Need; or, Inigo Montoya Calls B.S.

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Beautiful inigo montoya meme Demystifying Chicken Picking Fretboard Anatomy

It’s because they don’t know what it means.

If I could put my finger on the most overused word in my store, it would be “need”. I hear it every single day, and it is never used correctly. “Need” is defined as “to be in want” or “to require.” It’s simple but always misused. The word has a connotation of importance to it. When you say you need something, you are required to have it; you have to have it. To the Shopper, however, this is not always the case, as “need” is constantly downplayed to something along the lines of “I’m required to have this for my studies, but only if it’s not too expensive.” At that point, “need” becomes “nah,” and I commence with the eye-rolling.

More often than not, I’ll get a phone call looking for a product of which they are in need, or they’ll wander into the shop needing something immediately, only to have them either not collect said item or put it back and not purchase it because they deem it not worthy of the price. If you truly needed the item, you would have picked it up ASAP and purchased it regardless of price.

Now, I get it; people want the best bargain they can find. I can’t blame them for that, but it’s not like they’re getting gouged here and can find these items for half the price we sell them. So, what gives? Why does this keep happening? Here’s my theory.

Part of it is based on circumstances. The bottom line is, and I cannot stress this enough, aviation is expensive. All of it. From training, to maintenance, to management, to ownership, it’s all fucking expensive. Many people come into this field with incredible misconceptions, and they’re shocked when they understand the truth: Everything in aviation is expensive. If you cannot afford to do it, or arrange funding to do it, DON’T DO IT. Aside from instructor fees and plane rental fees and class fees, there’s always supplies to buy.

The other part of it is ego. The Shopper always thinks he can get a better deal elsewhere, and thanks to places like Amazon, that’s often the case. Here’s the bottom line with that though: You may find a better price, but you’ll have to still pay for shipping and then you have to wait for it to arrive. Want it there sooner? Well, then you’ll pay even more. At that point, I want you to stop and think about just how good of a deal you got online and whether or not, all things considered, it’s still worth all that. Or you could come to my store, buy it for our price, and take it home today where you can begin to use it. The choice is the Shopper’s.

Honestly, we don’t give a crap which way you go. We’re just annoyed by the semantics of it all. Don’t come in saying you “need” something only to turn around and not buy it for one reason or another. Why does that get under our skin? Well, we’re taught certain skills as customer service agents, among which is to assist the customer as best we can and with relative urgency. So, when a customer comes in throwing around the word “need”, it signals to us that help should be given because the customer is seeking an item of importance.

Here’s an example. What’s the difference here: “I need a sectional chart for Chicago,” and “I’m looking for a sectional chart for Chicago.” Which sounds more urgent? While both sound equal in requiring an employee’s attention, the use of “need” clearly elevates it. There is the indication that the shopper requires this item for their life to function properly (in this case, for them to be able to fly around the Chicago area without potentially getting fined by the FAA or busted by an examiner on a check ride). Now, if they turn up their nose at the price, and decline to purchase the chart, then you know they’ve lied to you about it. They didn’t need it after all.

And maybe that’s what really annoys me about the use of the word, similarly to how people get annoyed about using “literally” and “figuratively” interchangeably. (If Merriam-Webster says it’s fine, I can deal.) If you tell me you need something, and then you don’t purchase that something, you didn’t need it, so why say that at all? Don’t corner yourself into something and then not do it. It’s grating, disingenuous, and wasteful. All it does is make us want to help you less, because now, we know that you don’t mean what you say, or know what words mean, for that matter. It does one thing for us: It helps cement in our minds that you will not provide us with a good experience.

We don’t forget the customers who give us bad experiences. When we see them coming, we know to brace for the worst. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and if you’re just going to squander that and give us the runaround, that’s what we’ll expect from that point forward. Why should we look at it any other way? Should we be optimistic that it was an aberration and look forward to helping you in the future? Probably, but we’ve all been broken and jaded by a history of customers like you (and much, much worse) that there is no hope for you. Is that a bad attitude to have? Yeah, it is, but we don’t let it affect us; in fact, you’ll never even know the difference. Because we are, after all, professionals. So, choose your words wisely, for they will be used against you in the court of retail public opinion.

-The Retail Explorer

An Open Door; or, I Hate You and Your Stupid Face. Please, Leave Now.

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Screw You Face (Completed)

Yeah, there’s usually an pretty decent reason for it.

I will be the first to admit it; working retail, serving the complete morons who patronized my stores, has broken me, and I am jaded. It’s gotten to the point that whenever someone enters the store, my shoulders fall and I groan. I shouldn’t, but I do. Customers are the lifeblood of the service industry, obviously, so I should be glad to see more of them on a daily basis. I’m not, because all customers have the capacity to be an ass, which is when they cease to be customers and morph into Shoppers.

The only reason I can find for my broken spirit is the fact that every time I deal with someone who is allowed to drive but can’t function in my store like an elementary schooler, let alone a fucking adult, I die a little inside. Every time I have to guide someone through an alphabetized store display, every time I have to explain the simplest of signage to someone, every time I have to explain the return policy clearly printed at the bottom of every receipt, I die a little inside.

“Oh, you’re just being dramatic.” Okay, fine. You come walk a grown, capable adult person through a shopping experience like they’re a kindergartner, then do it dozens of times more, and see how you feel at the end of the day. If you’re not ready to launch some of them on a rocket into the sun, you’re far stronger than I. (Of course, this is all cloud talk. I’d never want to harm any of them. Except for maybe Minivan Moron.)

Working at this new job has helped ease this somewhat. I still have to deal with some of the same nimrods I had to endure before (ahem, Minivan Moron), but by-and-large, my clientele here is more intelligent. That’s not to say they’re all bright bulbs, but the general IQ of this herd of Shoppers is far higher than that of the other shop.

Still, the stigma lingers. As soon as I see one of the other flight school students get out of their car and come to the door, I wince, I shudder, I sigh, then I stand up and do my job. I know, I should be patient with them since this is a foreign country to them, and English is a second language to them. Then, I remember that one of the top requirements to become a pilot in this country is you have to know and speak English. I don’t speak to any of them with big words at all, unless they’re aviation terms, which they should fucking know anyway, and I rarely talk with any speed, which is partially because I just assume they have the abilities of a five-year-old when they walk in. (Sorry. That was mean. I apologize for five-year-olds everywhere.) You think ATC has time for you to decipher their commands? Hell, no. Their job depends on them getting everyone arranged as quickly and safely as possible. Remember that scene in Breaking Bad? Yeah, that’s what can happen with a lack of good judgement and expediency.

I make no excuses for it. I have the thought processes of a complete jerk often. So very rarely do I act on them though. It is difficult to get me to react with any anger. It’s not impossible, just incredibly difficult. Even my boss says I’m too nice sometimes. This is my venting space. There is a community of miserable service workers who do the same. We all have to deal with customers who either don’t have the time to be nice (which is bullshit) or the patience (also, bullshit) or the manners (even bigger bullshit), but god forbid we treat them like anything worse than the VIP they feel they are. This king-peasant relationship is complete garbage that has been fostered throughout the previous century and exacerbated further by the internet. “The customer is always right,” is such a damaging mantra because its privileges have been abused for far too long.

I’m not saying a customer should not be treated with respect. They absolutely should, but that’s a two-way street. Give it to get it. We give it, but we don’t often get it. Many Shoppers tend to look at stores and employees as things that can be exploited in some way, either through discounts, freebies, or even a slight bending of the rules. Some think that we’re just out to get them and that we owe them something. And the really crappy part is, sometimes, the store gives it to them.

And that’s why we hate their stupid faces.

-The Retail Explorer

Throwback Thursday: Wild Accusations; or, Why the Hell Would I Risk My Job to Swipe Twenty Bucks From You?

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Interesting (Completed)

Yeah, because getting accused of theft is SO interesting.

Working in the service industry is…not fun. There are so many detractors: Poor pay, unstable schedules, lazy coworkers, useless managers, mind-numbing monotony, and so much more. Oh, and shitty customers. I don’t care where you work, you will find shitty customers. And it’s not just limited to retail and food service. If you deal with customers on a regular business, some of them will be assholes. It’s just the way it is. Some people are kind. Some are intelligent. Some are understanding. The rest are just jerks. Since it’s Throwback Thursday, let’s throw it back to that time I got accused by a customer of stealing twenty dollars from him.

That’s right, a whole twenty dollars. I don’t know why I thought about this the other day, but this event came flooding back to me. This was three years ago, and even today, it makes me angry.

It started innocently enough. He bought an item that ended up being under $10 with tax. I can’t remember what that item was, not that it matters. To pay for it, he pulled out a twenty dollar bill and handed it to me. I had begun to punch it into the computer when he stopped me, having just found a ten dollar bill. Then, and I remember this vividly, I handed him the twenty and took the ten, gave him his change, and he left. End of story.

Right?

Wrong.

He comes back an hour or so later, trying, and failing, to avoid sounding like he was accusing me of theft. He said something along the lines of, “Yeah, you remember when I was in here earlier? Well, when I was here, I had two twenties and one ten, but now, I only have one twenty, and I haven’t been anywhere else but here.” When I heard that, I knew the road he was leading me down, and immediately, I was incensed.

Prior to this moment, I had never been accused of theft. I was incredulous, though I understand now that this moment was merely a product of the ego of the shopper, this massive I-can-do-no-wrong mentality, born out of the old “The customer is always right” philosophy. (Consequently, if I ever met the man who first thought that up, I’d kick him square in the family jewels, because he’s earned it.) More often than not, the customer is an idiot. They come to your store to buy a certain product, and along the way, they will need to have one or more of these things done for them: Led to the product, explained the product, explained the difference between similar products, shown the price tag, explained the return policy, told the hours of operation, shown how to operate the exit door, and that’s not even the full list.

(For the record, no one is impervious to this. I have made some of these errors before, personally. It happens. I’m speaking more about the people to whom these things happen constantly and repeatedly. Redundant? Maybe, but so is dear customer.)

So, when the customer is catered to in such a manner, they feel special, which is good, but that eventually leads to entitlement, which is bad. In this age of social media, it’s remarkably easy to smear the name of any given business for even the tiniest of infractions, real or imaginary; and lamentably, far too often to businesses acquiesce to these shitty shoppers who believe that every single pathway to their personal happiness should be exhausted by the store’s management team.

(As I always feel I must say, this is not to say that all customers are like this. This is the Shopper we’re discussing. You, comrade, may be one of the exceptions to this. You may be one of the good ones, and really, truly, I love you. But far too many customers are not good people but moronic, asshole Shoppers.)

Anyway, having explained this probably too much, you can see now why the thought that maybe he misplaced it along the way never even occurred to him and the thought that I as a thieving asshole was instantly and infinitely more plausible than him being a forgetful human being. So, my defense became my offense: I was going to make him make his intentions brutally clear and beat him back with complete, brutal honesty. I was going to turn the dial up to 11, because I was bitter, I was offended, and I was tired of dealing with their shit. All over twenty dollars.

He pressed his case, that when he had given me the ten, I did not return the twenty and pocketed it. “Excuse me?” I said in as incredulous of a tone as I could muster. And this is the only thing that makes me giggle about the incident: He insisted that he wasn’t accusing me of stealing…while accusing me of stealing. He said, “I’m not accusing you of anything,” three times, and every time, I responded with, “Yes, you are.”

So, dial fully to 11, I turned out my pockets. No twenty. I opened my wallet. No twenty. I counted out my fucking till. No twenty. (That last one was the cherry on top of my sundae of crazy. He had been my only cash sale to that point that day, so the total in my till came out to me $159 and whatever change was left from his transaction, and fuck, did that feel satisfying.)

Have you seen Ant Man, yet? Ya know how he is able to shrink himself to microscopic size? Yeah, that’s what happened to this Shopper. He nearly vanished from sight when he realized what he had done, which was somehow lose his own money and be a complete ass to another person who had done him no wrong. I didn’t even get a proper apology, merely a “Sorry” as he slinked on out the door. I shouldn’t have expected any less than that from a Shopper, but I expected better from a human. (But a good chunk of the people in this country are complete garbage anyway, so I shouldn’t be that surprised anyway.)

I think one of the things that still bothers me the most about it is the incredible stupidity of this Shopper in thinking that 1. I would risk my steady, decently paying job to swipe twenty bucks from him. Why. The fuck. Would I. Do that? Seriously? Why would anyone think that would work? Why would anyone think that would be worth the time and effort? If you’re going to do something that stupid, you don’t do it over twenty dollars. Unless you’re a kleptomaniac. Or just that bored. Honestly, I’d rather be bored, as long as there’s a steady paycheck involved.

It all reminds me of a maxim I learned in my childhood about giving cookies to mice that basically amounts to “If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.” Or something like that. Maybe I misunderstood that book. Regardless, that’s how Shoppers operate, at least. Show them the tiniest concession, and they’ll try to get every gimme they can. The worst of these gimmes is a discount. The second worst is a return or exchange. (More on that another time.)

It also reminds me of a more recent incident with a Shopper who would not let go of the fact that we would not accept a return on a chart and without a receipt, but that’s definitely a post for another day.

I’ll close with this: Check yourself before you wreck yourself, and as always, be kind to service industry workers. We’re remarkably creative at making your life much more annoying.

-The Retail Explorer