Frustrated!

I told everyone at work that I would blog about what someone did to me yesterday. I told S about it and he said it didn't sound all that bad, but I guess it is a perspective thing. Anyway here goes.

Here is the phone conversation I had at work.... keep in mind these people call during a really busy time on the busiest shopping day of the year....

 me: "Layton hills Children's Place this is Sarah."

guy: "Hi, do you have any boys size 5 pants?"

me: ".......... um... yes......"

guy: "could you put some on hold for us"

me-:" we have several different types of pants is there a particular kind that you want?"(listing in my mind the whole time the types, fleece, wind, jeans, chinos, chords, and hoping that he doesn't want me to list them for him)

guy:"oh.. yea, jeans"

me-:"oooooo k well we have several different styles of jeans"

(all during this conversation I can hear this guys wife in the back ground telling him what to say)

wife: "tell her to put them on hold"

guy: "Oh just grab a couple of different ones and put them on hold"

me: "ooooo k well we have several different washes too is there a particular kind you would like" (trying not  to show the frustration I am feeling)

wife: "just tell her to grab the most popular ones"

guy: "DO YOU JUST WANT TO TALK TO HER" ( to wife)

wife:"yes"

(at this point I don't just get on with the wife it is like they are both talking on the phone together, I can just picture them holding their heads together so they can both hear and talk on the phone)

wife-:"just pick out some of the most popular ones and put them on hold"

me:"well we are really well stocked in the boys jeans, you shouldn't have trouble finding what you need" (seriously there are at least four pairs of size 5 jeans in each wash and style sitting on the shelves, I guarantee they would not all sell by the end of the day!)

wife: "oh just put some on hold for us, under the name Rachel" 

me: "we really do have a lot out it shouldn't be a problem to find what you need"

wife: "oh no I don't want to sort through them, just put a bunch on hold"

me: "OK but we can only hold until close tonight" (hoping this will be a deterrent)

wife: "that's fine"

both: (in unison) "hold it under Rachel"

at this point I am a little irritated... OK a lot irritated!

So in my head I am thinking fine I will show them I will bombard them with choices and be totally obnoxious. I go over to the jeans and grab one of each color and one of each style in the size 5. This is about 8 pairs of little boy jeans. Navigating the store when it is busy isn't always easy, it is a very small store and when it is packed with people, as it was at the time, it can get frustrating. So I finally make it back to the desk and of course there are customers waiting. I finish ringing customers and get back to the jeans. At this point my co-workers are thinking this is pretty funny, mostly because this has happened to all of us at one point or another. I would probably have been laughing if it was someone else, but since it was me.... I wasn't!

Anyway I grab all the jeans and start stuffing them in a huge bag because there are too many to hang or put in a smaller bag. I am looking for a hold tag when the phone rings. My co-worker answers it, because I am helping customers again, and I vaguely remember her telling someone that, no we only sell the slims online. She gets off the phone and says to me, "is that the hold for the lady on the phone?". I glare at her and slowly tell her, yes. "Well she doesn't want them anymore, she wants the slims" She says all this with a huge grin on her face. At that point I have to  make a decision. Do I let my head explode and make a mess all over the store, or do I just let it go. I think I came in somewhere in between. I made my way into the back, after helping a few more customers, and proceeded to tell my manager who was in the back all about it. I guess I was pretty animated because she was laughing. Maybe that was for the best because it made me laugh too. 

The whole thing bothered me for a couple of reasons. 

First: I HATE BEING THE GO BETWEEN, and I hate being one of the people talking to the go between. One person I know does that I  absolutely hate it!!! 

Second: I am not a personal shopper! That is not my job! I work a lowly retail job making almost nothing and I do not deserve to have to do this for people. I realize that this is the job of my choice, but good grief someone has to do it, we can't all be rocket scientists.

 Plus how hard it is to just come into a store and look on the shelves for what you need, especially after I told them that there were plenty there. Part of the problem is that people frequently don't believe that we actually know what we are talking about, because after all we are just lowly retail workers! 

I guess now that I put it down in print it doesn't sound all that bad either, maybe you just had to be there.