Wherein I could be doing ten thousand other things.

[ShadowTiger]

... than holding your hand while you look through a catalog.

So our hardware store has one aisle devoted nearly entirely to special orders. It's an aisle that all of us dread, because absolutely nothing has a price, much less a model number to identify it. Even the brand isn't visible. It literally just looks like a lavish, decadent fanciful array of shiny knobs, pulls, handles, and who the hell knows whats.

What I do know, however, is that everything there is hideously overpriced. I mean I've never seen a cabinet knob that costs over thirty four dollars before until I had seen one of the catalogs that actually did have the prices in it.

So on Sunday, at around 4:00 I guess, I was paged to go help with the locks. Generally, those are easy. There's only three types. So I find the customer walking to the hardware desk, who summons me to follow her. "Finally! Someone who can help!" Already, this doth not bode well. o.o

But she skips the aisle where the locks are, and steps into the dreaded special order aisle. Terrifying music plays in my head as I immediately regret having woken up in the morning. She shows me a particular model (With, again, no price to speak of) and fondles it in her own sucky-customer way, and says "How much is this?" "Well, I'm not sure. Let's go look it up in the book." "Great. They have no idea. How am I supposed to buy this if it has no price?" "I'll go look it up in the book. o.O' "

So off to the books I go. There are dozens of books, none of which are obvious and match with the item. So I'm looking for anything resembling a model name and not having much luck. I'm being called to the key desk to make some keys right about now. It's a mighty fine time to be the only person in the top half of the store...

Two minutes later I'm still looking without any luck. At this point the somewhat calmer husband jumps in and grabs a book to placate his boiling wife. But the wife closes the book on her husband's hands. "The salesperson is supposed to look it up for us! Why should you do all the work, Robert!?" To which I reply, "Because you can spot exactly what it is that you want in the books, which will have more information than the displays here, which apparently have none." o_o

The thing is, there are books on the table that are free to peruse. Seriously, anyone can just open one up and look at them. You're allowed to. The loose screws and special order area are self-serve, for the most part. It's why the books are there.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

I feel your pain. So many of our order entry calls are from people wanting us to be their personal shoppers, and the ones looking in the paper catalogs are the worst because the catalogs don't show EVERYTHING we carry by a long shot. They also don't give much information about any of the products, and they CERTAINLY don't tell you whether or not an item is in stock - or worse, even hint at the fact that a lot of the furniture is custom order and can take up to 2 months to get. We just don't get paid NEARLY enough to play personal shopper for these people

[EricKei]

But the wife closes the book on her husband's hands. "The salesperson is supposed to look it up for us! Why should you do all the work, Robert!?" To which I reply, "Because you can spot exactly what it is that you want in the books, which will have more information than the displays here, which apparently have none." o_o

What a self-important little b***h! She knew that she could and should have been looking in the catalogs herself all this time and, from the sound of things, wasted several OTHER employees' time before pouncing on you, all because she didn't wanna do it herself...>_< I kinda feel sorry for that guy.

Great comeback, too, and GJ on keeping yer temper ^_^

[dragon_wings]

What an EW.
I get people that ask where something is and I point to the aisle and say 'aisle < >'. And they just look at me blankly. Then there was the guy that stopped me while I was on lunch (off the clock) and asked where <item> was. If he had just walked 5 more steps he'd have been in front of <item> so I just pointed. And he got snarky and said 'oh they must be over here.'

[teh_blumchenkinder]

heh... her loose screws are self-service...
wow that makes no sense I need bedz.
what a shrew.