I'm a sales associate at a outlet shoe store that's recently gained a lot more traffic ever since a video featuring our brands shoes (we all know where I'm going with this) went viral. The way our store is set up, we have 2 rows of full price shoes stacked in closed boxes on shelves (organized by shoe type) at the very front of the store, then the rest of the store are rows of open boxes of sale shoes (organized by size instead).
In this story, the "messy shoe box lady" is who we will refer to as MSBL.
The difference between the sale shoes and the full price shoes is very obvious, which comes in handy when explaining what shoes are included in our "buy one sale shoe, get a second sale shoe half off" sale we always have. It's literally 2 shelves not on sale in the entire store.
Fast forward to last night - it's around 7:30 (we close the store at 9), and it was pretty quiet. I started slowly tidying the rows of the sale shoes - since they're open boxes with the shoes on display they oftentimes can get messy quickly and putting all the boxes back in order can be pretty time consuming. While I'm working, a woman is looking at the shoes beside me, taking a bunch of pairs out of their boxes (which she's leaving on the wall still), tried them on, decides she doesn't like them, and then throws the shoes somewhere random instead of putting them back in their box. This can kind of be a nightmare for us because not only do we need the barcode on the box should you choose to buy the shoes, but hunting the shoe box down in a full store to put the shoes back if you don't buy them can get overwhelming. But, regardless, it's part of my job to clean up, so I keep quiet.
I got distracted with a customer who asked for my help, and when I came back, I noticed the MSBL looking at the full-price shoes and asked if she needed help. She then asked if they were included in the sale, and when I told her it was only the on-sale shoes in the open boxes, she huffed and puffed away. A few minutes later, she came up to my cash and this happened:
MSBL: walks up with 2 pairs of shoes, sans boxes Hello, I'd like to purchase these two pairs of shoes.
Me: Awesome. I do need to scan the barcode on the shoe boxes, though. Would you be able to grab those for me, please?
MSBL: These shoes didn't have a box. They were just laying on the shelf.
This is bull. Every single pair of shoes in our store has a matching box. We do checks throughout the day to make sure and I was literally just cleaning the racks like I said.
Me: Unfortunately, I can't process the shoe purchase without the barcode, I do need the box.
MSBL: I don't know why you're being so difficult. I'll go find some boxes I suppose.
goes away for a few minutes and comes back with two boxes, both of which don't match up to the shoes and are priced at 19.95, our most reduced price for any of our shoes
Me: Hey, I don't mean to make this process take so long, but these two boxes don't seem to match up with the shoes inside. Let me try and locate a box for these shoes so we can make this move a bit faster.
At this point I decide to take a closer look at the shoes and see if I can figure out what kind they are. After a year or so working with 10000 different styles of shoes, you somehow quickly learn the random and obscure shoe names. Thankfully, it only took me a whopping 5 seconds to realize these are our two classic shoes, which are full price, which never go on sale, which are currently retailing for 80 dollars a pair. Shocking.
Me: These two are actually full price shoes that do not go on sale, they currently cost 80 dollars and the sale would not apply to them. Did you still want to purchase them?
MSBL: THIS IS RIDICULOUS! I FOUND THEM IN THESE TWO BOXES AND YOU NEED TO HONOUR IT! GET ME YOUR MANAGER! YOU HAVE TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS!
Keep in mind my manager is a badass who always sticks up for us. I was so stoked she asked me to call him over. Little did I know, he was listening to the whole time and prepped for the situation.
Manager: walks over with the corresponding full price shoe boxes, inside of which contain the two cheaper shoes she obviously swapped boxes with when no one was looking I do apologize, but I have to stand behind my employee on this one as it looks as though the shoes were swapped. We're unable to honour an incorrect box price when it is obvious someone has intentionally switched boxes.
She got so nervous and I have never seen a woman run out faster of the store in my entire life.
