The Hierarchy in Sales

My part time job is in retail, and even though I expect to be treated as a nuisance, or have my role as a salesperson overshadow the fact that I am a human being with feelings, and even to be disrespected at times...people continue to amaze me.

Yesterday I was working with a young woman who happens to be a Canadian from Indian descent. She’s a fantastic person with whom to work.

A woman came into the shoe store, and I got the feeling that she was used to being spoiled. That’s fine. We can play the part, show her things, make her feel special and entitled-- the way she’s been made to feel for her entire life. We can indulge people like that to an extent. They frequently buy things, and after they disappear, you can pick up the pieces of your self respect by laughing it off, claiming you “just did it for the sale.” Once they’re gone, you can make assumptions about their lifestyles, and distance people like that from people like you, who have to work hard at disgraceful jobs in order to become a decent, deserving, contributing member of society who has worked hard to get to where he or she is.

The woman insulted every shoe that my coworker showed her. She picked up the shoes, examined them from all sides, and complained endlessly about not seeing anything that she liked. At that point I would have left her to her misery, with a cheerful “Ok, well if you see anything you like, let me know!”

But my coworker, sweet and helpful, knew that there must be something in the store that this woman would not criticise. I watched, trying to look busy in the background, but fully enthralled with the dynamic in the store. This woman ruled the world as far as she was concerned. We, her lowly servants, were expected to conform to her opinion and work our fingers to the bone trying to find something that would please her.

My coworker handed her a pointy, open toed heel, which caught the woman’s attention. She handled the shoe, gazed at it for a second, then wrinkled her nose. “You know? I like this shoe, but I just cannot be bothered to paint my toenails just for one evening of going out."

She then looked closely at my coworker, and inspected her just as she had been inspecting that shoe moments before. “I know it’s part of your culture to paint your toenails, isn’t it?”

My coworker was slightly stunned. “What?”

“It’s part of your culture, isn’t it? To paint your toenails?” She repeated, looking my coworker up and down. “But I just can’t see the point of painting my toenails for one night.”

The interaction hit a speed bump from that point, and the woman moved on to offend more minimum wage workers trying to salvage their confidence in the mall that night.

Now, am I right in being shocked at that? Have I reached the point in my political correctness where any mention of ethnic background becomes offensive? Of course not. Ethnicity is extremely important, and it does affect your experience in the world in a deep way. But uninformed, sweeping generalizations that cause one to make assumptions about a person you do not even know...that’s unacceptable.