Grr, the girl at the candy store!

[grasswire]

I'm still smarting over an incident at the candy store yesterday. This is a local 3-store family enterprise that has been in business since the 1940s, despite pressures from chains such as See's, etc. They make a particular kind of penoche brown sugar fudge that has come to be a real holiday treat for my family members over the years -- they only make it for the Christmas season.

So yesterday I made the annual trek to the store as I do every year to get the fudge. I'm in the store, reaching up to the tray on the counter where they keep the bags of penoche fudge and I hear a clerk on the phone saying, "yes, we have two bags of penoche" while eyeballing me. She leans way over, snatches them out of my reach. Aghh! She's off the phone, then, and I said "I was buying the penoche." "I'm sorry, but a customer on the phone asked me to set it aside." We were off to the races. The person who had been on the phone was twenty miles away at another store. The clerk would not let me buy the penoche, despite every argument I presented. What peeved me is that she knew I was reaching for it and practically fell over taking it away from my reach.

It's been a while since I worked retail, but I think the customer in the store with cash in hand should be offered more consideration. I had planned to buy some other things, too, but I left the store quite mad and empty handed.

What should she have done?

[KitchenWitch]

1. She was most definitely in the wrong.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. That's a rather involved question, "What should she have done"

Depends on how loyal a customer the guy on the phone is.

If it were my store, even if it were a very loyal customer, I would have let you have a bag and asked if you wouldn't mind if I let the guy on the phone have a bag.

Some would argue that, if the customer were very loyal, best to piss off the guy who comes in only once a year than to piss off the guy who's there every week. Depending on circumstances, I might fall on that side, but I would probably feel bad about it.

[grasswire]

5. well, I only go once a year for fudge

But that's not the only time I'm in the store during the year. It occurred to me that the person at the other store might not even drive the twenty miles to pick it up, and suggested that possibility. This clerk may well have been holiday help, as she was in her early twenties and most of the employees there are older grandmotherly types.

[JVS]

3. In the spirit of Xmas, you should share and each get 1 bag. If we're doing festivus...

then the fudge shall be the prize for feats of strength.

Tell the clerk that you're going to swiss colony

[KitchenWitch]

4. And the rant would be the airing of grievances!

:yourock:

[Omphaloskepsis]

6. You are lucky that this is your big problem...

Somewhere, two homeless people are fighting over a half-eaten cheeseburger pulled from a garbage can.

[grasswire]

8. yeah, and I knew that some contrarian would make that point

It isn't my "big problem." I have plenty of big problems, and I recognize the true "big problems" that beset people every day. This is just a little slight made large because it's particularly important this year in this family to have a little remembrance of continuity and tradition. One of us is likely going to Iraq. Another likely won't be with us by next year. Families in transitions hold on to shreds of their shared history. So sue me.

[TommyO]

7. Personal opinion

the person in the store comes before somebody who phones in.

[Whoa_Nelly]

9. Damn!

That was one rude clerk!

[Laelth]

10. She should not have been so eager to please the ...

... customer on the phone, but once she promised the fudge to that person, she was stuck. She had to save it for the phone customer.

Pleasers can be very dangerous people. They like to please lots of people ... not just the ones they should please.

-Laelth

[cwydro]

11. Wrong wrong wrong.

That sucks. You should write a letter to the owners. Betcha you get a coupla bags free for that. If not, I wouldn't go back.

[leftofthedial]

12. here's what she should have done

she should have apologized for dishonoring herself and her entire family. She should have given you the candy. Then she should have committed ritual suicide.