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So, I don't post often, but I recently had the customer equivalent to seeing an elf ride a hippogriff in the middle of the mall, or something equally unlikely to be seen by us mere muggles (although I swear that owl just got horribly horribly lost when they were coming to deliver my letter from Hogwarts).
Background: I work in the men's department of a high end department store and for some reason everything is folded on tables. This is fine for most of the year since a lot of guys don't shop there unless they're with their wives/girlfriends/mothers/sisters/friends, thus leaving the tables mostly intact. Come the holiday time, however, and our department looks like a bomb has hit it. It's horrible. You can easily fold the same table once every five minutes until closing and still have it look a mess the next day come opening. The avalanche of stuff piled on the register from holds, put backs, and emptying the fitting rooms is ridiculous.
The worst areas for this are Calvin Klein, which is right next to the in store escalators, and the store's exclusive line, which is right in front of the entrance to the rest of the mall. Those areas are impossible to keep clean as customers will mess them up as you're there trying to put it together. (End Background)
So after a long season of folding and being hounded for coupons it's finally December 23rd. Dead on my feet and tired of folding a table only to have someone walk over and mess it up again right in front of me I go over to the register to ring for a while and switch off with one of the seasonal people. After awhile I get an older lady and her friend who want to get a Polo sweater with the coupon and the extra discount we happen to be offering with the store card. Unfortunately none of our coupons or the extra discounts work with Polo, (Blame Ralph Lauren, it's written into the contract with our store) so I prepare to get yelled at (because I have soooo much power over discounts
) but she surprisingly says "Well, nevermind. Spending $75 on a sweater is out of my budget and I'm tired, so I'll just get him something else some other time." So I convince her to stay a little longer and take her to check out some of the other sweaters we have that are similar but cheaper.
As we reach the dreaded Calvin Klein section that is always a mess I show her sweaters that she might like and, out of habit, start to refold the table a little. She reaches for a sweater and holds it up to inspect it and I sigh inwardly a little, thinking she's just going to put it down into a crumpled mess like everyone else has been. That's when my own personal little Christmas miracle happened: She folded it back up!!!
And not in the "I'm attempting to fold it, but really it still looks like a mess" sort of way you see once in a while. That customer put it back exactly the way she found it in pristine folding condition that would make Martha Stewart whistle in surprise.
After thanking her profusely she ended up finding a sweater that she liked better than the Polo that was already on sale and took both the coupon and the extra discount. When she left she wished me a good night and left smiling and I gained a little faith in humanity once more.
Background: I work in the men's department of a high end department store and for some reason everything is folded on tables. This is fine for most of the year since a lot of guys don't shop there unless they're with their wives/girlfriends/mothers/sisters/friends, thus leaving the tables mostly intact. Come the holiday time, however, and our department looks like a bomb has hit it. It's horrible. You can easily fold the same table once every five minutes until closing and still have it look a mess the next day come opening. The avalanche of stuff piled on the register from holds, put backs, and emptying the fitting rooms is ridiculous.
The worst areas for this are Calvin Klein, which is right next to the in store escalators, and the store's exclusive line, which is right in front of the entrance to the rest of the mall. Those areas are impossible to keep clean as customers will mess them up as you're there trying to put it together. (End Background)
So after a long season of folding and being hounded for coupons it's finally December 23rd. Dead on my feet and tired of folding a table only to have someone walk over and mess it up again right in front of me I go over to the register to ring for a while and switch off with one of the seasonal people. After awhile I get an older lady and her friend who want to get a Polo sweater with the coupon and the extra discount we happen to be offering with the store card. Unfortunately none of our coupons or the extra discounts work with Polo, (Blame Ralph Lauren, it's written into the contract with our store) so I prepare to get yelled at (because I have soooo much power over discounts
) but she surprisingly says "Well, nevermind. Spending $75 on a sweater is out of my budget and I'm tired, so I'll just get him something else some other time." So I convince her to stay a little longer and take her to check out some of the other sweaters we have that are similar but cheaper. As we reach the dreaded Calvin Klein section that is always a mess I show her sweaters that she might like and, out of habit, start to refold the table a little. She reaches for a sweater and holds it up to inspect it and I sigh inwardly a little, thinking she's just going to put it down into a crumpled mess like everyone else has been. That's when my own personal little Christmas miracle happened: She folded it back up!!!
And not in the "I'm attempting to fold it, but really it still looks like a mess" sort of way you see once in a while. That customer put it back exactly the way she found it in pristine folding condition that would make Martha Stewart whistle in surprise.
After thanking her profusely she ended up finding a sweater that she liked better than the Polo that was already on sale and took both the coupon and the extra discount. When she left she wished me a good night and left smiling and I gained a little faith in humanity once more.
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