I Really Like Your Sideburns

If you read my other story regarding Twilight, you will know that the franchise brings out the crazy in a lot of teenage girls. One day, I was working with one of my guy co-workers. He was on cash and I was working on something on a computer at the back of the cash station. We had a bunch of Twilight merchandise at the counter, including stickers, keychains and buttons.

This girl came up to the cash with a couple of her friends and proceeded to lean inapproaitely on the counter staring at my co-worker. She picked up one of the Twilight stickers and turned to him and said, "Can I have this". He laughed a little bit and said no and thought she would leave.

She didn't.

She kept holding the sticker and then said, "I really like your sideburns. They're great. Really sexy. Can I have the sticker now?"

He laughed again and looked at me before turning to her and saying no again. This girl who super persistent, so she turned to him again and said "Your teeth too, you've got great teeth,"

Looking puzzled, he asked her "Really? I have great teeth? I have SMOKER'S teeth... there's not really anything great about them..."

She replied to him again, "Well I think you have a great teeth, but I still really like your sideburns. There's a guy at your other location who has great sideburns too. He gave me a sticker for free when I told him how great his sideburns were,"

"Well you can't have a sticker for free here," he said and the girl finally left.

I later talked to the guy who she spoke of at our other location who remembered this crazy girl and told me what had really happened and told me that he had given her a sticker that they were going to throw out because it was ripped or something.

Do You Like Bleach?

Back to my stories about resumes/interviews and adding in new hires. As well as interviewing and hiring, I was often asked to train new employees on how the store runs and how to use cash and our system to look product up.

One day, I had been asked to train this new kid and I was happy enough to help out. So when they sent the kid up to me, I started my spiel on how to do everything. After I explained a few things, I asked him if he had any questions, which prompted him to tell me that his jaw hurt and that sometimes it clicked when he opened his mouth and proceeded to demonstrate for me. Seriously.

Ignoring him, I moved on and explained to him about something else and after, I again asked him if he had any questions. He turned to me and asked if I had ever watched any anime before. The conversation went a little like this:

Him: "Do you watch anime?"

Me: "I have in the past, but I don't really watch much of it anymore unless it looks super awesome."

Him: "Oh cool. Have you ever seen Bleach?"

Me: "Nah, I haven't. I've heard about it but I don't really know anything about it."

Him: "Oh, I see. SO, whose your favourite character?!"

Me: "Umm... no one... I haven't seen Bleach before."

Him: "Ahhh I love so and so (I can't actually remember the names of the characters he mentioned...), he's SO awesome..."

Me: "That's great..."

Him: "And don't you LOVE the new villain and his awesome costume?!"

Me: "Still don't know what you're talking about..."

This conversation carried on for pretty much the ENTIRE rest of the time I trained him. And every time he mentioned it, I kept telling him that I had no idea what he was talking about.

Colin Mochrie

One of the very first days at my job at a downtown entertainment retailer, I was still a little hesitant on cash and didn't know how to do transactions perfectly. I had been left on my own on a busy Saturday and was trying my best to make sure I didn't fudge anything up.

I was already frazzled because first thing in the morning, my till had decided to completely break down and I had to call technical support to get them to fix it for me. So by the time my cash was up and running again, I was already having a pretty crazy day. I call over the next person in line and of course it has to be a celebrity. Albeit a not HUGE celebrity, but still. Colin Mochrie, probably best known for Whose Line Is It Anyways, with Drew Carey.

He had a big stack of movies and CDs and as I started to ring through his items, my till, again, decided to go a smidgen wonky by scanning items more than once and then not letting me delete them, and stuff like that. My face was super red and I could see that he was getting sort of irritated. He didn't say anything, but I just kept apologizing and trying to rush through the transaction.

Anyways, I finally got him rung through to not have any bags large enough to fit all of his stuff in, so I had to get a bunch of bags together and bag his stuff, leading to bags breaking and everything that could possibly go wrong. He was really nice about the whole thing and didn't say anything rude, but I was so upset at myself for being such a klutz and a spazz.

I Just Need A New Job, Ya Know?

As promised, I've come back to the whole resume/interview subject. At an old job of mine, I was responsible for interviewing and hiring potential employees, which can be fun, but can also be a massive pain in the butt and you can meet a lot of colourful people in the process.

I had set up a bunch of interviews for the day and everyone had been really good and I was worrying about how I was going to choose just one or two of them. My next interviewee came in and I sat down with him and my co-worker so he could help me decide who we should hire. I always started my questions off with something to sort of lighten the mood, like "Tell me a bit about yourself", which is exactly what I asked the guy who was sitting in front of me.

It started out harmless enough, with him talking about school, and such. It then led into a rant about his current job that went something like, "I f**king hate my f**king job, all I f**king do is wash f**king dishes and get paid like sh*t. All I want is a new f**king job where I don't have to wash f**king dishes for like no f**cking money, ya know?"

I asked him a few more questions after that, but after the first question, I could tell right off the bat, he was a prize that we did not hire...

We're MARRIED!

Lately, I've been thinking about some of the nutty people that the Twilight franchise has brought out of the works. I mentioned last week that I was going to discuss resumes and interviewees and such, and I will get back to that, but today I have a great story about a girl who came into the store when the first Twilight movie came to DVD.

I was working on cash with a couple other people who were working that day. Everything was pretty normal and dull until a maybe 13-14 year old girl came in with her mom and wanted to buy pretty much everything Edward related we had in the store, which was a lot considering we had the movie, keychains, wallets, posters, plaques, stickers, t-shirts, and Edward figures (and much MUCH more). So the girl picked out a few things that her mom said that she could get and headed over to the cash register.

I didn't have the pleasure of cashing these ladies out, but I was beside the person who was, so I had a nice chance to observe. Basically the mother was just being pleasantly chatty about things, such as Twilight and her daughter's obsession with it. The girl was sort of out of it and just sort of looked around.

The mother then brought up how her daughter was pretty well in her own little world and thought that Edward and her were in love, which then peaked the girls attention, who then turned around to snap "We ARE in love, MOM! Why don't you get it that we will always be together? Just ACCEPT it! We're MARRIED and in LOVE!", at this time, the girl proceeded to flash an amber ring she had on her ring finger.

"It's his amber ring MOTHER, the colour of his EYES!"

It was crazy town, but the mother didn't really seem very affected by it, so I'm assuming this is probably not the first outburst her daughter had had regarding the subject of Edward. The mother just rolled her eyes and finished politely dealing with my co-worker and walked out with her daughter.

Cashier Please!

With the Christmas season just around the corner for retailers, I thought I would share a few resumes and interview related stories over the next couple of days. Now the stories concerning resumes... If you're out there looking for a job right now, heed my warning through the stories. Many of these are definitely on the NOT TO DO list for getting a job.

At the store I work at, we get TONS of resumes everyday. Seriously, like 20+ daily. We get some amazing people coming in, but mostly we get a lot of duds. Kids coming in with their friends or parents and looking for a job and using their friends as encouragement... Do NOT come in with your friends or (and especially) parents. Anyways, that is straying a bit from the point.

I have several stories like this, but again, at the store I work at, we get tons of resumes. I work in an entertainment store, so everything is divided up by product, like video games, music (genres and such), movies, digital and such. So when someone hands in their resume, we ask them what do they know the most about in our store.

One girl was REALLY confused by this question, so I explained to her how our store is broken down as far as product we carry. So after I asked her to narrow it down to the mentioned product (video games, music, movies etc.), she turned to me and said "I would like to be a cashier please".

Hmmm... Well I just wrote that down and needless to say, she didn't get the job, but ya.

They Are My Partners...

This story made me chuckle... sent in by Kat!

On this day I came out of the back room to find one of my co-workers engaged in a conversation with a customer (wearing a helmet indoors) for a good 20 minutes, against his will. I, obviously, avoided this particular customer.

HOWEVER my co worker, darling that he is, beckoned me over to his post at the cash desk.

He said, "KAT. haha. Kat...ask him why he's buying the stool!"

Immediately I said "No. Why? If I do, will he just talk to me forever?"

"Yeah! Yeah...Just ask him! It's...It's for his robots." *snicker*

Five minutes later:

My anonymous co-worker says, in front of the customer, "Hey! I think Kat would really love to know about your robots, man!"

The customer turns to me, and says, emphatically, "YOU like ROBOTS!!"

"uhhhh...sure. I guess." And warily, I asked, curiosity getting the better of me, "Why are you buying the stool?"

"For my ROBOTS! They are my partners. In music, as well as in LIFE."

"mmmmmKaaaay...what are their names?"

"Humanoid, and Android. WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT ROBOTS?!"

"Uh...hah, I dunno. I just think their cool I guess..."

At which point, another one of my co-workers (bless her little heart) rescued me by making up some excuse, and dragged me to the back room, where I was forced to stay until the customer had left the store. Little did we know that this customer would come back that same day. With pictures of his robots. To show me... long story not so short, I was again forced to hide in the back room until he left. Watching from the one-way glass window in the back-room door, I saw him begin to get agitated, as he realized I would not be coming back to look at his robot pictures. Luckily, he eventually did leave the store. But to this day, I live in fear...

TO BE CONTINUED, more than likely.

I Am NOT Your Friend!

I’ve been living in the Toronto area since 2005. I had never had anyone prior to me moving here tell me I looked like anyone else, but pretty much since I arrived in the big city, I’ve had people mistake me for heaps and heaps of people. I’ve been told I look like Katherine McPhee (but only certain parts of my face..?), that girl who won Canada’s Next Top Model Season 1, people’s best friends (seriously, more than once…), someone’s Asian fiancée (and I can assure you that I do not even remotely look Asian) and even a soap opera star named Ruby.

However, this particular time, I happened to be at a well-established high end coffee shop when the barista mistook me for a friend from high school. I tried to tell her that I wasn’t, but she kept trying to convince me that I was her friend. As a sidenote, let me just quickly add that I didn’t even go to high school in the same city as her and her friend, but here she was, assuring me that I was most definitely her friend.

In the end, I had to show her my ID to prove that I was not her friend… not even RELATED to her friend and I finally got my coffee.

Sunshine

This little old woman came into the music store I was working at looking for a specific song. Now, for anyone who has ever worked in music retail, you know that every now and again, you get that one customer that expects you to find exactly what they’re looking for based on their humming of the song, them telling you it’s a male or female singer or they give you one word of a song and expect you to know what it is.

This woman was sweet and very nice, so I did my best to try and figure out what she was looking for. She told me that she really wanted the album by this artist she heard on a commercial that may or may not have been a man singing and she only remembered one word from the song and that was ‘sunshine’. She wasn’t sure what commercial the song was from, so I started my search by just looking up sunshine song in commercial… it went on like this for a while. I wasn’t having much luck and was starting to get discouraged when I stumbled upon something promising. There was a Sam Cooke CD and he sang a song called Sunshine. I told the woman that I didn’t want to get her hopes up, but I may have found the song she was looking for and we might have the CD in stock.

I went and grabbed the CD for her and opened it up and let her have a listen to see if it was the song. I let her get to the song and waited and then all of a sudden, this little old lady’s face just lit up and she smiled at me, took off the headphones and thanked me profusely. “I can’t believe you found it! I thought you would laugh at me when I asked to you to find this song just based on one word, but you found it!” She was ecstatic and said she would buy the CD. It was on a promotion where you buy 2 CDs for $20, so I asked her if she was looking for anything else and I found her another CD she was looking for, but she was so nice and I felt really good about helping her find what she was looking for. It was probably one of my proudest retail moments.

My Shirt Is Your Kleenex

I worked for a while at this small independent video retailer. We had a lot of regular customers and quite a few of those regulars were a tad bit nutty. We had one customer in particular who called pretty much everyday (at LEAST once if not more) and would always ask for us to put cartoon shows on hold for him. He only came in about once a month when his government cheque came in the mail.

This customer was pretty slow, but he was nice and relatively harmless as far as crazy people go. He always ended up putting the same shows on hold over and over again… Like I’m pretty sure by the time I stopped working at the store, he had bought 3 or 4 copies of Josie and the Pussycats complete animated series on DVD. Anyways, because he called so often, he got to know all of the staff by name just by hearing our voices and he could tell who we were when he came in to the store once he heard our voices.

When I left the job at this store, I ended up working for a chain entertainment store in downtown Toronto. You can imagine my surprise when this customer walked into the store to buy some CDs. When he realized who I was, he got really excited and asked for a hug since he hadn’t seen me in a while. I figured since he was a nice enough customer and he was harmlessly crazy, why not? Well I went to give him a hug and I heard him start sniffling and sure enough, his nose was super runny and gross and as I was giving him a hug, he decided to blow his nose into the shoulder of my t-shirt. The same shirt I had to wear for the rest of my 8 hour shift.

Just Use The Floor

Once upon a time, I used to work in a clothing store as an assistant manager in training. One busy Saturday, I was supervising the staff and taking care of the change rooms when one woman walked in with her little boy and wanted to try on a few things. I set up a change room for her and she went in with her little boy. While I was waiting for people to finish with the dressing rooms, I overheard the little boy saying to his mom, “I really have to pee mommy!” to which she responded, “Just wait, I’m almost done,”

Not a minute after that, the little boy said to his mom again, “I reeeeeeeally have to go to the bathroom!!” and this time, you could hear the mother’s frustration in the form of her growling and getting frustrated with her child. So, instead of changing back into her normal clothes and taking her kid to the bathroom, her response to this was, “Just pee in here then,”

The store I worked at wasn’t like a freaking thrift store or anything; this was a fairly high-end clothing store in a high-end mall with high-end clientele. Imagine my surprise when I hear the kid taking off his pants and ACTUALLY peeing on the floor. I knocked on the door and asked for the woman to leave the store. She came out of the dressing room and there was a huge puddle of kid pee all over the floor. The woman didn’t even offer to clean it up, she just took her kid by the hand and walked out of the store like nothing had happened and left us to clean up her mess.

I Like How You Frolick

When I worked at this one music store in downtown Toronto, I was training an employee on cash. After a little while, I decided to go on my lunch and left my employee to learn through experience. As soon as I turned to leave, she shouted after me to come back and help her quickly with something. I was in a good mood, so I skipped over to the cash smiling and asked her what was up. Before she even got a chance to answer, the man she was helping said to me, “I really like how you frolick,” in the creepiest tone possible. Needless to say, I didn’t do much more in-store “frolicking” for a while…

What's the Difference?

One day as I was filing TV shows that we had just got in stock; a customer approached me and asked me for some help with something. Obviously, I went over to try to help him. Basically, the guy was looking for something to watch and wanted my opinion. He was in the ‘A’ section looking at Alias and Alien Nation, which were right beside each other.

I smiled and asked what he needed help with. He responded by telling me that he needed help figuring out what the difference was between Alias and Alien Nation. First of all, they are not even remotely similar shows. NOT EVEN CLOSE. But this man just could not process why they were different TV shows. I tried to explain to him that they were about completely different subjects… set in completely different places (seeing as Alien Nation was set on another planet). He just kept asking over and over again why they were different.

The encounter ended with me walking away completely baffled that anyone could be that slow. He didn’t appear to be stupid or anything, but I guess looks can be deceiving.

Christmas Rush

Back when I was a part-time employee of a record store in my hometown, I was working with a girl who was awesome and sweet, but a little oblivious. She was really pretty, so one day when we were working together during the Christmas season, this guy came in and was talking to my co-worker and flirting with her. After a couple minutes, he said, “So, how’s the Christmas rush?” She smiled and said so perfectly “Oh! I don’t think Rush has a Christmas album!”

I Hate This F***ING Country!

Submitted by Kat

So I was working one sunny Sunday morning, and it was going pretty well. I was looking something up on the computer for a customer on the phone. Minding my own business. All of a sudden, I hear a thump, as an older man plops his prospective purchases down on the ledge next to me.

I look up, and using my best customer service voice, say "Oh! Are you just waiting to pay, sir? My co-worker will take you in just a moment!" *SMILE* In response to which the man huffed loudly. Mind you, there was no line. Only ONE OTHER CUSTOMER in front of him.

After huffing pointedly, he asked "Is there really only ONE cash open?!"

I restrained myself from rolling my eyes, and thought, Ok, I will just cash him out, and then he will be gone, and everything will be shiny. I took him to my cash, and cashed him out quickly.

I asked "do you need a bag for 6¢" at the end of the transaction, as I always do. Instead of just saying 'yes' or 'no' to this very simple question, his eyes went wide, and he launched a diatribe:

"No. SCREW THAT. F*** this country. I f***ing pay $16.00 [ooh big spender!] for a CD and you want me to pay 6¢ [breaking the bank!] more for a bag? I HATE THIS F**ING COUNTRY. F*** YOU."

DEAR ANGRY OLD EASTERN EUROPEAN MAN: I do not care. Move somewhere else.

ANYWHO, in true retail form, I just paused, bit my tongue, and said with a manic smile "YOU HAVE A NICE DAAAAY!!!!" *twitch*

Does That Include Her Ashes?

On the day that the Wizard of Oz 70th Anniversary Collectors DVD set came out, I was scheduled to work as a customer service representative for the day. It was really busy and I love that because, as you all know, when you’re busy… time flies by much faster.

I was talking to customers and helping them out and answering all sorts of questions mostly about this particular box set. Now in the same day, I had TWO different people come over to me at separate times and ask me, not even jokingly, if the box sets happened to come with tiny vials of Judy Garland’s ashes.

I tried to laugh and smile it off and not answer the question, but both of the customers just sort of looked at me very puzzled and just waited for me to say yes or no.

That same day, I also had one customer walk up to a cardboard cutout of the Wizard of Oz characters and laugh and wave his arm at it and say out loud: “Oooooh Miley Cyrus…”, speaking about Judy Garland.

Reach for the Sky!

Somewhere near the end of September I was working on receiving product and heard a ruckus at the main cash. One of the girls I work with was being yelled at by a tall elderly gentleman with a walker. It turned out that he had seen an upcoming release on the internet that he wanted to own on DVD. The title in question was Reach For The Sky a 1956 war film that was to be released on October 5. After researching it she discovered it was actually a CD by the RAF band that was called Reach For The Skies. Upon telling him so, he began to get belligerent, telling her the internet didn’t lie and why wouldn’t she help him. She told him to visit the HMV in the mall to pre-order it, but he left in a huff, muttering under his breath. I asked her why he was yelling and it turned out he had TWO hearing aids as well as only three teeth, a walker and a very unkempt long beard. I figured that would be the end of this encounter.

To my surprise, right after we opened on October 5 he was at the store about to ask for this title once again. I stopped him before he could ask, telling him we had already explained to him that a DVD for this title was not releasing on this date or any date for that matter because it didn't EXIST! If he wanted the CD he could go to HMV where I assured him they would gladly help him. He left muttering again, certain he was very upset with me for not having his non existent DVD Reach for the Sky in stock. End of story.

Wait for it though! Two days later he showed up AGAIN and just as I was about to go through the whole thing about the title once again, he said "I think you were upset with me the other day", and I responded not at all, I was just trying to get the point across. He apologized and said he was wrong and I was indeed correct that it was only a CD and could I please sell him a copy?? I replied we only sell DVDs not CDs and he would need to visit a music store for his purchase (I needed to tell him THREE times for him to understand). He then said "Well I guess you just lost a sale", turned his walker and muttered "...don’t understand why they don’t want my business here..." as he left the store. I had a good chuckle about that one.

Welcome

Welcome to a new blog that deals with the trials, tribulations and wonderment that is the everyday life of a retail worker! After many years of working in the retail sector, I decided it was time to share the many stories that I lived through and hopefully will inspire friends, relatives and current and past co-workers to share.

This will not be a blog to just rant about some miserable SOB that ruined our day, yes we can post those as well, but it is also for hearing the good, the bad, the weird, the ugly and even the smelly side of retail.

There is no escaping the fact that shopping is a necessary evil and I am sure we all know someone who has worked or works in retail. It is usually a low paying thankless job and so we should be able to have some fun with our experiences without being completely negative. I know for myself it gives me great pleasure to have someone thank me for finding a movie they thought they would never see, that's right I work for a video retailer. We don't rent movies...we sell them so you can expand your movie collection.

So to all of my friends who have told me they would contribute, unleash the floodgates, because the forum is now available here.

Please just make sure that when you are sharing your stories, you leave out the real names of the people involved and the actual names of the establishments in which your story is set.

Send in your stories at excuseme.dywh@gmail.com