Dear Rude B*tch.....

Wow....what a way to start my day today....

A woman in her 60's arrives with her husband as the first customer in my store today. In her hands is a bag with our logo on it.

Me: Do you have a return?
Rude Woman: Yes
Me: We do need you to leave the bag at the front of the store please.
(woman ignores me and continues to walk through the store)

RW: Do you have any Father's Day frames left?
(I walk her to our Clearance section)
RW: No, I wanted the one you had in silver.
Me: I'm sorry, but those are sold out. These are the only ones I have left.
RW: I guess this will do. Do you have a box?
Me: No, I'm sorry. Most of the clearance items don't have a box.
RW: So, can't you just take a frame out of another box and give the box to me?
Me: No, I'm sorry. The boxes have specific skus on them for inventory. We can't take skus off and start moving them around to other items and boxes.

Now, the woman completely and utterly goes apeshit on me. Apparently, just short of the Crucifixion and just this side of slaughtering busloads of children is the idea that I'm not going to give her the box. We go up to the front of the store, where she proceeds to tell her husband how disgusting it is that I won't switch boxes around for her, and has he ever heard of such a thing?

Mind you, I probably WOULD have done it, but her attitude has been utterly disgusting and rude that at this point, NOT accomodating her seems to be a matter of pride.

I ring up her new frame and begin to ring the return:

RW: What are you doing?
Me: I'm doing both items in the same transaction for you.
RW: Well I WISH you had asked me first.
Me: Oh, did you want me to do the new item first and then a separate transaction for the return?
RW: Well, yeah.
Me: Ok....no problem. (I ring up the new frame). Ok, your total is $3.98.
RW: Yeah...without a box!

I ignore the comment, and begin ringing her $12 return.

RW: Are you one of the managers here?
Me: Actually, I'm THE manager here.
RW: You people used to be MUCH more helpful. As if people asked for boxes every day.
Me: Actually, they do. Which is one of the reasons why we can't switch boxes around for people.

Then, she actually leans forward over the counter into my face and in a childlike voice says to me: "blah blah blah blah blah." Seriously. In my face.

I do my best not to reach out and slap the living bejeezus out of her. Instead, I say to her "ExCUSE me?"

RW: It's just words. You could give me the box if you wanted to.

I'm shaking, I'm so angry. "Ma'am," I say, "I have not been rude to you ONCE during this exchange. You will NOT be rude to me."

RW: I can't believe it. And for how much money I spend in this store! (Mind you, she just returned a $12 frame to get a $4 frame)

Somehow, I completed the transaction and gave her her receipt, explained when she would get her refund, and she stormed out with her husband in tow. I had to go in the back and calm down and get someone else to cover the front for me. I'm happy to say I NEVER lost it in front of her.

BITCH!!!!

Happy Anniversary To Us!

It's hard to believe, but it's been a year (June 17th) since Luis and I had our wonderful commitment ceremony.

This year, we really weren't sure what we were going to do to celebrate. We had discussed possibly going away to the mountains or something for a couple of days, but we couldn't seem to get any of the rental places to call us back. Then, luck was with us. The fantastic place we stayed in last year for the honeymoon, East Canyon Hotel and Spa, was running the same special as last year where you pay for two nights and get a third free. That pretty much settled it for us, and last Friday we drove down to Palm Springs.

Yep. Drove. And what was supposed to be 7 1/2 hours turned into almost 11 due to terrible traffic around San Jose. Next year, we fly if we go back.

What was really terrific was that they gave us the same room we stayed in a year ago, and told us that anytime we wanted to come back we could try and request the same room. We also had an INCREDIBLE dinner at a place called Copley's, which the hotel recommended and setup a reservation for us.

It was a nice, relaxing few days. Always nice to get away with the hubby, since it seems as if our schedules so rarely mesh these days.

Dilemna

So...I've got a real humdinger of a decision on my hands....

I have the opportunity to become a District Manager In Training. This is something I've pretty much wanted my entire damn retail life. After all, who wants to be a store manager their whole life?

The problem comes in that the job would essentially require me to be on the road five days a week, and only home on weekends. This means I would only get to see my man a couple of days a week. There is no guaranteed end to the program, either...you essentially have to wait until a District Manager position opens somewhere, apply for it and then hope you get it.

On the one hand, it's a great opportunity. On the other, I've actually had nightmares about being away from Luis for so long, and in the nightmares I just cry and cry. I can't imagine not being with him, even if the end result is positive.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Getting Organized

I spent most of my childhood with absolutely no interest in comics. When everybody else was oohing and ahhing over the latest Batman or Superman, I was....well, ok, I was drooling over them on television but I WASN'T reading the comics.

Then, a couple of years back, I decided to take a look at a few different titles, particularly ones like Fantastic Four and Spider-Man (because my first crushes were Spidey and the Human Torch) and got hooked on the titles. Then, I discovered that there were so many other great titles out there, particularly from independent publishers. Great stuff like Dorothy, Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse and Zombies. Ok, it's not exactly higher literature but...

My buddy Matt recently decided to downsize his collections, and it got me to thinking. Do I need to get rid of them to make space? Can I continue collecting them? Is it just stuff? The more I thought about it, the more I thought...you know what? It's ok to hold onto these. I don't really collect anything, I have no expensive bad habits and I've always enjoyed collecting different types of writing and literature. I'm also one of those people who buy comics based on the storylines, rather than the artists.

So I don't have a problem with keeping the comics, but I DO have a problem with keeping them organized. The hubby is a bit tired of the piles everywhere, so I bought a couple of longboxes and started throwing them in there. The problem is, I have a lot now, and really have no idea which ones I have and which ones I need.

There's lots of software out there for comic organization, but all of it is written for the Windows operating system. As one of those folks who now says "I'm a Mac" instead of "I'm a PC," this was a real problem. I didn't want to setup a custom spreadsheet in Excel, and I didn't want to fork over a ton of money for something like Filemaker.

Fortunately, after digging around on the 'Net, I found a great site called StashMyComics.com which basically lets you keep track of your collection online. It's also very grassroots, in that everyone is encouraged to upload missing cover images, fill in missing information about the comics, etc.. It's a little slow at times, the interface maybe not so pretty as something you could fork out $50 for. You know what? I don't care. I finally have a way to get all these comics organized, and I love being part of the community and contributing my share of the work to keep it running.

If you're looking for an option to keep track of your comic collection, I highly recommend them.