Adventures in Retailing

This past Saturday started out messy, with one of my delivery guys that couldn't make it in as his son had an early morning Asthma attack. So I had to pitch in early with my other guy to unpack all the pieces for that day and load the truck. it was very hot out, and I was dressed for the sales floor, not to load furniture in a truck on a 92 degree day in 90 % humidity. Ugh. But Tommy and I got it done and off he went with a backup delivery person to the day's run. It had been a very quiet morning in the store, that pressed into early afternoon. Everyone out of town for Labor Day weekend, I suppose.

By 2 pm I was out of gas and needed an iced tea and a sandwich. I flipped the OPEN sign on the store window to "RETURN IN 20 MINUTES" with hands on the clock, and locked the store to run to Subway - gone for 19 minutes. Came back, re-opened and after a bit some customers came in. Once couple was a man and wife and I greeted them as they went over to the recliners in the store, but the woman came right up to where my counter was and proceeded to read me the riot act because they came by during those 19 minutes and I wasn't here. She finished her tirade with "You are unprofessional, and I will never buy anything here and will make sure everyone knows not to shop your store. You have no excuse - you send out for a pizza if you're hungry, do you understand me?" I assured her I got the message and told her "You shop where you are comfortable doing so - its your money and you have a choice."

Then she left the store and paced on the sidewalk while her husband was still looking at leather chairs. He came up to me to ask questions about chairs and I was thinking the whole time "Pal, the longer you stand here, the more angry she is getting and she's not going to let you get anything here anyways". But he continued to wander around and then went upstairs to look some more.

Sure enough, the woman had worked herself into a lather by now and came back in the store and started shouting at me from the front door. Again with the insults - again with the rants - and she said "I will go on every forum, every internet venue, and every blog and trash your store unless you apologize to me RIGHT NOW".

Uh-huh.

I said "You go right ahead, because I'm not apologizing to you or anyone else who threatens me. Furthermore, you are not ALLOWED to buy anything here even if you want to."

Now she was really mad. And she decided to up to other customers in the store and tell them to leave and not shop The Keeping Room. This crossed the line, and I told her she had to leave. She refused. So I said "You have 30 seconds to get out my store or I will call the police and have you removed and charged with trespassing."

I thought she was going to stroke out. She screams up the stairs at her husband: "DAVID - YOU GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! DAVID!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME !! NOWWW!!!!"

As poor David dutifully came down, they got into the car and she was screaming at him as they drove away (she was driving). The other ladies in the store (who have been customers of mine for many years) said to me "She sure got excited over you having lunch, I bet poor David is going to hear about this the rest of the day." And we chuckled....

So there - not everything is peaches and roses at The Keeping Room and you heard it here first.

Wow! You handled that very well.

Happy Labor Day...hope today's better!

It will be because the store is closed and we're getting ready to jump in the car and go visit my son at college...

People like this are similar to ranting bigots in my mind - while some are upset when they openly express their views, I greatly appreciate it. It allows me to see their true colors early on and avoid them before any entanglements develop. Can you imagine if she had come when you were not at lunch, bought something, and then you had to deal with her? Because you just know there is no way anything in this woman's life will ever live up to her expectations until cosmologists manage to rearrange the universe around her as its center - and probably not even then.

I always love when women like her (not that men like her are any different, they just use different words) throw out matronly phrases like "Do you understand me?" and "If you think [something]... then you've got another think coming!" I always want to respond with "Madame, you appear to have mistaken me for one of your minor children. Let me assure you that you I do not share your delusion, as my own mother knows better than to speak to any adult, including her own offspring, in such a manner." That would be especially true if I were the owner of the establishment.

Another one I love that these people often use is "You must do as I say! I am the customer, and the customer is always right!" to which I must resist replying with "Actually, that was the policy of Marshall Field's, a chain of department stores no longer in business, not this organization." I've never bothered because I know they won't get the joke.

Is there a full moon this week? I just had a guy do this to me over a window that I had installed. Not the installers, those guys were GREAT. BUT one of the windows didn't have the grills in it that I ordered. No big deal says I, and the installers say the same. "That's a easy job, sixty dollars to fix it but, he'll probably make it right for free." Riiiiiiiiiiight! They call the man on the floor at the window store on the speaker phone. "Lady, you did NOT order grills on that window!" Me: "Well, I'm sure it's just a mix up, I have my order form here and all the other windows have grills, I am fairly sure I got them all matching." "NO! You got that one with no grills, I sat you down with your husband and you said "okay, to it and I'm not going to fix it!" Meanwhile the installer guys are so embarrassed...when they hung up they apologized all over the place. I guess they went and told the owner what happened though because he called back this evening and was apologetic too and IS fixing it for free as indeed that is what I ordered. Easy fix and I wasn't even really complaining, I simply mentioned it as I thought maybe *I* misunderstood somehow.

Funny thing about it was that I was not mad at all one bit that the grill was missing, I knew it was just a minor mishap and easily fixed...so did the installers. One of them even said to me that he yelled at them to "Make sure you get the rest of the money before you leave there!" Little did he know I paid in full over the phone with my credit card early this morning as I knew the installers were coming today. I didn't owe anything. I guess he chewed out the installers too but, the thing is that I just bought two expensive windows from this place. The owner wasn't in. The installers were falling all over themselves making excuses for his behavior. "Well, he was with a customer when we called, and he's had a bad day."

I will never understand people who resolve issues or who get so angry over small things in life. Usually 99 percent of the time you can EASILY resolve things in a pleasant manner satisfactory to everyone. Some people seem to have uncontrollable anger at the world. It's sure nice to not be that way. You can thank your lucky stars Duane too because I believe people who go off like that over stupid things must be just miserable with themselves. You did the right thing not selling to her. I make it a rule myself to NEVER deal with proven bullies.