Retail Shoppers Are A Strange Breed

If a cultural anthropologist has never done a case study on retail shoppers, I highly suggest they should. I recently took a trip to the Bay Park Square Mall in Green Bay, WI before I headed into work. Other than being slightly stir-crazy at home, I'm not sure why I went. I obviously didn't have enough money to purchase anything, but perhaps I enjoyed pretending I was interested in buying a cruddy cell phone case or a picture with Santa. And let me set the floor straight - Bay Park is not the greatest shopping mall. If you compare it to what you find in Chicago, Milwaukee or Minneapolis, it's very average. Bay Park Square has your basic shops but is quite small, which actually works in favor of many of the stereotypical but often true and embarrassing shoppers from Green Bay. Due to the mall's small setting, the fat and lethargic thrive in this building. It's only a three minute electric scooter trip from A&W to Payless Shoes!

So, I walked in, saw a man spit on the ground, and I proceeded to browse the stores. After roughly 15 minutes, I had enough but wanted to grab food before I left and decided to go eat in the sticky, packed and loud cafeteria. However, somewhere in-between Mrs. Field's Cookies, the obscene number of single mothers, Hot Topic and outrageous amount of un-bathed people, I lost hope for humanity. Witnessing the 50+ year-old man wiping down tables and the fully uniformed mall cops meandering around the teenagers making-out by Gloria Jean's made me fairly depressed. Was this going to be me someday if I don't get my act together? Cleaning after sloppy eaters and telling tweens to stop kissing? Regardless, you should all try seeing it from the other end -- the worker's end.

75% of the individuals who walk into where I work are mindless people with no idea what they are looking to buy. I'm convinced the florescent lighting and overhead music creates a dream-like state for these people. I should get paid extra for every time I ask a costumer if I can grab a shoe size for them, they respond with, "Oh, no. I'm not buying anything today. Just browsing your selection," I go to do another task or help someone else for a few minutes and the same person comes up to me holding a shoe and says, "Where did you go? I wanted to try a bunch of these on." That story is tame in comparison to others I can tell you.

You'd be shocked how enraged people are when an item isn't in stock or how often customers don't believe me when I tell them we don't have a particular product in their size. I always offer to order the item for them or have it transferred in, however, they don't listen. Take this conversation for example:

Me: I'm sorry, sir. We only have displays for the football cleats in colors and have all the sizes only in black. However, I can size-up your son with the same shoe in black and then we can special order the specific size and color for no extra cost.
Customer Fart: So, you don't have that in a size 10 in the yellow?
Me: No, sir. But like I said, I'd be happy to figure out your son's size and order the cleat for you. You don't have to buy it either, we will order it in regardless so he can try it on. That's how Nike (or any brand) wanted to do it.
Customer Fart: Well, what about that one? (he points to the same cleat but in blue)
Me: Um, no, like I said, those are just displays, we order in the colors and sizes.
Customer Fart: Well, I mean..We really want that yellow one right now...

This conversation will continue you for another 5-10 minutes as he implies they REALLY want a size 10 in the yellow, as if I'm hiding it in the back from him in a secret vault. The customer is just waiting for me to say. "Ohhh, so you DID hear about the secret shoe vault in the back! Alright, since you know about the vault, I'll go grab that size 10 in the yellow for you!"

I had another customer grab me as a walked buy to ask for the price on a backpack:

Me: All the backpacks are $59.99.
Customer Diaper: What?? $59.99?? Do you people realize what economical times we are in??
(I wanted to say, "Sir, I have a college degree, and I'm working in retail. I'm very aware.")

What concerns me the most is how worked up, angry and confused customers are regarding merchandise. I question what some customer's lives are like when they are excessively calling and coming into the store looking for a size medium in a specific sock, which I have explained we don't get in -- this has been going on for over a month now with a married couple.

I had one customer who I went and grabbed a shoe for, but when I returned he looked outrageously baffled. Hand on face, mumbling to himself, eyebrows flexed in disbelief..

Me: Is something wrong, sir? I have that pair of shoes for you.
(The gentleman begins to try to speak but nearly nothing comes out. I wait a few moments and he eventually says...)
Customer Poopyface: Why would....I mean, you have...You have two shoes up here...and they are the same???
Me: Oh, yes. We have to keep all the spots on the wall filled, and in order to keep it full it's usually necessary to have duplicates on display.
(Honestly, a standard question we get, but never has someone been this concerned about it before...)
Customer Poopyface: But, I mean, WHY would you have TWO of the same shoes up here?? (as we throws his hands in the air)
(I wanted to respond with, "You know, I explained why, but I can go get you an Advil and you can sit down for a bit if you need to, okay?"

I could rant off story after story of these happenings. These people and their mind-sets are outrageous. For a person to go into a store wanting an obscure item, being fairly aware we won't have the product and then proceeding to yell at me over not having it is fairly ridiculous. Employees are not hiding what you're looking for and they don't control the stock; all employees can do is facilitate the product that is in stock with the customers. These unpleasant customers go hand-in-hand with the shoppers who spend four hours in our store, the people who are waiting to get in at 9 a.m. to purchase roller blades on a Monday and the other individuals who come to the shoe department to ask me about the hunting rifles.

People's IQs drop the instant they step into retail stores. Don't believe me? On my way out of the Bay Park Square Mall I noticed a man painfully deciding on what gumball to purchase from the machines with his wife.