Where do these people come from?

Good Grief! Why is it me the always gets the weird, off the wall customers?

Had a customer call today and claim that this weekend he poo-ed (twosies, dropped a load) in the bushes behind our store. He apologized for that but he then went on to say that apparently the leaves he used after were poison ivy, and which doctor did we want him to see in order to get it treated and would we be paying the doctor directly, giving him (the customer) cash, or cutting him a check. I told him we wouldn’t be paying for that at all, he’d have to cover that himself. He protested by saying that it happened on our property, therefore we were responsible. I countered by reminding him that we have public restrooms. He said they were full and he really had to go. He then offered to accept a gift certificate to the store in the amount of his medical bill in lieu of actual payment, and I told him no. He then asked if we’d at least give him a bottle of Calamine lotion and a paintbrush used for models on account of it was a “deep itch”. Ewww. I told him he could call back in about ninety minutes when my manager got back from lunch but I wasn’t going to authorize that. My manager thinks it might have been one of the other managers playing a prank.

I had to stay a little late today to finish up some stuff that didn’t get done because I was out of the store for about three and a half hours at the district training thing I had to go to. I’d have gotten more done before I left if my manager hadn’t been running me all over the store and keeping me from getting anything useful done.

Tomorrow when we go to the regional training session we are going to have to leave the store in the hands of our newest and most inexperienced manager for almost three hours. I’m a little concerned, and my boss is too, but I’m confident she will be fine. I pointed out to my boss that we would be putting a newly minted ensign, fresh out of the academy, in charge of a starship and asked if she really wanted to do that. To give the non-geeks a reference point, my store is number two in the district in square footage and number three in sales. We normally do around ninety million dollars a year in sales. She’s been a salaried manager for three months with no hourly leadership experience to draw on. Does everyone now understand the concerns?

The problem is she is very timid and shy (and she’s a retail manager?) and seemingly unsure of herself and she projects this like a supernova in a near starless sky. And we (the other managers) buy into it, and adjust to it and start acting like she’s incapable and then that just reinforces her own perception of herself so she withdraws more and becomes more uncertain which, we in turn, perceive as proof and so forth and so on. I didn’t realize this until tonight and I need to make my boss aware of what’s going on so we can fix it now before we put her in a situation that she really can’t handle and it’s our own fault.