The pet peeve holds a special place in the life of the retail soldier. In my personal life, I have a peeve that I've mentioned before of being compared to famous bald people, but that only happens maybe once or twice a year. Retail peeves often evolve from irritations that are almost guaranteed to happen constantly, especially if you deal with a lot of people everyday. When I worked at a dollar store (where everything, everything, is a dollar) my pet peeve was people asking me,"How much is this?" which happened dozen of times a day, everyday.
(An aside to the blogreaders, if you have an exception to the frustration I feel over the pointlessness of this question or anything else in this post, trust that I address that in the chapter in the book devoted those jobs. One more reason for you to buy the book !)
At the toy store my pet peeves almost killed me, the chief of which was people constant asking me to take the price tag off a gift exacerbated by the fact that about half the time people either:
1. Didn't ask until the gift was already wrapped.
2. Looking right at me when I took it off,
or 3. Both
I'd like to ask my former co-workers who happen to read this blog to comment with how I'm not overstating my ire on this. Much.
At some point during my toy store days, people started to make a deliberate point of putting change directly in my hand when I rung them up. Eventually, we found that this was because that someone (Oprah, I suspect. Her power is real) said that it bugs cashiers to have to get the change from the counter. The funny thing was, nobody had ever asked me directly what got my goat. If they had, people not giving me change directly maybe close to the end of a very long list of things that peeve me more, right before not saying, "bless you" after sneezes.
It was after this that I started an informal collection of pet peeves amungst people that I know and the occasional question asked for research.
Starbucks: They really hate it when you pour your excess coffee into the trash can, especially since they usually ask if you want "room" of cream and you said no. If you think that they have special trashcans and liners or trashed napkins to make taking out a trash bag with liquid in it any less a disaster than when you do it, you're wrong.
Used book stores: No, they don't have any idea when a certain book is coming in. The inventory is dependent on what people bring in to sell them, there's no way to know for sure unless you have a copy of the book to sell them.
Sexy undie shops: Sorry, strippers do not receive professional discounts. Does your coke dealer give you a professional discount, Cinnamon? Harsh, I know! That wasn't me, that was the person who worked at the store, honestly!
Post Office: They really hate it when you don't use the extra 4 numbers of the zip code. With the problems I've had with the postal service, I'll admit I don't use 'um either.
Concert Doorman: If the show says "sold out" and you don't have a ticket, don't wait in line to get in. At a sold out Hold Steady show at the Black Cat, with signs posted everywhere about it, even taped to the guy checking I.Ds chest, people were still trying to buy tickets.
I asked the dude how after it happens and he said, "All the time, but especially tonight for some reason."
Guitar store: Don't play the first song that you feel like playing when you try out a guitar, unless it's suitably obscure. By some cosmic coincidence, everyone tends to play the same songs. Wayne's World was dead on with the guitar store that had a "No 'Stairway To Heaven'" sign. My friend Ron who worked at a music store told me years before that was almost every single person in the store that tried out acoustic guitars played "Stairway" first. I'm sure that other songs have supplanted it. My own trips to music store are sometimes dependent on what kind of music is popular or else I get to be treated to half a dozen or more versions of faux Limp Biskit riffs.
Universal to every retail situation: If the store is closed, leave. Please. We were open all day and part of the night, where were you?
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