What kind of place is this anyway?
Two ladies walked in a little while ago and one of them (after a brief look around) asked "What kind of place is this anyway?" I looked at her blankly for fully 30 seconds trying to figure out how to respond. A couple of scenarios popped into my head at once:
When she asked that question she did so in a slightly challenging way which immediately made me feel that she was demanding to know why on earth me and my "place" even exist. Like, it's all well and good to sit there and try to sell people shit, but you need to be able to explain yourself at any given moment. (Which I guess is kind of true. But what every business owner hopes is that the nature of their business is self evident.)
This brings me way back to when I was twenty five and working as a coffee jerk in San Francisco. Commerce brings out absolutely the best in people. Seriously, give them a few dollars to spend and if they are the slightest bit insecure or feeling small in some other area of their life they will exert their dominance on the lowly merchant/or the merchant's slave. I used to spend so much energy trying to record the outrageous demands and attitudes I encountered as the pond scum making people their coffee. I would come home, dive right into the gins and tonics and start writing. It was crap. I couldn't capture what it felt like to be treated so poorly by my fellow human beings. I really burnt out.
It's interesting how so many shoppers feel superior to the people they are buying products or services from. I have never had this view. Commerce is an equal transaction between two people. I have something they want, they have the money to buy it. If they decide to buy elsewhere I may be bummed out, but it doesn't make me their whore. It embarrases me when people I'm out with are demanding and rude to people serving them. Honestly, a lot of people treat waitstaff, cashiers, and other hard working people like sub-human idiots.
That's the evil power of the dollar. Back then when I would return to my small apartment on Sutter Street at the end of my gruelling shift at Sweet Things (the one on California Street) I would have to scrape the grime and pollution of about thirty rich people's thoughtless insults from my skin and remind myself that I was just as human as they are. I suppose it gave me an over inflated sense of my place amongst the working class.
I used to swear that if I ever owned a store I wasn't going to subscribe to the whole "customer is always right" philosophy. I would have the power to not accept being treated anything less than respectfully. I would fantasize about kicking rude people out of my store with a real dramatic flair. Now that I own a store, how will all that bravado work out for me? Obviously I want a healthy relationship between myself and potential patrons. But will I, for the sake of someone's business, allow them to walk all over me? Hell no.
Well, I had the strong urge to remark to the inquiring customer today that I'm running a very genteel sort of brothel. I didn't though. I taped my mouth back into the closed position and racked my brains for a non sassy answer. I explained that "this place" is a home and personal accessories store. Then she asked me what kind of stuff I sell.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME LADY?!
- That this lady was an especially dense individual.
- That this lady was making an attempt at humor.
- That she hasn't been shopping in about forty five years and no longer can tell one type of shop from another or that she's in a shop at all. Did she think she had wandered randomly into a school for unwed mothers? (notice she said "place" instead of "store" or "shop"?)
- She is fond of giving pop quizzes and just wanted to make sure I actually knew what kind of place I'm running. (Some kind of obscure form of social work reserved for baffled business owners?)
- Or worst of all, (because one other woman asked me the same question a few days ago), maybe it isn't clear that this isn't a grocery store. This would suggest a complete merchandising failure on my part and a real indication that it's time to join the Trappist monks in their joyful making of fudge in a bold career change.
When she asked that question she did so in a slightly challenging way which immediately made me feel that she was demanding to know why on earth me and my "place" even exist. Like, it's all well and good to sit there and try to sell people shit, but you need to be able to explain yourself at any given moment. (Which I guess is kind of true. But what every business owner hopes is that the nature of their business is self evident.)
This brings me way back to when I was twenty five and working as a coffee jerk in San Francisco. Commerce brings out absolutely the best in people. Seriously, give them a few dollars to spend and if they are the slightest bit insecure or feeling small in some other area of their life they will exert their dominance on the lowly merchant/or the merchant's slave. I used to spend so much energy trying to record the outrageous demands and attitudes I encountered as the pond scum making people their coffee. I would come home, dive right into the gins and tonics and start writing. It was crap. I couldn't capture what it felt like to be treated so poorly by my fellow human beings. I really burnt out.
It's interesting how so many shoppers feel superior to the people they are buying products or services from. I have never had this view. Commerce is an equal transaction between two people. I have something they want, they have the money to buy it. If they decide to buy elsewhere I may be bummed out, but it doesn't make me their whore. It embarrases me when people I'm out with are demanding and rude to people serving them. Honestly, a lot of people treat waitstaff, cashiers, and other hard working people like sub-human idiots.
That's the evil power of the dollar. Back then when I would return to my small apartment on Sutter Street at the end of my gruelling shift at Sweet Things (the one on California Street) I would have to scrape the grime and pollution of about thirty rich people's thoughtless insults from my skin and remind myself that I was just as human as they are. I suppose it gave me an over inflated sense of my place amongst the working class.
I used to swear that if I ever owned a store I wasn't going to subscribe to the whole "customer is always right" philosophy. I would have the power to not accept being treated anything less than respectfully. I would fantasize about kicking rude people out of my store with a real dramatic flair. Now that I own a store, how will all that bravado work out for me? Obviously I want a healthy relationship between myself and potential patrons. But will I, for the sake of someone's business, allow them to walk all over me? Hell no.
Well, I had the strong urge to remark to the inquiring customer today that I'm running a very genteel sort of brothel. I didn't though. I taped my mouth back into the closed position and racked my brains for a non sassy answer. I explained that "this place" is a home and personal accessories store. Then she asked me what kind of stuff I sell.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME LADY?!