Annotated Christmas 2014 Bonus Strip #5
Adventures of Sparrow in Retail.
I’ve already talked about how I thought there would be more IRL-inspired workplace humor with the characters’ jobs, right? But the comic moved too slowly, none of my jobs lasted long enough, I barely had a chance to maneuver the character into somewhere before I was working somewhere else.
So this is basically the only true-to-life joke I managed to wring out of That Holiday Season I Worked At A Department Store. (This, and the time Sparrow had a whole dream sequence forced on her by the awful mall holiday soundtrack…)
Customer: Excuse me! Do you work here?
Sparrow (thinking): Uh-oh, she’s going to ask a question. This place is huge, and I’ve only worked here for a week. I don’t know anything yet!
Is there a changing room on this floor? Um, probably, but I don’t clean it, so I haven’t seen it. Can I recommend a nice brand of decorative soap? I can’t afford any of the decorative soaps, let alone compare them. Which way are the cardigans? I just folded ten cardigans, I know they’re here somewhere, but I still have no idea. It’s not like they train us! They just toss us out onto the sales floor, and assume we’ll pick up everything we need as we go. I am less than useless. Do not ask me anything. I will be shot-in-the-dark guessing, you’d have just as much luck doing the same thing yourself!
Sparrow: I sure do! What can I help you with?
Customer: Which way is the exit?
Sparrow: Go straight down that aisle, turn left at the registers.
Customer: Thank you! You’ve been so helpful.
Wait, exit? Shouldn’t exit be clearly labeled for case of fire?
Yes, and in every department store I managed to get lost in, all of the exits were clearly labeled.
Unfortunately, there isn’t actually a requirement for there to always be a clearly labeled exit sign visible from any location in the store. Add a bunch of tall rows of merchandise and a meandering path through the store, and “how do I get out of here?” becomes a question that even some of the regular customers will ask after a store layout change in some places I’ve been.
It’s not a question I’ve had to ask lately, because I haven’t been to any such stores in over a decade. Even before that, it didn’t take me many times of needing to ask that question before I started making sure to keep track of where each exit was in a mind map of any stores I entered and making sure to always remember to rotate my mind map of the store I was in whenever I turned so it would always be up to date. Turn left to look at merchandise? Fine. But before I actually look at it, where are the exits now? Ok, good, so what is this thing I’m looking at?
To be clear, no, that’s not my idea of a good time. As I said, it’s been over a decade since I’ve been in one of those stores. It might also be worth mentioning that the last one of those stores that I entered was simply a way to get into a mall for which it was an anchor store, and I did not leave the main thoroughfare on principle. Yes, store owner, I understand you want me to stay in your store and find more stuff to buy. I do not want to be a hostage and will not do business with you, thank you very much, good day.
I think there SHOULD be such requirement. And there should be place on ceiling for this info.