by Freeman Hall
DON’T throw a freaky merchandise-throwing tantrum and expect a store to magically recognize you and the merchandise even though you’ve lost all your receipts. You might get your refund after your diva-like meltdown, but be warned. Someone in line behind you may have captured the moment on her iPhone. Yes, your shopping shit-storm could end up on YouTube.
DO be a Conscientious Shopper. Put merchandise back where it belongs so the next customer can find it, be careful about shopping with food, and ask for assistance if you want to see what’s inside an item.
DON’T be a Piggy Shopper, with a taco in one hand and a slushy in the other, dumping stuff where it doesn’t belong, throwing clothes on the floor, tearing open packages, and basically ruining merchandise like you are a descendant of King Kong.
DO exhibit good fitting room etiquette, which includes returning clothes to the attendant hanging or folded properly. These actions help the merchandise reach the floor quicker.
DON’T be a Piggy Shopper and dump clothes in a pile like they’re dirty laundry, hang them inside out, leave behind dirty diapers and bloody tampons, or treat the fitting room like it’s your own personal food court, motel, or toilet.
DO read merchandise signs and tags. Ask the sales associate to explain discounts and markdowns that are confusing to you. Shopping illiteracy is at an all-time high and is the cause of MAJOR Retail Hell for slaves and customers alike.
DON’T be an annoying Discount Rat and ask for discounts when there are clearly none offered. Unless the store is closing down for good, the ENTIRE store is never on sale, so don’t bother asking.
DO have your form of payment ready when it comes time to pay. It will make the line move faster and you’ll get on your way faster!
DON’T wait till the salesperson is staring at you to retrieve your credit card, which is buried at the bottom of your handbag like an Indiana Jones lost treasure.
DO rush into a store right before closing, grab what you need, and be at the register when the closing announcement is made.
DON’T continue shopping after that announcement, demand a makeover, and expect personalized attention for as long as you desire. You are interfering with sales associates’ lives because they are now forced to change their plans due to your indecision and rudeness. As a result, you’ll receive rushed, bad service. And guess what? You’re an inconsiderate ass who deserves it!
Retail Hell Readers’ Discussion Guide
1. At the beginning of Act 1, a greasy hobbit-like customer demands to return a beat-up Ferragamo handbag with her dirty bra inside.
If you work in retail, what’s the worst return you’ve ever experienced? Have you ever tried to return something to a store you know you had no business trying to return?
2. As I train to become a sales associate at The Big Fancy, I am forced to climb eight flights of stairs every day, attend migraine-inducing pep rallies, and follow the insane direction of a store manager who acts like a psychotic Snow White on acid.
What kind of annoying procedures have you had to endure at your job? How do you handle a high-strung boss who should be taking meds? What rules at your workplace do you think are ridiculous?
3. When I was hired by The Big Fancy to sell handbags, I didn’t know the difference from a mock-croc hobo or a lambskin clutch and I quickly learned to never use the p-word!
What kind of handbag do you carry? If money was no object, what bag would you buy? What a woman keeps in her handbag says a lot about her personality — what’s inside your handbag?
4. In Act 2, readers meet the boisterous and foul-mouthed Lorraine Goldberg, who quickly becomes my own personal Shoposaurus on steroids with an insatiable appetite to buy everything in sight and stock up as if the world is about to end in ten minutes.
If you work in retail, do you have an over-the-top customer like Lorraine? Are you a Shoposaurus? Do you buy stuff you don’t need and consider yourself a future candidate for the TV show Hoarders?
5. It doesn’t matter whether you work in a shoe store, a fast food restaurant, or at the library, the ways people can cause Retail Hell are universal. A few of the customers I tell hellacious tales about are Piggy Shoppers, Discount Rats, Picky Bitches, and Nasty-Ass Thieves.
What customer archetypes have you had to deal with? How did you handle them? Would you ever compare yourself to one of them?
6. Act 3 opens on one of Big Fancy’s sales events with the familiar scene of two women feuding over the last fugly sale bag. We all love to get shit on sale, but let’s face it: Sales are not only brutal to work, they can also be brutal to shop.
What do you hate most about working or shopping a big sale? Have you ever fought another customer for the last one? Do you have a haggling story, either as a sales associate or customer?
7. Unruly children (aka Hell Spawn) are one of the worst nightmares sales associates face. Although the story of a child humping my leg like a poodle in heat was the scariest experience I’ve ever had, I’ve witnessed all kinds of demon behavior from little monsters.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen a Hell Spawn do? Is it okay for a sales associate to use a disciplinary tone when stopping a child from doing something dangerous or destructive? Have your kids ever done anything in a store that embarrassed you? How did you react?
8. When Retail Hell rears its ugly head, both Retail Slaves and customers can suffer the drama.
When things go to hell in your store, how do you get through it? If you’re a customer experiencing Retail Hell, are you patient or do you freak out? What was your worst experience waiting on someone? What was your worst experience as a customer? Most important, do you believe in Retail Heaven?
Free Bonus eBook Content: Customers Behaving Badly!
The Tomb of Wretched Returns
“I’d like to return,” said a short woman with gray-blond pixie hair and Harry Potter glasses.
I opened a wrinkly plastic grocery-store bag and took out an old $100 navy shoulder-style bag with a name brand I’d never heard of and a cheap $45 evening bag. Never used, they had Big Fancy price tags still attached.
From fifteen years ago.
“Ma’am, these bags are fifteen years old,” I said, after reading the ticket information.
“My aunt died and I’m cleaning out her closet,” she replied, “She shopped here a lot.”
That must be what killed her.
The woman with Harry Potter glasses saw the look of shock on my face, but did not seem to care. In her mind it was perfectly reasonable to be returning her dead aunt’s handbags from fifteen years ago.
“They are so old,” I replied, “We can’t resell them. Wouldn’t you like to give these to a charity?”
“Why would I do that when I can get my money back?” she replied.
I guess she was right. But for me, the really scary thing about this return was that Marsha had sold the bags to the dead woman.
And now Marsha’s commission from fifteen years ago was going to be taken back.
Marsha flipped out in High Definition 3-D when she found out. She stormed HR and confronted Two-Tone Tammy about the injustice, but Tammy went into Fire Breathing Dragon voice and said, “You know the rules about returns Marsha, there’s no grace period. You knew that when you started working here.”
At The Big Fancy there is no greater Retail Hell than a return. The handbag can be as old as Jesus or as beat up as the loser of an Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match, and it doesn’t matter. Once the return transaction registered in the great computer database of numbers, The Big Fancy felt our commissions should be returned as well. No protective laws for salespeople, no rules for customers, no loopholes, no gray areas, no nothing.
Welcome to the Tomb of Wretched Returns. A free-for-all zone where customers returned whatever they wanted—all at the expense of Queer Eye Handbag Guy.
Rent-a-Bags R Us
One of the biggest problems in The Handbag Jungle is the constant buying, using, and then returning. We ca
lled them Rent-a-Bags. Handbags go out for all kinds of occasions and then roll back in a short time later. If only they could talk!
You should have seen what that woman did to the hotel room last night!
The customers who rent bags will stop at nothing to get them returned, lying out their asses. I had a chick once who wanted to return a $200 rhinestone evening bag. When I opened it, the insides were smeared with lipstick and glitter.
“You said you never used this,” I said, “There are make-up stains.”
“Not at all,” she replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t see any stains.”
Then I pulled out two concert-ticket stubs.
“How was Bon Jovi?”
“What? I was just trying my stuff in there. Those are old.”
The concert was the night before.
I Bought It That Way
A man in a suit came up to The Counter, took a red Ferragamo box out of a shopping bag and said: “I need to return this handbag and I’m not very happy.”
“Okay, sir. No problem.”
I opened the red box, pulled down the handbag cover, and saw a red $800 satchel with a huge purplish splatter mark on the front.
No, it was not part of the design.
Yes, it looked like a paintball hit.
“As you can see, it’s stained,” he said, “The girl didn’t check the box before she put it in my bag. I’m very upset she gave me a used bag. What kind of place is this? I want my account credited.”
He then threw his card at me.
There were two problems here.
1. Queer Eye Handbag Guy was the person who sold the red Ferragamo bag.
2. It was a woman who bought it. And she was a total nightmare Picky Bitch and inspected it with a mini magnifying glass to make sure it had been untouched by human hands. The Ferragamo was from back stock, brand new, still in its box, and in mint condition.
She also informed me it was for a high brow winemaker’s dinner they were going to.
The a-hole was busted.
I gave him the news and my CSI conclusion of what occurred.
For about thirty seconds he looked like he was going to run.
Then he went back to his douchebaggy demeanor and said:
“Whatever. I don’t care. It’s none of your business. I have a meeting in ten minutes. If you’re not going to return it, I’ll just go to Customer Service.”
Not even an apology. Major Denial Balls.
Boiling with rage, I did his return, throwing his card back at him and not saying a word.
His good time at a winemaker’s dinner cost me $54.
And I didn’t even get a class of Chardonnay. Bitch.
Jet Set Bag
I was in the process of returning a Dooney and Bourke Tote.
As I was scanning the ticket at the register, in the front pocket I found two boarding passes for a flight to the Philippines. So I turned to the lady and said, “Did you have a good time in the Philippines?”
She looked at me like she just shit her pants. A Psychic salesman?
“How did you know I went to the Philippines?” she said half laugh, half freaking out.
I held up the boarding passes.
“It rained the whole time,” she said.
I could relate as I did the return.
Not So Perfect
I had spent nearly an hour helping a woman find the perfect bag, which happened to be a $700 Isabella Fiore turquoise hobo. It was everything she ever wanted. The color she dreamed, the size, the comfort, the fashionable look, the multitude of pockets, and although it was expensive it was less than she had planned on paying for a designer bag. She left The Big Fancy floating on cloud nine.
The next day she showed up at the counter wanting to return it.
“I thought you loved everything about his bag,” I said, clearly disappointed I was about to lose my commission and get paid nothing for dancing her around the handbag department the day before.
“Oh, I do!” she replied, “It’s my dream bag! It’s perfect.”
“Then why are you returning?”
“My husband didn’t like it.”
It Didn’t Wear Well
“I haven’t had this bag for long. It’s wearing very badly,” said a Piggy customer.
She wanted to return a thrashed Allure Satchel named Pam that looked like it had seen intense fighting on a galactic cruiser in the Alpha Omega Quadrant.
The once luscious, exotic fabric handbag had been completely desecrated by tears, cuts, water spots, and food stains. Several skid marks were noticeable and the Allure label on the front had been so blackened, the name was hardly visible.
Pam looked like she was ready for an Intensive Care Unit.
Piggy held up her crippled, old bag.
“You think this looks bad? Let me show you the inside.”
Please don’t, I beg of you. I’m not protected!
Before I could tell her it wasn’t necessary, Piggy pulled back the flap opening and thrust her nasty handbag in my face.
The insides were a toxic waste dump.
At one time, Pam bag had a luxurious, silky-soft pink lining.
Now it was smeared with black, brown, green, and red grime, and a smoky-sweet, musty-mildew scent wafted up into my face.
I had to swallow my desire to vomit.
Piggy roughly reached her hand in and yanked at the foul threadbare fabric while saying, “The lining is tearing everywhere and I’m constantly losing things!”
Oh my god, she touched it! Her hand just touched the grime!
Next, she fondled the inside zipper pocket, which was so stretched out, it looked like a grapefruit had been stuffed inside. “And look at this!” she said, her index finger hooking the pocket, “The zipper has broken! I don’t even know where the zipper piece thing is.”
“I can see that,” I responded, backing away from the counter.
“It didn’t wear well,” she said followed by a piggy-like grunt.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard a customer say this, I would be driving a Bentley.
Whenever they said, “It didn’t wear well,” what I actually heard was:
“I used this and I don’t want it anymore. Give me back my money.”
I told her what I always tell the Didn’t Wear Well Customer: “It’s just normal wear and tear. Over time, things get old.”
“You call that normal wear and tear?” Piggy whined, “I paid almost $300 for it. The bag should not have worn like that.”
“I think you overstuffed the bag,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Handbags tend to wear out fast when you overload them. The sides are splitting and that inside zipper broke because it was overloaded and couldn’t handle the weight.”
This is what killed Pam; the undeniable truth. She not designed for starship voyages and intergalactic battle on the arm of a Piggy Shopper.
“I don’t carry that much in my bag,” she said.
Pam looked like she had been forced to lug boulders up a pyramid.
“I’m just saying a lot of stress will make a handbag wear out faster.”
Piggy frowned, wrinkling her nose.
“Stress has nothing to do with it,” she snapped at me, “It’s poor quality and I’m never buying another Allure handbag again, that’s for sure,” said Piggy as I had her sign the register receipt, authorizing the return.
“Yes, I totally agree.” I replied, “Probably not a good idea since they don’t wear well for you.”
It Didn’t Wear Well 2—The Sequel
“So what are going to do with my bag?” Piggy asked.
“Obviously, we can’t resell it so we we’ll damage it out,” I said.
“What does damage it out mean?”
“I think they destroy it.”
Piggy looked so forlorn you’d have thought I was talking about euthanizing her pet.
“Oh really? That’s sad. Instead of destroying it
, can’t you just give it back to me? I’ve been through a lot with it. Sentimental reasons, you know.”
One of the most stunning things an irresponsible customer has ever said to me.
Give me back my money and let me keep the handbag I just trashed!
I laughed right in her face and said:
“I wish I could do that with my car.”
No Longer Needed
“I want to return this,” said a young woman, handing me a white $300 Rodo evening bag, “I bought it for my wedding dress and I won’t be needing it anymore.”
What are you, the runaway bride?
“So your wedding was cancelled?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she replied, “It was beautiful. We had it in Hawaii. I just won’t be needing it anymore.”
Another Rent-a-Bag.
So jealous. I needed a Hawaiian vacation.
Forever
“I want to return this,” said a woman handing me a Perlina Shoulder Bag that was so beat up it looked like it had been caught in a car door and dragged through rush-hour traffic down the San Diego Freeway.
“Wow, this bag has been through a lot,” I replied.
“Nothing it shouldn’t have been able to handle,” the woman said, “It’s not holding up. The lady who sold it to me said it had a lifetime warranty.”
I looked on the receipt and saw that Queer Handbag Guy had sold it to her.
“Ma’am, I sold this bag to you and I’ve never told anyone that. There is no such thing as a lifetime warranty.”
She completely ignored the fact that she had just lied to me and said, “Well there should be! I paid good money for that bag. It should last forever!
