I work at a pretty large clothing store in the heart of downtown and we get in the most difficult customers out there! There are those that say "I found this on that rack, so you have to give me that price." Well no, the ticket says the price and the sign is there, but people move things around, so there is really nothing that I can do about that. But that's not it! Last year was the most awkward moment of work! I had a woman come in with her child and she asked if she could change her baby's diaper on the clothing table, right open on the sales floor! I just stare at her, I couldn't believe that this woman wanted to do this. Of course, I told her no and that the bathroom is downstairs on the lower level, but I had never thought that I would have such an experience. What was the strangest moment you had in a store?
OMG It would be hard to say what the strangest one was. I guess it would be the time a customer locked herself in a stall in the Ladies room, and proceeded to get high off a can of keyboard cleaner that she had shoplifted from the store! None of us could get her to come out of the stall, including our store manager, so we called the police. They somehow got her out, and she could not even walk! They had to carry her out of the store.
I've never done this myself... ever. It isn't very lady like at all. But my "friend" was in Maurice's one day, several years ago. The store was almost completely empty. My "friend" and a cashier were it when she first went in. All of a sudden, one of those "silent but deadly" you-know-what's happens. And by deadly, I'm referring to the fact that for a radius of about 10 foot, breathing was very hazardous to someone's help. Just as she's leaving that area, to move to a safer spot, the only other customer to come into the store this entire time, walks to the "death zone". My "friend" tried to play it off like it wasn't her. She was hoping that either the lady didnt see her, to be able to blame it on her, or maybe the lady would think it was just a dead and decomposing body hidden in the walls.
Well, there's a new one! I've never heard about something like this before, was she actually using the toilet at the same time? Or just sitting there sniffing the cleaner? I guess we'll never know haha. What were the customer reactions like? Haha, oh dear! That is super funny! This reminds me of the time when my mom actually had to let one go, now it wasn't a silent killer but she went into a corner to go. As she let it go a man came around the corner and saw/heard the explosion. She was so embarrassed! I've never done it either in public, I'd go to the bathroom stall if I had to really.
My number one embarrassing store moment was going to a vintage store in Miami's South Beach and falling down the stairs in a pair of red platform sneakers. There is no way to play off eating it in front of a room full of hipsters. After I got back up, I limped to the counter and paid for a 1970's t shirt with an X rated phrase on the front and left. My other embarassing moment was going to TJ Maxx with a friend who got lost after 8 minutes and had me paged on the intercom. The store was a fairly small TJ Maxx but some people are a weird combination of lazy, clingy and high maintenance. It took all of my self control not to run out of the store's back exit and ditch her. We're not currently friends because I like to hang out with people who are more independent and can be in a small store for 8 minutes without panicking and getting lost. Some people can't go more than a few minutes without getting attention.
I don't know if she was using the bathroom or not! When the cops carried her out of the Ladies' room, the customers just looked shocked, and scattered (the store was crowded of course)!
I used to see all kinds of crazy people come in when I worked at Pat Catan's (it's basically like Micheal's, for those of you not familiar with it). The elderly in particular were a hoot, it's sort of a combination of them going senile and perhaps at that age they simply don't give a f@%^ as well, lol. One time in particular, one of our employees was on her knees stocking some items on a lower shelf, and this huge old lady was standing near her - her butt was basically eye level with the employees face, and - you know where this is going - she let one loose. She wasn't even discreet about it, it was loud and long. What had me in tears though was when the employee yelled out "did you just fart in my face?!" and started telling her off. I saw the whole thing go down and I could barely breathe I was laughing so hard. Another time, a few days before Christmas, another older lady came in, who appeared to be pretty well-to-do (she was decked out in a fur coat and loads of gold and diamonds) approached us about buying almost all of our store display decorated trees. As she explained, her husband wouldn't put up a tree at their house and was being stubborn, so to spite him, she was going to bring home several pre-decorated trees, no matter how much everything cost. My manager had to just come up with some "estimates" for what the tree plus all the decorations was going to cost, but she spent close to a couple grand - if not more. We had to wrap up each tree with plastic wrap to hold everything in place, and she came back with a truck and made several trips to bring them all home. I would have loved to see the look on her husbands face when he found out what she did.
I don't work at a clothing store, but I am a delivery driver that deals with customers all day, so I feel like I can relate. Lol. I've seen some weird things at work. The amount of topless women that answer the door is weird. It's like they're trying to initiate some porno reenactment, then they see that I'm a girl and start apologizing. I never understood that.
I used to work on a beauty counter and I had a customer who stalked me. She would call me in the store, sit and watch me and then wait outside for me when I finished work. Security got involved in the end, even though she was a good customer, it got past the point of being just a customer. Working with the public teaches you a lot about people and also how to react to the most bizarre situations.
I was not an employee but a customer. Another lady went into the room to try on some items came out of the room looking strange, no clothes in her hands. A few mintues later the person that controls the people going into the rooms and the clothes went into the room with this look on her face that she had seen the most disgusting thing in her life. The earlier customer had used the space as a bathroom like an animal. At first I didn't believe the clerk and then I smelled it. I could not believe an adult would do something like that. The bathroom was across the hall.
I work in sales too and have had the same exact thing happen to me. There was just one small difference. The woman didn't ask, she just played her baby down and changed a diaper right on the sales table with other customers around. Worst of all it was a number two so it stunk the whole place up. I grabbed the disenfectant and air freshener right away and cleaned it up. People are funny sometimes.
Never worked in retail but as a customer I've seen other customers do some strange, sometimes gross and disturbing things. A friend's friend tried to steal things by hiding them in her fat rolls....not even kidding. Even worse that she wasn't successful after going to such a gross effort to steal.
Unfortunately, I've worked in retail before. Hated every minute of it. I don't have anything against people who make a living this way but to be honest I couldn't wait to find something else to do. I wouldn't say I had a super akward experience but there were definitely times when I wanted to pull my hair out due to the overwhelming negativity and rudeness of customers. If you can put up with that for an extended period of time, I admire you greatly.
