Background: Yesterday was a very very busy day. We just had a delivery of 7 pallets, which is a fairly average amount, but there was a pallet and a HALF of repack totes instead of the the normal 2/3-1 pallet of them, so that meant we had a lot more little stuff to put away than usual. We've had an unusually high number of out-of-stock SKUs so a lot of them must have come back in at the warehouse.
Additionally, we had the back room all torn apart to get it rearranged. We'd finally gotten the OK from the District Manager to start tossing all of the crap that Captain Jellico had accumulated during his stint as OpsMan, which meant we could finally reclaim that wasted space and close the book for good on that dark chapter of our store's history.
And for some reason Psycho Bitch was leaving at 3 instead of 4 today, which left an hour long gap with NO cashier, meaning that they had to pull Wonder Bread off the floor to ring and designate me as the backup cashier. Needless to say, Wonder Bread was paging me left, right, AND center because he's too slow to be the only cashier up there.
In short, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and had a VERY full plate.
Lastly, there's a woman who is in our copy center at least a couple of times a week. She spends massive amounts of money there. Unfortunately, this means that we have to bend over backwards and kiss her ass. Normally it's the copy center people doing this so it doesn't really affect me, but yesterday I almost wanted to pick her up and stuff her in the baler. Her one saving grace was that she never raised her voice and was understanding when I had to tell her what she wanted was no longer available.
So anyway, I'm in the middle of helping another customer when The Don paged me.
The Don: Dave1982 please call 2-4.
Extension 24 is the copy center.
Now, I can't just abandon my customer, so I tried to finish up as quickly as possible.
Not even a minute later.....
The Don: Dave1982 call 2-4. DAVE1982, 2-4!
Oh for the love of....the only two reasons I wouldn't answer a page immediately are 1) I'm with a customer or 2) I'm in the men's room. The Don knows this, so impatiently repeating the page doesn't help speed things along.
Me: Was there anything else, ma'am? That's my boss calling me.
Cust: No, that's it.
I grabbed the nearest phone and called The Don.
The Don: Dave, you know that collapsible bookcases?
Me: The fold-up ones? Yeah.
The Don: Could you bring one up for [aforementioned CPC regular].
Me: Alright.
I went out back and picked my way through the mess that Focker was working on, got the bookcase and carried it up front.
And if that was the end of it, I wouldn't be posting this story.
Turns out she actually wanted FOUR bookcases, in a black finish. And she wanted 4 of our large display easels. She said something about setting up some sort of display at work where she'd have a bookcase then a large mounted signboard on an easel behind the shelf explaining what was on it (as if I give two shits about what people do with the product once it leaves the building. Unless you tell me you're planning to break the law then I do NOT give a damn).
So she wants me to just order her 4 of these bookcases in black, then? (we don't carry the black one in the store)
Nooooooooooo!!!! Oh no, that would be FAR too easy.
She'd already spoken to The Don about this, and wanted me to steal one of the store use easels from the copy center - along with the in-store advertising sign that was on it - carry it back to the furniture pad, pull the display bookcase off the shelf, and rig everything up the way she wanted her final display to look like so she could take a picture for her boss.
The Don said "do it."
Um....ok.....I guess that's not a whole lot of extra work on top of the abundance of work I'm already doing.....
Still, had this been it, I wouldn't be posting. The next part is the best.
I did what she wanted. She then proceeded to grab a chair, sit down in and, say the following:
SC: I'm gonna pretend you're one of my kids helping me move furniture around the house. Move the easel so it's behind the bookcase but angled slightly.
Oh for fuck's sake! I nearly lost it when she said that. I am NOT one of your kids, nor am I an interior design peon!
But...I had my orders from The Don, so I did what she asked.
She pulled out a camera and took a picture.
SC: Hmm......the background is kinda cluttered.
No kidding! We're on the furniture pad. There's a bunch of other bookcases and other items everywhere.
SC: Can we move this in front of that door and take the picture there. *points to the EMERGENCY EXIT*
Me: Um....sure, but only for a second because that's an emergency exit.
SC: I know that. I'll be quick.
I moved the damn bookcase and easel again. She took a picture, thanked me, and I put everything away.
THEN I found out that the black version of the bookcase has been discontinued and is utterly unavailable. Thankfully, she was understanding and said she'd be back later to get them in cherry (which we did have). So I had to carry the boxed bookcase back to the back room.
You know, if this had been a slow day, it might not have bothered me too much, but I had a LOT of other work that I was putting off while she was having me futz around with rearranging the damn furniture department so she can visualize her ideas. That was more than a little on the ridiculous side, and I'm not happy that The Don blindly had me go along with this when he KNEW how much work we had to do that.
Additionally, we had the back room all torn apart to get it rearranged. We'd finally gotten the OK from the District Manager to start tossing all of the crap that Captain Jellico had accumulated during his stint as OpsMan, which meant we could finally reclaim that wasted space and close the book for good on that dark chapter of our store's history.
And for some reason Psycho Bitch was leaving at 3 instead of 4 today, which left an hour long gap with NO cashier, meaning that they had to pull Wonder Bread off the floor to ring and designate me as the backup cashier. Needless to say, Wonder Bread was paging me left, right, AND center because he's too slow to be the only cashier up there.
In short, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and had a VERY full plate.
Lastly, there's a woman who is in our copy center at least a couple of times a week. She spends massive amounts of money there. Unfortunately, this means that we have to bend over backwards and kiss her ass. Normally it's the copy center people doing this so it doesn't really affect me, but yesterday I almost wanted to pick her up and stuff her in the baler. Her one saving grace was that she never raised her voice and was understanding when I had to tell her what she wanted was no longer available.
So anyway, I'm in the middle of helping another customer when The Don paged me.
The Don: Dave1982 please call 2-4.
Extension 24 is the copy center.
Now, I can't just abandon my customer, so I tried to finish up as quickly as possible.
Not even a minute later.....
The Don: Dave1982 call 2-4. DAVE1982, 2-4!
Oh for the love of....the only two reasons I wouldn't answer a page immediately are 1) I'm with a customer or 2) I'm in the men's room. The Don knows this, so impatiently repeating the page doesn't help speed things along.
Me: Was there anything else, ma'am? That's my boss calling me.
Cust: No, that's it.
I grabbed the nearest phone and called The Don.
The Don: Dave, you know that collapsible bookcases?
Me: The fold-up ones? Yeah.
The Don: Could you bring one up for [aforementioned CPC regular].
Me: Alright.
I went out back and picked my way through the mess that Focker was working on, got the bookcase and carried it up front.
And if that was the end of it, I wouldn't be posting this story.
Turns out she actually wanted FOUR bookcases, in a black finish. And she wanted 4 of our large display easels. She said something about setting up some sort of display at work where she'd have a bookcase then a large mounted signboard on an easel behind the shelf explaining what was on it (as if I give two shits about what people do with the product once it leaves the building. Unless you tell me you're planning to break the law then I do NOT give a damn).
So she wants me to just order her 4 of these bookcases in black, then? (we don't carry the black one in the store)
Nooooooooooo!!!! Oh no, that would be FAR too easy.
She'd already spoken to The Don about this, and wanted me to steal one of the store use easels from the copy center - along with the in-store advertising sign that was on it - carry it back to the furniture pad, pull the display bookcase off the shelf, and rig everything up the way she wanted her final display to look like so she could take a picture for her boss.
The Don said "do it."
Um....ok.....I guess that's not a whole lot of extra work on top of the abundance of work I'm already doing.....

Still, had this been it, I wouldn't be posting. The next part is the best.
I did what she wanted. She then proceeded to grab a chair, sit down in and, say the following:
SC: I'm gonna pretend you're one of my kids helping me move furniture around the house. Move the easel so it's behind the bookcase but angled slightly.
Oh for fuck's sake! I nearly lost it when she said that. I am NOT one of your kids, nor am I an interior design peon!

But...I had my orders from The Don, so I did what she asked.
She pulled out a camera and took a picture.
SC: Hmm......the background is kinda cluttered.
No kidding! We're on the furniture pad. There's a bunch of other bookcases and other items everywhere.
SC: Can we move this in front of that door and take the picture there. *points to the EMERGENCY EXIT*
Me: Um....sure, but only for a second because that's an emergency exit.
SC: I know that. I'll be quick.
I moved the damn bookcase and easel again. She took a picture, thanked me, and I put everything away.
THEN I found out that the black version of the bookcase has been discontinued and is utterly unavailable. Thankfully, she was understanding and said she'd be back later to get them in cherry (which we did have). So I had to carry the boxed bookcase back to the back room.
You know, if this had been a slow day, it might not have bothered me too much, but I had a LOT of other work that I was putting off while she was having me futz around with rearranging the damn furniture department so she can visualize her ideas. That was more than a little on the ridiculous side, and I'm not happy that The Don blindly had me go along with this when he KNEW how much work we had to do that.

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