Customer Service Desk – A Punishment That Lasted Years

It all started on February 2, 1989.  Yes, Groundhog day of that year.  This was probably the worst thing I ever could have ever done.  Let me explain:

There was this female employee who I liked and and I thought she really liked me too.  However, she had issues that really made it difficult to express those feelings.  So that night I had decided to stay in Woolworth with her and the assistant manager, who was also on of her best friends as well.  The reason for staying in the store was that the entire store was going to be waxed.  This took until 3 am the next morning.  The 3 of us spent the entire time in our restaurant talking about random stuff and having very interesting conversations.  It seemed that all went well even though this threesome was at best awkward.  (To those interested:  This is the closest thing I have ever had to a REAL DATE---I am VERY serious about this!).  I will say that it is kind of weird being in the mall at such a late hour when everybody has left and the only ones wandering the mall are the night janitors. 

Even though all seemed well, I soon learned it really didn’t go well at all.  In fact, it went way wrong.  Since the girl never spoke any negative thoughts of me, it didn’t dawn on me that something was very wrong with what happened that night.  Over the next couple of days, she called out sick.  Not thinking anything really special about it, I just continued on thinking all was fine.  Then it happened.  She decided not to return to work at all on the 12th of the month.  At this point, the thought ran through my head—WHAT HAVE I DONE!?!

It wasn’t until 2 weeks later that I would receive my “punishment”.  The punishment was that I was to take over one of the jobs that she had.  One of them was working in the candy section, the other was working the customer service desk.  It was the most dreaded place in the store to work and certainly I wasn’t greeted with open arms, at least not initially.  Everything was ok during the day as the people were mature enough to handle me and could train me properly.  The night people were a very different story.  Two girls, Tara and Nicole, were about as polar opposites as anybody could get.  Tara supported me to the point that this girl actually was trying to date me and Nicole hated me so much for getting rid of her best friend.  When these two worked together, it was guaranteed fireworks would go off.  They hated each other for their different feelings about me and the girl I made quit.  Never in all my retail years did I see a battle like this thankfully, which probably explained why my training was done during the day and not at night.

At the time I started training for this position I was already still doing my front-end supervisor work so I spent days sometimes having a half-day upfront and half in the back of the store at the customer service desk.  The duties at this counter included regular cashiering, cleaning the doors and chrome bars along the entrance, straightening up around the curtain area, and worse of all returns and exchanges.  I will discuss returns and exchanges in a future post.  The way Woolworth did them and how Staples handled them were very very opposite.  Kind of like Tara and Nicole were to each other – a sort of good vs. evil approach to them.  Gee, I wonder who was who?!?  The punishment that kept on giving for over 20 years.

Up Next:  Staples’ Customer Service Approach – A Prisoner’s Story