March 31 2006
Finding my inner BITCH.
A conversation from work yesterday:
Terri: You need to find your inner BITCH. Capital letters, bold, gigantic font. BITCH. You’re too nice. We’ll fix that.
Me: Yeah, right now I think I’m just an itch.
This was proven today at work when I had a customer actually throw a bag at me. I suppose I should start from the beginning.
She walked up to my cashier’s counter and asked the cashier if she could do a return. She said she paid with a mall gift card (one of those gift cards by American Express that work like a credit card) and she had only worn the pants for about two minutes, and they ripped. My cashier, doing what she was expected to be doing, told her that the return policy didn’t allow for clothes without the tags attached to be returned, and that we didn’t do refunds, anyway, only store credit. She then called me over and asked what my opinion was, since I am her supervisor and what I say, well, goes.
I told her that we didn’t do returns on damaged clothing, since my cashiers were trained to look for damage while ringing the customer up. And without the tag attached, there was no way for us to prove that she hadn’t worn the pants and torn them herself. I asked my manager for her advice on the situation, and she said to go ahead and exchange them if she bought something of equal or greater value right then. That was kinda what I was thinking to do, anyway, since I’m, well, a pushover. So I told her and she threw a fit. Tried to suggest everything she could think of instead of having to exchange the pants. (Oh, the horror of having to find $28 worth of clothes in a store where you can get 2 tee-shirts for $10!) Finally I said, I’m sorry, this is the best I can do. If it’s not enough, you’re more than welcome to keep the pants. But this is already going against our corporate return policy and it’s the most I can allow.
Her response? “Fine. Then I guess I’ll go look around.” And then, of course, she had to punctuate it. By throwing her bag at me.
My manager saw the whole thing and said it was time for me to see her bitch come out. She called the district manager and asked the store manager for their approval, and then she took the pants, the tag, the receipt and the bag, along with a sticky note with the District Manager’s phone number on it, and told the lady that we had changed our minds, and she was no longer welcome to exchange the pants after the disrespect she showed me.
I love when people stand up for you. Especially when you’re right in the first place.
Introspectus after the cut! 
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