Monday, March 9, 2009

Too Funny

So I will do my best to write this so it doesn't lose anything in translation.

A customer comes in, right a way I know he's a tourist. 1st clue the small carry on with wheels, 2nd clue the accent. Mr. Tourist comes back about twenty minutes later. While ringing him up, Mr Tourist ask me about a co worker upstairs. At first I am confused why he's asking. In my confusion I missed the first half of the description. When he describes the person as having a big belly I know not talking about a coworker. So now I really confused and slighty worried since bookstores attract some very strange characters. Anyway Mr. Tourist said this non employee (NE) was following him why he shopped. Mr. Tourist in under the impession that this NE is undercover loss prevention employee (LP). When Mr. Tourist said this I wanted to say sir, they can barely afford to pay the staff as is, there is no LP. All I said was "we don't have anyone working undercover LP." I don't think Mr. Tourist believed me. And it didn't help ny case when Mr. Tourist said, he's right behind me now to my left. I look behind Mr. Tourist turns out NE is a former employee (FE). About 6 or 7 yrs ago FE was a shelver. My first thought when I saw who Mr. Tourist was talking about was why didn't you say he was Black to begin with. Anyway I thought it too long and unneccsary of an explantion to say FE worked at the bookstore years ago. So I simply told Mr. Tourist. that, the man wasn't undercover LP. Though I still don't think he believed me. And it didn't help my case any when Mr. Tourist went to leave , FE decided it was a good time to browse a table closer to the exit. Then Mr. Tourist walks back over, and says you "see, watch I'll go to the door and he'll follow." At this point I really had no idea what was going on, maybe the manager did rehire FE to work LP.
I was trying really hard not to laugh because it really did look like FE was following Mr. Tourist. And its not everyday a White customer swears they're being followed by a Black LP employee.

5 comments:

susan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
susan said...

That is funny. It is funny and sad how we will avoid mentioning race when sometimes, it's the most obvious way to describe someone. Newsflash, if you describe me as the cute black woman, I won't ever be offended. lol

teacherninja said...

You should have told the tourist, "Maybe he just likes your butt."

Claudia said...

LOL - I have to admit that I used to watch any customer coming with with luggage very closely... in Atlanta we had way too many folks wandering into the story with bags like that to steal books!!! Are you sure he was just a "tourist"? Maybe FE was on to something!

Apryl DeLancey said...

Ha! I bet the tourist thought that people were following him everywhere he went. I might have asked why he had such a guilty conscience.