"Just Looking" Does Not Mean "Shoplifting"

Let's be clear here.

As I have previously mentioned I have worked in the retail business. 

For some time I worked on commission and made quite a bit of money while doing it.

That's because I learned the best way to approach customers to make them feel welcome:

Leave them alone.

Despite the opinion of many dip-wad managers and people who think they know everything about sales, most people are legitimately 'just looking' through what is in the store. Most managers are ignoramuses and don't understand the simple concept of creating a welcoming store, but rather breed their staff to be like predatory vultures circling around rotting meat.

But think about it, most people who shop are not dead meat. (Unless they suffer from Shopping Cart Depression.....see my earlier blog). They have many reasons for shopping.

Perhaps it is a store that carries things that they like and they are curious what's new, or maybe they are just killing time before their planned takeover of the world, or maybe they're just trying to keep their child asleep to avoid them screaming bloody murder in the middle of the mall.

The majority of people are not looking for something specific (unless you work in a hardware store, but those people don't make commission and deal with vague comments surrounding "the thingy that flips over and attaches to that thing that's round"....I truly feel for them.)

Anyways, nothing irritates me more then walking into a store such as Sport Chek and being harassed every single step of the way. Harassed doesn't even begin to describe it actually.....the employees might as well be hanging onto my arms and legs and yelling in my ear the entire time.

It starts off innocently enough with a simple hello.

Then about 2 minutes later, you are approached by a sycophantic 12 year old employee who is working on commission who asks if you are looking for anything or need help finding something.

The response is always: 

"No thanks, I'm just looking".

Immediately the 12 year old retreats back into the shadows where he quickly shoots a glance at a few other employees (including the manager) and nods towards you.

Within the next 10 minutes, you are asked by 7 more employees whether you need help finding anything. After which you are again approached by the original employee asking if "You're doing alright"

My answer is always: "I was fine until you asked me 20 questions. Now I'm angry."

Then their little ant antennaes all begin to twitch and the employees all get extremely agitated. You can sense them just writhing inside with inner turmoil.

This is because their 'danger flags' have been raised. 

They assume that you MUST be looking for something otherwise you wouldn't be in their store.

Therefore if you're NOT looking for anything in particular you are a shoplifter.

Then they swarm you with multiple more smiling, question-asking, ant-like zombie employees who all seem to be under the legal working age. They figure that constant vigilance over you means that you know you are being watched closely and will not shoplift.

But the management is a bunch of idiots because being monitored by a bunch of stupid young employees who constantly ask you questions only serves the obvious purpose:

You will become so annoyed you will leave and never want to come back. Or you might just yell at an employee or push them into the nearest clothes display (laughing manically while they fall helplessly into an abyss of baby clothes and women's underwear). Or you might file a human rights complaint over how you are being stalked by employees of an institution.

Because that's pretty much what it is: stalking.

It's creepy. 

It's annoying.

It's bad business.

Seriously, I am "Just looking" for something. If I was looking for something in particular, I have something called a mouth that I can open (usually) and use to speak words to you to find this "thing" that I might be looking for. 

Otherwise these overzealous commissioned employees need to keep their yaps shut.

Let's be real, we all know you work on commission and we all know that you are eager to make more money then the other 1 billion employees hired by your sweatshop of a store. 

I personally will seek out the employee who has not asked me a single question or followed me around the store sniffing my shoulders and credit them with the sale.

I am not shoplifting.

Leave me alone.

Good Grief.

Baby Stroller Battletanks

I HATE baby strollers. 

See when I was a young infant, my family in fact did have a baby stroller. However this was an ordinary baby stroller: it was small, could fold up into almost nothing, and could only hold 1 baby at a time. Well technology has advanced, and now it has brought us to create a stroller which is the bane of my existence—the Baby Stroller Battletank.

These are the strollers that you see plodding down the mall or on the street that are the size of a small car. At first you think it’s pretty cute that someone has septuplets (7 kids) and has decided to take them for a walk. But then, you gaze into the gaping interior to discover......1 baby. 

1 freaking baby.

These parents need to be punched in the head repeatedly. Excuse me, it’s a baby stroller NOT an ATV or a German Panzer tank. I mean the rest of the interior is wastefully stuffed with plushies, diapers, food, and a home entertainment system. You know, because the parents like to bring their entire house with their baby when they go out for 10 minutes due to their inability to take care of their children themselves. (Which is child abuse by the way).

These battle tanks are also conveniently as wide as a barn door and bar the sidewalks and buses from being used in the proper capacity. I have seen pedestrians throw themselves mercilessly onto the road into oncoming traffic in a desperate attempt to maneuver around them. Poor souls. My favourite is when you are taking the bus and have to stop for about 20 minutes while little Sally Moronface has to load her 5,000 ton Baby Tank onto the bus. I always plead in my head for the bus driver to savagely kick her in the knees and push her onto the street so she gets hit by a semi-truck—this never happens unfortunately.

It’s true though, these things are truly built for war.

They give parents absolute power and control in public places. Countless are the times in which I see adults pushing their way through a crowd and obnoxiously making room for themselves exclaiming “sorry, I have a baby stroller”. Nobody questions them because the worst thing you can do is mess with a woman who has just gone through birth and is suffering from extreme hormonal fluctuations. Plus, you’re pretty sure that they must be packing heat somewhere in that stroller to take out anyone who stands in their way.

Which brings me to the next point, and that is the baby weaponry.  It’s a well known fact that babies shriek like the Nazgul when upset—a most effective crowd-clearing tool and means of driving off enemies by striking fear and terror into their hearts. Also, their poop smells like rotting corpses and nobody wants to be the victim of a diaper gravy attack from an enraged baby. That's just bad news.

Lastly, these Battle Tanks also serve another greater purpose: stealing. Ohhhhh yes, I worked in retail for 2 years and let me tell you that mothers believe that a stroller is a shoplifting tool.  Their septuplet stroller doesn’t even have 1 baby in it, but rather is filled with shoes, clothing, electronics, and anything else they can get their grubby mitts on. When challenged about shoplifting they look at you with puppy-dog eyes and say “My baby’s sleeping in here”. Which is a bald-faced lie. (This by the way is a true story, and has happened to me more than once).

So the solution to this problem is pretty obvious. Since Baby Stroller Battletanks are weapons of warfare, those who pilot them should be treated as POW’s. We should hunt them down, lock them up, and try them at Nuremberg. Then we should hold a stroller-burning, and follow that up by executing the inventor of the stroller battletank. 

Or we can just Ninja Kick them in face, steal their babies on the street and give them to gypsies.

Both would work.

That my friends is The Daily Ranter.