09.10.01
I've been having back problems which I am fairly sure are not caused by my selection of footware, but are most certainly exacerbated by my selection of footware. Thusly, I have decided to follow Overlord Carol's sterling example, and wear nice sneakers to work.
I already have a blue pair of Keds, so I have decided to get a khaki pair to go with the preponderance of khaki pants that I own. I have a pair on hold at the fine shoe department of my resident Younkers, and was perfectly willing to purchase them today, except that the weird guy was working.
The weird guy's name is Danny. He's moderately normal-looking, and he wears exceptionally unattractive hearing aids, but neither of those are the reasons that he is considered to be "the weird guy".
A few months ago, I was walking out of the employee entrance/exit, which is the door closest to shoes, when Danny bellowed, "HAVE A GOOD EVENING!"
After recovering from the shock of having an unseen stranger scare the crap out of me, I said, "You, too."
And every night thereafter, when Danny was working, he would bellow, "HAVE A GOOD EVENING!" at me.
Maybe I'm being insensitive, but I just think that's weird.
I told Carol about it.
She told me that he regularly did the exact same thing to her, which she also thought was weird.
We told Judy from shoes about it, and she told us a long list of weird things he did, like stand by the doors and try to shake people's hands, wishing them an enjoyable shopping experience, or a good evening, or whatever weird yet courteous thing popped out of his mouth, as though he were a Walmart greeter.
And over the last couple of months, I have heard similar stories from most of the people that work downstairs near him. Everyone thinks he's weird down there.
So, when I decided to get my shoes and saw that he was working, I also saw Sarah P. working over in juniors, and went over to complain about the weird guy. Not only is he a courtesy freak, but associates that have things on hold for customers don't always end up with the sale, if you know what I mean*.
And she told me that he put in his two week notice because everyone is so mean to him.
If by mean, he means avoiding him and ostracizing him for being weird, then yeah, that's right.
We're all mean to him.
So I'm getting my shoes tomorrow.
*Shoe associates work on comission, of a sort. They get paid a normal wage, but they have daily sales goals, and if they don't meet them, the goals compound. If they consistently meet their goals, they get paid a quarterly percentage of what they've sold. If they don't meet their goals, they get in trouble. Getting in trouble several times = no more job.
Ergo, if you have shoes on hold for a customer and someone else rings them up under their number, you lose that much off your goal. If you work five days a week, and have a goal of $100/day, you are facing a quarterly goal of $6500. It's much easier to whack away at that each day if you make your goals by getting your actual sales, instead of finding out at the end of the quarter that you're in the hole because someone's stealing your sales.
