Excuse me Mam I mean Miss... errr... Sir?

Okay; So it has been a few years since I last worked retail and now that I am back in retail, at the holiday season no less, I have noticed a few things.

1)When shopping the vast majority of individuals could care less what state they leave things in. Examples are: A woman wants a sweater that is at the bottom of a pile of smaller sizes, rather than lift the other ones up so she can take the one she wants out she will violently pull her selection out scattering the other sweaters everywhere (including the floor) and not think twice about it as she walks away. A mother will watch as her child walks through the intimates section pulling dozens of pairs of underwear off the racks and simply laugh and then tell her child to come back... will she care enough to pick up after her child? If you thought the answer was anything other than no, then you have too much faith in mankind. A third example, a customer will break a glass they are looking at and walk away as if nothing happened without saying a word to anyone of what just took place.

2)People are generally unreasonable when shopping. I work at Kohls and during the holiday season Kohls creates a system where all the registers at the front of the store feed off of one single line. The logic here is that rather than having the customers guessing at which register will open up soonest and then find themselves screwed because the customer in front of them decided to open a Kohls Card or needed something checked on they can go directly to the next open register with no guess work. This concept seems to be completely lost on customers however as they like to proclaim that the system is a poor one and they can not believe how long the line is. Some things that have been said about the line include: I can not stand in that line because I have Cancer, and I'm sorry I do not want these anymore because I will have to wait in line to buy them.

Another example of the unreasonable nature of consumers comes in the form of Senior Day. Kolhs offers a Senior discount every Wednesday which equates to 10% off all of their purchases for no other reason then their age. On select occasions the senior discount is 15% rather than 10%; this is a rarity however. Over the past 3 months Kohls has offered several of these 15% off days in lieu of the holiday season. Seniors have taken this to mean that their discount is a permanent 15% and when they find out that it is actually only 10% they will become irate and argumentative. One example of this comes from an elderly couple that proclaimed that their discount has always been 15% and if they did not get it then they would never shop at Kolhs again. Just answer me one question; how many retailers do you know that offer senior discounts? I bet you come up with none other than Kolhs; so what then gives anyone the nerve to make threats when they are getting a discount for no real reason?

3) People do not hesitate to think they know everything and can offer you pointers on how things should be done. For this third point I only wish to mention one short story. A woman when she managed to make it through the line (which at the time was rather short) asked me after I directed her to the fastest register why all 14 registers were not open (at the time only 7 were open) I told her that even though we have 14 registers we do not have enough people here at the moment to operate all of them. Her response was that "that is just poor customer service" and she asked me why we did not hire more people. Being in a rather frank mood I decided to be honest with her and tell her that for some strange reason there are not that many people who want to work in retail during the holiday season. Her response was that she would not be returning to Kohls again and then she asked me which register she could go to again.

Overall I would say most people are pretty much oblivious of the world around them and the work their laziness causes others. For example (I know I have been saying that a lot but I do not care to figure out a better way of transitioning into an example at the moment) Kolhs closes at 12 (midnight) during the holiday season and what most people do not really think about is that when the store closes at 12 it does not mean the employees can leave. Last Wednesday night we had a particularly high business day and the store was in pretty bad shape (see the reasons listed above) when the last customer left at 12:15AM (I am guessing that they did not hear the closing messages because they had to be "escorted" to the registers) we were still in the store working for another hour and a half; meaning I left at around 1:45 in the morning.

Okay; I have complained an awful lot about my job so far but do not get me wrong I like working retail for the most part and I do not mind being at Kohls at all; customers just seem to be worse then normal around the holiday season.

At this point you might be wondering how my subject relates to my post and the truth is that it does not at all till now. As you might have gathered my job for most of the day is to monitor and direct traffic in that single line that I had mentioned. While directing people too and fro I have begun to wonder how and why I choose certain words to gain the attention of the next customer. The general vocab selection includes sir, mam, miss, and whoever is next. Mam and miss I use pretty interchangeably with one another which sometimes causes rude looks in my direction; this only seems to be a problem with the 30something women who are trying to look particularly young when I call them mam instead of miss. Ideally I would address everyone accurately; but sometimes I just end up picking a title based on a whim. For example I said mam to that 30something on purpose knowing full well what would happen. Just so you do not think poorly of me I will share that I have also addressed the slightly older woman as miss to brighten her day a little; if you are reading this thinking that it does not really matter that much what they are called I would just like to let you know that to some people it really does matter and they really do care quite a bit. Sir has no particularly negative connections associated with it except that I have been told once or twice not to call someone sir because they work for a living. The fall back, whom ever is next or next customer, only comes out when I am not really sure. You might be asking right now, what do you mean you are not really sure, but you would be surprised at how many people are really that ambiguous or in many cases just transgendered and you don't really feel comfortable saying one or the other.

Well there it is; the holidays at Kohls. Have a Merry Christmas!