SURREAL DAY June 4th, 2009

DEAR DIARY,(and friends);

I had a most surreal experience in the woman's clothing store I work in today-- so surreal in fact, I have to write it down before I forget the details, and can't wait to tell you all about it!

I know this is long, but seriously, this happened to me today, and bears reading. Maybe later it will bear an edit to cut some length, but for now, I put this down just as it happened earlier today. This is a true story! -taree

WEIRDLY, all week we've gotten very exasperating customers that have taken a lot of time and patience to deal with. This is unusual. I don't know why, but for four solid days, We've had a parade of people who've lacked patience, kindness, and respect when it came to their returns, their missing tags, lost receipts, discounts, and all that is included in retail sales. Did Mercury go retrograde? Did the good energies on the planet take a nose-dive for a few days? Not a clue, but let me just say, that this is really unusual.

Most every day, our store is filled with kindness, laughter, and people genuinely happy with the service, helpfulness and generous discounts they receive from our company, but since Monday, we've felt like lighting up incense to clear out the vibes coming in from outside. My associate said to me on Tuesday, "Geez, I came in, in a really good mood, and now all I want to do is go home, put on a dvd of Princess Bride, climb into bed, and eat soup!" I laughed, but had to agree.

The most challenging in the last few days, have been foreigners, who have a hard time to begin with, understanding the cash register receipts. We hand out a lot of coupons, and our computerized register lays out the discounts in a way that is difficult for the customer to read, and it's hard to explain it to those don't speak english well, as it gets lost in translation. No problem, I will take all the time necessary to re-explain, so that hopefully, there is no confusion on their part, and they walk away knowing just exactly what they are getting for their money and why. I'll explain as many times as necessary, in as many ways as is possible, and spend
all day doing it if I need to, never showing exasperation or impatience. It must be really hard to live with these translation issues day after day. I feel bad it's so difficult for them.

In the last few days though, we've been challenged almost to the end of our patience, but yesterday, we had a middle eastern man and his poor suffering wife who pushed the envelope over a cliff and then ran down after it, and further clubbed it into something resembling rice paper.

The Set-up:

They picked out a pair of pants, and the zipper was stuck, so my salesgirl, Barbara, who was ringing them up, asked me if I could give them a discount for a broken zipper- I told her no problem, we can give 10% for damage (the most I'm allowed to take off), but when I looked at the zipper- it was just lightly stuck, not broken, so I gently fixed it. I noticed the tag on the pants read already read 'Missing Button- take extra 10% off, so I pointed that out to her, as she is new, and to the couple, so they'd know it was missing a button, and that we'd marked it down to reflect that.

Right away this guy's hackles go up, and he thinks I'm about to cheat him out of the new discount I'd just promised him- (he'd already seen the 10% mark-off on the tag,) so I tried to explain the fact that yes, in fact he would get that discount, but for the missing button, instead. But now he wants 10% for the zipper, which I'd just fixed, (and there was no problem with it- just someone zipped it up in too big of a hurry,) and also 10% for the button. I told him I am only authorized to give a total 10% for any kind of damage. His hackles go up even higher.

Well, they also thought it was a clearance item, because the 10% damage markdown was hand written, similar to clearance markdowns, but I knew it was a regular priced item, as I'd just marked the 10% down for the this item the night before. The man insisted they got it from the clearance area, and I told him, that it definitely wasn't clearance, that if he happened to find it there, it would have only been because someone had exited the dressing room and just stuck it on the nearest rack.

That made him very unhappy, as the sale that day was an extra 25% off of clearance. I said I was very sorry, but it was in fact a regular priced item, with a 10% discount for the missing button, did he still want the pants? He argued back and forth for a few minutes, telling me they'd been on the clearance rack, and when I didn't give in, he told me to ring them up.

I told him since his purchase was over $25.00, I had a coupon I could give him that would take $15 off. My thinking was, this was a pretty good discount, using a coupon he didn't walk in the door with to begin with, and might make up for the fact that I was unable to give him what he'd spent the last 10 minutes arguing about. He didn't respond, glaring at me, so I began to ring up his purchase .

I scanned the item, then I took 10% off for the missing button, after that, I scanned the coupon I'd offered, for the $15. I rang it all up, and he used his credit card to purchase it, and I handed him the receipt and the pants in a bag telling him thank you very much, have a very nice day.

He'd already grumbled through the whole ring up procedure, but then he looks at the receipt, and starts to get even more upset... seems that even though I'd rung first the item, then the 10%, and then the 15 dollars, the computerized register took the 15 dollars off first, and then the 10% off of the remaining amount. He began to yell, saying we were American thieves, that 10% of 48 dollars should be a discount of 4.80 and instead, the receipt showed his 10% discount was only $3.30 and that was not right and I was trying to cheat him.

I studied the receipt, and realized what the computer had done, but knew that even if I returned the purchase to the register and re-rang it, the program would again do the same thing, taking the discounts off in the same order, and there wasn't anything I could do about it.. it was just programmed to take the various discounts off that way.

I tried to explain this to him more than once, in fact, maybe about 8 or 9 times, that this was the way the machine would ring it up again, that it was in the program, in the machine, and I wasn't able to change that, and he just got more and more irate- saying the 10% should come off the initial cost of the pants, then the coupon after that.

I kept telling him that I was really sorry, and inwardly, wondered, if he didn't have a point, but decided that the company has the right to offer that damage amount off, in anyway they wished, as they could just refuse to sell it outright, instead of offering that discount to someone who wants it, and that there wasn't anything I could do about it at any rate, as this is how the program is set up. No way I could
change that. I explained this a few more times, and he kept screaming "The machine, sure, sure, it's not the machine,(intimating that I was doing it to him on purpose) "You blame the machine, it's you! it's Americans! I hate Americans! I hate all you Americans!"

He kept yelling this over and over and over, really yelling, at the top of his lungs, apparently with the belief that this could somehow change the outcome, and I kept telling him over and over, that I was truly sorry, but this was something I wasn't able to do anything about.. the discount for a damaged item was a courtesy, and the machine was programmed to deduct it a certain way (evidently), (I'd never come up against this problem before) -otherwise we would be sending the item back to the manufacturer for a full refund and not taking this small loss on it. This guy, though he had a thick accent, spoke perfect english, and I knew if he stopped to listen, he wouldn't actually have any trouble understanding, but he was so full of hate, so sure the ugly Americans were stealing from him, he couldn't be bothered. He preferred to slobber his hate all over me.

I could have adjusted those few cents by changing the percentage, or other ways... but the problem was, company policy- only 10% off for damage, and if I added on to that, I was guilty of giving unauthorized discounts, and that constitutes stealing from the company... if an audit should come up, and they found this, they would want to know what I'm doing giving extra discounts to people- am I marking things down for friends? Family? It's a really precarious place between an irate customer and the unemployment line... But he's convinced himself he's got another evil American thief, who is ripping him off, and no amount of apology or explanation on my part is
going to change that. He's also enjoying the attention he is getting from the other customers who are now poking their heads up over racks like giraffes, trying to see what all the shouting is about.

Well, to make a long story even longer-- he continued to rant and rave screaming how he hated all Americans, and I resisted the urge to remark, "And yet, here you are in my beautiful America, choosing to live, work, and receive the rewards and benefits she offers to all,..." but said instead,

"I'm really sorry you feel that way, because I'm an American, and I don't hate you..." (and I meant it.).

Well, that didn't help, and meanwhile, his poor embarrassed wife is tugging on his sleeve, whispering to him something like, "Just forget about it, let us go, don't make a fuss..." her head bowed under the scarf , trying not to meet my eyes, or his either, for that matter, hoping, I think, to become invisible, probably calculating that he's now ruined her ability to shop in our store, and I'm sure now, too embarrassed to ever return, but that's not the point of my story...

Over and over, this guy is yelling, pounding his fists on the cash-wrap, still spouting at the top of his lungs how much he "hates America and hates Americans!" as he leans farther over the counter trying to intimidate me, but I am standing gently firm, still smiling, but now, with slight a hint of frustration.

As he hurls one more insult at America which again includes her theiving, devious citizenry... suddenly, from somewhere behind and to the side of me, I hear a very soft, kind of trembly voice begin to sing...

"I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free...."

(that award winning Lee Greenwood song,) ...there is a small pause, and then this timid little voice continues real soft, and low...

"And I won't forget the men who died...."

...and then another soft voice joins her,

"to give this right to me...."

and suddenly another, and another, joins in, and I look around, and from all corners of my store, came women, seven or eight of them all totaled, who are now singing as if in one voice,

"And I'd GLADLY STAND UP!"

they shouted this lyric- clenched fists, and flung them into the air for added punch...

...they were all coming up behind me, from different areas of the store, where they formed an arc behind the back of the cash-wrap, and still continuing to sing, a little louder now that they'd found one voice... all walks of life, all nationalities, a virtual rainbow of American woman (united in retail heaven), I couldn't have been prouder of, who were now attempting to grasp each other's hands.

-All these hands, which were mostly filled with handbags, cell phones, jewelry, and other items bound for dressing rooms, suddenly began slinging garments and hangers over their shoulders, to free themselves, as they groped for the hand nearest to them, and with mounting energy, until they were literally shouting the song, they finished the verse,

"...NEXT TO YOU!!!

AND DEFEND HER STILL TODAY!

CAUSE THERE 'AINT NO DOUBT, I LOVE THIS LAND

(some didn't know all the words, but they all knew the last line...)

GOD BLESS THE USA!!!"

I turned around and saw them all standing behind me like a choir of angels, garments dangling and askew, but standing straight up to the hatred being spewed. A huge smile pushed the frustration right off end of my nose, and left my face in peace.

I turned back to the man, who now, gathered his bag and not saying another word, turned his back on us, and moved toward the door, leaving his wife behind. His wife gave me an embarrassed smile as she turned to follow, and I, being the diplomatic sales clerk on company time.... and the curteous woman my mother taught me to be, waited until he'd attempted to slam the door behind him, to turn back, and applaud my chorus of nightingales.

I stepped out from behind the cash-wrap and yelled,

"YOU WOMEN ARE AWESOME!!!!!!"

We all high-fived, they each gave me a big hug, saying,

"I wouldn't have had your kind of patience." I told them,

I wouldn't have believed this, if I'd seen it in a movie!!



That was my day today! Color it AWESOME!

God Bless America!! And American Women????

YOU ARE MY HEROES!!

ROCK ON!!


© by taree Belardes 6/4/2009

-tAREE BELARDES, JUNE 4TH 2009