"They're on your team."
Eventually, we decided these willy-nilly team accusations were a little disorganized, and so we delineated the teams for easy reference. Each employee is assigned a team, and we now had an effective shorthand code for referring to our problem customers. "That guy's on bossbro's team" is much less suspicious than "I just watched that guy try to shove an entire controller in his pants."
Ok, that'll make more sense when you read a little further.
For your reading pleasure, here are our teams:
1. People who are jerks for no reason.
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Condescending Wonka meme. "Oh, you're a customer? Please enlighten me on how to do my job correctly."]
Some people are just huge jerks. For example, we have this one regular customer I'm gonna call Michael Bolton, because he shares his name with a celebrity. He's also a huge jerk. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. Was he always a huge jerk? Or did he become a huge jerk because his name is Michael Bolton? We may never know.
Common subtypes: People who demand to speak to a manager just to try to get something for free, people who shout "NOTHING IS FREE!" when offered our free rewards card.
[A Basement Dweller meme. "Real life? Never heard of that server."]
These are the people who refuse to ask for help, but just wander aimlessly through the store muttering under their breath about how they can't find what they're looking for. These are the people who ask questions about "FPSes" out loud. The guy who asked his mom to go ask me if I was single? This team. The guy who came into the store in sweatpants, then revealed he wasn't wearing underwear when he bent over to pick something up, thus exposing his enormous, pasty, pock-marked ass? This team.
Lest you think only men can make it onto this illustrious team, don't worry- women are just as bad. Let's talk about the lady who told me she had explosive diarrhea, ran out of the store, then came back half an hour later to shop some more.
Common subtypes: Neckbeards, bronies, anyone who asks you to repeat yourself more than once, people who still write checks.
3. Bros and criminals.
[A photo of a print-out sign from a store. "Shoplifters: Will be thrown into the pit of Carkoon to be digested over 1000 years by the almighty Sarlacc." That's a Star Wars joke. Old school.]
This team combo is efficient, because it covers everyone who hides their weed in their game cases. Seriously, a lot of people do that. After an ordinary day of work, I smell like an ass and I probably have enough of a contact high to get arrested for driving under the influence.
(Psst! This one is bossbro's team.)
Common subtypes: Potheads, drunkards, shoplifters, people who are openly selling their games for beer and/or drug money. People on this team usually travel in packs of three or more.
4. Unattended children and deadbeat parents.
[A tin sign that says "Unattended children will be given espresso and a free kitten." Darn skippy!]
"Can I leave my kid here while I shop elsewhere?"
"Well, we close in five minutes, so as soon as we lock the doors we'll have to call the police to come pick up an abandoned child."
"Can't I just leave him here?"
Common subtypes: All of Deadbeat Dadurday.
5. The Wiiple.
[Some Wiiple. From a collection of hilariously awkward Wii marketing photos posted by Game Informer.]
Now, I get it. People shopping for Wii games are often shopping for little kids, which means they're not the ones using the Wii, so it's understandable that they might be a little clueless. I can deal with the fact that when someone says, "I need to buy a Wii game," there's a 50% chance they're talking about the actual console. But there's something about being out of their element that causes the Wiiple to freak out and have no idea what's going on. It always starts out pretty normal:
"Is this game appropriate for a 6-year-old? Will my daughter be able to play with her friends? What's it called? How much does it cost? Wait, how much does it cost again? What's a Wii game? Who are you? Where am I? What year is it?"
Common subtypes: People who only want bowling games, people who ask for Mario on the Xbox 360.
6. Team High Maintenance.
[An Annoying Customer meme. "Oh, you close in 5 minutes? I'm just going to browse."]
Salespeople exist to help you make purchases.
Salespeople do not exist for you to corner them like an animal and ask a million questions that no normal person would ever memorize the answer to. If you want ridiculously detailed system specs, guess what? We have Google for that. For the love of God, we have Google for that. See, look: I can Google that for you! Otherwise, I'll just read the text on the box that you apparently can't read, and I will judge you so hard.
Salespeople are not personal shoppers. Modern stores are designed specifically for independent browsing. If you're like "Hey, I came here to buy Hyperdimension Neptunia and I can't find it," I will happily find that shit for you. If you're like "Hey, I'm interested in one of these games but I want to know which one is the best game," I will happily give you my opinion. If you're like "Hey, I really like Hyperdimension Neptunia, what other games are like that?" I will offer suggestions. If you're like "Hey, I need you to stand right next to me and give me a full synopsis of every game I touch and haphazardly guess what my 8-year-old son would like the most even though you know nothing about him because I don't know how to Google (Hyperdimension Neptunia) and I have no independent thoughts also could you carry my stuff and hold my hand and stay late," then fuck you.
Common subtypes: People who interrupt you when you're helping someone else, people who freak out when they can't use our bathroom. (We're in between three restaurants and a huge grocery store, all of which have public restrooms.)
Well, those are the teams. More to be added later? Most likely.
"But blog writer lady," you might be saying. "If people figure out they can do all of this on their own, won't you be out of a job?" To which I say:
Whatever. My job is piss.
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