Toy Store Saga

[Dilorenzo]

I think you need to change the name of this to Toy Store Epic, not Saga. Seriously, has Gandalf even faced the Balrog at this point, or are the Hobbits simply walking into Mordor?

I've had a few dealings with malls/shopping centers in my previous work. Good to hear things worked oh so well in everything, like they did in signage.

Ah, sarcasm. I do so like you.

[XCashier]

The owner of the lighting store had four kids and he and his wife came in to do some shopping one afternoon. They ended up buying a big slot car set with 4 cars for their kids to play with at home. A couple of weeks after that, I noticed his kids coming in a lot and camping at our slot car table. When I asked the oldest where his parents were, he told me they owned the shop next door. I must've made a weird look because he said "We bought something here, so dad says we're allowed to hang out now." I was speechless.

They should've bought another slot car set for the store, for their customers' kids to play with so they'd leave the breakables alone.

And then there's the whole mindset of "I bought something here once so you are my slaves forever"...yeah. Crazy. They don't appreciate it when it's done to them, but they'll do it to someone else.

[Seraph]

"We bought something here, so dad says we're allowed to hang out now."

Hooooly mackerel. Thats some chutzpah.

[Kanalah]

Yeah at the time I didn't want to cause bad blood in the shopping center, so I just dealt with it.

[Kanalah]

Part Twenty Seven

For Easter I decided to dress us as a bunny and hopefully hand out the rest of our grand opening bags - remember those? I actually had a ball with all the kids, took a ton of pictures and held some babies. The sad part was that a lot of people thought I was with the restaurant at the end of the shopping center, even though I was standing out in front of the toy store!

The warm weather also brought storm season. Now the walk to the store was a short one, we walked out of the apartment complex, across a parking lot, through a large culvert, over a curb and past my dumpster to my store backdoor. After we closed up one evening, there was a huge thunderstorm. I was surprised our power didn't go out. It was a torrential downpour. I went out on the covered breezeway to watch for a bit, then something told me to go check the store. I'm glad it did.

The normally empty culvert (about 5-6 feet deep) was completely full, and almost overflowing. We had to walk around it to get to the store. When we got inside our store we heard trickling! Apparently while the gas people were poking around up there, they opened a hole in the roof! There was a huge wet stain on the floor and of course the leak was back where I had a lot of quilts hung on the wall! We moved a trash can under the leak, then ran back to the apartment for towels.

Luckily there was not damage to the walls. One quilt got wet and we took it home and washed it. I felt lucky we had picked up nylon carpet, so all we had to do was soak up all the water. The shop smelled damp for weeks afterwards. The landlord sent someone up to fix it and he couldn't find the leak. It took 2 more rainstorms before he found it, thankfully they weren't as bad as the first one.

Photos for this post:

Easter bunny and treat bags (also a nice look at the store):http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...unnySalute.jpg

Easter Bunny and one of the neighbor's grandkids: http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...nnyandBaby.jpg

The distance between the apartment and the store, and the culvert that filled with water: http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...gToyStore3.jpg

Hole in the ceiling and the soaked floor: http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...gToyStore4.jpg

[Seraph]

My kid just about levitated when she saw your costume, Kana. She was like OMG BUNNY MOM LOOK LOOK BUNYYYYYYYY

[Kanalah]

I was the most awesome Easter Bunneh Evar!

[LillFilly]

And then there's the whole mindset of "I bought something here once so you are my slaves forever"...yeah. Crazy. They don't appreciate it when it's done to them, but they'll do it to someone else.

Oh, gads I HATE these people. Especially the ones that try to camp in the parking lot overnight in rvs, etc. just because they bought something! And the dumpster issue pisses me off! I've caught random people dumping stuff at our mall and had to explain that hey, we have to pay to have YOUR trash hauled away! Grrrrr....Rage.

But that is the sweetest looking bunny-bun I've ever seen!

[Kanalah]

Part Twenty Eight

Because our sales were abysmal, I decided to hold a "tax free" sale. (Really just an 8% discount, but people here go nuts over that.) I actually had a guy come in the day before the sale started to check out everything, then came back the next day and spent $10. Sales actually picked up for the month, then dropped back off.

I had my own share of crazy customers, let me tell you. Many many people thought I was a babysitting service. Ladies shopping at the dress shop would drop their grandchildren off to play and pick them up when they were finished loading the car. The lighting store would send customer's children to my store. I had people coming in just to ask for directions. One customer really stood out - I think he was a single dad. He would come in with his daughter who was about 4 or 5 years old. She was a really sweet child and she'd always ask me to play with her! So dad would walk around the store, go to the bathroom, whatever - while his daughter would sit and play. They would stay until I had other customers, sometimes for hours. This went on at least once a week for months! The last straw came when her dad told her it was time to leave and she threw a huge screaming tantrum. She ran around trashing the store and dad just stood there doing the "No honey, stop that." in a monotone voice. I went in the backroom and she followed me in! I grabbed one of my grand opening door prizes (Because I still had a couple left) I told her she could have it if she stopped crying and went home with her dad. Never saw them again. But seriously, who not only uses a toy store as a babysitting service, but expects the staff to play with their children?

Probably the worst was my aunt and uncle using me to babysit their oldest. They'd drop her off, expecting me to watch her all day, then when they'd come back, they'd pick out a bunch of toys and haggle! Like they should get a discount since I'm babysitting? I think that works the other way around.

We paid a little under $3,000 to do a live radio broadcast in the store to drum up business. No one showed up. Thankfully the radio DJ and his manager were nice people because I was incredibly embarrassed.

We also did an outdoor local show. They were telling everyone to set up the night before, but the venue was right next to the highest crime area in the city. (Not kidding, they actually moved the police station next door since they got so many calls!) Like hell I was going to set up $5,000 worth of stuff and leave it overnight. So we frantically set everything up the morning of the show. This show actually went well - tons of people and sales. Everyone thought we were just wonderful and they were glad to have a local store.

One major problem was that the lighting store opened up an hour before our store did. Sometimes I'd be in early to do paperwork or clean or whatever. I'd catch people walking by, then looking in the windows, rattling and even kicking the door! No way I'm letting you in after that. One lady came in and bitched me out because I wasn't open on Sundays. I told her that I was the only one working at the store, and I needed a day off the do laundry. Not to mention that Sundays were dead in that shopping center. She did that "fish out of water" face and stormed off. I was working 10am to 8pm every night. I deserved a day off, dang it.

I tried to have a sale and found out that if you mark things down people don't buy them. Put them on a table on the sidewalk with a "50% off marked prices" sign and they sell out. So I started trying to move out some older things.

[rose_metal_nz]

Oh, my. I think I'm beyond rage - at your customers, landlord & even your family now. I'm in this tranquility of, um, post-rage. *shakes head* You are a SAINT for what you've put up with/been thru - just in this story alone.

[Kanalah]

Part Twenty Nine

Remember the nice landlord? Yeah he was only nice the first time I met him. When he sent out the rent due letters, there was always a typed letter with it about how his taxes or insurance had gone up, or that he wanted to buy something nice for the shopping center and that he didn't want to raise the rent, but he couldn't afford things/or was going to go hungry, so he had to raise our rent. Every month. At first, when our rent was $900 a month, it was like *shrug* whatever. Once the rent was up to $2500 a month I was like f you, f your family, f your horse. Because we weren't having anywhere near that amount of sales and he was getting really nasty towards us.

He called us "stupid kids" and kept trying to teach us how retail really works. Uhm, you're an ambulance chaser lawyer, not a store owner. We made sure all our bills were paid, even if it meant that we were down to one meal of ramen a day.

After we got all of our things we ordered from the January market and got it all set up - we didn't sell any of it. After all the whining we heard, we didn't sell a single doll.

Now about our other local competition - website guy. He started out selling toys online and then opened a warehouse that was open to the public. Our main problem with him was he would post a very low price on his website and them make up for it in shipping costs. Local people would go to his warehouse, expecting to get the website price, and his prices were higher than ours. But I would have people come in and look around and then ask us to match his website prices. Well of course I couldn't do that and stay in business, his online prices were pennies over wholesale!

Summer was now in full swing and it was 100F outside. Despite the "No Soliciting" and "No Unsupervised children under the age of 16" signs on my door, that's all that was in the store. Solicitors would chat me up about how awesome their stuff was and how they sell to walmart. I kept politely telling them to please get out. And there were kids camping out at the slot car and train tables. They used to ask if they could crash the train, and that was my husband's personal train set. It got to the point that I would remove the controllers and then the kids would get bored after 30 minutes and leave.

I should mention that no one believed that I was the owner. They all thought I was a teenager. It was funny when teenage boys would come in asking for an application and try to flirt with me. A lot of creepy older men would come in and try to talk me up as well and my grandfather would come and check on me and scare them away.

Now this whole time I was having my grandparent's friends coming in and looking at toys. They would spend hours looking over everything in the store and asking hundreds of questions, then thank me and leave. I asked my grandmother about it later and she said her friends just loved that I was so helpful and they knew just what to buy their grandkids at walmart.

At this point we had the landlord screwing us over, the other store owners screwing us over and the customers screwing us over. I loved my store and selling toys, but I was really hating having to come into work. Hubs suggested we go to his family's summer reunion, but we didn't have the money to go. Mom-in-law really missed us and she paid for us to fly out and visit. We closed the store for 2 weeks and took a much needed vacation.

When we came home it was the beginning of the end.

[Seraph]

At first, when our rent was $900 a month, it was like *shrug* whatever. Once the rent was up to $2500 a month I was like f you, f your family, f your horse.

Hooooly cripes, that smacks of being illegal. Seriously.

[Kanalah]

Well there's a clause you can put in your lease that says the landlord can't do that.

But we were newbies and didn't understand about all that stuff until after we signed the lease.

Edit: What, Seraph's not screaming? *checks outside for flying pigs*

[XCashier]

When we came home it was the beginning of the end.

:settles into her comfy desk chair with a big bowl of and patiently waits for the rest of the story:

[Seraph]

Edit: What, Seraph's not screaming? *checks outside for flying pigs*

I am. On the inside.