were this busy all the time, they’d have to hire more help.) Hopefully, this next week will slow down a little as people realize that it’s too late to guarentee packages by Christmas.

All the same, I can’t wait for Christmas, and my nice week vacation! It will be a welcome relief!

I’m trying to decide whether or not I like cleaning people’s houses. There are three I’m doing; two every week and one every other week. I try to compare it to Bed Bath and Beyond, but it’s like comparing apples and oranges. I hate BB&B. I hate it because I hate retail. I can’t stand it. At the same time, I’m not sure I want to say I like cleaning people’s houses. I think, though, that it is definitely better than BB&B. And, I mean, there are nice old ladies at the houses. At BB&B there are nasty customers and grumpy managers. At BBB, I have to be there, whether there’s people or not, and some of the time (at least, when it’s not the holiday season) I stand around trying to find things to do. Straighten a little more. Clean a little more. Whereas with the housecleaning, I have a task, and I do it, and then I’m done. There’s none of this boredom factor. However, it’s hard work. Then again, I could definitely use the workout. But then there’s the old ladies. I mean, they’re just so nice.

Take the one on Monday. Her husband died some time ago, and she lives in this old house with lots of furniture and knick-knacks to go on the furniture coming out the ears. It’s a chore to dust, I’ll say that. She’s a real talker though. I wonder if maybe she’s lonely. Then there’s the one on Friday. She’s nice too, and her house is a bit more modern. There, I have to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor. That’s the one that’s only every other week. Then there’s the one on Saturday. This is an old couple, not just an old lady. They’re nice too. Very Baptist. Their house is older as well, but not quite as cluttered as the Monday lady.

The old people are kinda funny. They have me doing things that I hardly ever do to my own apartment. Wiping off the baseboards? Blah - I’d be surprised if I ever do that before we move. Cleaning the tub? Sure - like every 6 months. I guess it’s just something that’s with that generation. Keeping things spic and span every week. Then again, I suppose if I were paying someone to clean my house, I’d have them do things I don’t do very often myself as well.

I have to say, it’s a different experience. I try to think, “Do I like this better than BB&B?” and I think that I have to say I do. But I’m still not sure I can say I enjoy it. I really do long for the day when I can have a job I truly enjoy. Something that’s fulfilling, in tune with my life goals, not just a means to make money. But, alas, that is not possible right now, I don’t think. I think perhaps my greatest problem now is that I despise having to go to work, and then go to work again. On the same day. Meaning, clean a house, and then go to BB&B. It frusterates me. See, my issue is still with BB&B. That place is like the thorn in my side. I only hope I don’t have to plead with them three times to let me quit!

I tried to quit Bed, Bath, and Beyond a little bit ago. I had it all planned out, you see: my grand scheme to finally rid myself of retail work. It all started when the store manager came up to me and told me he had bad news and good news. The bad news: I couldn’t have the day after Thanksgiving off. After all, it would be Black Friday *ominous music*. They need every body they can get to control and pacify the mad, wild, screaming mobs of people who would descend upon the store. Well, see, that just wasn’t going to work for me. ‘Cause I had decided this year for the first time to accompany my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law to join that mad, wild, screaming mob of people. (What possessed me?) Not only that, but seeing as we would be 6 hours away on Thanksgiving, there was just no way we’d be getting back in time so I could work the day after. The good news, you ask? I could have all the days leading up to Thanksgiving that I requested off. Well, that was irrelavent. So my little mind wheels started turning furiously. This was it! The excuse I was looking for! I had longed to find another job and finally quit, but had never quite been sure if I should. After all, what if I hated the other job as much as this one? What good would that do? But here, like a door of opportunity, was the charge I needed to make the decision. If I couldn’t have Black Friday off, I’d just have to quit, and take it off for myself. Which is more important, after all, family, or work? (Besides, I really really wanted this excuse.)

So then rose the matter of securing another means of money-making, as I don’t quite have the luxury of just quitting with no backup plan in place. So I checked the job board at college, hoping there would just be something - and lo and behold, three, count ‘em three people needed someone to clean their houses, 3 or 4 hours a week! I about jumped for joy. I had always said I should try that. So I called the three people, and all of them wanted me ASAP! I explain I can’t start until after Thanksgiving, and they were all okay with that! So there we go - a job - not quite as many hours, but we’d manage. So, resolutly, I typed of my letter of resignation and left it on Patty’s desk. Oh the joy! The liberation! The satisfaction of seeing “Patty” written in bold letters across the front of that letter I had waited so long to write! My soul lifted, my step bounced. Soon, I would exchange the infuriating world of retail for cleaning nice old ladies houses.

Then, a few days later, I got called into the office. Ugh, I thought, now they want to know why I’m quitting. Or I’m in trouble. This was the part I was not looking foward to. So I sit down, and almost immediatly, she starts begging! “Why do you want to quit?” “Well…” “Is it because of Black Friday?” “Well…that might have something to do with it…but really I just don’t like my job…that was kinda the last straw…I just don’t like retail…and yes I need Black Friday off…family…blah blah blah…found some other jobs…allow me to work during the day…hate working nights and Saturdays…hate schedule changing every week…blah blah blah…” Oh, it was sickening. “No, please don’t leave!” “You’re a prize employee!” “You…*list of wonderful things about me*” “We’ll put you anywhere you want! Not happy in front end? We’ll put you on the floor!” It went on, and on. And then, finally, she offered to give me Black Friday off and any other time I needed off the holiday season for Christmas. I just stared. What could I say? She had taken away my straw! I was astounded, bewildered, and almost angry. It wasn’t fair! She had crushed my soaring hopes into bitter shards…my excuse was gone! What could I do? She offered to work around whatever schedule I wanted, and suddenly it occured to me that I had the upper hand. They were begging me to stay! They needed me more than I needed them! Ah, what a nice feeling.

I responded with some hard negotiations. No Saturdays. No evenings. Cut hours back because of other jobs I got. She said she didn’t know if she could do the Saturdays. Everyone has to work at least one weekend day, and I already had Sundays off. I just stared at her. These were my terms. She said she’d talk to the store manager. I said I’d think about it. And so I did. I thought hard. A few extra hours would really help, after all. I only would be getting 10 cleaning houses, which was, in all honestly, a lot less than I needed. I could work two days a week at BB&B. This could be helpful. I could try something new, and still hang on to a security in case it didn’t work out. I wouldn’t be working as much there, and if she agreed to my terms…

I told her I’d do it on my terms. She talked to the store manager. They said they’d give me every other Saturday off. I thought about it. No evenings, I said, not on Saturday. She hesitated. I waited. The store manager told her to do whatever she could do to keep me there. She agreed. Only one evening a week, I said, no more than two days, no more than 10 hours, and only every other Saturday. I was a hard negotiator, she said. Good, I thought. But in the end, she agreed.

I went away, not sure whether to be happy or dismayed. My grand scheme had failed. They wouldn’t let me quit! My suspicion that the upcoming holiday season had something to do with it, but somehow, I got sucked back into working there. I don’t even know how it happened. I tried so hard to quit! I was so resolute. I had made my mind up! But I certainly didn’t expect that response. And the money issue was every looming over me. And so here I am, still at BB&B, though my hours are cut and I’m now trying this housecleaning thing.

I’m going to attempt to quit again when I graduate in May. I need to find a full-time job somewhere, and I certainly don’t want it at BB&B. But next time, it’s final. I will not get sucked back in again to the black hole of retail! I will prevail. I will. Really.

I have officially decided that the most annoying group of people on the face of the planet are customers. Well, not all of them, but some of them. Customers who seem to have rocks for brains. Customers who seem to think they are gods, and I am their slave. Customers who have temper issues.

Customers whose life is at an end because they are frantic that they won’t be able to get the sheet set they want, and beg and scream and demand that you find one for them, and then conveniently forget about their dire need for this particular style of sheets and leave you with an item on hold, that you jumped through hoops to get for them, that they never come to collect.

I promise I’m not bitter. I only deal day in and day out with this strange group of people called customers, that I sometimes join, but spend more time on the other side of the counter. I have decided that customers can be divided roughly into four groups of people.

The first group is the Friendly Ones. You know, the customers that smile back when you greet them, thank you pleasently for your help, and are patient when there’s a snag in the system beyond the control of the cashier - or perhaps even because of a mistake made by the cashier. No, these people understand that no one is perfect, no computer system works right all the time, and sometimes there are policies that just have to be enforced - because the corporate gods say so, and the cashier can’t do a thing about it. This group is my favorite. They make being behind the counter almost enjoyable.

And then there are the Apathetic Ones. This is by far the largest group. They, well, simply don’t care. Their sole intention is to get in, shop, buy, and leave. What is there to say about this group? They tolerate snags apathetically, they tolerate mistakes apathetically - they’re just, well, apathetic to the whole retail process. They are what makes retail so humdrum routine.

The third group starts to get into rocky waters. These are the Snobby Ones. They greet your attempt at retail cheerfulness with a cold stare. Youre attempts at small talk bounce off them like a brick wall. You might as well be slime on a dirty sidewalk, for all they care. You are not worth their time to even acknowledge as a living, breathing, human being, because obviously their job is so much more sophisticated than yours. Generally speaking, they are similar to the Apathetic Ones, except for when a problem arises. Oh, then there’s trouble. Suddenly, the invisible casheir becomes the source of the worlds problems. “What do you mean you can’t find my sheet set for me? It’s been discontinued? How dare they discontinue the sheet set I wanted. The nerve!” “What do you mean I can’t use two coupons on the same item? What? This coupon is only good on one item? Well, I was sure it was for my whole sale, so even though it says it right on the bottom of the coupon, in fairly large letters, “May only be used on one item”, by golly, it should have been the whole sale! After all - do you know who I am? Who are you to insinuate that I can’t read a coupon correctly! Obviously, because you are at the bottom of the commercial totem pole, you have no intelligence, even though I don’t know how to read, and there for I shall now treat you as the slime that you are.” This group often can turn rapidly into the next group, if their problems aren’t assauged by a manager who appears and says the exact same thing the associate says.

This last group are the Angry Ones. Angry Ones often start out as snobs. Sometimes they start out as Apathetics. Perhaps they are not so much as in a group themselves, as they are the natural end of the Snob group. Although, there are those who seem to come in looking for a problem to rant about. They are the crown-princes of the Angry Group. The others must be provoked. And when they are provoked look out! They frequently like to demand to speak to managers. “You don’t have the coupons in the store? What?! You mean, you don’t give every customer who walks through the door a 20% discount!? How DARE you! Why, that other customer had a coupon? Mailing list! I don’t want to hear about a mailing list!” “I can’t use eight coupons on one item!? You mean I’m not allowed to get this $300 dollar comforter for free!? But the savings I could have with these coupons! I want to speak to a manager about this. What! I can’t use eight coupons on one item!? I’m going straight to corporate with this.” “You don’t carry the replacement heads for this shaver!? You actually expect me to go to more than one store to buy the replacement parts I need!? What kind of a place is this! How inconvinient! How dare you inconvenience me!” “How dare you answer the phone while waiting on me! I am absolutly the most important person in this store; and no matter what that person on the phone wants, you will not answer it while you wait on me, and make me wait an extra 10 seconds while you redirect that person to bedding. I’m going to report your rudeness to a manager.” “Good heavens, you pressed the wrong button on the cash register, and now I have to wait 2 more minutes while you call a manager to void this!? No one, I repeat no one, is allowed to make mistakes around me. I wish to report you to a manager for inconveniencing customers while you purposely make mistakes to annoy me.”

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, customers have a right to be angry. I sometimes get frusterated at retail personel. But I get upset because they stand at the front of the store talking for 15 minutes, completely ignoring me, and I get a rude answer when I ask for help. I don’t get angry at a perfectly nice, cheery, chashier who happens to make a mistake. I don’t scream at the customer service person because they have to enforce a store policy that I’m not fond of. I don’t throw temper tantrums because the item I want is out of stock.

And so this is my contribution to American commercialism. I stand behind a counter, and smile at every customer, no matter how rude, because that’s my job. I stand behind a counter, and am polite, no matter what kind of verbal abuse the customer throws at me. So they can have their sheet sets. And coffee makers. And vacuums.

It all brings me to ask: what is it inside someone that brings them to scream because of a coffee maker? A comforter? A razor blade? Temper tantrums over household appliances. Honestly. Sometimes I wonder at the adult population in this society. Are we three year olds, or a mature, intelligent, learn-ed community? Work in retail for awhile. You’ll start to wonder. While I can get some relif by laughing at how really stupid people are, I am also saddened at the state of morality of the world. When a pillow becomes more important than treating your fellow human beings with common courtesy and kindness, I really realize the moral decay that this world is in, and how badly we, as the Church, need to stand out as those who carry the love of Christ in their hearts. Unfortunently, I fear that Christians, too, are in the latter two groups at times. Who can know? I can’t see inside people’s hearts when they are screaming at me. But is there no more to life for people than getting the things they want? Apparently not. And there’s no better place to learn that hard lesson than behind the counter at a retail store.

“I don’t need reminded who is number one, on my list of priorities when all is said and done. I don’t need reminded to look out for myself, so maybe when you wave goodbye you could think of someone else. I’ve never grown from the terrible two’s, I’ve just learned to hide it from all of you…
Every revolution leads the people on with promises and changes egalitarian. Hitler Mussolini Stalin Bonaparte, well they prove a revlolution doesn’t really change your heart. Yeah well we’ve never grown from the terrible twos, don’t you know nothing changes after a coup…

Who is gonna sing my selfish song?
Well the answer is me so don’t sing along
Who is gonna change this heart of stone?
Oh my God my life

Is a selfish song.”

- The Paul Coleman Trio, Selfish Song