It's Much Better With All the Swearing In It and Other Stories

I work retail. I can be frustrating especially this time of year, but I love it! I get energized when it's time to be on the sales floor and sell music! It's so much fun...but...sometimes, dealing with the public has its downside.

As a Christian I am sometimes convicted about the things I sell. I work in music retail. I love to sell good music, however, the downside is, most people seem to like to buy bad music. Bad musically, and very bad lyrically. A lot of popular music celebrates the not so nice things in our society...drugs, sex...you know, that kind of stuff. Many artists also choose not to sing too many big words, they especially enjoy simple, four-letter words. It is frustrating for me because I know that it is not God's will for me to sell this stuff, but at the same time, I know I am where He wants me. I work among lost people all day long, and do my best to shine a light in this dark world from my little store in Jackson, TN. I do my best to thwart some sales, and offer alternatives to the negative music people want to buy. Here's what happened today:

Mother and son come to the check out to buy the newest Nelly CD. The mother asks me "is there an edited version of this?" and I said that "yes, there is." The son, who was probably 15-16 interrupted and told his mom to please not get the edited version. She asked me more specifically what edited meant and I explained that in the edited versions the bad language is removed. Sometimes there is just a blank spot in where a word was, or the word is replaced with another word which is less offensive. The son said this "moooooom, it leaves lots of blanks all over the place!" (I smiled a bit because the kid really just dug a hole because he made it sound like there are so many bad words that when you take them out, nothing is left!) but his mom didn't catch that and he backed off when he realized what he was saying. She said "well, that doesn't make sense to have holes all over the place!" and so I said, (and I somehow regret it a bit) "no, it's a lot better to have all the swearing in it!" and then turned away as another cashier was going to ring out the purchase. I just don't get parents these days.

Here's something else that I dealt with today...(it's hard being a Christian in a non-Christian world!)

A customer came into my store. He had been kicked out of my store a couple weeks ago because he was harrassing my customers for money and after that I was told by my associates that he had been in the store for over an hour sitting on the sales floor muddling through magazines. He had been annoying my employee's too. I didn't understand the seriousness of the situation until I stopped working on the schedule in my office and came out to see for myself. The young man seemed to be under the influence of something...wobbled, staggered as he walked. Kept leaning on things to prop himself up and spoke very loudly and obnoxiously. He needed to leave. When he didn't after I asked him to I called mall security who eventually was able to escort him out. He was told not to return. Today he returned.

When I saw him in my store he seemed to know what he wanted and was purchasing a CD. I hoped he would check out without incident and just be on his way, but no...that would be too easy. He did buy one CD and then decided he wanted another. He didn't have enough money (which is his usual problem) and so he harassed my employee's for some. I watched this for a bit while he kept trying to come up with an extra dollar to cover the cost, but no matter how many times he counted the bills in his hands, he came up short. While I was on the sales floor, one of my young associates told me that when he came in earlier he kept grabbing her nametag and putting his face close to hers in order to try to hear what she was listening to (we wear headsets in order to communicate better with the personell on the sales floor). It made her quite uncomfortable. He also kept obnoxiously calling her name loudly from across the store. Once I discovered this, I knew he really needed to leave. When I asked him to leave, he said some rude things to me and was rather beligerant. He was not leaving so I called mall security. As I was calling, he left my store so I told security I didn't need their help after all, the customer left.

About 5 minutes later he returned. I approached him and reminded him that I had asked him to leave. He "demanded" respect as a customer because "a customer is always right" and went on and on about all the money he spends in my store (which is NOT a lot because he never has money and always harasses customers and employees for it) and that he has "more friends here than I (you) have staff." Whatever that means!?! He apparantly was not going to leave, so while I kept trying to get him to go my associate called security. This "man" started raising his voice and calling me names. He used the "f-word" and then said "excuse my language" and I said "I will not excuse your language, get out of my store." At all times I managed to keep cool and did not raise my voice, although I was speaking very sternly. Customers in the store were of course observing all of what was going on and this young man continued his string of obscenities and kept hurling insults my way. Some customers started laughing at him because he was being such a fool. He was telling me that I had a "hair up my @$$" and that "You are probably p-----ed off because no one dated you in high school" and that "I have a vendetta against him." I just wanted him to leave. Finally mall security got there to witness the last of his insults and then he said "you never said please". I asked him again "Will you please leave now." and he "politely" said "yes, maam." and left. All 6 mall security officers were there and immediately hauled him off to the side of my store for "questioning". I was just happy that he was out of my store!

The police were called and he was charged with trespassing. Mall security has also banned him from the mall. It seems that other merchants in the mall have had similar incidents with this young man. We were hoping that the police would see that he was under the influence of something and do a search of his person and/or car, but no such luck. I guess being an idiot isn't probable cause.

That happened in my first two hours on shift today. Oh boy!

Next story: We have these awesome listening and viewing stations (LVS) installed in my store. It allows customers to sample music from almost any CD in the store. It is so cool! You can watch the movie trailers too off of DVD's! It's so neat...love the Internet! Anyway, I have about 21 units in my store. The units with include a simple control panel and scanner, as well as a set of headphones, are placed at various places throughout the store. We got the system a little over a month ago, while some of our company's other stores were "test" stores and have had them installed since early spring. The headphones are always an issue because they will break with a lot of use which listening points in my store get. The stores in downtown Washington DC and in Rockerfeller Plaza in NYC say that the headphones are virtually indesctructable, and they really are very durable. I have maintained the opinion that people in this part of Tennessee are not the most intelligent and are very rude, and disrespectful. Jackson, TN proved it again tonight...my third set of headphones was broken! THIRD SET! They haven't replaced any in NYC or Washington DC yet! This is why on 9/11/01 the crime rate in major cities throughout the US dropped that day, but in Jackson...they went up! Wonder why rednecks get a bad name!

Southern pride? I'm still trying to determine what it is that the south is so proud of? Somebody...please explain!