retail schmetail

I just sighed a long, frustrated sounding sigh out of love for my dog. She's standing on the couch next to Tyler awkwardly, hunching like a baby deer so freakishly so she can rest her head on Tyler's belly. I'm not frustrated, it's just the only noise that can explain how much I freaking love her.

This weekend was bad, and it stretched into my Monday. A guy on the phone made me cry... while I was up front and a customer was staring at me. Other things happened, we didn't close until 6:30 (we close at 5:30) because this horrid, oblivious family wouldn't leave. They were shopping online as we told them their sizes, but wanted to try on every shoe in the store (this is rude if you didn't know). The kids were tyrants and the parents didn't care. So many other details, but I need to move on.

Monday I was lacing up a man's shoe. He had already made a comment about "supposedly" being helped while someone looked for his shoe on hold for 17 seconds. I grabbed his shoe and proceeded to help him, since he was an ass and truly if I can protect my staff from people like that, I do. On the tongue of most athletic shoes, you will typically find a small loop to lace through that holds the tongue still. Anyway, I always lace through the tongue. Always. Well, this man frazzled me because he was an ass. So I missed the tongue loop and not a fraction of a second later, as I had already begun to lace the shoe properly, the man said, "Did you skip the tongue loop? Hey, let me just tell you something. If you have the opportunity to do something correctly, just do it right the first time. OK? Geeze." And it wasn't endearing, or wise words from an old man. It was condescending words from an ass hole. I just smiled really big and didn't say anything.

This is how my weekend bleeding into my Monday went. Yesterday I was in a terrible mood and I emailed my staff and finally said no political discussions and no more bathroom humor. I can't go to the bathroom without someone stating that I stunk it up. This happens anytime someone spends more than 30 seconds in the bathroom. I realized today that It's my fault that I allowed it to get this far. I'm too lenient... which is why my dog only licks me and never Tyler, and only sleeps by me and never Tyler. He's the disciplinarian. I'm fun. No more.

I struggle with finding my identity in my job, yoga practice, relationships with friends and family, etc. After a weekend like this, being treated like someone who doesn't know to put the lace through the tongue loop, it just hit me hard. Today was a better day, but being nice to super mean people gets really old. I'm burnt out.

Tyler just said that the reason these people impact me so much and make me cry, hurt my feelings, make me feel like a doormat, etc. is the same reason why I'm good at my job. I care a lot. Pat, pat. Doesn't make me want to go to work though.

Final story. Today a woman came in who I have helped many times. She hunts for discounts in a manipulative way, finds things in common with you so she can pretend to be your best friend, calls you by your name a lot, and touches you when she's talking to you... but she's a ball of insanity. It's like any second she could explode, and you can feel her always at the edge. Then at the end of it, when you don't give her a discount she makes you feel like dirt. Today she chatted it up with me while I was trying to help another customer - interrupting, being quite rude. I went to get another shoe for my customer and one of my employees walks in back and says, "Hey, she wants to use this coupon that expired in July." We stick to expiration dates. That's all there is to it. I said no. I was back on the floor helping my customer, my employee tells her we cannot honor the coupon and she comes rushing toward me like... a banshee? "I would have come in sooner had I known!!" I point to the expiration date and apologize. She says okay, goes to the counter and takes my DM's cards, and proceeds to stare at me for about 2 minutes. Her purchase was made, there was nothing more to be done. She just stared at me.

A man claimed to corporate that we forced him to leave in his socks and that we discriminate against disabled people. All of it was lies. He even said it was raining and that he stepped in puddles, and it wasn't raining! He left in his socks because he was so angry we didn't have the size in his shoe and the shoes he wore in were "defective." He said we refused to help the other customer in the store... the store was empty.

I'm just continually blown away and I'm so tired. I'm scared to answer the phone because people are freaking insane. "You said my shoe would magically appear via teleport!" The other night I dreamed that someone came in and shot up my store. Is this normal stuff? Do people do this at Gap or Target?

Ok. I'm done.