Tannishblog

Americans love to shop and they often do it furiously. After all, isn’t it our by-god given right to choose, purchase and consume? It’s our right, also, to complain when we feel cheated. Whether buying food, goods or services, we seem to attack the situation with gusto. Confuse the issue with time factors: families needing more than one job to keep afloat, school schedules, and whatever social life one can eke out of the week - and shopping (once considered a luxurious way to spend an afternoon) becomes fraught with stress. Somewhere, we got the idea that we can shop quickly, that it is possible to “run in” and purchase something. This is absurd thinking. Most of us live where people are packed in by the thousands: there will always be a line, we will always have to wait. In my household, the shopping is done late friday nights, and still it is necessary to stand in line at the counter.

My advise to shoppers is to have patience and a sense of humor. Remember, the average clerk in an urban mall interacts with over 150 people a day. An overwhelming majority of them approach the salesperson with a negative attitude simply because chain superstores are getting harder to shop, and items continue to get more expensive. These stores are harder to work, too. If you divide an eight- hour day into 150 segments, how much time can be spent on each customer?

As stores and malls grow in size, they become more complicated for all involved. In order to escape shopping stress we must bear these things in mind. The shopping experience comes foremost to my mind because I’ve been a retail professional for years. Admittedly, retail work can be easily done by either chimpanzees or zombies. Most people are unaware of the constant emotional pummeling the average salesclerk must endure. We daily encounter haughtiness, arrogance, and rudeness. Any self-respecting chimp would soon rail against such attack, hence these intrepid clerks soon turn into zombies. Another alternative is to rage. This often manifests as passive-aggressive behavior toward customers, which further diminishes the shopping experience.