Tag Archives: #Weirdness

25Nov/17
apron hanging on wheel

Weird Things I Saw At Work…Part 3

believe me its never ending….

apron hanging on wheel

and I wasn’t even in the store yet…

It is really a constant source of amusement or amazement(not sure if that’s a word) working in retail. At least where I work. People have said I should just do a weekly column about this but I don’t want you to get bored with it so I will do one every now and then…especially when I have a bunch of good ones to tell you. Here are some from the past week.

1. The apron in the picture – not sure if the person said, “the hell with this job” and hung it there as they left…or they just wanted to air it out. Believe me when I say I am grateful I work in the perfume department as a lot of people walking by really need it!

2. Man who was a little confused – a very strange man came up to the counter and asked how much the perfume was that was sitting there. He wanted to know much the bottle was by itself and how much the set was…I told him the prices. My co worker walked up and he asked her the very same question. She told him what I had just told him. He then looks at both of us and says..”Oh, ok…I need to go I’m a little high.” and off he goes. Leaving the two of us standing there looking at each other like did this really just happen?? And yes…yes it did!

3. Girl on phone – now this is not different or strange in that someone was on the phone while shopping and asking questions while trying to talk to me about perfume…this happens all the time. Sometimes I will ignore them and they look at me and say “excuse me I was asking you a question”…to which I give my standard reply…”Oh, I’m sorry I thought you were talking to the person on the phone and I was waiting until you were finished”….However in this instance what was different and strange was that she was on 2 phones at the same time…. she was texting on one and talking on the other one. I can barely talk or text on mine while shopping and she was doing all three at the same time. Is this what is known as amiphonedexterous…I just made this word up…but it should definitely be a word.

4. Question at the Clinique counter – my coworker at the Clinique counter told me this one…(my friends there now know I write about these things and give me some of their favorites to use) a customer asked her if she bought the Clinique foundation could she get the Lancome free gift???? What?

5. What happened at Starbucks? – Now I know this didn’t happen in my store but it was right outside the door at Starbucks so I can count it. I need a break every so often and go get a cup of coffee… a woman in front of me bought $37 worth of Starbucks for her and her 3 children….really?? and they were little kids…do they really know the difference between a drink at McDonalds and Starbucks…

“When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.” ~ Steven Wright

6. Strange woman – I’ve had a lot of weird people come by the perfume counter in my almost 15 years in the business….but this one was one of the weirdest. A woman walks up and is staring at the perfume in front of her. I asked if I could help her find a perfume…she responds to my question by picking up the bottle in front of her and sprays it up her crotch… then she slams it back down on the counter, looks at me with a very mean scary look and walks away. Alrighty then….

7. Weird cosmetic question – I’d like to return this $4 eyebrow sharpener…where do I go….loaded question…I said I really don’t know…I don’t work here…

8. Man looking for a particular fragrance but didn’t know the name – This happens a lot…people come up and say I don’t know the name but I know the bottle if I see it…so the guy says this to me and says I will just walk around and look for it. He comes running back up to me all excited and says, “I found it!” I said oh good, do you want it…to which he replies…”no, but I found it.” I know I always have the same look on my face when these things happen and a co worker will come over and ask…”what now?”

9. Channel 5 – people are always asking for Channel…it is very popular and all the ads on tv make it even more popular…the thing that gets me even with all the advertising is people still continue to call it…Channel 5 or just where is the Channel…I always say which Channel do you want…just to be a smart ass…but of course they don’t get it…it just gives me a tiny bit of  pleasure to say it…

10. Coconut Chanel – while we are on the Chanel channel….this happened yesterday. A customer asked for Coconut Chanel instead of Coco Chanel…sorry if you don’t think its funny….but for us who work retail….you get your laughs where you can in our world…

By the way all the computers were down in our world for most of the afternoon yesterday and we couldn’t accept credit cards…not even the store credit card…people had to pay cash….CASH! Do you even know what kind of commotion this caused and how many sales we lost? Who carries cash? Evidently not many people…

Well I must go back in there again so I have to go get ready…. here is my question for you…Have you ever worked retail…and what was the funniest or stupidest thing that you ever had happen?  And please…wish me luck today…

“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” ~ Yogi Berra

 

 

06Sep/17
searching

Weird Things I Saw At Work Last Week!

and this was just one week people….ONE!

searching

did you see that?

I haven’t felt much like writing lately. I have things I want to write about but some how I’m just not feeling it. I can honestly say this is the first time in over my 2 years of writing here on my little blog that I don’t feel like writing. There is so much going on around us right now in the world…hatred, fires, floods and so much more…that it is so hard to write something that is meaningful or uplifting. I thought about it a bit more and then I just decided on “silly.” I see so many weird things everyday while at the mall and working in the store that there are tons to choose from. Here are just a few things I saw last week. Enjoy! Hope I can make you smile. 🙂

1. Man with a Q Tip – A man was slowly walking around the cosmetic counter with his wife..looking at everything on it for quite awhile. I finally saw him reach in one of the containers and pull out a Q Tip…I thought to myself..oh no, he isn’t even..but yes, yes he did. Right in the middle of the cosmetic section he put the thing in his ear and began to wiggle it around. Then pulled the offending object out and stared at it. I had to look away so I don’t know what he did with it. And I really didn’t want to know.

2. The Stroller –  A lady with a child in a stroller, one of the mall owned strollers came by by counter and stood there for a while looking and smelling the various fragrances we have. I looked down at the child and on the back of the stroller was a bag attached there for the customers to put their purchases in. That was fine, what was weird was the sentence written in large letters on that bag. “Please don’t put your child in this bag.” Really, it has come to this…a mother doesn’t know not to put her child in this small bag on the back of a stroller..

3. Toilet Paper Roll – As I was walking around the store one day last week I spied something laying in the middle of the aisle. As I got closer I could see it was a roll of toilet paper. This made me think…did someone need this so badly they took it from the bathroom, used it and then discarded it out there on the floor? Or did they bring it from home and do the same? Neither of these choices seem like good ones to me.

4. Couples on the escalator –  I see this happening all the time not just this week. a couple is going up or down the escalator together and they start making out. I mean really making out. Please tell me what is so exciting about riding the escalator that it turns you on and you need to make out right there in front of everyone else riding it. I ride up and down the darn thing all the time and it doesn’t do jack for me!

5. People wearing weird stuff – I have see some weird clothing styles and people wearing things they really shouldn’t forever..but recently it seems to have gotten so much worse. I don’t even know where these people are finding the things they wear! Weirdos R Us maybe?

6. Kids on the escalator – I see this all the time too! Kids running up and down the wrong way on the escalator. Little kids, like 4 year olds. They fall and get back up and do it again. No parents in sight of course. I can’t stand to watch it so I turn and walk away. Why don’t I say something you ask? Well I used to…that is until once a little one about 4 or 5 was doing this and I said, “please stop doing that you might get hurt”..the Mother heard me and finally ran over and screamed at me to stop yelling at her child. I told her I didn’t want to see her child get hurt and that in fact I wasn’t yelling. She stared at me, pulled the child off the escalator and stormed away.

7. Men Spraying Women’s Perfume – this wouldn’t be weird except for the fact they aren’t spraying it on a card so they can smell it, they are spraying it all over themselves. I casually tell them this is women’s perfume…to which they reply..yes, I know. I often wonder what the wife says when they get home….

8. Kids Skateboarding –  In the store. This is a department store I am talking about. It is bad enough people come through with their ice cream cones and whatever else they may be eating and put their dirty hands all over the clothing…but kids skateboarding through the store. Thank heavens that the “sneakers with the rollers” thing has passed because that was really annoying…so is skateboarding,

9. Woman Wearing a Tent – I’m not talking about a big dress or moo moo type dress as we used to call them, I am talking about an actual tent. She had a white tent on, as a dress. I mean maybe I missed the memo about the newest and greatest style ever…tent dresses… but I didn’t see or hear about this one. It may have it’s benefits due to the fact you can go camping immediately after shopping. Also, I really wish I could take pictures of these things, but I’m afraid I will be caught and then screamed at by someone. You can’t make this stuff up. Really, you can’t!

10. A Cat – I have discussed the whole “service dog” thing here before, I believe people need them and they are worthwhile. Is a Chihuahua a service dog, I don’t think so but that isn’t why we came here… I was working the other day, everything kinda quiet and then all of the sudden I heard my coworker scream. I looked over at her and she says…loudly I might add…”Cat”..I see a woman carrying her cat through the store. She was not happy that my co worker screamed and gently hugged her cat and walked away. I thought that was the end of it and that we must now have an Animal Hospital in the mall. But no, she kept walking around with this cat in her arms. and continued to walk by my poor coworker who is deathly scared of cats. So each time she did, my coworker screamed and the woman stared. Thankfully the event did not go on for too much longer and the woman and her “service cat” left the building. Again, you can’t make this stuff up!

There you have it, my “weird things I saw” list from last week. What is the weirdest thing you ever saw at work? I will be keeping track of these things and report back should there continue to be more weirdness…and I’m sure there will be.

“If you just go with the flow, no matter what weird things happen along the way, you will always end up exactly where you belong.” ~ Tom Upton