There are certain professions that carry a ‘pseudo-therapist’ stigma.
Bartenders, manicurists, hair-stylist; these are the people that listen to complete strangers gush out any amount of personal information on a daily basis. And they can’t do anything about it. The verbal onslaught cannot be ceased. The bartender must remain at their bar, the stylist their chair and so on. It's not even that the pseudo-therapists are allowed to just listen- there is an unspoken expectation to render advice.
I’d like for the ‘cashier’ profession to be included into the stereotype of pseudo-therapists.
We are trapped behind our registers/counters and believe me many a customer takes full unbridled advantage of the opportunity to converse with a captive human.
The frequency and duration of my involuntary chat sessions greatly increase during weekday shifts. Friday/Saturday/Sundays, while in general are a semi-chaotic madhouse from the store’s open to close, leave no extra minutes for customers to ramble away.
Get in. Get out. There’s a fifteen person deep line behind you. Have a nice day. Next!
Monday through Thursday is a different case, especially if you happen to be cashiering at one of the back-of-the-store mall registers. And especially, especially if you drew the ultimate short straw and you’re serving a mini banishment shift at the 2nd floor back mall register.
At this isolated register known only as “Mall2” you’re lucky if you ring out more than 20 people in an 8 hour shift. It’s the prime venue to get latched into by an old man for a long one-sided conversation about fishing lures or various types of mosquito repellent. (Mall2 has the added benefit of being right next to the camping, fishing and gun departments- primary senior citizens zone).
I’m thinking back now on different captive convos/advice sessions I’ve had...
Men are the most hopeless shoppers. I’m sure they mean well, but I can see what’s coming before the conversation even gets its first syllable uttered.
The men drift into the women’s clothing section, their foreheads creased with concern. They came into the store (a place that has never failed them for running shoes or gun cleaner) for a new type of purchase: one for a woman.
They amble about the colorful racks, picking up a shirt here and there. The eyebrows furrow downwards and together. They hold a garment up for inspection and glimpse me trying to be invisible behind my subtle register from the early ‘90s; a hulking back beast of a thing continually humming like a hoard of hornets. It’s a siren’s call to a bewildered male shopper.
I can practically hear the poor man’s mental sigh of relief. He walks briskly towards me in his shiny ‘I’m a grown up corporate man’ shoes and I know his thoughts. “Yesssss I’ve found a woman. I’ll tell her what I’m looking for and make the task of obtaining it her responsibility.”
Right.
Because of course women know exactly what to purchase for other women they’ve never met and know nothing about. It’s like men think our boobs are some sort of interconnected constant communication device so we all know each other.
Around noon one weekday, a man came to my register with all the tell-tale signs of ‘I Have No Idea What I’m Doing’ Syndrome.
Furrowed brow. Check.
Lowered eyebrows in confusion from trying to discern how sports bras work. Check.
He is here during the window of corporate lunch hours (11am-1pm) the apex of solo man shopping endeavors. Check.
Sure enough, the man approaches my counter and lays across the fake granite surface a pair of light springy orange mesh basketball shorts and a tight compression-level tropical orange weight lifting shirt.
Me (obligatorily): “Hello sir, how can I help you?”
Man: “This is for my daughter.”
He looks down at the clothes for a few seconds, then back at me and raises one worried eyebrow just a fraction.
I survey the fruity hues before me. I know what has to be done and I know once I say what I know I have to say I’m definitely in for at least a 15 minute personal shopping excursion.
Me *sigh*: “Are these clothes supposed to be worn together as an outfit?”
I watch the gears of the man’s brain whirl. I’m sure he’s very good at banking or being corporate or whatever else he does at the job where he goes in the expensive navy suit he’s standing before me in. At this point I’m almost certain someone else picked out the suit and the gold tie for him.
He voices his thoughts slowly…
Man: “Yes… Don’t they go together?”
This is one of the great afflictions all man seem to be burdened with from birth: the belief that if you wear all the same color- VIOLA you are now MATCHING.
No. No. No.
You are definitely not matching. I don’t care if the clothes are just within the same color family, different shades or the exact same color- you. are. not. matching.
Now this ill informed man wants to afflict his daughter with an all orange outfit he assembled while fully in the grasp of ‘same color equals matching’ ideals.
I must intervene.
Carefully, like a puppet master, intervene and save this girl I don’t even know from wearing an all Hi-C hued outfit to please her daddy.
I reach out and move the shorts up against the shirt to give the appearance my judgment on the outfit is still developing.
*pause*
Me: “Sir. No. No these clothes do not go together.”
He looks genuinely taken aback. For a second I question my honesty. Should I have simply nodded my head and sold him the outfit?
Man: “Oh. Why doesn’t this go together?”
No turning back now. To be fair- he did ask.
Me: “You can’t wear orange on orange and call it matching. Usually when making an outfit you pick a dark color and a bright color. Black shorts, pink top, navy shirt, green pants.”
I purposely stayed away from suggesting the color combo of ‘orange/black’ because certain color combos align with holidays and such and therefore cannot be worn into a locker room. I’m not going to be responsible for taking this girl’s outfit from fruit themed to Halloween.
The man adjusts his gold tie nervously. I’m sure that tie costs more than I’ll earn from my entire 8 hour shift.
Man: “She likes orange.”
Me: “You can have orange in an outfit. The whole outfit’s selling point just can’t be that it is orange.”
My middle-aged fashion student nods very slowly, and I wonder if he actually understands or if that is a practiced move from board meetings to look like he understands. Without another word, he turns on a polished heel and heads back to the racks. He browses with a new found fervor, I can tell. I decide not to leave my post at the counter to assist. I’ll let this one fly on his own right from the start.
I also decide the orange outfit has been correctly abandoned. I gather it up off the counter and tuck it out of sight; hopefully those two garments never have to endure the shame of the suggestion they be combined again.
I’m pleased to report my pupil appeared at my counter within a five minute window (anything beyond that time frame and I would have had to go on a reconnaissance mission after him- probably to the women’s shoes) holding what I could already tell was a much improved selection.
He draped his choices over my counter which much more pride than hesitation. I survey the results.
I see a black basic heatgear running shirt, and a pair of orange and white trimmed Nike running shorts. The choices aren’t a homerun (black and orange still entered the same outfit) but I am satisfied. There’s no shame in putting a teenage girl in this. I’ve seen them wear weirder things. (Like the fly fishing feathers we sell in the Hunting department- they end up in their hair. That’s another story).
Me: “Sir, this is a great outfit.”
He doesn’t say much more, just gives me an ambiguous head bob- probably another move from the corporate world. I check out the outfit to him and he leaves.
Maybe me helping him with the outfit did nothing in the long run. Perhaps his daughter would have loved to wear an orange on orange outfit. Or she’s in the thick of the picky-picky teenager years where absolutely nothing will please her, particularly anything from her dorky dad.
But I like to think I enlightened another man with some extremely basic styling tips for women. His wife and daughter and who knows how many other females in his life could benefit from a cashier telling him to go with ‘one dark color and one bright color per outfit.’He could purchase satisfactory outfits for birthdays, anniversaries, or an ‘I’m sorry I did something dumb’ occasion.
All because I, a cashier, took an extra few minutes to engage in some retail therapy with him.
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