Walk in to any retail store and you will see a sea of neatly, mysteriously folded shirts and pants. We all fold our own clothes at home, but retail folding is a magic process with folds, stickers, and creases that make no sense to the average consumer. And we know that. We don't ever expect you to fold our clothes properly. Some stores even use shirt boards so there's no way you could get it right on your own. And we're totally okay with that. But we are NOT okay with is what you do next.
Some of you will decide you don't want a shirt. Say it's a blue shirt with an elephant on it in a medium. You fold it the way you would at home, put it on top of a completely different shirt, and go about your shopping. Then 10 minutes later, re-think that choice so you go back to Blue Elephant Shirt Display. Grab another medium, even though the one you left earlier is 5 feet away. You get to the other side of the store, decide that no, you REALLY don't want it, and leave it mushed between our shoes. Cool. You're about to check out and go "Man, I really want that Blue Elephant shirt. I'm gonna go get it for realsies now." So you go back a third time. Low and behold.... No mediums left. (This may or may not be because you have strewn them all over my store.) So you ask an employee to help you out. If this is you, please go read the previous entry and then come back here. I'll wait. Good, now what did we learn?
Then there are the people who I refer to as the third type of people. I always used to believe that there were two types of people in this world. Good people, and bad people. Then I started in retail. There are people who will decide they don't want an article of clothing, which is totally okay, put it back in the correct location, but put it there, balled up, wedged between the bottom two items in the stack. Sometimes we won't find that for DAYS and now it is too wrinkled to fold and get out on the floor. There is a special circle reserved in hell for these people. Seriously. There is someone right next to our shirts, folding ones people didn't want, almost all fucking day. The need of shirts to be folded keeps at LEAST 3 of my cashiers employed. What the fuck do you think is going to happen if you just gave it to one of us and said you didn't want it? Or nicely placed it back where you got it from? Do you think we would yell at you? Or maybe just fucking smile and say "Oh don't worry I'll take care of it!" I'll give you a hint. We don't mind putting shit back the right way.
I suppose there's also the people who try so very hard to figure out our strange shirt folding ways. I love these people. I wish I could discount their purchases when they do that. I always come over and say "oh don't worry I'll take that!" and I always hear one of two things. Either "Oh no it's okay I wanna do it" and I love that, or "I've worked in retail, I know I can do this!" and we love that too. But really, we'd rather just refold ourselves because all stores have different standards. Your folds might be super awesome, but they're not our folds and we need consistency in our store. I still love you, I won't stop you, and I will just wish I could give you a discount without getting in trouble all day.
And for the love of all that is holy, DON'T just shove shit at an employee grunting "I don't want these" and stomp away. We're people. Not coat racks. We're okay with you giving us things you don't want, and in fact, prefer that you do that so we can make sure they're folded or hung up properly, but respect us as people. Would you just shove things at your grandmother and stomp off? That would be rude you say? Bingo. It's still rude when you do it to us.
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