I think today may may may have been my last day at the store in the mall, and while I was there I couldn't help but think of this strange skill set I have developed that hopefully I will never need to use again... such as:
1. The ability to be able to fold almost any item of clothing into a teensy teensy tiny perfect square, without even using the stupid folding boards (yes Im that good, 10 years of retail will do that to you) While some of you may be thinking I could use this skill in my own house and save loads of space in my drawers, closets etc. please see the 10 year part above, NEVER AGAIN in fact it kinda makes me want to empty all my drawers onto my bedroom floor and play in the clothes like kids play in piles of leaves, ahhh the chaos and messiness of it all, I LOVE IT!
2. The ability to totally lie to a person about how something looks on them- I know you're thinking Im awful and Im talking about selling you something that looks truly awful on you but really most of the time it's just trying to find a nice way to tell you not to buy it, like while that fits you really well Im not sure that pink complements your skin color why don't you try this blue shirt as opposed to wow I never knew a human could so closely resemble a flamingo
3. Biting my tongue at repeat returners- perhaps the biting my tongue think will come in handy when I have kids but as for retail, really people TRY THINGS ON unless you shop here all the time and I mean like every week, stuff changes, things fit differently and rarely are you ALWAYS a size 10, also when your favorite store is closing in 3 months and your whining to me and asking me why we are closing, WELL its because you just bought $400 of clothes online and just returned them all at our store (pssst that affects our sales)
4. Add ons- This one isn't so much a knowledge but all those annoying greeting, add on sale things we have to hit you with, like hey you can save 10% if you open a ____ credit card today, yup you would save $2.00 on that sale sweater and it will affect your credit score forever, sounds like a stellar deal huh, sign here please, or if you just spend $28 more dollars I can give you this excellent coupon that you can't use for 3 weeks and will probably lose or forget about but come on please please please buy that shirt over there so I can get rid of these coupons and be able to stop asking you this!!
5. Store Set/Back Stock- The mental map of where things are in the store, where they are in the back room and all the little techniques I can use to convince you we really don't have it in back, while some people just flat out lie and say no we don't have that, I usually go look for things because then I get to sneak off to the peaceful back room and take a sip of latte before I can come out and sorrowfully tell you that no we do not have that in a size 10, there is a chance we could get it in next week and that you could try back then because hope always seems to get you to leave me alone, people like hope, and I have found that if you don't go to the back and check for it people don't believe you when you say no I'm sorry we don't have that in back or we are all out of XL's since we only usually get like 2 in but people automatically presume your lying I swear its like people think our 1400 square foot store has a backroom the size of Walmart and how on earth could we ever ever be out of anything in anyones size, sometimes we only get things in 1 of each size and then because we are greedy greedy associates we buy half those for ourselves, its our reward for dealing grouchy customers so when I say we don't have a small I know because I bought it yesterday so go buy it online so you can return it in the store like you always do
Ahhh farewell retail, how I will miss you not!!!
