Black Friday

This day reminds me of when I used to work in the retail industry and why now I’m not.

Nothing will kill your holiday spirit faster than working retail. People are stupid, but when they think they can get a deal…they become the espresso of stupid.

I’ve worked for a toy store, a men’s apparel store, a shoe store, and a video store…all mall based. I’m still in therapy over the men’s clothing store episode in my life.

The worst and was the toy store and the video store. It’s insulting how far people think they can push you for a discount or a refund. On one hand, I could have given a shit about giving out refunds…it’s not my money and the shit was broke. However, some people automatically think that they need to start yelling and degrading you to get what they want.

Oh…you want to fight…then you ain’t getting shit. Read the sign: No receipt, no refund. Fuck off…and have a happy holiday.

I always loved messing with people like this. I always knew when I had them at the edge of sanity…they uttered the famous words, say them with me:

“Let me speak to your manager.”

Guess what…that’s was me, every time. The rest of the exchange goes something like this:

“You’re speaking to him now.”

“Then let me speak to your supervisor, get them on the phone.”

“No. My supervisor is in, (insert major metropolitan city 1000 miles away).”

“Get them on the phone right now.”

“No.”

“Are you being smart with me?”

“I’m not being smart with you, because you’re not being smart with me.”

It goes on like this for several minutes and eventually they either leave or take a store credit. This happened so many times that I’ve lost count.

Once, on this very same day, I had a lady call me a liar. She came into the video store to return a pile of opened video tapes. She was speaking to another manager, who had just told her that since everything was opened all he could do was exchange them. She then pointed to me…I was standing nearby helping another customer…and said that I helped her originally and that I said it was ok to open all the movies and bring them back.

The other manager said told her again what our policy was and that no one working at the store would have authorized that. (By then, I was paying more attention to the situation.) She then turned to me, looked me dead in the eye, and told the other manager:

“Then HE’S A LIAR!”

Usually, I’ve got a good grip on my anger, especially at work. But this woman flipped my switch. I walked over to her, placed everything she brought in to return back in her bag…she kept repeating over and over “whatareyoudoing,whatareyoudoing”…handed her the bag, leaned in close and told her:

“Take your shit and get out of my store.”

“You can’t talk to me like that…who’s your…” I cut her off.

“I just did and if you have a problem with it you can call our home office…(she tries to cut in…I don’t let her.) look up the number ‘cause no one here is going to help you any further. There are four other stores in this city, go try your song and dance with them. Now leave or be removed. Merry Christmas.”

She cussed her way out of the store, made threats…blah, blah, blah.

Oddly enough, I was not fired over the incident. Apparently, she did try to go to another store…but, instead of telling the store manager over there what I had done, she did the same thing as she had with me. Unfortunately for her, I had called all of the stores and let them know about a possible friendly visit from a psycho, so they were prepared.

I quit the manager position that next spring and worked part time for another few months before I’d had enough. It’s been nine years since I had to work a Black Friday and in the last 5 years I’ve started to re-develop my love for Christmas…but, it’s a long hard road to recovery.

Anyone else have an incident they’d like to get off their chest?