Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Just ... go away.

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Just ... go away.

    I was working at the thrift store again today. It turns out, a certain woman has decided that Sunday is her day to come in and make her purchases.

    Well. What this woman does is, she sorts through the bargain bin. Piece by piece. Item by item. She holds each item of clothing up to the light from the window and gives it a good going-over. And there are a LOT of items.

    Meanwhile, her little girl is roaming the store, largely unnoticed by her mother. Last week, I found her handling some KNIVES. Not butter knives, but the kind you usually see in horror movies. Yes, those kinds of knives. She also tries to carry on long, involved conversations with me, as if I have nothing else to do than to stand there and talk to her.

    Now, I can sort of understand what's going on with her, because she's only about seven years old, and it looks like her mother isn't overly involved in keeping an eye on her, or in doing other sorts of parenting. This doesn't change the fact that she's a royal pain in the butt; the constant chatter, the getting into things, the messes she leaves, the sauntering behind the counter to check everything out.

    Today really took the cake. I swear, they were in the store for at least two hours. As far as I could tell, the mother checked every single item in the bargain bin, then took her selections and looked over them again, then went over them a THIRD time. The little girl opened the display of antique/fragile items, and when I called out "Careful!" her mother actually told her to knock it off. She found a pair of in-line skates, put them on, and moved slowly through the store. She talked to other customers, who may or may not have been interested in talking to her. She got in the way almost constantly.

    Her mother admitted to me that her husband takes the bargain items she buys so he can sell them in their home country. Oh, and this woman got a special deal from the owner, so that she can buy these already deeply discounted items for half-price, which doesn't endear her to me at all, and then tries to get me to give her even more discounts. She asked if she could USE MY PHONE TO CALL HER HUSBAND, and I lied and said I didn't have any more credit on it. She was going to leave her daughter in the store while she went grocery shopping, and I told her I couldn't be responsible for her.

    When she came back to get her stuff (three bags' worth, by the way), she saw that her little girl was absorbed in a picture book.

    "How much?" she asked.

    I gave her a very low price.

    She looked at the book, flipped through it, and said, "Maybe some other time. I spent all my money on food."

    Then she gave me a poor-pitiful-me look.

    I told the owner that this woman is truly unbearable, and she said...

    ... you won't believe this....

    ..."Just say what you want to say to her."

    Oh, the TEMPTATION!

  • #2
    You've already been far more patient than I would be, so kudos.
    Did I get this right? The mother asked if she could leave the little girl, you said you wouldn't watch her, and she left her there anyway? That's a BIG no-no, more so for the store than you, but still. As far as the phone is concerned, you don't have to lie. It's perfectly acceptable to tell her no, whether you have carte blanche from the boss or not.
    Good luck with this one!

    Comment


    • #3
      No, she didn't leave her daughter. I can see where the confusion lies. When they came back, her daughter picked up a book on the counter and started looking through it. This woman never comes in, gets something, and leaves - she seems to think that the longer she stays, the more we'll want to give her.

      Comment


      • #4
        "Can I leave my little girl here while I go grocery shopping?"
        "Only if you want to pick her up from Child Protective Services when you're done."


        Really, what kind of idiot parent even considers this??

        I wouldn't even bother being polite to this parasite anymore. "Can I use your phone?" "No." Wouldn't bother making up an excuse, just "No." If she had the temerity to ask why, I'd use the explanation all parents give at some point: "Because I said so."

        And while I'm sorry the little girl has a lousy parent, I'm afraid I'd have long since started to get extremely sharp with her when she starts playing with dangerous items, opens a cabinet full of breakables or wanders behind the counter for the umpteenth time. Maybe if mom gets offended enough she'll take her "business" elsewhere.

        Comment


        • #5
          Yeah, I'll admit, there are times when I just want to turn to the little girl and order her to stop talking to me. She doesn't shut up.

          It really amazed me that the mother said to her, "We have to go grocery shopping now. Are you going with me, or do you want to stay here?" Uh, this is not a day care. She doesn't get a choice. That's when I told the mother that I can't watch her daughter.

          Personally, I'd LOVE to see the mother take off and never come back. She does still owe the store a certain amount of money, and seems to have a problem with giving me that money (she got it into her head that I don't work there; try to figure that out, because I've given up), so she asks if one of the owners is there when she comes in. The owners want their money, which is perfectly understandable - maybe I should take next Sunday off and let them deal with her, so they can see how stressful it is to have her around for two or three hours.

          I told one of the owners that I'm concerned about the effect on other shoppers. If the mother is slowly picking her way through the bargain items, nobody else can have a look. And the daughter is anything but shy and quiet, and she thinks everyone wants to talk to her, which may put off some people.

          Comment


          • #6
            I've said this before (and now with a twist). Since you're allowed to say to her what you want to say (according to your manager), simply tell her that she's too much of a risk and liability with her daughter running around unsupervised, and that she is no longer welcome at the store. If your manager changes her mind if you were to tell this to the customer, focus on the fact that the daughter injuring herself would cost the thrift store more money, and possibly the loss of the entire store if a settlement is too much. You're not weeding customers, you're doing what's necessary to keep the business alive and prosperous. You just need to prune the weakest links. It's not like the store will be losing a customer who spends hundreds of dollars frequently anyway, especially since you said she only goes through the bargain bin all the time.

            Comment


            • #7
              Wait, she put on skates and skated through the store? o_o

              Comment


              • #8
                Quoth LuvianBlue View Post
                Wait, she put on skates and skated through the store? o_o
                ^ That.

                This kid is a walking liability claim.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Start being slightly rude to the kid. Get the mom angry. Maybe she'll stop "shopping" there. Also, if a kid was on skates, I wouldn't hesitate to directly tell the child to take them off.
                  "Is it hot in here to you? It's very warm, isn't it?"--Nero, probably

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I used to have a kid like that when I worked at Game Store...his aunt would drop him off and go to work for 8 hours, just letting him roam the mall. Why he was never in school, I couldn't tell you, but he had some severe mental issues in terms of understanding how to relate to people (which I blame on the parents). He wasn't slow, but he did some alarming things, like randomly leaving the store with his "5 minute friends", and sometimes following them to the parking lot.

                    We finally got fed up one day and called child services. His aunt was his guardian at the time, and she did the mature thing: she transferred to another mall and started doing that crap with their game store instead. We tried to get them to call child services again, but I never found out if they did so...
                    "That's too bad. Hospitals aren't fun to fight through."
                    "What IS fun to fight through?"
                    "Gardens. Electronics shops. Antique stores, but only if they're classy."

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The skates were too big for the kid, so she was doing sort of a clomp-glide across the carpet. You're right, I should have had her take them off.

                      As for liability, lawsuits are extremely rare here, so most people don't even think about taking that sort of action. However, if the kid were injured in the store in front of other people, that might cause problems.

                      I don't have the authority to just kick the woman out, especially since she still owes money to the owners. What I can and will do, is tell them (the owners, that is) that I simply cannot deal with this woman anymore, and ask what can be done about her. I believe that having her in the store, with her daughter acting up, is going to cause problems with other customers, if it hasn't already. I saw one customer looking at me in amazement when the mother took it for granted that she could just leave her daughter in the store while she went grocery shopping (and, as a side note, they were gone for an hour).

                      The more deals she gets, the more deals she wants. And using my phone? Hell no; she'd probably steal it.

                      The real kicker? She comes in every Sunday after church. I wonder what the people at her church would think of that sort of behavior?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Maybe if she wants the special deal make it a condition that she can only get it if she takes a maximum of 15 minutes or something like that?

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Helix - then she'll stay for 15 minutes CST (Customer Standard Time) ^_^ -- in other words, she'll insist that 15 (or 20 or 30) minutes of real time equals "I literally just got here two minutes ago!"
                          "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
                          "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
                          "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
                          "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
                          "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
                          "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
                          Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
                          "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            If you see any customer get slightly irritated by this "customer" and her daughter, then feel free to step in. Because sure as heck, they'll run across a customer who is much, much less polite about confronting "Mama" about her "darling daughter." Or even her own attitude. Usually it's fun to watch two EWs spar, but not if you're the one on the clock and having to do damage control.

                            And ask the owner if you can put up a sign that states something along the lines of "All children under the age of 13 must be accompanied by an adult," due to all the breakables and other sources of liability. Maybe tack on, "And if your child is running wild around the store, we charge X fee for babysitting services!" X would of course be double, nay, triple your hourly wage. I know, wishful thinking.
                            If I make no sense, I apologize. I'm constantly interrupted by an actual toddler.

                            Comment

                            Working...
                            X