Tales from the Trenches: The day that makes me say RRRRRR!

My day began with an illegible note left on my time card.  A co-worker decoded it for me and told me that it was something about the clock that was stolen. 

"What clock?"

"The one in the display that you did.  The one for $350.00."

Crap.

I went to hunt J- down, but she was off with someone else.  She said that she'd be right over.  And was she.  She went on about how it was stolen, how it happened before Wednesday because she hadn't seen it, about how I can't display anything expensive out there like that, to which I replied, "I can't keep every expensive thing under lock and key."  She was mad, then she left.

I get a call asking me to go to the office with an order that I had made up to hopefully have someone approve to send out.  It ended up being a closed door meeting in the boss' office. 

Lovely.

At least this meeting was better than how my day started.  They told me that my displays were beautiful and I had explained that I had displayed them in a display at the door that when people were shopping, they were within eye shot of the counter. 

Somehow, that failed the workers that were there that day.

The missing clock in question is a mission style wood clock that has a pendulum.  It is about 12" tall by about 12" wide.  It's not that small.  Still, someone successfully hauled out with it and managed not to be caught by camera or coworkers. 

That failure is not my fault, regardless to what my first encounter might insist.

I'm in the midst of completely flipping displays around.  The expensive clocks and hand crafted arts and crafts tiles that WERE in that display are now very high up in a display visible to the camera and to anyone who comes in the door.   I have one display that will be rather thin.  I threatened to put a note on the wall and leave it empty.  What would it say?  "Someone decided to steal something expensive from us, so that means that I don't have anything to display here now."

When I talked to my boss, with the gallery director and floor manager right there, I told all of them that what made me most mad was that someone looked at something, decided that they liked it and just took it.  Who does that?! 

K-'s solution is for us to have a gate and that we stop people and make them pay.  "Mom, did the clock have diamonds in it.  If it had diamonds in it, girls like those.  It could have been a girl!" 

RRRRRR.

Then, we have a woman who comes in and has been looking at an item for a while.  My coworker called me over.  The woman tells me, "I know what this price is, but I know that you've had it for a while.  I'll give you -- for it."  I told her that silver prices have gone up drastically and that artists set their prices.  We just sell the goods for the prices that the artists state.  "Well, I know it has been here for a while and saw it at a lower price than this at one time."  "That would be at sale time."  I told her it was not how we handled our business, but she pressed.  I said that I would go and check with the powers that be, but reiterated that this was not how we did things.  Turns out that the item had been with us for 4 years and they told me to let it go for the nearly 25% off.  I went back, told her that they did approve it, we do not do this, the item will not be able to be returned under any circumstance. 

Still, we are not a used car lot.

RRRRRRR.

We had a group of ladies that came through LOUDLY announcing about how expensive this was and that was (ranging in price from single digits to the $20.00 family.)  "I can go home and make this myself." 

Be my guest.

RRRRRRRR.

I was trying all day long to rest that was the clock adventure and every time I turned around someone else was in the display along with me or standing right where I needed to be or digging into the stuff that I was trying to handle.  Now, I understand that they were shopping, but when I'm shopping, I tend to shy away from the KINDLY SALES PEOPLE JUST TRYING TO DO THEIR JOB!  If they have loot that I'd love to check out, I actually ask if it is okay.  Stunning concept, I know.

RRRRRRRR.

K- has a sore throat, but Hubs thinks that it is allergies since he is suffering from the same type of thing.  Allergies are big, bad stuff here right now. 

RRRRRRRR.

Hubs was flipping out because he received a jury duty summons for the exact week that he is having a big fishing derby and expecting 500+ to be in attendance.  I finally talked him into having me write a letter to try to get him excused from it.  He finally did, but still flipped out as I was writing it.

RRRRRRRR.

I went to lunch and there was such a long line for the microwave that I just decided to eat my lunch cold rather than waste the time heating up my food.  (Hot dogs and pork and beans.  No, we normally don't have that for dinner, but K- was asking for hot dogs for dinner on Sunday and we hadn't had them since the summer.)  One person has a minimum of three containers to heat.  She heats them all individually, sprinkles water, opens, closes, runs, stops, stirs . . . She's a minimum of 10 minutes alone.  There were two others waiting for rather thick soups.  Those would have been about 3-5 minutes.  Cold beans and wienies it was.  I was fine.  It matched the day.

RRRRRRRR.

I forgot to include the sales slips with the box of money tonight.  They'll have to get them in the morning.  My coworker tried to help me and bless her-- she never does the box.  I didn't realize that they hadn't been grabbed. 

RRRRRRRR.

Why all this clock bit needed to be surrounded around me when I wasn't the one who took it.  All I did was to display the darned thing.  It was in the center of a big display. 

RRRRRRRR!

I'm cranky.