I usually give customers five or ten minutes on their own, if they are even in the store that long, and then I’ll make my way over and see if there’s anything specific I can help them find, or anything expensive I can convince them to buy. This customer, though, I gave 15 minutes, because I figured I could combine checking in with them with my last call for alcohol spiel.
“Hey…finding everything alright? I’m going to go ahead and close up in a couple minutes…”
“Yeah, I’m sorry…I just came in here to get away from someone I met at that coffee shop around the corner just now, I don’t even…I mean…people really buy all this…”, finished with a general weak wave around the shop.
“Yeah, people do, I guess, or some people…so why did you have to hide out? Things went that bad?”
“I don’t know, not that bad, I guess, but I could just sort of see from the way things were going, that it was all going to end with one of us making sort of half-hearted promises about calling the other one, and then a few emails, and then just nothing, you know? It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to, all of a sudden, so when they went to the bathroom I just put my coffee down and took off.”
I wouldn't describe the resulting silence as awkward, necessarily, but it was a definite silence all the same.
“OK, so that was way more than you needed to know, and you’re closing down, so I’ll get out of here. I feel bad…do you have anything my 12 year old cousin might like? His birthday’s coming up, I think.”
So I sold one more unit of the hottest new figure with the kidz these days, and it made me feel better, a little bit, to know my stupid little store had been really useful to someone, if only for a few minutes…made it easier to get through inventory that week, anyway.
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