Retail Revelations

Working in retail can be a blessing and a curse. When you're a sociable person like me, it can be extremely entertaining. I have been working in retail for nearly eight years (8 years in February 2021). I have dealt with many different kinds of people: nice, rude, entitled, annoying, selfish, unusual, sketchy, and even thieves.

I think today seriously tested my ability to work with the general public though. In my eight years of retail, I have not had to spend three hours selling one couch and one fireplace to a single customer.

We spent three hours discussing price, size, availability, and whether or not it would look good in her house.

Don't get me wrong, I generally have the patience of a sloth. Not much tends to bother me (unless you outright call me names or try and make me look like I don't know what I'm doing), but this sale really had me on edge.

The woman was easily in her 90s, and her daughter was with her. I greeted them with the regular "gusto" that I greet all customers with. I told them I was there if they had any questions or needed help with anything. So as I am doing my regular work (paperwork, sorting, etc.), the woman comes over and asks me what kind of fireplaces we have in stock. Unfortunately, most customers are always looking to get a piece of furniture that is already built (generally our displays), even if we have some in boxes. We are not allowed to sell displays if we have items in boxes, especially seasonal items like fireplaces.

She starts by asking me how much the fireplace displays are if they purchase them. I told them that if we don't have them in stock in the back, they would be 20% off the sale price, but ineligible for a warranty since they would have to be sold as is. Now, this lady spent one-and-a-half hours asking me how much these fireplaces are. I told her we only had three that were available as displays only because we didn't have any in the back--all the others were in boxes and we had to sell the boxed ones first, before selling the display.

After explaining this to her, she points to about three or four other fireplaces that would require assembly (as they were in boxes), and would ask the prices of those and how many we have of each. Her daughter (the other woman), was trying to help me explain to the lady that if she were to buy those, she would have to either assemble them, or find someone else who could assemble them. But the lady kept asking me over and over again how much they were and whether we could sell the display. So, as the nice and easy-going employee that I am, I would answer her question each time.

After the fireplace fiasco, we moved on to a couch. Now, with COVID, we are very behind on receiving furniture, and the furniture we do receive gets sold and is gone within two to three days of delivery. So then we're basically back to square one of not having furniture.

Well, this lady wanted a couch to go with her fireplace. She wanted grey (of course, since the fireplace they chose was grey), but all of the grey ones she wanted, we didn't have. So if she wanted a couch within four days, she was going to have to settle on the one that we did have. So her daughter helped me convince her to pick the couch that we did have in stock.

Now, my patience was running a bit thin during this situation, because I was trying really hard to keep my cool. As she's sitting on the loveseat version of the couch I have in the back, she asks me if I have the couch and loveseat set. I said I didn't, because all I had was the couch available. So she asks me what the difference between the couch and loveseat is and I try to explain that a couch generally has one extra cushion (loveseat has two cushions, couch has three). And then she says... "but the one I'm sitting on only has two." And I looked at her and said, "Yes, but the one we have available in the back has three, therefore it's a couch." She looks at me in a confused manner, and tells me that she wants a couch, not a loveseat... So I explained to her (once again) that we do not have the loveseat in stock (that it was only a display and we do not sell displays), but that we have the couch available in the back and that is the one she would be buying.

Unfortunately for me, that conversation lasted another 1.5 hours of me answering the same question over and over again.

During my seven hour shift today, I pondered walking out about four to five times, debating on whether getting fired was worth it or not. I'm not sure when exactly my customer-service ability started lacking, but I definitely almost lost it on this lady today. I was ready to about rip her head off, but I kept my cool as long as I could.

After she left, I went into the back room and screamed.

I mean, after all, I'm only human.