written on Saturday, Apr. 26, 2003 at 5:34 p.m.
There is this one customer that comes in the store all the time. I have very much a love/hate relationship with her. She's a nice lady, but very VERY pestery. {Is that a word? Huh.}
EVERY interaction with her goes like this:
Moley Lady: Can you [give me a discount, hold something that can't be held, otherwise break the rules]?
Me: *looks carefully at situation, and usually determine that no, I can't* No, I can't.
ML: Hmm. Well, who's manager today? Get me the manager.
Me: Come on, Moley Lady, we both know I *am* a manager. But even managers have rules, ya know.
ML: Yes, but the other managers don't seem to be as bound by them.
At this point, depending on what she's asking, I sometimes give her a modified form of what she's wanting, i.e., if she's wanting a full markdown on something, I'll offer her 10%. In the event I do this, repeat above scenario again and again until I finally put my footdown and call a manager.
Thing is, the managers usually give in to her. And then when I call them on it later, they say either A.) "Well she's a good customer or B.) "She's new and we want to get her to come back". Neither of those things are true. She usually only buys stuff that's already on clearance as much as half off or more, and harasses you for a further discount. That does not a "good customer" make.
And she's NEW? WTF? She's in there all the time. I don't even get how in the world you could NOT remember her. First, she's a middle aged black lady and we have very few of those that come in, and I know all of them. Second, she's a MOLEY middle aged black lady. V. distinctive.
The thing I wonder is, do they have any idea she's making a fool of them? Do they understand that she does this every fucking time because she KNOWS they'll give in?
Gah. I hope not.
* * *
I'm feeling very ambivilous about a chat I had with Moody and BJ. We talked about Frumpy, one of my subordinates. Frumpy has issues. Frumpy IS issues. Seriously. She's very VERY slow. She's very tempermental. Honestly, she's a shoddy excuse for an employee.
Anyway, I was trying to express concerns about her with Moody and BJ WITHOUT coming across as being catty or snide. I made the statment that she's very "thorough", which I presumed they would interpret as my real meaning: She wanders off and does stupid, very low priority shit and takes her sweet time doing it. Instead, they snickered and said they'd never thought of it that way, and basically implied that I obviously don't see the picture clearly.
I DO see the picture clearly. I was trying to be constructive. Apparently, though, since I didn't sink to blatant bad mouthing, I "don't know her like [they] do".
Every point I tried to make in a constructive way, they basically whiddled down to being nothing but a big complaint against her. Which was NOT my goal. For the most part, Frumpy is fine. She's moody and she's a backstabber -- but when she's in a GOOD mood and you don't give her any ammunition, she's not so bad.
I know she's basically on her way out the door. I've known this for a while. They're lying in wait for her to do something termination worthy. My intention was not to give them ammo, but to hopefully get some helpful feedback on how to handle certain situations with her.
It didn't work.
So now I'm concerned that they'll either go to Kurt and tell him all the bad things I'm saying about her and I'LL be that bad guy, or they'll plain ol' fuck me over by telling her "watch out for Cat -- she's out to get you. Just so's you know." Both of them are fond of such behavior.
I'm sure that, to them, it's a great bit of jolly fun to watch the little sea monkeys dance around and do stupid things. But it's NOT fun to me. Whether or not they take my position seriously, I DO. I WANT to be a good manager. I want to be fair to everyone, and try to help people succeed. Even people I'm not particularly fond of.
I really wish I worked for adults instead of 20 and 30 something teenagers.
Love,
