A Simple Question

Long ago I accepted the fact that working in the hospitality/retail industry means dealing with strange and unexpected customer service issues that will test the patience of the most even-tempered people. As a generally impatient and often judgemental person, I may not seem like the ideal fit for such jobs; however, I appear to possess the power to hide these traits just long enough to deal with the issue at hand.

Monday was a P.A. Day, which meant a lot of teenagers were unceremoniously unleashed on the town. A group of these teens came into the store I work at and began aimlessly wandering through the racks. I was going about my business behind the cash desk when a girl showed up in front of me, having broken away from her posse. I smiled and asked her how I could help. She quickly glanced around the store and replied, "Ummm, could you do me a huge favour?" I was taken aback by her casual request and foolishly thought perhaps she wanted to purchase something on the sly as a gift for another member of her group. As she shiftily looked around again, I realized my mistake and hesitantly said, "Sure." Our conversation proceeded as such:

Teen: "Okay, so this is going to sound reeeeeally terrible..."
Me: starting to worry while maintaining a neutral facial expression
Teen: "I need to make my boyfriend jealous, so do you have any really cute guys working right now?"
Me: fighting my eyebrows as they quiver with the urge to turn up into a condescending peak - I point to one of my colleagues who's helping a customer nearby "Well...he's actually the only guy working today."
Teen: looks at my colleague and turns back to me with a look of dissatisfaction and dejection "I am sooooo screwed."
Me: mouth slightly gaping while I try to think of what the appropriate response is - the teen turns to leave in a huff, then suddenly turns back to me
Teen: "Where's your rugby stuff?"

The joke was totally on her because we didn't have any rugby stuff.

I wanted to share this gem with all of you so that (a) You could hopefully have a bit of a chuckle, and (b) I could pose this very simple, but very serious question: What is wrong with people?

2 comments:

Andrea said...

Haha, I can definitely relate to that first paragraph, specifically the last sentence.

Polly said...

Whatis wrong with people? Well, your shopper of course suffers from "teen" mental illness. The rest of them are just not as smart and awesome as us. And yes, I did get a chuckle from this blog.

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