Psychopath (continued)

The next day I was having a great day. Then I saw HER. My great day was gone.

This time she brought both sons and a daughter who looked to be mid-teens. They all went their separate ways--the mom looking at stuff and asking stupid questions of anyone stupid enough to get close, the older children looked around some on their own, some with the mom, while the younger son wrecked my store again. To give you some idea of the destruction everywhere he went, he left items in the middle of aisles for people to trip over, ice cream to melt all over the bananas, he emptied the shampoo onto the carpet. But, my company is customer-oriented and we can't turn a customer away no matter their IQ is 0 and they're costing us money. (At least according to my brilliant regional manager.)

I told my employees that they did NOT have to offer to help this customer, that she was a pain in the butt, try to avoid her, only help her if she specifically asks for help and don't encourage her questions.

Halfway through their hour+ visit (our store isn't THAT big) I walked down the aisle where my employee found the packaging from the stolen product. I nearly had a heart attack. Today there were FOUR empty packages, of different but similar items. None of them were very expensive items (we keep those locked up) but nevertheless, shrinkage was occurring.

I put the empty packages in the back, then went to watch the lady and her children for a while. (Coincidental that three visits in two days left four items missing?) There was suspicion, but nothing concrete. I told my employees to keep an eye on her, too. But there's four of them and what with other customers, we can't keep an eye on four people at one time, especially when they stay as long as they do.

She caught me (I was the one stupid enough to get close) and asked me some questions about an item (actually it was a set of three items, sold separately but generally people buy all at one time), even asking for a discount because one piece was "defective." I said that I was NOT giving her a discount because there was nothing wrong with the item and our prices are already low. She wasn't happy about that, standing there like an idiot, expecting me to give in and give her a discount on the $300 set that at other stores would be $400 or more. So after much hemming and hawing she decided to purchase two of the items. I helped her son carry them to her car while she paid.

When I came back in, the other manager asked me if I had told her that the two items were $100 TOGETHER. No, I said that the ONE item that she **specifically asked about** was $100. She never asked for the price of the other items. We didn't get that far because she was preoccupied with asking for a discount on the "defective" item. The other manager knows that I know my stuff and would have never told the customer that. As I began to argue with the customer (which I have NEVER, EVER done before, this psychopath just brings out the worst in me) the other manager hurried to say, "It was a misunderstanding. The total is $200. Do you want it or not?"

Her daughter said, "It's too expensive." She said, "If something's wrong with it can I bring it back?" Why? Are you planning for something to be "wrong" with it soon? If you don't buy the third piece then yes, there's a good chance that something will go wrong with it at some point, and we WILL NOT RETURN IT because you didn't buy the appropriate parts. Let's pretend I work at a car lot. It would be like someone buying a car with only two tires and then wanting to bring it back because it scrapes the ground. OK, bad analogy. But, she really needs the third piece.

So she bought the two pieces, they left, another sigh of relief.

The End? I wish.

TO BE CONTINUED