The squeaky wheel gets the grease

An older coworker reminded me of this cliche not too long ago. Being in the retail world for too so long I've seen plenty of squeaky wheels, ugh.

Just last week I was approached by a customer, bright orange Bianca Nygard purse in hand, asking me if the purse was 5.50 as it was ticketed. I laughed it off and checked it out for her and of course it rang up at our register as 65 dollars on sale for 55.25. For most customers this is enough and they make their decision whether or not they want it for that price or not. But not this woman...she said that due to the ticket on the bag we were "obligated" to give it to her at that price. I could appreciate that argument since we do have that policy however the pricetag in question was not a Bianca Nygard tag but rather a price sticker printed by my store.

Give the customer the benefit of the doubt? I'm not that kind of sales associate, especially when you start demanding things from me. First of all, what woman in their right mind would actually believe that a Bianca Nygard would be 5 dollars and 50 cents? And since the price sticker was obviously placed there and wasn't the manufacturer's own pricing how do I know she didn't put that sticker there herself? In her defense, the sticker didn't look like it was peeled off of anything else...but what if she had access to one of our store's sticker guns? So many ways this "mistake" could have come about. Plus, her insistence that we were "obligated" to sell it to her at that price made me really defensive. That bag wasn't even 5.50 at cost. She knew how the system works. My mind reeled with possible scenarios. Maybe she was an associate from another store so she printed off her own stickers to put on whatever she wanted to buy at other stores in our chain so she couldn't be traced. She didn't use her discount card, but when you're saving 60 dollars on a handbag who needs the discount card? Obviously she paid with cash so there's no way of tracing her.

Ohhh yeah, she got her purse. What could I do? I called customer service managers (doing the right thing...or trying to) and paged loss prevention. Nothing could be done. I bitterly sold it to her. I wish she had taken it to some other associate. I doubt she'll ever come back to our counter anyway.

Despite loving my customers for the most part, there are a few of them I'd rather never see again.

There's a girl I know...I will never sell anything to her. If she ever comes to my department I'm going to hand her off to one of my other coworkers or something. She is one of those customers...the chintzy ones. Don't get me wrong, I love a good deal. But I shop around for my good deals...it's part of the fun of shopping. It's the way she goes about getting her "discount" that greatly offends me. The funny thing is I don't think she sees anything wrong with it. It's not illegal, what she's doing, but in my opinion it's disrespectful.

Take our first example, one day her and I were discussing taxi cabs and how Daisy and I team up to save on the fare and time (plus it feels safer.) She, in turn, told me about how one time she got a cab from her then boyfriend's house back to her own. She advised the cab driver that she didn't have much money on her and that she'd try to direct him on the quickest and most efficient way to get to her place. Unsurprisingly (boyfriend was in the north, we live in the south) she came up short for her fare. A respectful and decent person would have gotten their ass into the house for extra cash to make up the difference...a credit card...whatever it took. I mean, the cabdriver is making a living just like you, plus you chose the luxury of taking a cab when you could have waited till the morning and taken transit home (something you could afford). But instead she smugly (I assume it was smugness, she seemed quite pleased that she got to pay less) told the driver "Sorry, I tried my best to get you here within my budget."*

Though I wasn't with her for the taxi fiasco, I got to witness her rude thriftiness first-hand later. We were at Black's Photography picking up her pictures from her vacation so she could show them to me. The salesgirl got her package and rang it up.

"I was afraid of that...this is all I have." And with that she dropped on the counter whatever she had brought with her.

Most people, those with common decency, would just leave and come back later for their photos when they had enough money on them. She could have even asked ME to help her out with the difference in the time being. Actually, I even gave her what cash I had and it STILL wasn't enough. (Knowing her, I wasn't about to offer to pay for her photos 'cuz it was quite a bit and it wasn't MY problem that she didn't have enough. As expected, I never got back the money I lent her.)

Ok, when a friend lends you money and together you two still don't have enough that's when you seriously leave and return later with your payment. But not her, she just stood there with her money laid out on the counter. I was so embarassed by her. I walked away.

As a sales associate myself, I took her stance as a challenge to give her a discount and I secretly willed the salesgirl to send this girl away. Unfortunately, the salesgirl caved in. It took not one, but TWO discounts to get the total down to something she could afford with my money included. Two discounts she didn't even do anything to deserve!

I couldn't even enjoy seeing her pictures. Deep inside I was seething over her behaviour. The more I broke it down in my mind the more rage built up inside me. She had endangered that young lady's job just so she could save herself some cash. (At my store, it's called "sweethearting" a deal. Surely seeing two discounts on a sales transaction would place a red flag on the poor girl.) And in a retail position, it's not worth losing your job over a chintzy customer like that. With what she paid (eventually) she could have taken her film to Wal-Mart or Costco or even Superstore and they would have developed her film for less. But instead she chose Black's Photography and was "afraid" of the total...which meant full well she knew how much she'd have to pay. It was like she went into a Mercedes car dealership because she likes the quality but only having enough money to afford a Ford...yet expecting to get a Mercedes at Ford prices. There is no doubt in my mind that she did it on purpose, and to this day I'm still angry about how disrespectful she was.

What's ironic is she used to work in retail just like how many college students go about earning money AND she now runs her own business. You'd think someone who depends on customers and clients for her own livelihood would know how to treat others who are just trying to earn a dollar. Poetic justice would dictate that her own clients shortchange her all the time. All. The. Time.

Alas, it's not just salespeople whom she cheats monetarily. She conveniently never has any money. One time we were at a park with her and her latest boy and we decided to grab some dinner. Not surprisingly, she didn't have cash. Being idiots, we told her not to worry about it and she got a free dinner out of us. I was a particularly bigger idiot, helping pay for her dinner knowing full well this is her M.O. I should have left it all to her boyfriend to take care of her. Thank God I'm rid of all that mess.

* Retelling her taxi experience reminded me of last night's finale of Amazing Race. I love Uchenna and Joyce and it would have broken my heart to see them lose the race simply because they had to go collect money to pay their taxi driver but as grace would have it that was not the case. Any other team would have easily left the cab driver in the lurch...I mean, a million dollars were to be had right beyond those gates. But instead they swallowed their pride and begged for money to pay their cab driver. Begging is never easy, and that was a surprising twist this season, stripping competitors of all their cash and belongings. Out of the final three (and actually, out of most of this year's competitors) there were none more deserving than Uchenna and Joyce. I actually cried when they won.