© Linda Goodman,
August 2013
I was not doing what I wanted to be doing on
July 4, 1975. I wanted to be sipping wine at the cookout that my boyfriend had
invited me to attend. Instead, I was
working.
July 4th is a big sales
day for retail establishments, and the Portsmouth, Virginia furniture store
that employed me, was no exception. At
9:00 a.m., I and five of my co-workers stood at the front of the store, waiting
to service the hoard of furniture shoppers who were sure to be coming through
our doors soon. We worked on the “up”
system. Before the store had opened, we had drawn numbers from a basket. The
sales person who drew number 1 would attend to the first customer who came
through the door; the one who drew number 2 would attend to the second, and so
on. I drew number 4.
Sales persons one and two greeted
customers almost immediately. About ten
minutes elapsed before customer number 3, a tired looking woman, walked through
the door. This woman looked like someone who had been hit by hard times. She
was wearing a ratty winter coat (even though the temperature was in the
nineties), flip-flops, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. In her right hand she held
a large brown paper grocery bag.
“Do I have to help her?” asked the
salesman who had drawn number 3. “She’s a bag lady, for Christ’s sake!”
The store owner, Mr. S, scrutinized
the woman before replying, “She’s probably come in to take advantage of our air
conditioning. Just ignore her. She’ll
leave soon enough.”
She did not leave, and while I
waited for customer number 4, she looked back at us repeatedly.
“Don’t you think someone should at
least say hello?” I inquired.
“If you talk to her, she’ll never
leave,” Mr. S answered. “She’ll
monopolize your time and you won’t make any sales.”
I knew he was probably right, but I
looked back and her, and she was staring at me. The puzzled look in her eyes
was clearly saying ‘why won’t you help me?’
She reminded me of my mother. Even
after my father had gotten a job that paid well, my mother refused to buy new
clothes. “We never know how long the job
will last,” she reasoned. “I aim to save as much money as I can for that rainy
day that’s sure to come.” I used to wonder why the clerks in the stores where
we shopped sometimes ignored her. Now I knew the reason.
I could not look away from this bag
lady’s eyes. “I’m going to go speak to her,” I told Mr. S.
“Go ahead,” he sighed. “but don’t
blame me when everyone else racks up big sales today and you end up with
nothing.”
I nodded and walked over to the
woman. “Hi,” I greeted her. “How can I help you today?”
“I’m looking for a new living room
suite, a new dining room suite, and a new bedroom suite.” She asserted. “I just
got a new apartment.”
“Very well,” I responded, “come with
me and I will show you what we have.”
After walking through the living
room section three times she finally stopped to ask questions about a royal
blue velvet sectional that cost $999.99. She wanted to know what made that sofa
worth that much money. I was well-versed on the strengths of that particular
suite, so I quickly explained them to her. She nodded, accepting my explanation.
“And those tables,” she asked,
pointing to the set of 3 chrome and glass tables that accessorized the suite,
“what makes them worth $300.00?
“They’re tempered glass,” I
enlightened her. “They’re four to six times the strength of regular glass, and
If the glass breaks it shatters into round pieces that can’t cut anyone. “ She
did not seem impressed, so I added, “These tables are so strong you can stand
on them.”
“I’m looking for tables that lamps
can stand on; not people,” she informed me. She pointed to a set of wooden
tables across the room. “I’ll take those,” she said.
By this time, I had been with the
woman for forty-five minutes. Meanwhile,
sales persons 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 were closing multiple sales. I silently berated
myself to not listening to Mr. S. He had been in this business a lot longer
than me. His was the wise voice of
experience.
After similarly scrutinizing the dining
room furniture, she selected a chrome and glass dining room table (“I might
actually want to stand on that sometime,” she shared with me.) with 6 leather
chairs. She took over two hours to select a bedroom suite, a French provincial set
made of fruitwood. At $1,549.99, it was the most expensive suite we carried. I
invited her to join me at my desk, but she insisted she needed to choose lamps
for her new living room and bedroom suites first.
After another hour had passed, she
was satisfied that she had everything she wanted. As I pulled a chair up to my
desk for her, I glanced at Mr. S. He was shaking his head. I knew exactly what he was thinking, “I told
you so!” I did not relish the thought of the scorching lecture that would soon
be coming my way; not to mention the beating I would be giving myself for
offering to help this woman.
I took a blank contract from my
desk drawer and began to fill it out. She supplied me with her name, address,
and phone number (clearly, she was making this stuff up!), but hesitated when I
asked for her Social Security number. “What do you need that for,” she wanted to
know.
“I need your Social Security number
to get your credit approved,” I insisted (like I actually thought she could get
approved).
“I’m not buying this on credit!”
she thundered. “I’m paying cash.”
Mr. S, standing behind me, actually
giggled, prompting snickers from the rest of the sales staff.
I ignored them. They could be dealt with later. I needed to
get rid of this woman before she ruined my sales for the rest of the day.
“Very well,” I said in my most
business-like voice, “your total with sales tax comes to $3,795.96. Since you
are paying cash, I won’t charge you for delivery. I’ll write up your receipt
while you go get the money.”
“I don’t need to go get the money,”
she smiled. “I got it with me.”
She proceeded to open up that brown
paper grocery bag that was in her right hand. After removing several layers of
newspaper, she started lifting banded packs of one-hundred dollar bills and
placing them on my desk. “There’s $3,800. You owe me $4.04 change,” she
announced.
I wrote up a delivery slip and sent
it back to our warehouse. Mr. S. was speechless, as the sales staff gasped in
disbelief. I could hardly believe it myself. This had to be a dream!
But it was not a dream. I escorted
her to the front door, and as I opened the door for her, I advised, “You ought
to put that money in a bank account. It’s not safe to walk around this city
with that kind of cash in a paper grocery bag.”
A sly smile spread across her face.
“Don’t you worry about me,” she reassured me. “Everybody thinks I’m a bag
lady.”
Author’s Note: A year later, when I was promoted sales
manager of the store, I used this story to train my sales staff not to judge
customers by their appearance. The
really cool thing about this is that there were still sales staff members who
had been present and witnessed my experience with this woman. When doubters
scoffed, these staff members verified the truth of the story. “We know it’s
true,” they insisted. “We were there!”
