A mundanely weird day of work

[gordonzola]

Anyone who works retail can tell you that some days are filled with crazy customers for no particular reason. And it’s not just that some days feel that way. Conferring on our lunch or dinner breaks we talk to each other. "It’s one of those days," someone will say. Then the room fills with personal testimony of the absurd, inappropriate and bewildering along with speculation to the cause of it all. "Why today?"

Thursday wasn’t one of those days. It didn’t make for great stories. But there was a vibe. Everyone was just mundanely crazy, doing weird things that fail amusing description. Doing things that I know were off when I saw them, but upon re-telling don’t seem to translate to others the full weight of retail-worker oppression. It almost proves my point from my retailers are the new social workers entry because these are the type of incidents that are so common-place that we forget almost as they happen. An example:

I’m wrapping cheese behind the counter. A man walks by quickly then sees me, and comes back. "Any cheese samples?"

"Yeah, hold on a second, I’ve got some right here. It’s the cheese on the table out there." The store’s just opened so I don’t have anything unwrapped yet. I start opening a cheese that will be on our sample table later that day.

"Don’t touch it!" he says loudly. I can feel the buttons start to be pressed.

"Don’t worry, I’m not touching it with my hands," I say, wary of Customer being a germ-phobe. My hands are clean and legally sanctioned by the State of California to handle cheese, but I’m trying to placate. I put a sample-sized piece on the little paddle we use so the customers can reach the cheese piece while we remain behind the counter.

"What kind of cheese is it?"

I hand him the sample and start to respond, "Here ya go, it’s …" Customer throws up his arms in anger.

"I didn’t ask you for a sample! I asked what kind of cheese it is. That’s not the way it works. No. No. no."

I look at him and wait for him to stop. When he does, I say, "Well, I was just about to tell you what cheese it was…"

"No. No. No," he says again. "You’re playing me."

"What-ev-er." I reply, mustering all my teenage snarliness that remains. "I think you’re playing me. And I’ve had enough. See ya." I turn my back on him. He keeps talking. I keep ignoring. He hangs around for awhile and gives up.

After he leaves, I try to do a little inventory of the situation. My retail instincts had told me to shut this guy up and get rid of him quickly. Did I cop an attitude first? Did I do something unconscious that made this Black man think I was racist thereby bringing on the weird reaction? Was there any way I could have handled the situation differently? My answer was no to all the above.

Just then, my co-worker Insane-a came over to buy cheese for her lunch. I told her what happened and she knew who I was talking about. "I had to get him kicked out of the store last week because kept saying "I didn’t asked you where the olive oil was, I asked you if you had any! And then he started calling (another co-worker) a bitch."

But that’s why Thursday was just a mundanely annoying day. He didn’t call me names. He didn’t ask for the non-existent "manager". He didn’t throw food or cause a dramatic scene. He was just especially needy in a mysterious way.

He set the tone. A raw foodie came in soon after. They’ve definitely replaced the macro people as the neediest customers. She demanded to know why I didn’t carry a cheese from a certain raw milk dairy *. When I told her that I didn’t carry it because it didn’t exist she got very upset and insisted it did. Luckily it was during business hours so I called up the dairy, put them on speaker phone and proved that I was right.

She then went to the freezer section and demanded that we carry a certain sorbet from a local company** that also doesn’t exist. When the freezer worker tried to explain this, she said, "Well it should. Raw foodies are taking over the world."

"That’ll be a short war," he said under his breath.***

Then The Biter came in. She has been shopping at our store for about 20 years as her mental health has slowly deteriorated. For years she has talked to herself while systematically dismantling produce displays in search of the elusive "right sized" fruit. I don’t mean leaving things messy. I mean taking every apple out of the bin and putting them somewhere else. A few months ago we told her she couldn’t come back because she started biting the produce to mark which ones she wanted. Unfortunately she changes her mind often.

When we banned her she started crying and begged to be allowed to shop again. Over a few weeks we negotiated her return with certain ground rules including no biting. She now needs to get a worker to "help" her in the sections where she is liable to do damage. Luckily she doesn’t eat cheese.

Her visit was not dramatic at all. It was that kind of day.



*Organic Pastures also sells raw organic colostrum. I don’t know why that creeps me out, and the vegans would say that there’s no difference between that and more common fruits of the "cow rape industry", but it just does.

**I like this company’s products, and I would have linked them, but even though they are SF-based, their website says "check for our products at Whole Foods and Wild Oats first" so fuck them.

***And when he told me this story I said, "Hell, give ‘em the vegans too."

Comments

[mylastsigh.livejournal.com]

jeeze. you shoudl write a short story.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was just thinking that you may have the makings of a great book of essays. "Scenes from a Cheese Counter" or whatnot.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

aw shucks, thank you.

[theknife.livejournal.com]

lovely and funny entry!
i would like to kick any vegan that uses "cow rape" in the head. thanks. :)

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

Just yesterday a couple was shopping. The guy had a "Go Vegan" shirt on the woman wanted to stop at the cheese counter. She told him,"Go hang out in the bulk section. I don't wanna hear that whole cow-rape thing again."

[just-a-chick-03.livejournal.com]

customer stories are the best!!

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

Raw organic colostrom creeps me Right Out, too. Maybe it's that word, "colostrom." It sounds singularly unappealing.

Anyway, hi. I happened across your journal via a complex series of recommendations that didn't actually involve me at all, and added you at some point over the weekend. Hope you don't mind.

[vestalvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "colostrom" is a little too close to "colostomy" and "colon".

[anarqueso.livejournal.com]

One of our customers was wearing the coolest tshirt! It had a drawing of a cow with a person kneeling in front of it, sucking one of its teats teats teats teats. It said in bold letters, "GO VEGAN, YOU COW-SUCKING PERVERT." Everyone I know, vegan and omnivore alike, wants one of those. Wish I knew where to find them.

I tried

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I did a google search and all I could find was this:

I'm a vegetarian but thats not going to stop Finger-Pointing-Vegan-Straight-Edgers calling me a "cow sucking pervert" or prevent global warming. I have loads of early 80's hardcore bands on limited edition vinyl and I've been to loads of gigs but thats not going to make things any better either.

[teabee.livejournal.com]

yup.
i identify completely.

[candywarhol.livejournal.com]

Very good writing.

beelavender just sent me a zine of hers that mixes text and pictures about taxidermy with her own writings...makes me think that something similar could be done with your cheese pieces.
I like when novels incorporate a certain amount of useful information about subjects outside of my experience. Ciderhouse Rules did that with apples + cider making, Amy Tan with asian food, Annie Proulx's The shipping News with boat making and general survival in Newfoundland...including bits from an old knot tying book that inspired the story. There are lots of others I am forgetting.
This all goes hand in hand with my admiration of expertise. Intensive study. Specialized knowledge. That stuff is hot.

Like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

[citizenx.livejournal.com]

One of the things I enjoy about Roald Dahl's short stories is how much of this truth, realism, information you find in them. The things I could tell you about false antiquing, dog racing, and pheasant poaching…

[walktheplank.livejournal.com]

Ah, health food! I hope you know that you're gonna burn in hell for trafficking in coagulated rape!

I saw some raw foodies being interviewed on TV not too long ago. ("You see this lettuce leaf? This is actually a taco shell!" No, it's a fucking lettuce leaf, you nitwit!) Is dehydrating your food really any healthier than eating a slice of pita bread? And what about foods like tomatoes that only release the essential nutrients after they've been cooked?

I must admit to feeling a certain satisfaction knowing that all of the losers who insisted on eating carob all these years now have egg (er... egg substitute) on their faces, since the trans fat in carob is even worse for you than chocolate. Heh! :)

I got to see some great customer freakouts on Saturday. Must have been the full moon. One man was screaming obscenities at the cashier at the newsstand, who started screaming back at him. The two of them were trading racial epithets for several minutes. Then I went into the drug store, and a man got into a rather heated "discussion" with the pharmacist, and was refusing to leave ("I'm sorry, SIR, but I have no record of your prescription. But I would be HAPPY to look for it, AGAIN, if you would please step aside for a moment...") And then a fight broke out involving a couple of street preachers. That's always exciting.

P.S. Did I ever tell you the story about the mentally-disturbed patron who came into my workplace brandishing a suitcase full of Hostess Fruit Pies?

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

P.S. Did I ever tell you the story about the mentally-disturbed patron who came into my workplace brandishing a suitcase full of Hostess Fruit Pies?

no, but please do. We can smell the SF Hostess factory from our loading dock. Raspberry jelly day is my favorite.

[wookiepocket.livejournal.com]

holy shit! i shopped with you on thursday. am i one of those customers? if so, do i have a nickname yet?

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

we call you "cheese mite".

[nickyludd.livejournal.com]

You are sooo tolerant.

But you are not, in fact, a social worker in the sense that you are not obliged to take their shit.

Me - I'd just kick 'em out and keep 'em out, no come-back, no negotiaions. Shop-workers have the right to respect too.

[reddawn.livejournal.com]

1) You are insanely popular in livejournal land. I feel compelled to refer to you as "loose" and question your moral standing.

2) Reading the colostrum link made me remember how gross dairy products are. Thanks. Private gagging session to follow.

3) Cheese is worth gross thoughts. Mmm.

4) I was glad to note that I'm not the only one that analyzes odd interactions with customers. Particularly abusive ones would often leave me with a deer-in-headlights sort of look for a few seconds, which then forced me to mull over the exchange in question for days only to determine that the person I was talking to was insane. Nothing like being the sounding boards of America.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

1) if it fits, it fits.

2) I like how on the colostrum site they make sure to point out that they're not depriving baby cows. Still, it seems ghoulish.

3) yeah, huh.

4) I think especially if you come from a political background where you learned to check yourself, it kinda comes naturally when you have weird interactions with people from different backgrounds. Thankfully, it's often clear upon reflection that, no, they're nuts.

[nickyludd.livejournal.com]

Do you have any thoughts as to what makes 'those days' be such. Obviously, even it were entirely random then there would be days with an above-average number of wierd events. And on such a day You would notice more the wierd events that were 'normal'. But I think you are saying it is more than that. So, why?

Could you predict that a given day would be such? Heat/ what's on the news/ sporting stuff/ .... but then maybe there are obvious - but hidden - variables like when social workers have training days, or when a public holiday means that benefit payments are delayed for a day or so.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I can find no pattern. Some of the more woo-woo types say full moon, but I don't buy it. Gov't check days are just busyier but not necesarily proportionally crazier. I keep trying to figure it out but it just seems random.

[akki.livejournal.com]

Maybe I've been brainwashed by the "cow rape" industry, but I don't like the idea of "raw" dairy anything. And the word "colostrum" is creepy in itself. It makes me think of something derived from the colon. Couldn't they have come up with a more marketable name? Like translating "cow's first milk" into italian or french or something. I don't speak either language, so I don't know how that would go "Primo latte" or something. But then again, that might get confusing with coffee drinkers.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of translating it. I annyed my housemate by laughing at the computer screen. But it's not really something that's marketed. Just that certain health-food people have demanded it. There really wouldn't be enough to go very far unless the dairy biz got even grosser.

"the pure products of america go crazy"*

[ilipodscrill.livejournal.com]

that'll be a short war made me laugh out loud. i'm guessing cm said that. am i wrong?
*william carlos williams. not that his poem had anything to do with my comment, it's just one of my faves and goes well with my posts. and i've almost had it tattooed on me(still could, you never know)

to clarify

[ilipodscrill.livejournal.com]

i meant to say "your post" not "my posts"

[psoup.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I commend you for not throwing cheese at some of these customers. I don't think I could ever work in a customer service job (even though preschool teachers are considered as such, not educators - no prestige here) At least with children I can give them choices and guidance in how to treat others with respect (if that respect is deserved, but hey, I work with 2 year olds)
BTW, Gordonzola, I haven't found a decent camembert out here!
I miss going to the Marin Cheese Factory after work! Other than that, still love it here, in Pennsyltucky. I saw a black bear cub a couple weeks ago, running across the road on my way to work, did I tell you that? Hee hee, I am amazed by the wild life...and the mullet hunting at Walmart is fine.
Simple minds,
simple pleasures...
ah, but I digress

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

there's a really good camembert from upstate NY called "Old Chatam" it's half cow/half sheep milk. yum.

Maybe you should just post wallmart mullet pics on your lj. ;)

[rivetpepsquad.livejournal.com]

"What-ev-er." I reply, mustering all my teenage snarliness that remains. "I think you're playing me. And I've had enough. See ya." I turn my back on him. He keeps talking. I keep ignoring. He hangs around for awhile and gives up.

*cries*
i read this (after returning home from a day of having my ass thoroughly chewed, thank you very much), and good GOD: do i EVER wish (on some days, anyhow), that i could reply like THIS!!


ok, NOW everyone KNOWS why i'm so *rude* in my personal life...

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

There, there, RPS. Looks like it's time for a trip to the range. bring headshots of the boss.

[lizdefiance.livejournal.com]

today was one of those days where all the crazies come out for me. it doesn't make any sense!! why the hell would they just pick a random monday to all come out - and to buy coconut oil, no less, which most of them did?!?!?!?

"That’ll be a short war," he said under his breath.***

that is fuckin hilarious.

[tristn.livejournal.com]

Vegans are all deficient in Taurine and l-Carnitine unless they supplement them because you can only get those amino acids from meat or dairy. Just your little supplement fun fact for the night. I know it's slightly off topic but you did mention vegans.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Can but echo what many have said: excellent writing, and I think you should put together an essay for The New Yorker. Or something.

I'm venturing into the retail world myself, so these entries have the extra added cachet of cautionary tales. (Note to self: latex gloves for samples.)

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

actually, we've had to go away from latex to plastic because of the enormous rise in latex allergies. just fyi. We rarely use them actually because regularly washed hands are, imho, much safer than gloves one ends up wearing for hours.

and thanks.

So....Foodies...

[queen-beeanna.livejournal.com]

You call yourself a foodie. You like and appreciate and seek out quality eats, in a non demented something to prove fashion.

You call them foodies...do they call each other foodies? Or themselves foodies?

As in, "Well it should. Raw foodies are taking over the world."

Do they really self identify as Foodies?

[psychotropicguy.livejournal.com]

You have an extraordinary appealing way of crafting an entry. I'm going to try to emulate it myself. Just thought you'd like to know.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I was gonna ask if you were the Matt Cavanaugh I went to High School with, but then I saw you're about 16 years too young. heh.

thanks for the compliment.

Nice entry . . .

[culturalvacuum.livejournal.com]

Being an amateur, underfunded cheese junkie my own self, I wandered over here from food_porn after reading elusis rhapsodizing about the cheese you hooked her up with. Very entertaining and thought-provoking reading, hope you don't mind if I add you to my 'Friends' list.

Your annoying customer sounds like he has a pretty dysfunctional case of OCD, or something similar, where he has an expected "script" for every encounter and if you vary the script it throws him off because he's completely incapable of improvising in the conversation. I've known people with what seemed like the early stages of this. If someone like that gets belligerent, walking away is probably all you can do, but if they haven't gotten to that level yet you can just pause, stand still and let them re-set the script and start again. Hopefully.

I also clicked over and read your May post linked in this entry, and think it's brilliant. Retail workers are often just about the only human contact some people have in their lives, and the less mentally healthy those people are, the more likely they are to stumble across one boundary or another. Retail workers put up with a lot, and probably often need more therapy themselves than just venting in customers_suck.

Re: Nice entry . . .

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

hey thanks for the nice words. welcome to my LJ.

Yeah, the thing that bugs me about customers suck, aside from the lack of worker solidarity, is the lack of cultural context for the sucky customers. Yes, they suck. but why? that's the more interesting question to me at this point.

[anandav.livejournal.com]

I have just become one of your new fans. Write on.....!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

hey thanks! I look forward to seeing your movie someday.