"In Closing..."

It looks like we need another lesson in How Not to Shop in Cosmetics.

I was taking one of those online surveys the other day—you know, the ones that want feedback on your shopping experience. I took it, just hoping I might be the next “instant winner”. Which, of course, I wasn’t. Surprise, surprise.

Before I continued my cyber-wandering for the day, I skimmed down to the survey’s comment section—and damn if the very first comment on there didn’t get my panties in a bunch. This woman was complaining how the store’s employees shut the lights off five minutes before closing, and asked her to please take her purchases to the register. She went on to say how she hated feeling rushed when she was just trying to pick up a meal for her family.

By the way, did I mention this was at ten o’clock in the evening?

First off, who buys dinner for the family at ten at night? Someone who doesn’t have it altogether, I’d say. And second, she had the whole freaking day to do it!

Now, I know a lot of you out there who work/have worked for a very specific retailer know exactly where I’m headed with this. For those of you who don’t, let me clarify…

When you work for an establishment that refuses to close until the last customer is done shopping—no matter how long that takes—you are going to end up with serious assholes taking advantage of that. And to make sure we are perfectly clear for all the non-retailers out there, when I say ‘refuses to close’…that means every employee in the building must stay for that one single customer. Just in case. And we’re not talking about staying ten or fifteen minutes late. We’re talking anywhere from half an hour to an hour. Wait, wait…let that sink in.

Yeah.

At most of these places, people have 10+ hours to get their shopping done. I’m sorry, but if you can’t manage to get things done before ten or eleven at night, you really need to rework your priorities. Yes, I know sometimes we have emergencies. Sometimes you just have to grab something real quick. That’s not who I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the person who suddenly needs to finish their grocery shopping at closing time. Or the lady who just has to have that new dress—like right now.

Or the lady who needs to pick a new lipstick shade at 9:59PM.

Heaven forbid us retail workers would want to get home sometime today. And how dare we make them feel rushed, right? Yet I’m pretty sure if some person kept them at their job half an hour to an hour past their quitting time, they wouldn’t be at all happy. Not at all. In fact, they’d be pissed.

But you know what’s even worse than the people who don’t take our outside lives into consideration? It’s the ones who do—the ones who know exactly what they’re doing.

There was a couple who would often come into the above mentioned store, at least once or twice a month, at ten minutes to closing. They would walk through fragrance, asking for samples. Never once buying. In reality, the whole purpose to their visit was to pretend to shop as long as they could.

Okay, let me say that one more time.

This couple would come in with the sole purpose of seeing how long it took before the store kicked them out. Talk about fucking with people, right? 

In closing (haha), I would like to say to all the people out there, the ones who never stop to think that maybe the new eyeshadow they want can wait until tomorrow…

…Fine. But don’t ever let us figure out where you work—because we might just call or pop in…right before quitting time.

 

Thanks all! And happy shoppingJ