Emily+G

media type="custom" key="3417634" MEMOIR

I work in a furniture store. I started there when I was seventeen years old. It’s not a typical seventeen year old’s occupation, but then again, the store isn’t typical either. Its name is Platypus. I call it “platy” for short. We carry quite a variety of items, consisting of furniture, coffee, chocolates, dinnerware, trinkets and even the occasional book. The variety of items we sell corresponds with the variety of animals that make up a platypus; hence the name of the store. Just as the store and its belongings are very diverse, so are its customers and more importantly, it’s employees. Yeah I said it, //it’s employees//. Yes, I am an employee, and yes I fulfill a spot of the store’s diverse employees. But excuse me, I’m not just an employee, I’m actually referred to as a sales associate. In Platypus, sales associate is the euphemism for bitch worker. I do all the work without getting the glorification. My reward is simply a nametag that //I// had to pay for. It reads, “PLATYPUS SALES ASSOCIATE”. I don’t even get a name. Well I guess technically, Platypus could be my name. But let me stop there because I can’t even begin to tell you how many cornball customers have walked into the store and said, “well hello, Platypus, I’m Jim”. To me, this is not funny, nor even the slightest bit humorous. In fact, I actually find it insulting. How would you like to be called by a name that describes a furry brown animal with webbed feet and a duckbill? My point exactly... Being a sales associate in a rough economic time, you find yourself with a lot of free time. In other words, business is extremely slow. Due to the slowness of business I need to find a way to keep myself occupied. One night I forgot my own reading material so I decided to try and find something else self-beneficial to pass the time. I decided that exercise is a good way to self- enhance, so I got out a measuring tape (we have a lot of those considering we //are// a furniture store) and calculated how many laps around the store added up to five thousand, two hundred, eighty feet. For those of you unaware, that’s the number of feet in a mile. It took me a mere ten mintues to figure it out, but at least I temporarily cured my boredom. It’s thirty-two laps. Since my calculating was short lived, I needed something else. As you may recall from before, we sell books. The first book I picked up was titled, “Smotherhood”. I read the back of the book; “ A tale of an over-suffocating mother”. //Uh, no thanks//. Put that sucker right back down. For my next pick, “1,001 Ways To Relax”. Working in retail this book could become very useful. I opened it to a random page and read it’s advice. “Get lost”. That’s probably one of the worst pieces of advice I’ve ever received. I mean that’s right up there with dipping a hair dryer in a bathtub. When I am driving and get lost, I am anything //but// relaxed. I start sweating and screaming and then I call my dad. I then yell at him for not knowing the exact coordinates to my placement and not being able to help me. After all, it //is// his fault. Then I hang up. Quite relaxing ay? Disappointed at the first piece of advice that the book gave me, I gave it a bit of it’s own advice and told it to get lost. It’s probably collecting dust somewhere in the confines of platy now. Platypus isn’t always boring though. Due to recession we must treat every customer as though they are Queen Elizabeth. I guess that’s how they should always be treated but it is even more pertinent now. I must also abide by the number one rule in retail; the customer is always right. I hate that rule. The demise of my day walked through the door. I smelled it from behind the register. I was in for it. She was accompanied by her counter parts, a tall man and a short young girl – a preteen. What a wonderful family outing – to ruin someone’s day. I could picture it in my head, exactly how this situation came to be. The mother and the daughter sitting on their couch at home, the mother then turning to the daughter saying, “ sweetie, let’s do something as a family today. How about we go ruin some sales associate’s day?” The eager pre-teen would then respond, “Okay! Sounds great!” They would then go get the man of the house and would pack themselves up to venture off to Platypus. That’s exactly how they got here. The mom sniffed out my vulnerability just as I had smelled her perfume of controversy upon her entrance. We made eye contact. I walked out form behind the register. “Hi, how are you today?” “Fine, thanks, we’re going to just look around a bit.” “Okay sounds good, let me know if you guys have any questions.” //Lie//. I didn’t care is she had any questions. I didn’t //want// to know. //The customer is always right. Repeat.// They browsed around for about fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, I stayed behind the counter marveling at the display of candy I had just created. The little girl had strayed away from her parents and joined me in marveling at the five foot tall display of candy that rest atop a table. After a minute or two her mom wandered over to the same area as her daughter. She too stopped to marvel, but not at the same thing as us. No, she was marveling at what reside underneath the five foot tall masterpiece, she was marveling at the table.