Well, you're obviously here for a reason...

[RedNailPolish]

...so what's the harm in at least telling me what it is? That way I can at least feel helpful, like I'm doing my job.

I sell furniture in a store that's out of the way. You don't get here to just browse and not want something. You don't. It's my *job* to find you what you want. You're wasting your own time wandering my store aimlessly for 5 minutes, don't you think? And if you still don't see what you want, for the love of god ASK ME! I can probably get it. And if I notice you looking at sofas and *only* sofas and mention something to you about sofas, don't lie to me and say you're not looking at sofas. Dialogues usually go something like this:

Me: Well, you've been hanging out here for a while...what do you think?
Customer: Oh, no, I'm just looking.
Me: Well, do you have any questions on what you're seeing?
Customer: I'm all set.
Me: If you think of anything, I'll be right over there.

And then as I walk away I overhear 'Do you think this comes in different colors? What do you think this fabric is? I wish I had a tape measure'

*headdesk*

And lastly...just poking mattresses in order to see if they're comfy is ineffective, unless you sleep on your hands and your hands alone.

Sometimes I hate being on commission, because everyone of those makes me feel like a failure, even if some people just can't or refuse to communicate.

[BookstoreEscapee]

How do you shop for a mattress without laying on it? I had fun mattress shopping cuz, seriously, how often you get to just lay around while you are shopping?

/hates shopping, for the most part
//loves her mattress

[Aethian]

I miss the matress I had found after laying on the test one and getting 'measured'. Can't find any of those places that still do the measureing.

[Nyoibo]

See when I say I'm looking it means I'm looking, if I have a question I'll ask it, and yess, yess I do just sleep on my hands, I fall asleep doing a perfect handstand every night thank you.

I have had experience with someone looking at sofas and actually wanting to know about TV cabinets, go figure why they were on the wrong side of the store.

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I'd bet a lot of the problem is the fact that people know you're working on commission. They're afraid if they ask you for any help, you'll become pushy and try to force them to buy something because you're on commission.

[MrSmiley]

In their defense, sometimes I just like to talk things over with a friend/wife/relative/whatever amongst ourselves before dealing with actual employees. The short reason for this is that I (and friends of mine) say a lot of stupid things and our minds wander...

I can't put it any more clearly than this, but I know that in the past I've casually said something out loud in front of a salesperson (like say "I didn't know they had this fabric on chairs") and then had to deal with it coming up on everything else ("I know you like this and we offer it in..." while I'm thinking 'no, I was just curious about it 7 minutes ago while I was passing by an item and didn't notice it. please shut up about it')

Maybe I'm just strange. Well that and I used to be a lot more public-shy dealing with salespeople I don't know. *shrug*. Hopefully I won't show up as a SC in someone else's story. You sound like you're doing a good job.