As most of you now know, I work in retail. A few of you may know that I've switched stores recently, from a shiny new store in the "good" part of town back to my old thief-infested hell hole of a store.
Of course at the first store, the shiny new one, there was never any conflict. Thieves were practically non-existent because there was so little foot traffic there; we could have personal conversations with everyone who came in and out. It was always quiet and we heard nothing but compliments from customers.
You can see how it would be a culture shock the first day I returned to the hell-hole. From the door walks customer after customer; there's someone at the Cash Wrap every three minutes or so. The store is so big that you can't know where everyone is at once.
Lucky for the new manager of the store, I've worked at the hell-hole before. I know people who've stolen from us before. I know who's been banned from the Towne Centre, I know who's stuffed shoes in their shirts and who's cussed and threatened their way out of the store.
Lucky for the new manager, I knew the two little teenage girls who walked in yesterday with gigantic empty purses; I could tell you exactly what they'd stolen in the past (one a pair of Chuck Taylors and the other the checkered Nike Air Zoom Infiltrators.) And I could tell you that as soon as those little girls walked to the Infiltrators, I had a conversation with them about how I see them shopping all the time and when they were going to be out of school for the summer.
In the middle of our conversation, a family, a group of regular customers, walked in to the store. I briefly left the Infiltrators and greeted the family, asking them if there was anything I could help them with.
Mom ignored me, daughter tells me "we're looking for him" as she pointed at her brother, and I led them to the shoes that would fit the little boy. Lucky for me, it was in the same area as the Infiltrators, so I could get back to my happy conversation with the little girls with huge purses while I helped the family shopping for their little boy.
About that point, my manager came off her lunch break. "Hey, miss Manager!" I said to her as loudly as I could to let the little girls know I was no longer alone on the floor. We had been working in the Clearance section, right next to the Infiltrators, before she went to lunch. It was perfect... we just stood in the center of the store, in full view of the little girls and the family who may have needed help, and discussed how we wanted to reform the Clearance area. We finished a sentence; miss Manager goes to the little girls and asks if they're finding sizes okay.
"Of course I'm finding my sizes. These are just in the wrong box! Bitch, get away from me."
"Excuse me?" My Manager, though she could have asked the little girl to leave at that moment, chose to ignore the girl and ask the mom and son how they were doing. They were still fine; I was standing idly so I asked the daughter of the family if she was alright (because she looked lost) and she said she was just waiting on her brother.
The little girls stayed at the Infiltrators, and so did we. And the little bratty one, the one who called my manager a bitch, was muttering under her breath; every few words you could hear her whisper a "fuck" or "bitch." My manager looked at her and said "okay, you can leave my store right now with that language." [Just to point it out, this is per policy at our store... we are a family store and that kind of language is grounds for us refusing service, as is pointed out in our manual which I printed and highlighted after the incident.]
The little girl: "Fuck you, I ain't leavin."
So my manager turned to me, calmly asked me to call security to escort the little girls out, and as I proceeded to the phone, the mother of the family, who had been shopping quietly and practically ignoring us, stood up, puffed her chest out, and told the girls "you don't have to leave, girls. I'll stay here and vouch for you. You don't have to leave."
The mother was not polite about this. My manager told her the girls would have to leave and the mother took an extremely loud tone [one would call it yelling... at least anyone but this mother] and began cursing at my manager. Eventually, the mother said that my manager "better not get off work tonight." (Sounds like a threat to me!)
Security came; the two girls and the mother continued screaming at each other and at my Manager; the daughter was saying words that should have never been said in front of her mother; everyone was preaching about how my manager was in the wrong and the mother kept saying that she was "rude and indignant." "You are so indignant. You are indignant." she repeated over and over, as if she was proud of herself for using a big word that, in fact, described herself.
The thing that gets me as that this mother knew nothing of the situation. She has no idea that I've watched the little girls leave with shoes in their bags. She has no idea that the very day all this happened, she would have put the size 4.5 Infiltrators in her bag had my manager and I not been there the whole time. She had no idea that I've called other stores to alert them that the girls were going to their stores, as managers from other stores have alerted me about the same girls.
The mother, in all her indignance, thought that she was just in defending the "poor little girls who were just trying on shoes." Without any knowledge of the situation, she felt it was her right and her duty to defend the girls who were disrespecting employees of a public store; girls who were rude and obnoxious and using words that should have offended any mother.
How are people so blind and indignant that they feel it is necessary to get involved, to scream and shout like cavemen to make their point? How is this possible when people are raped and beaten and robbed in public but no one says a damn thing?
It pains me to see that the world is becoming so indignant and defensive of crude behavior. It pains me to know that the mother will go on believing she was right, while the two little girls she worked so hard to defend are probably saying to each other, "that bitch didn't know we was gonna steal," as they're shoplifting from another business.
I suppose there's no harm done. The situation is over. We gave the woman our names so she could call customer service about our "indignant behavior," where she'll be told that we were abiding by company policy (as has been told to others in her situation in the past). Our District Manager may call and ask what happened, but since we already e-mailed her the tape of the situation and our detailed accounts, I doubt that will happen.
And that poor woman will remain indignant, as will most of society, believing she was defending what was right.
When will we learn?
