Hi everyone! My first post, be gentle
When I worked for Cheapshoesource of America, I was still pretty young, in college, and couldn’t keep my mouth shut like I can now. This incident (among many, unfortunately) helped to teach me to keep my smart-ass comments to myself (or at least share them with my co-workers out of SC hearing-range).
SC- Mr. Cheapshoeshopper
Me- Smart Ass
I watch a cute family come in and start looking for shoes for Mrs. Cheapshoeshopper. The couple’s two adorable little children become bored within moments and begin to amuse themselves by spitting on all the mirrors in the store, which includes full-length mirrors as well as mirrors on each side of the benches, of which there are two in each aisle. They happily shriek and spit and then start smearing the spit all over the mirrors. I watch this go on for a little while, hoping that Mr. Cheapshoeshopper, who was in the same isle with the children, would stop his adorable children’s disgusting behavior. No luck.
So, I grab a roll of paper towels, and a bottle of glass cleaner and walk up to the children
Me: “When you are done, then maybe you can clean the mirrors, too?”
BOOM!
SC: “Don’t you talk to my kids like that?!? Who the hell are you? My kids can do any G-damn thing they want to, and you can’t say a G-damn thing! My kids could s**t on the floors and you’d have to clean it up!” and on and on and on, until I am a shriveled little wrinkled mass, quivering from regret, embarrassment and anger. His adorable little kids looking at me with huge eyes, of course watching their father spew forth all this filth.
So, Mrs. Cheapshoeshopper makes her selection, and pays for the shoes all the while her husband is verbally flaming me.
They leave and I go to the back room and cry for a while.
A few days later, a woman comes into the store and scopes me out. I am unfortunately not wearing my name badge, so she asks my name. I give it, and then she proceeds to lay into me about getting me fired about not wearing my name badge…. The “conversation” continues and the story unfolds that she is the manager of another Cheapshoesource of America in a neighboring town and Mrs. Cheapshoeshopper is her sister! And so of course I abused her niece and nephew and scared them to death, and threatened them. I deny doing this, and apologize to her for scaring the children. She continues to promise to have me fired and berate me, until another customer walks up to us and says
“You know, I don’t know what is going on, or who is to blame here, but you two need to carry this on in the back room, not out here”
The other manager stops, and promises that this isn’t the end of “it”, and leaves.
I again go to the back room and cry for a while until I can pull myself together.
Thankfully I had an awesome manager who stood behind me completely. The other manager was fired a week later, for other problems including this particular incident.
Incidentally, another time I did actually have a child defecate on the floor of the store. It was a toddler, who wasn't wearing a diaper. His whole family was looking for shoes, and I didn't notice the little boy wasn't wearing a diaper until the turd popped out the bottom of his shorts. I was appalled, and looked at the mother and said "Your child just pooped on the floor!"
She looked over at him, shrugged and continued to shop.
She completely ignored me going to the back room, getting paper towels to clean up the mess. They finished shopping, bought some items and left without ever saying anything at all to me.

When I worked for Cheapshoesource of America, I was still pretty young, in college, and couldn’t keep my mouth shut like I can now. This incident (among many, unfortunately) helped to teach me to keep my smart-ass comments to myself (or at least share them with my co-workers out of SC hearing-range).
SC- Mr. Cheapshoeshopper
Me- Smart Ass
I watch a cute family come in and start looking for shoes for Mrs. Cheapshoeshopper. The couple’s two adorable little children become bored within moments and begin to amuse themselves by spitting on all the mirrors in the store, which includes full-length mirrors as well as mirrors on each side of the benches, of which there are two in each aisle. They happily shriek and spit and then start smearing the spit all over the mirrors. I watch this go on for a little while, hoping that Mr. Cheapshoeshopper, who was in the same isle with the children, would stop his adorable children’s disgusting behavior. No luck.
So, I grab a roll of paper towels, and a bottle of glass cleaner and walk up to the children
Me: “When you are done, then maybe you can clean the mirrors, too?”
BOOM!
SC: “Don’t you talk to my kids like that?!? Who the hell are you? My kids can do any G-damn thing they want to, and you can’t say a G-damn thing! My kids could s**t on the floors and you’d have to clean it up!” and on and on and on, until I am a shriveled little wrinkled mass, quivering from regret, embarrassment and anger. His adorable little kids looking at me with huge eyes, of course watching their father spew forth all this filth.
So, Mrs. Cheapshoeshopper makes her selection, and pays for the shoes all the while her husband is verbally flaming me.
They leave and I go to the back room and cry for a while.
A few days later, a woman comes into the store and scopes me out. I am unfortunately not wearing my name badge, so she asks my name. I give it, and then she proceeds to lay into me about getting me fired about not wearing my name badge…. The “conversation” continues and the story unfolds that she is the manager of another Cheapshoesource of America in a neighboring town and Mrs. Cheapshoeshopper is her sister! And so of course I abused her niece and nephew and scared them to death, and threatened them. I deny doing this, and apologize to her for scaring the children. She continues to promise to have me fired and berate me, until another customer walks up to us and says
“You know, I don’t know what is going on, or who is to blame here, but you two need to carry this on in the back room, not out here”
The other manager stops, and promises that this isn’t the end of “it”, and leaves.
I again go to the back room and cry for a while until I can pull myself together.
Thankfully I had an awesome manager who stood behind me completely. The other manager was fired a week later, for other problems including this particular incident.
Incidentally, another time I did actually have a child defecate on the floor of the store. It was a toddler, who wasn't wearing a diaper. His whole family was looking for shoes, and I didn't notice the little boy wasn't wearing a diaper until the turd popped out the bottom of his shorts. I was appalled, and looked at the mother and said "Your child just pooped on the floor!"
She looked over at him, shrugged and continued to shop.

She completely ignored me going to the back room, getting paper towels to clean up the mess. They finished shopping, bought some items and left without ever saying anything at all to me.
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