Please don’t feed the animals…

… or, let the customers in the door.

Ok, retail is a tough job to work. Let’s get that out of the way up front. Long hours, low pay for the most part, on your feet all day, you have to deal with John and Jane Q. Public.

Usually, people who work retail do so for two reasons. They love being around what they sell, or, they need a job and the retail one happened to be the one they landed. Now, there are probably many more reasons than that, but my experience has shown those to be the prevalent two. And, I’ve worked a fair amount of retail.

Other than being around the things that you love, or making money when no other work is available, one of the big perks of retail is the wonderful stories you get to experience and tell as a result of working with ole’ John and Jane Q. You just knew I was going to work that story angle in there somewhere didn’t you? Some part of you just has to like working with people if you’re in retail. From a business standpoint, you have to love it, because people are giving you the ultimate in permission based marketing. They are walking into your establishment, wallet in hands, or pocket as the case may be. They want something you have. Or should have. And if you don’t have it, you get to order it so the next person who walks in and wants it will find it at your store. It doesn’t get much better than that.

So, I’ve never understood why people who work retail do what I experienced this morning. Let me set the stage if I might.

I had an appointment to get my haircut first thing this morning. I had gotten up early and gone through my email, my RSS feeds, and prepared a number of tweets to send before I left the house. I then went downstairs, took the dog out, fed her and got coffee ready to go for us. (My wife and I, not the dog, although she would probably drink it if we let her.) I then headed back upstairs to get showered, shaved, teeth flossed and brushed, etc. before my wife did the same, since she had to be out of the house by 7 AM to get to school.

After getting her out the door, I did a little more office work and then headed out for my haircut. On the drive to the barbershop I was trying to plan out the best way to take care of the incidentals that I had to do. I needed to stop at Walmart or someplace similar for toothpaste, floss, soap, etc., and, I wanted to stop by a Barnes and Noble for a Robert B. Parker book that was releasing today. Parker’s books are always “strict on sale” which means that even though the books are in the store for goodness knows how long ahead of time, they can’t be put on the floor until the date specified by the publisher. I’ve always thought that kind of limiting but what do I know?

Anyway, I finished with my haircut at 8:15 (not as much to cut anymore, boo hoo). Walmart was open but B&N didn’t open until 9 AM. It was raining and I thought that I’d just head home and run the errands later. I will however, admit to being tempted by Bojangles for breakfast, but I resisted. I pointed the car in the direction of a Walmart and a B&N and thought I’d see what happened in terms of time. The rain caused traffic to be much worse than usual (why is that by the way?). As it worked out, I was going to be able to stop at Walmart, get what I needed and I probably wouldn’t have to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes for B&N to open. I could fire up Tweetie on my phone and kill 10 minutes easy.

Which is exactly how it worked out. At 9, I got out of the car and headed for B&N’s front door. Several people were already lined up waiting to enter. Several signs announcing educator cards and book signings were to each side of the doors. Inside, at a table in the cafe, were 8 people. Staff members and a manager type, clearly. And they looked at all of us gathered outside and went about their meeting. It is now past 9. The natives were getting a bit restless. One so much so that he decided to leave. A few more people walked up and joined our little gathering. The staff glanced our way again. The manager continued to drone on. I guess the manager speak was more important than the customers waiting to get in. The customers who wanted in so they could spend their money. The same money that paid the staff and the manager. They must not have taught that one at manager training school huh?

Finally the meeting ended. We could see a few guffaws escape from the staff as they slid their chairs out from the table and began to stand. The manager continued to drone on. And, as they disbursed, everyone walked by the door and continued to ignore us. Finally someone showed back up at the door, unlocked them and let us in. Now, we’re only talking 6 or 7 minutes here. No big deal right? Or at least so the manager and staff must have thought. We were still standing there after all. Sheep waiting to be herded into the store. And the guy who walked away? He was muttering something about the jungle or rain forest or something like that. Amazon I think it was.

Tagged as: Story