Shortly after I turned sixteen, I got a job at a retail store called Five Below and continued working there until the last month before I left for college. So, in the spirit of Black Friday this upcoming week, I am going to share three interesting retail stories that have happened to me.
“I hate fake people.”
During the holiday season, Five Below often hands out coupons if a customer is displeased. The coupon validity date usually flexed from around the beginning of November to the end of December. During the middle of January, a woman presented her coupon to me, which I informed her the date wasn’t valid anymore. She rudely asked me if I could do anything about it anyways and I said no, and then asked if my manager could do anything. Keep in mind this is a store that only sells items that are $5 and under. She paid for the things she had gotten anyways, and as I handed her the bag I said the stereotypical, “Have a good day,” where she rolled her eyes and said to the customer behind her who I am pretty sure she did not know, “Ugh, I hate fake people.”
“This is my wife, not my baby.”
Sometime this summer a man came up to buy pink bluetooth earbuds. For no reason whatsoever, while I was ringing it up, he informed me, “This is for my wife, by the way, not me.” I awkwardly laughed and responded, “Okay,” but he kept going. He self-disclosed a lot of information to me. They had been married for six years, they met at a bar, and recently had a baby. After he told me about his child, he showed me a picture of his wife on his phone and told me, “This is my wife, not my baby.” After that, he showed me two pictures of his kid, and more pictures of his wife, and a few of them together and some not. He even asked me to guess her age. It was a really slow day in the store so I just did the typical nod your head and smile until another customer finally came in line and he took the cue to leave.
“Can I have a paper towel?”
I am only five feet tall, and easily can not see too much over the counter. One day I was ringing a young woman up and when handing her the shopping bag, she asks me, “Hey. . . Can I have a paper towel?” I didn’t think much of it and handed her one from underneath the register. She then bent over to where I couldn’t see much of her because of the counter and said, “Thanks… Sorry, my son just pooped.”
I didn’t even realize she had anybody with her, let alone a small boy just pooped basically right in front of me. She left the store and threw her son’s poop into the garbage outside.
