I'm a natural.

I realized yesterday when I was talking to my friend Caitlin that I forgot to post the story that is the real reason I wanted to start this blog.  A woman that was just so special and dear to me, that I just want everyone to know about her.  Let's call her Mrs. Beige, and I want you to know that this woman is a real gem.  Once again this story takes place in Flta, on a Monday night between the hours of 6-9pm.

An Expensive Trip.

At Flta, I am usually stationed in the fragrance department.  Which is fine by me, because, I'll let you into my warped head right now, I like to pretend that I am like an undercover cop sometimes, searching for thieves.  I have chased one guy out of the store before, but I digress.  So I am in fragrance, which is in the front of the store, so when people come in I usually greet them.  This woman, is dressed head to toe in beige.  Beige suit, beige bag, beige shoes, even her hair was like a mousy blonde similar to beige, so one can only assume that her car is beige and she has an amazing sex life.  Mrs. Beige comes right up to me and says "Can you help me?"  Already I know me and this lady are just not going to get along, for many reasons, her beigeiness is just the tip of the iceberg.  "Yes what do you need help with?"  Mrs. Beige is  flustered to say the least, so I want to get her what she wants, so I can get back to my detective work (the fragrance beat doesn't sleep, well after 9pm it does).  Mrs. Beige goes into her purse and whips out this gross old can of Sally Hansen Mouse Foundation (a real top quality product), and she needs more.  Since I can't really leave my section (darn) I tell her we don't carry that product anymore, but we have Sally Hansen's new mouse foundation, and it's in the aisle with all the nail care.  Mrs. Beige takes off to get to the aisle, but she clips a glass shelf on her way with her lovely beige blazer.  "Oh, are you okay?" I ask, because at this point I am only mildly irritated with her, and I am also really happy she didn't break the shelf, leaving me to clean it up.  "My jacket got caught.  That would have been an expensive trip!" she says, in a very snotty tone.  An expensive trip!?!?  What does that even mean?  An expensive trip to where?  The tailor?  Last I checked getting something fixed at the dry cleaner is like 10bucks.  I know the economy is shitty, but damn Mrs. Beige, I can spot you the 10bones.  

So after she checks her jacket, and realizes it's fine, saving her tons of money apparently, I realize she's a handful and I need to show her where the Sally Hansen is myself.  Now the Sally Hansen aisle is a cluster fuck, and really that's putting it mildly, but since I know we don't carry that product anymore, I show her where the new version is.  But, since it's a Monday night, the night we get our replenishment, there is one color left and it's the deepest shade, and in case you haven't figured it out, Mrs, Beige needed the color beige foundation, I shit you not.  "Well here is the new version of your foundation, I'm sorry, we don't carry that exact one (like I had said before)."  "This isn't foundation.  It's a light base that you put on before your foundation."  No, listen here Beige, it's a foundation.  "Can I see the bottle, because I don't think that I know what that is then."  She handed me the bottle and it says Sally Hansen spray mouse foundation on it.  "It says foundation on the bottle."  "Well it's much lighter than a foundation, and you use it before you're foundation."  Really.  "Don't you have anything comparable to this?  I mean I refuse to believe that this is the only game in town.  What about the competitors?" Really, this shit that she wants is the only game in town, and it's like 4.99.  "Honestly, Sally Hansen is the only brand that makes a mouse foundation.  We do have Cover Girl, and Revlon,  but they wouldn't have anything similar to that.  CVS might have it." (I love saying that to people for whatever reason.)  "Well show me them!"  Deep breath in, and i turn to my right and say "Cover Girl is right here next to us, and Revlon is in the next aisle over."  I begin to walk back to the fragrance, because by now who knows, someone could have walked away with every goddamn bottle because of the time I have spent with Mrs. Beige.  "Well show me Revlon I guess. I'm not going to wear Cover Girl!"  All of the sudden she's a makeup snob.  

We walk over to Revlon, "Here are their foundations, but none of them are mouse... so really I don't think that you would like any of them"  "This is not a foundation!  You don't just slop it on your face like foundation!!"  "I understand that you don't use it as a foundation, but that's what it is. " And Mrs. Beige's meltdown starts in, three, two, one... "I waited 10 minuets for parking for this!  You don't even have its and you are just a smart-ass know it all.  You're right, you're right, I wrong.  You know everything.  I know nothing."  FINALLY! This lady is getting it!  "Ma'am I'm sorry if you think I am trying to be rude, but I don't mean to be..." She cuts me off and says: "Oh no. No. I don't think that you are trying to be rude, being rude just comes naturally to you."

And with that I took one step towards her, but then turned around and headed back to fragrance, because a good undercover detective doesn't lose her cool.  However I will say that telling me being rude comes naturally to me, was an amazing, an amazing thing to say.  I don't think that being rude comes naturally to me, I think it's something that I have acquired over the years, but I will say she really had me pegged when she said I was a smart-ass know it all... I will give her credit for that.  That comes naturally to me.

Why you're rude...

Like many people I work in retail, and have for many years. I also work at a hotel, so I am constantly working with customers and guests. For the most part I genuinely enjoy my jobs. I like the people that I work with, I get a lot of cool discounted/free stuff from both my jobs, so as crappy as it is to work two jobs, I do realize that I am lucky to have both.

However, there are days when I want to quit one, or both jobs. There are days when people that I get paid to treat well, are such ungrateful assholes, and I want to punch them all in the face. After all of these years I do not understand what makes certain people think that they can get away with treating someone so horribly. Why they think everyone who works there needs to bend down and kiss their ass. Why they usually assume that people who work in retail, or are waitress are usually uneducated high school dropouts. It is with this spirit that I am starting this blog. I am starting this blog as a way to share all of my (and yours if you wish to share) stories, and honestly they are all usually pretty funny.

I will begin by posting two recent encounters that I had at my retail job (let's call the place Flta). In case you don't know Flta is a store, for women basically, that sells makeup, shampoo, perfume, ect. Best way to describe it is, imagine if CVS and Sephora had a baby. The baby would be Flta. Both of these stories take place there, during a weekday, between the hours of 9am-3pm.

An Attentive Boyfriend:

A heavy set man came into Flta talking on his cellphone, he asked someone I work with to help him with hair straighteners, while still talking on the phone. My co-worker helped him, and when she was done showing him the straighteners she left him there, so that he could continue his conversation. This guy stays over by the straighteners for about 10 more minuets, and yes he's still on the phone.

I get it, I know that he's buying his girlfriend or whatever a straightener, and that's really sweet. However, if you are in a store and you are asking for help, either ask the person to hold on, or call them back.

On this particular day I was the cashier, so I waited for him at the cashwrap. He picked out a shitty hair straightener, and said to whoever was on the phone "I think it's the one that you have at home. You are going to look so pretty tonight baby". Gross. I ask him if he found everything okay, and he didn't say anything to me, he kept talking on the phone. I realized that this conversation was clearly way more important than anything I had to say to him, so i just continued the transaction silently, only telling him what his total was. While I was ringing him up, an attractive guy in a suit got in line behind him. I handed Mr. Talkie-Talk his bag and smiled goodbye, and the man behind him stepped up to the register.

As I am beginning to ring-up Mr. Suit, Mr. Talkie-Talk opens the door, turns around and says to me "You know, you are very rude. You shouldn't work here. You are too rude to work here. You should be a security guard or something!" I lean over the cashwrap and say "YOU WERE ON YOUR PHONE!" His response, as he wagged his finger at me "You are very rude" and he finally left. Oh, and don't worry, Mr. Talkie-Talk was still on his phone.

This was the first time I had ever, spoken back to a customer. Okay, it's at least the first time I intentionally spoke back to a customer. If you cannot take three minuets away from your conversation to treat me like a human being, then I am not going to talk to you! Shit! I'm doing you a favor! I am going to try and ring you up as quickly as possible so that you can continue this conversation in your car and then get in a car accident. Because let's face it, this conversation is way more important than that oncoming traffic. Plus when cops are questioning you, you'll just have to tell them that you were talking to your girlfriend with self-esteem issues, who's too lazy to go and pick out her hair straightener, that she is beautiful. But in reality, we a know she isn't beautiful, and also 20 bucks, you're cheating on her.

After the verbal throw-down with Mr. Talkie-Talk, Mr. Suit looked at me, confused and just said "What!?!" Exactly, Mr. Suit. Exactly.
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She is stupid.

At Flta we have many, many makeup brands, and I'll be honest, I know shit about like 70% of them. Though there is one brand that I know forwards and backwards, and that's Benefit.

An older woman with a short dyed blonde bob, wearing a light blue matching track suit (hot), came in looking for help. Ms. Bob walks up to me carrying all of this one type of foundation, she asked me to help her find her color, and she says to me "because I usually get it at Bloomies..." (at the point I just want to tell her to go fuck herself). I take the foundations from her and tell her that there is only one color, which was the one that she was looking for. She was glad that I saved her the trip downtown, and I was happy to sell some Benefit, and we walked away from one another. "You know there are two colors of this?" she says to me. "Yes, but we only carry the light one, which is the one that you wanted. So you're good." She walks over to the cashwrap, and I look over and see my GM, who is ringing someone else up, talking to her, and I hear her say the following "Well she gave me the wrong information.." Now there are few things I hate more than people thinking that I am stupid, or that I don't know what I am talking about, especially when I actually do know what I am talking about.

I approached her again, and she showed me her old foundation, and the new one, and said "See this one isn't the same color, you're wrong." I take a deep breath and say "Ma'am it's the right color. See the compact is exactly the same, same codes on it, same logo. Its the one you are looking for." She walks back to the register, and then I notice she leaves very quickly.

I went to talk to my GM, and she informed me that the woman called me "stupid". My GM stood up for me and said, "Ma'am please do not call her stupid, she is not stupid." Ms. Bob said to her "Well she gave me the wrong information so I think she is stupid. It's a free country, I can say what I want." To which my GM replied, "Yes it is a free country, that's why I am telling you she isn't stupid."

They had their little battle, and finally my GM began to ring her up. Ms. Bob wanted to use her coupon, well we had to tell her that you can't use coupons on Benefit, because they are excluded on the coupon. She stormed out. Had Ms. Bob been smart enough to read her coupon in the first place she could have saved her self three trips, the trip to Flta, the trip to Bloomies, and of course the trip that she will be making to hell.
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So that's my first post. I will be posting things that I find worthy of sharing with you, and by all means please e-mail me and I will post them.

Until my next post remember to tell people: no, you're rude.