A genuine rant.

I have not ranted here for a very long time. I have complained, I have mentioned briefly how tired I am, or how busy, or how I can't understand people's stupidity. But I haven't genuinely ranted, probably since I left Nordstrom. Today, I break my non-ranting streak. At the store, we also broke a few other things, some items, but mostly records.

A typical day in the store includes ringing up approximately X transactions. Around Christmas, our average jumped to perhaps 2X, if that. We can generate about $Y worth of transactions, $2.5Y during Christmas.

I have mentioned that we are going out of business, and I think I have mentioned that we have a mailing list so our customers can be informed of everything that is happening at the store. Tom sent out a mass mailing to let people know about the liquidation sale. I arrived at the store at 9:30 to open. From 10:30 until 3:00, we had no less than 5 people waiting in line to check out, sometimes 20 people. Today, we rang up 4X transactions, and generated about $6.6Y of transactions. We have never done that kind of traffic in the 3.5 years the NJ store has been around OR the 5 years the NY store has been in the Woodbury Commons Mall, even during Christmas time.

So the first record broken is in the number of people that came through our store today. The second record is the dollar amount of sales for the day. The third record was the number of times I wanted to shoot myself and possibly other customers today.

I was scheduled to leave at 5 but there was no way that was happening. I stayed till closing because there were so many people in the store. At 6:00, Crazy Lady came in. She always spends hours looking at stuff in the store, talks like an idiot but spends money like Bill Gates, which is why we tolerate her rude and inconsiderate ways. She indicated that she was finished shopping so we began ringing her up. After processing about $200 worth of stuff (after discounts), she walked away to continue browsing. Since we only have one working register, we had to delete the transaction to help another customer. Ten minutes later she came back saying, "Did you figure out how much I owe you?" We politely explained that we have one working register, and are going to have to start fresh. She does this every time she comes in, which is several times a week. And she never spends less than $300. But she never came in except after our sale signs went up, otherwise we'd still be in business.

So we began ringing her up again. And she walked away again. And another customer came up. This customer happened to be someone from my church, so I was more comfortable asking her to wait until we finish the now $350 transaction ($500 before the discounts). Finally after $10 minutes I decided, this is getting absurd so I just said, "Ma'am, there's a line behind you and we only have one working register." (FOR THE THREE HUNDREDTH TIME!!! OMG HOW DENSE CAN YOU BE?) I have a lot of patience but even I was starting to let it show that we can't handle much more of her coming into the store. Tom couldn't even come near the counter because he can't handle people like her without developing more grey hairs instantly.

And another thing. When you go into a store and you take something off the shelf and then decide you don't want it, either put it back, or hand it to me. Don't wrap it up in a tshirt and put it in the music section. I will not give you your full discount, and you will never know because you are an American and you can't do math to save your life. Every night, the store looks like it was hit by Hurricane Liquidate and I have to go around moving stuff back to where it came from, straightening all the books on the shelves and filling in spaces that keep getting bigger and bigger until pretty soon there's just an empty shelf. Make my life easy and hand me what you have decided not to buy.

One more thing, I really really wish I could give myself a massage every night. I think maybe I am in the wrong professional school. I should be doing something else, and the one I'm fated to marry needs to be in massage school. Either that or I just need a jacuzzi.

**End Rant**