Shop Boy Explains…why being on the phone at work makes me busy

…why being on the phone at work makes me busy

Let me start this post with a disclaimer; I am not talking about hanging out on the selling floor on my mobile talking to my mum. When I say being on the phone makes me busy. I am talking about when I am on the work phone talking about something relating to work.

Now to begin…

Customers can be self important, painful jerks. I have made myself clear in how much I believe in this little fact. A lot of them seem to forget that they are not the only ones in the shop that want to be served and struggle to wait for you to be free. They really struggle if they see you on the phone.

To clear this up once and for all, in retail stores people call you, not for a chat, but to find out if you have something in stock, to see if they can hold things, to see if they can purchase things over the phone, to see if they can exchange things…you see what I’m doing here? People call us all the time, they too are customers and sorry to say impatient wanks, they are just as important as you.

You see, yesterday, I was on the phone with a customer who wanted a jacket to be posted out to her in the bush, as clearly, she wasn’t near a store. This happens all the time and the phone customers are usually lovely. A man approached the counter and stood in front of me.

I continued to talk to the lady who, from memory, was struggling with what size to buy her husband.

I looked up at the man and was greeted with a disgruntled eyebrow raise.

This pissed me off. You see I’m the kind of person that if doing something wrong will quite happily cop the consequences, but at that moment I was doing my job and didn’t deserve that look.

Needless to say, he had made an enemy.

I decided to return serve with a, what I have termed the “what-you-talkin-bout-Willis” style eyebrow raise. You know the, what the hell are you on about and where did you get the gall to do that eyebrow raise? I’ll move on…remind me to write an article on the various forms of eyebrow raises you can give a customer.

Anyway, he didn’t like getting his attitude thrown back at his face and he spat out,

“Is this checkout open or are you just talking?”

BIG MISTAKE.

You see I hate people that call counters in shops checkouts. Checkouts come with conveyer belts and reside in supermarkets and make processing sales fun. Using the archaic technology that resides in Australian department stores is not fun.

Oh, I was also annoyed about the talking comment.

“Sorry, I’ll just be one second, “ I told the lady on the phone.

“Excuse me?” I asked the man which I teamed with the aforementioned eyebrow raise.

“I want to be served!”

“Cool. I’m currently serving a lady on the phone.”

“No you’re not…”

“UMMMMM. Turns out I am. She is buying this jacket that’s in front of me, which might I add is actually from the brand that pays me unlike the (seedy, tried on) Speedos in your hand, so sorry to say Sir (filled with passive aggression…and rage), you’ll need to take your Speedos to a different counter where a staff member is free.”

He huffed off and I went back to serving the lovely lady on the phone that agreed he was rude…yeah, I told her the story.

Needless to say, if you go down to the shops anytime soon and see a staff member on the phone, do not assume they are being lazy. Customers also know how to use phones, so don’t be a jerk and neither will I.