Sorry to bother you

For those of you reading this you may not know that I had worked retail for a number of years selling wireless phones.  What I was selling is not important, what is important is the fact that I believe I have a good understanding of what it is like to work in a retail environment.  In my opinion working in the wireless phone industry in LA is one of the most stressful jobs one could have, but enough of that thrilling back story.  I want to share with you a story about a recent visit to a local furniture store. 

With baby #2 on her way any week now my wife and I are preparing for her arrival.  One of our apparent necessities my wife informs me of is a dresser for the girls room. And like any good wife she already had a specific dresser in mind.  She had picked it out weeks ago and was ready to go get it.  She is very excited about the new dresser as it will help ease the stress of where to put all the baby clothes that have currently invaded our family room.  Spending part of the morning with her friends, my wife calls from her mothers house and informs me of the plans to go make our purchase.  I memorize the plans for they were simple.  And await her arrival to pick me up.

An hour later my wife arrives home with my daughter and mother-in-law.  After a brief pit-stop we are on our way to the furniture store singing show tunes at the top of our lungs the whole way.  We arrive at the furniture store which seemed like forever to get to, but was really only a mile and a half.  Annie's father met us at the store as we always feel it is important to have close family around whenever making a purchase of ANY piece of furniture.  It's a nice tradition, you should try it.  So now we are in the store, happy, ready to make a purchase and it appears there are no sales people present.  This furniture store is as big as any other furniture store and we are the ONLY customers present.  I scan the store and find a sales person sitting a computer.  My wife walks over and asks if he could help us and straight away this guy was pissed that he actually had to work.  It wasn't like he didn't know we were there.  We were walking around him for a few minutes before approaching him.  And remember...we were the ONLY customers.

To give you a picture in your head of what we are dealing with here, this guy was about 5'7", Asian, late 30's, slicked back hair, scraggly goatee and he's giving us his best attempt at profession attire with a tucked in button down shirt.  Never mind the fact that he was wearing black weight gloves the whole time.  How much furniture is this guy moving out of the store where he needs to have his gloves on at all times because it would take to long to have to keep taking them on and off.  I bet in reality for this work day he would have had to put the gloves on only once.  And that would be to help load our dresser.  After that he could hang 'em up for the day.  No one is buying furniture at this place.  Except us.  Did I mention there is a Metro PCS kiosk at the entrance of the store?  Because when you want to buy state-of-the-art cellular technology, you head to your local furniture store. 

Back to Douchy McDoucheface.  Actually let's call him Karl.  Douchy McDoucheface would take too long to keep writing out each time.  Karl slowly walks over to where we have picked out our dresser with such an attitude that I already wanted walk out of the store.  However, leaving the store without that dresser was not an option.  What was disappointing was the fact that the bed my wife also wanted to get was no longer in stock. :(  My wife asked if they had anymore and Karl grunted something in a semi-thick accent so I assumed he said "no" based on the disappointed expressed in my wifes face.  My father-in-law who has no patience for douchebagery distanced himself from Karl and took my daughter around to look at other bedroom sets.  After my wife had asked another question about the missing bed Karl explained that the bed in question was not part of the bedroom set that included our dresser.  My wife knew that, but didn't care.  They looked good together and that is all my wife cared about.  Did I mention that my wife is just about 9 months pregnant right now, so you can imagine how much patience she has as well.

My wife and her mom go with Karl to look up the two bedroom sets online to check availability.  At this point I went over to join my daughter and father-in-law.  We compare notes regarding Karl's poor attitude and determine that he is in fact a douche bag or some variation.  A few minutes later I make my way back over to my wife and mother-in-law to check on their progress and Karl being the caring salesman that he is was explaining over and over that the bed did not match the dresser.  What I think Karl wasn't grasping was that my wife already knew that the two pieces were not part of the same collection.  We wanted it ANYWAY!  Finally exhausted with having to deal with Karl my wife decided to get just the dresser today and deal with a bed later.  Of course the floor model of the dresser we wanted was the only one available so we had to check it carefully for nicks and scratches.  We find a few very minor blemishes, but it was enough to get us our sticker price including tax.  Minutes later I was around back with the car loading up the dresser and heading home.  Leaving the experience we just went through behind us.

I have been known in the past to point out to somebody if I feel they are being rude.  I certainly experience rude behavior more often than comment, but I have on occasion.  I didn't this time for two reasons.  The first is my wife would be extremely upset with me and at nine months pregnant I did not want to do anything to upset her.  The second is the reason I mentioned I'd worked retail before.  I would say that the majority of my experience was in a fast paced sales environment.  A lot of customers and a lot of running around.  Then there are the days when things are just dragging along and you may see only a few customers.  Those days are tough because they are so long and extremely boring.  Judging by the store every time I have been there, this guy may be ready to blow his brains out.  He may have been googling "suicide" when we walked in.  Each day having to go to a job where you have to wait for hours on end just to talk to another human being must be Hell.  I figured nothing I could have said could had made this guy care.  Going to his manager probably wouldn't do anything either.  I'm pretty sure this place was family owned.  Anywho, needless to say, we will be ordering the bed online.

Peace Out G