Re-Tales: The Customer is Always Stupid

I've never believed in the old maxim that 'the customer is always right.' In fact, I haven't met anyone in the business, on any level, who believed even remotely in that statement. This kind of thing becomes even more relatively false in the world of entertainment retail. Why? Because we're dealing not with absolutes such as expired vs. fresh food or it fits vs. it doesn't fit. Books, music and movies are always a matter of taste. Most attempted returns are made simply because the customer didn't like it. (Or because Oprah implied that customers should return their copies of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections or James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.) But, in this installment of retail, I'm not even going to get into taste. Maybe one of these days I'll get into the Oprah thing, but for now, I'm just going to concentrate on stubbornness and ignorance.

Before I go on, let me just say that I've had my own stupid moments. I'm not perfect. And one of these days, aside from the promised Oprah material, I'll reveal the one horrifically stupid moment that somewhat made me what I am today, a book snob. The difference between my gaffe and most by customers is that I'll admit I'm wrong. I remember one particular customer in a bookstore in Delaware. She was in her late 30's, early 40's, buying a book for her daughter's English class. She came to me at the counter and fairly rudely demanded a copy of, in her words, 'Jane Eyre by Jane Austen.' Well, if you know anything about books you know what's wrong with this request. I told her that I wouldn't be able to conjure up that particular book, but I could get her Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. We could have easily left it at that, she could have taken the book, purchased it, and been on her merry way. But, she wasn't about to be 'corrected' by a 25-year-old snob, so she lashed out. "I know who wrote Jane Eyre. It was Jane Austen!!" I had no other choice but to show her the complete written works of Jane Austen, pointing out the absence of said book, and then to give her a copy of Charlotte Bronte's well-known novel. In the end, she still turned up her nose at me and left in a huff.

Next Week: Feeling Blue in a Red County....