I have begun to notice a new trend. Shop assistants talking to me when I am at the till making my purchase.
I don't mean the shop assistant handling the normal purchaser / vendor administration. I am not referring to the regular angry guy behind till at my local corner shop who talks to me and has called me by name ever since he read my name off my credit card. He is called Neil, and I can tell you this because he wears a name badge - so we are on an equal footing.
No - it is shop assistants in high street stores who I have not seen before and likely will not see again are taking an interest in my day and what I am buying.
"Have you found what you wanted?"
"Oh, that is a great purchase - I think that will look great on you"
Is this a thing now?
Surely my standing at the till with the product is tantamount proof of me finding at least something I want and, by simple deduction, I am willing to pay for it means I deem it likable enough to be also willingly seen in. Really, by this stage of my retail experience, I don't want your opinion. I don't mean to offend you, but I am not sure I should trust your view on my purchase - partly because you have vested interests in my making of the purchase and partly because your taste, ethics and morality - outwith this, you have to admit, slim scenario that's all I have to base your opinion on - may turn out to be something I do not want to associate my trust with.
It is not that I am not personable when paying. I'd choose an assistant to a self-service system any time. I am always sure to smile, say please and thank you and wish them a good day when I leave. I make sure I am pleasant and will try and talk about the weather or ask if they are having a busy day if I can. I certainly want to be a friendly, amicable and happy customer at all times.
But it is the specific questioning and commenting of the things I am buying that I find, well, off-putting.
For example:
I bought a music CD recently and the shop assistant behind the till asked if I had found everything I had been looking for. In order to not get into any philosophical debate about the individual human condition and our absolute need to never truly find what we are looking for being the main reason we can further ourselves and why some of us end up astronauts, I thought it best to say "yes, thanks".
"Oh, I love that album." he actually went on! "It is much more consistent than his debut and you can tell he has become more musically proficient in his melodies". Really? Well I enjoyed the rather more bedroom production of his.... This is isn't CD club! This isn't even that independent record shop in High Fidelity. This is a 25 second transaction of goods and profit at a chain store. I don't overly care about your validation of the music I am buying and, quite honestly, thanks to your review you have sucked the rock and roll thrill of it all. I pretty much hold you responsible for the death of the physical album.
Only this week I was in a high street brand clothes shop. The girl at the Pay counter said: "Did you find everything you wanted today?" and I was forced to admit it was. Yes thanks, what I have lain down before you and your bar code gun is "everything I had wanted today", I got out of my flat from the solitary motivation to buy 3 identical pairs of charcoal coloured trousers for work. That is the state of my life right now.
As she then continued! "I want to spend my money today on clothes once I finish my shift but with March coming up so quickly I shouldn't. It's hard not to buy something for the weekend though, but I have a lot of things going on in March, I probably should be good and save my wage. It's funny how birthdays and events all happen in one month like that, isn't it?"
Positively mind blowing. A real phenomenon of the cosmos.
It wasn't so much her conversation (I replied to her that she was right, it was a difficult situation) but that throughout it she was idly stroking and repeatedly smoothing out my work trousers laid out in front of her at the upper thigh. I couldn't get out my mind as I watched her hands that we were only a single quantum paradigm shift in the multi-verse from her sexually assaulting me.
I struggle to look at those trousers straight in the eye now. Knowing. She's been there.
Jeezus, don't these shop assistants think of the consequences?
Yesterday I was out in town to buy a birthday present for a baby. I went to the baby shop. I looked round for a bit and found exactly what I was after. A baby wetsuit.
At the pay counter the girl asked me if I had found everything I was after in the shop. Confidently I said: "Yes, thanks".
She kept talking! She was telling me how good the baby wetsuit was for babies.
I thought, I haven't a clue - I don't have a baby. I just picked up the same one from the photo I was given. But I thought, be polite and agree. It'll be quicker this way. Besides, it is probably better because I'll appear less weird if I pretend I have one. So I nodded and said this was what "we" thought.
Then she kept talking... "So is this for his first swimming class?" she asked through a sweet smile, looking at the baby wetsuit.
I hadn't been expecting this. I had not counted on it at all. A third question about what I was buying! I was plunged into unknown shop assistant small talk territory and at the worst moment: in a baby shop where I was pretending I had a baby.
I didn't really want to get into the whole buying a birthday present for someone else's baby at this point in case she felt I had initially led her to believe otherwise. Which I sort of had. Changing my story would not be good. It would make me seem almost certainly suspicious. And so I figured I would simply tell her the facts without mentioning they were about my friend's young son.
I explained he had been swimming for a few months. He enjoyed it. He is getting into all sorts of things at home, too. He has been getting a little help onto his feet, but is quite capable once up of getting to places he wants to and really he shouldn't. Why do little ones, do that? Go towards the most dangerous things in any room. It's a wonder we have survived as a species.
She giggled.
"So what's his name?"
When would this chip and PIN interrogation stop?? I told her his name. No last name. If angry Neil has taught me anything, it is my name can be seen on my credit card.
"They are great when they are this age, aren't they? Trying out the swimming and things. It is good for them to start early."
Right I thought, I am in deep cover. Maybe too deep. If I slip up and she finds out I don't have a baby, not only will this appear now extremely suspicious that I am buying a baby wetsuit, but I bet she won't believe the birthday present reason now either. And then I am basically back where I started: I am a man buying a baby wetsuit when I don't have a baby. Only now with added "pretended he had a baby" blown cover story baggage.
I concurred. Yes. I... erm... suppose it is.
This was tense. More tense than shopping ought to be.
Thankfully, the girl didn't expose my rouse and I left the shop dignity intact. And on his birthday, the little guy got his wetsuit with a cartoon whale on it.
In hindsight I should have just told her the truth from the moment I walked in. I have no baby. I want a baby wetsuit. It is a birthday present. In fact, it would be much easier if we all did this going into every high street shop.
As soon as we walk into a shop go to the pay counter and tell them what we want, why we want it and tell them we are delighted they approve of what we want and where we would like the receipt once we come back to them in 10 minutes to buy it.
Yes, it would be much easier all round.
