retail hell

One of my regular reads, Michelle, recently posted some of the joys of working retail (and by "joys," I mean "agonies"), which reminded me of some of my trials and tribulations as a tiny tooth on one of the countless cogs in this great big machine called capitalism. Here's one such character building experience:

For five years, I worked at a comic book store, which is the pimple on the ass of America's retail beast. Basically, people who work at comic book stores only do so because they are hopelessly addicted to comics and can't afford to support their habits otherwise. Most comic book store employees tithe roughtly 80 percent of their pay checks back to the store. In fact, I don't think any comic book store could keep itself in business with out its employees. These establishments also act as refuge to people so tragically geeky, society shuns them, or at least their fascination with four color images. Most comic book fans can function in the outside world, but must, like a vampire returning to its coffin at sunrise, shamble regularly into their prefered shop to discuss why Jack Kirby deserves more credit for the Marvel Universe than Stan Lee and why Joel Schumacher should be shot for the last two Batman films. (Oh, and by most "comic book store employees," I mean "me.")

Anyway, I don't want to get off topic. I worked at a comic book store around the time the new Star Wars figures for the special editions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi came out. For those of you who are not collectors, these little trinkets caused quite a stir in the geek community. People used to come in bragging how they had an "in" at Toys R Us who could hook them up with the rarest of the rare. It was that bonkers. As a comic book store, we had to pay retail price for our Star Wars figures, because we couldn't afford to order in the same kind of numbers that the big chain toy stores and big box stores could. The disadvantage being they were expensive for us to get, but the advantage was we could order which specific figures we wanted and could mark them up according to book value, as found in bullshit publications like ToyFare.

Still there?

I was working one Sunday morning, by myself, while our store was still located in the local mall (I could go on about that place, but perhaps another time), and an obviously frazzled mom entered with her rambunctious youngster. She didn't want to be there--most women who enter comic book stores don't want to be there. I don't mean that to be sexist; women know better. The little boy saw our selection of Star Wars figures in the front display case.

"Mommy! MOMMY!!! C-3PO!!!"

I knew this could only end badly.

"Okay," she said despondently. She then inspected the figure and looked up at me to ask "Why is this $18.00?"

I explained to her what I'd just written in the paragraph above, even though I wasn't supposed to say that stuff to customers, but I'd rather her be pleased by our service then feel like I'd ripped her off.

Me: "Look, we sell these things to collectors. Some figures are rarer than others, and sometimes collectors will pay more for the figures they want. Plus, we have to pay retail for them, so we have to mark them up. If you go to Kay-Bee or something, you might not find this figure, but if you do, it'll be much cheaper. The people who buy the toys here usually never take them out of the box...They're collectors, and they're all fucking insane. (I didn't really say that italicized part, but I was thinking it really loudly.)"

Boy: "MOMMY!!! MOMMY!!! C-3PO!!!"

Mom: "Fine, I'll buy it."

Me: "Okay."

I rang her up. She paid by credit card. It was a slow day, and we needed the sale. I did everything short of punching her in the face to get her not to buy the thing. I figured that was the end of it. But no...

I was reading a "graphic novel" (big lame ass geek for "comic book") when I heard something slap against the counter top. I look up and it's mom and kid and now two C-3PO figures.

She looked at the figures with a smirk, then looked at me, with the same fucking smirk.

Me: "Yeah?"

Mom: [so fucking smug] "I found it at Kay-Bee for five bucks."

Like I was going to give her a fucking medal.

Me: "Okay."

I didn't even bother with the "I told you so." I just wanted her to go away and take her smug grin and shrieking munchkin with her.

Mom: "I want my money back."

Me: [so fucking smug] "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we don't give refunds on credit card purchases, I can give you store credit, though."

Revenge! Believe me, at that job, those tiny victories were the only thing that kept you going at $5.65 an hour. Anytime I get all butt hurt about my current job, I think back to moments like that, take a deep breath, and stress out anyway. But it's still better than working retail.