Working in retail or in the food industry can be quite demanding at times. Generally speaking, a great or awful customer can make a lasting impact on one’s day. For those who are unaware of how downright depressing their behavior can be, here is your wake-up call. Next time, think twice before acting in a manner which would categorize you under any of these six personas.
1. The Entitled Shopper
Yesterday, while I was helping get a shirt down for a lovely older lady, I hear another woman start SNAPPING HER FINGERS and proceed to announce to the store “I am ready to check out now!” I’m sorry, Quintessence, that you have been bred to believe that the people around you must drop everything they are doing and ignore other customers to serve you. Maybe, just maybe, if you had tried walking to the registers that were ten feet to the left of you, you would’ve been served more efficiently. Unfortunately, Quintessence is not an anomaly, though her name may be. I have come in contact with many wealthy and lower-class patrons and have determined that economic class does not determine one’s behavior. There simply are some people that have a distorted enough sense of reality as to where they believe that the rest of humanity exists to serve them above everyone else.
2. The Downright Rude Wench
When I was sixteen and worked at Bob Evans as a hostess, my job consisted primarily of walking people to their table. The most negatively memorable experience that I had was when I showed a middle-aged woman and her husband to a nice, clean booth. When I turned to walk away, I heard the woman proclaim, “Did you hit your head today HONEY?” Considering that the last time I had hit my head was on the school bus when I was five, I turned around confused and told her no. “Then WHY do you think I would sit at such a disgusting table?” she said. The “filth” she was referring to was half of a water ring from a glass that was on the far side of the table. Really. That was the best strategy she could conceive to ask me to wipe it up. Frankly, I don’t care if you are having the worst day of your life; there is no reason to ever talk to anyone with such disrespect, even if they work in a restaurant.
3. The Sloppy Sally
Sloppy Sally is usually a tween girl accompanied by a flock of similarly aged, loud companions. Sloppy Sally usually brings in ten times the max amount of items into a dressing room, often sharing one with friends of the same mentality. Sloppy Sally is just trying on these items to take selfies with her friends, and then leaves all 100 articles of clothing on the ground in a ball, and exits the fitting room. The exception to the preteen profile is when it is a full on mom. This kind of Sally is even worse because she is a grown ass woman who knows how evil this kind of behavior is due to life experiences. I feel partly responsible when this happens because it is karma in action. One day in seventh grade, my friends and I went to Dillard’s with the intent to try on hundreds of prom dresses without buying anything, and when my friends decided to leave them all on the ground, I followed suit. I have felt a strong sense of guilt about that since it occurred almost eight years ago. It wasn’t okay when I did it, and it’s not okay when you do either. P.S. Sorry, Dillard’s.
4. The Parent Who Has Given Up
Shopping with three or more children under the age of seven by oneself sounds absolutely appalling to me, so this individual actually invokes a trace of compassion from me. That is, until I straighten a section of Old Navy--land of the soccer moms--and then watch your child destroy it out of boredom. The other day I watched a mother have a full ten minute conversation on her cell phone while one of her kids unhung twenty shirts, one at a time, and let each one drop onto the floor, her daughter screamed bloody murdered while trapped in a stroller the entire time, and her third kid ran in circles around the whole store, smashing into everyone in the process. I get it, kids suck sometimes. Don’t make everyone around you suffer because you decided to drag them to the store with you. Either drop them off somewhere, hire a babysitter, or I don’t know, parent them.
5. The Crazy Coupon Lady
It is completely understandable to misread the expiration date on a coupon, a lot of times they are small and easy to miss. If you find out this is the case, please for the love of God do not argue about how unfair it is that it is already expired or demand that we honor it anyways. Save yourself the embarrassment. Likewise, if you decide to use a website other than the actual store’s website for a discount code, don’t get hostile when you are told that it doesn’t work. It is never the cashier’s fault that you are trying to use a fake coupon. RetailMeNot is sometimes lying to you. If you forget your coupon at home? You are shit out of luck.
6. The Desires a Discount Denise
Not to be confused with Crazy Coupon Lady, Desires a Discount Denise is desiring a discount without a coupon. She points out “stains” in garments and insists that she needs AT LEAST 35% off because of this travesty (even though there are no actual stains, and there may or may not be twenty identical shirts left in her size that are perfectly fine). A thread is a little messed up? No, sorry, it still isn’t free.Let's all come to a consensus and agree to not make life anymore difficult for each other than it already is.
