Saturday, November 24, 2007

Retail Slave, you have no soul!

Day two of Post-Thanksgiving shopocalypse:

I have no soul.

First thing this morning I sold a guy a bunch of crap that he didn't want (but I mean, you NEED a memory card and batteries to run your camera, and why are you buying your wife a $99 camera, doesn't she deserve better?). I could tell he didn't want it, but he bought it, damn it. As it happens, he overcame my sales mojo and returned it later, but I'm doing this all the time. I've given my service plan pitch so many times that I have it's echoing through my mind; deja vu on every sale while supplies last! The problem is that as much as I hate my job, I seem to be good at it. I've been number three in sales volume the last two days (not counting all the things I special ordered, about $3000) and almost all of my sales were "quality." No boxes here. But somewhere between qualifying questions and detailing club card rewards, I fucking lost it. My mouth and hands are moving but there's nothing left of me anymore.

I hate sales.

I like the money that it gets me though. Any other job in the mall is just going to be $8/hr. I probably averaged at least $13/hr the last two days. Probably more. I'm going to email this lady who offered to help me get a job translating for the city after new years. But I don't think I'm going to make it through Christmas. If this is day two, and my manager assures me that this kind of foot traffic is going to be the norm from December 10th on, I may not see my 22nd birthday. Aside from the soulless camera touting, the mall is full of crazy people. I had three come in today. One woman was pissed that her photos were not done in 15 minutes--who does anything faster than an hour? I told her they might be done sooner. Then a guy who said he ordered a clock and an 8x10" of him and his girlfriend (I couldn't believe he had a girlfriend) came running in mad about how he send out to get a photo clock done several months ago but never heard back and he wants it right-fucking-now. I couldn't find a record of it so I didn't really know what to do and he starts telling me that he'll tell everyone to never come here. So he tells a woman at the counter "don't come here! they stole tons of my money!" and she--hero of the day-- says "don't talk to me." and asks me how I deal with the crazies. Right after we are flooded with crazy people (they all came in at once today), Nick--that's right, our favourite undiagnosed manic depressive coworker--storms out shouting "That's it, I'm going home now!" when he was schedule to close. He wouldn't say what was wrong. The store was full of people. Way to have good timing! Luckily (sorta) he came back 15 minutes later. But what is this guy's problem? I'm probably going equally as nuts but part of the job is keeping it inside for later. How many fucking times does he have to throw a fit/storm out/yell at coworkers before he gets fired! If I did that, I'd probably be at least written up. This guy gets away with so much shit and only receives a slap on the hand. Get another job if you want to bitch and moan, man. Retail is not the place.

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