Mortimer's Mom

The Dramedy Continues, laugh along with me...

A couple of weeks ago, a long-time employee {who had left at the beginning of the summer (after graduating and looking for a "real" job) and came back in the middle of the summer after realizing that she wasn't ready for said real world} announced that she in fact WAS ready for the real world and was going to be a substitute teacher, starting next week! So an ad went up and we interviewed candidates.

As in the past when we put out such ads, most of the applicants were illiterate, couldn't follow simple instructions (attach a resume and availability) or were not eligible to work in this country. We ended up meeting 4 candidates, one of whom was so boring I almost fell asleep during the interview and one of whom had a bun on his head and an askew pink tie that he constantly fussed over (yes, a man, a grown man, with a bun on his head, for style). We liked the other two, mainly because they were not freaks, could speak in both languages and seemed interested in the job.

Then this past Saturday, another employee, a much less stellar one who wasn't returning after Labour Day, just stopped showing up, leaving us high and dry and scrambling (no phone call, no email. how passive is that? an email, how hard is that? a text message?). Since Saturday, Hubs and I have had to work everyday, only one of us has been home at night to put the kids to bed. This had never happened before. I realize this is the reality for many families, but it is not ours. We have dinner and do bed time as a family everyday. We invented our company so that our work schedule would allow us to be home with our kids every day.

Anyhow, it's been totally crazy around here, especially since M is now gone. Were she around, I would feel a lot less guilty about not being home for dinner 4 days in a row. But with her gone, it's been shuffling and juggling of the poor kids. The effect as been immediate though not what you would expect. Dumpling is not happy about it but she is sort of old enough to understand. BB, however, the happy-go-lucky girl is a puddle of tears. She is majorily unsettled by the absence of one parent. Today was Dumpling's -1 day at Kindergarten, in which she went to meet half her class, M through Z and her teacher. Tomorrow is her first real day, which in fact is not such a big deal, as it's the same school she's been in since nursery.

Today was going to be the day when both of the candidates we selected came in for a trial shift. We always do this, come in for 3 hours and try it out. We see if they fit in and have the personality for it and they can see what the job really entails.

I got out of school with Dumpling just before noon and super manager D called me to say that Candidate #1 didn't show up. Holy crap! That's NEVER happened before. She was really fun and energetic, though her schedule was a bit tight for us, but we were going to work around it to make it work. All right, whatever. I head to lunch with Dumpling (we were having a mommy-and-me date since it's her last day before she's a grown-up Kindergartner).

2pm rolls around, we're heading home from our lunch, shopping and ice cream date.... The second candidate didn't show up EITHER!!!! Seriously! What are the chances?

Of course, not we are totally up shit's creek.... We still have to cover a bunch of shifts and we in fact do not have enough employees to keep the stores running starting next week when they all go back to school.... The ads are running, we are searching high and low, but apparently, I'm not the only one who hates retail!

This post brought to you by a single-serve juice-box of wine

our quaint little small store in the quaint little suburban village/town just came out of it's annual 4 day street-fair/outdoor-sale extravaganza..... Here are a few Tales from Retail for your entertainment pleasure....

• It turns out, I really HATE customers.... OK, not the regulars who like our store and come to find something original. I HATE street-fair attending customers who walk in, compliment us on the originality of our selection, and then proceed to bitch about the prices, the English on the packaging, the fact that we charge taxes during the festival (it's the LAW people!!!!)
• People are cheap. FREAKING cheap. We were heavily discounting the stuff we put on the outside tables. For example, a 35$ Buddha Head candle for 4$. I know! it's less than a third of what we paid for it wholesale. OK, maybe it's got a tiny ding on the back.... it's 4$!!!! You know what, they haggled! Can we do it for $2? Can we give them 20% off (the regular priced merchandise inside the store was 20% off), can we do it for cash, no taxes..... it was non stop, the entire 4 days!
• Robbers come in all shapes, sizes and ages. We always look out for teenagers, but a man in his 60s or 70s wandered into the back store, pretended to look for the bathroom, left in a hurry under the pretense of REALLY needing to go..... sure enough, he made off with the wallets of the employees that were stored in the back-store!!!! And old man! Luckily, mine was hidden among a pile of crap my girls wanted to take home, but we had to spend almost an hour with the police going over the tape and trying to identify an ELDERLY man who robs students!
• I don't know how to be politically correct about this, but one particular customer was a little slow. Lived independently, but wasn't quite all there.... She came one days and bought a box of thank you cards that was marked down from 20$ to 5$. She made the girl at the cash count all the cards AND envelopes in the box to make sure we weren't trying to rip her off by selling her a less-than-full box. OK, I get it, she's not completely there, we obliged.... Then she called us EVERY MORNING to ask us if we had more, if we had new, different stuff on the tables, if we could put things aside for her... it was endless! At least 3 calls per mornings. We are desperately trying to get the stuff outside and on the tables and she keeps calling and calling. And then when she'd come in, she'd get mad because either A) we didn't have any more of what she saw the day before or B) we had new things she hadn't seen the day before.... makes sense, right?
• Finally, my favorite, the CrazyAss-CheapLady, or CCL as I'll call her.... She came on the very first morning, very early, before we actually had merchandise out and were just trying to raise the tents, put out the rented tables, cover them with table cloths, etc.... She walks over to me and starts asking me about some Chinese-lantern type lamps we were selling LAST YEAR at the same event... All of sudden, I totally remember her. She came at closing on the last day last year and tried to bargain 2 for 1 on the lamps we were using in the tents to light them up. I said know, because they were still sell-able and could be used in store displays.
  
  She is here, a FULL YEAR LATER asking me if we still have the lamps and if we'll sell them to her cheap..... I assure her that we sold them during the course of the year and that we don't have her anymore and she seems surprised. Like we just keep boxes of stuff packed for an entire year and just bring them out for the street fest!
  Anyhow, tonight, as we are closing, in the last few minutes, she shows up again. This time, it's a monkey laundry hamper she's after... It was 39$ marked down to 10$. 85% of the stuff is packed and sorted into charitable donation box or stick in the back and sell online at discount. There is almost nothing left. But she's getting on my nerves, so I tell her it's 10$ and that's it. She says to me: "But you are packing up, can't you do better?" to which I respond "It's 10$ and if you don't want it, in the next 5 minutes it's going to charity."
  CCL: :you'd rather give it away for free than give me a discount?"
  Me: "It's already discounted 75%. If I give it to charity, we'll get a tax refund"
  
  At this point, I continue about the business of closing shop, bringing in the stuff, stacking the rented tables, folding the tents, arranging the stuff inside.... She mulls around the store holding the monkey laundry hamper and approaches T. the manager there and asks HER if she can change the price. Luckily, T. and I are totally brain-connected and T. politely tells her the price is firm and final and we are actually closing in a minute.... So she decides to take it and goes to the cash and then proceed to attempt to get the cashier to give her a discount. My girls are all smart and she tells her AGAIN that the price is final. So CCL asks to have it gift wrapped. We do not offer gift wrapping during the festival because wrapping paper is EXPENSIVE and people will by 20 items at 2$ a pop and ask you to wrap them all individually!!!! So nice cashier girl tells her politely that we do not gift wrap during the festival. To which CCL responds "give me the wrapping paper I'll do it myself" Duh! It's not the time to wrap, it's the paper lady! It costs money! At this point, I come up to the cash, explain the wrapping situation to her and tell her that she is in fact the last customer (though there is one couple browsing in the store) and that we are waiting to close up.
  She proceeds to call me rude and a bad business woman. OH NO YOU DIDN'T! I totally went off on her. About being robbed and being tired for schlepping the stuff inside and outside twice a day, about not putting my kids to bed for 4 days in a row, about FREAKING CHEAPSKATES like her who haggle over an already 75% discount and who come back a FUCKING year later to ask about a fucking 20$ lamp....... She told me I needed counseling. She's probably right! But the wine juice box will suit me just fine!
  Oh and PS, the couple that were still browsing thoroughly enjoyed watching me go off on her! The lady had tears in her eyes from laughing so hard and bought something just because she so enjoyed watching me lose my shit!

Thankfully the most amazing grand-parents in the world had come home a little early from a weekend trip and have a sleep over with the girls tonight, so I can enjoy  my juice-box-o-wine in peace!