The drama unfolded yesterday, around 4:15-4:30 to be exact; it was after I arrived back from my late lunch with a friend. v.t. is no newbie when it comes to underhanded behavior, but this incident topped them all. I think it happened because she thinks that she is so great and so positively popular (yeah right!) that everyone at my job at a high end retailer would know who she was.
The difference in this case can be explained by simply saying the number "two".
Our high end retail store is in a mall in the Boston metro west area where our store is separated into two buildings which happen to make up the two anchor stores in the small mall. One store includes mens and home furnishings (we are known as "Cinderella") and store two includes womens and childrens (they are known as the "evil step-sister").
We have been instructed, as sales associates, that inter-departmental selling is the "hot" new trend for retail workers; however, most of us in the mens and home store aren't biting. We just do not agree, most people feel it disrespects the title of selling specialist. When people from the "evil step-sister" store come over to the "Cinderella" store they don't know what they're doing in terms of selling our merchandise. We have high standards for how we keep our selling floor, and they come over by themselves or with their clients and they make a big mess and never clean up.
But now I am just ranting and that isn't what I meant to do; I meant to tell a story.
So back to v.t., she came over to our department Friday afternoon without so much as a word or a phone call. She brought her client, but at the time the people in my department were under the impression that both ladies were customers because v.t. ("the underhanded one") was not wearing so much as a name tag to identify herself as an employee.
Yes, she was wearing black, which is our dress code, but many customers wear black. In addition, some of our employees are our best customers. The fact that she was wearing black is immaterial and certainly does not justify what she did.
v.t. and "her client" (not really--- at least not in this case) were approached by four sales associates on four separate occasions, most of them are friends of mine. My friend, P.G. landed what he thought was a very good sale; I know he was with them for a long time because I saw him with them. He had convinced them or so he thought to buy some nice stuff and he took a few trips back and forth to the stock room to put the sale together.
It was not until v.t., the customer, and P.G. came over to my department that I figured out exactly what v.t. was doing. I spotted her after I started helping them thinking that I was helping my co-worker with the sale; all it took was me looking her in the eye to figure out who she was.
v.t. acted like she was friends with the customer, maybe more than friends even and she was on her cell phone various times throughout the hour and a half she spent there while my friend P.G. laid all the groundwork for her estimated $7,000 sale.
I excused myself from v.t. and the customer and asked my friend if I could speak with him; it was then that I revealed to him that he had spent all this time with these people and wasn't going to get the sale. He decided to pursue it hoping that v.t. would step aside or at least give him a part of the sale for all the work he had done. After all, he had lost potential sales with all the time he spent with v.t. and her customer.
Isn't that what one would expect? v.t. would at least split the sale? Heavens no! v.t. is way too underhanded and snake like for that. She got behind the register and started ringing up the sale without ever telling P.G. that she was a sales associate from the other store and had wasted his time. The she had the nerve when it was all over to ask him for a cart to put her sale in. She could have at least gone to the back stock room to get it herself since she will be benefitting with the hefty commission check she gets monthly no doubt.
The story doesn't end there because miss v. has a secret, and it goes no further than that, but I did chat with my boss about what happened, and I am certain that her actions will have consequences.
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