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Thursday, 30 March 2006
American Psycho in Primark
Two days ago I was in Primark (cheap clothiers extraordinaire, for those among you who are above low-life chic). We were taking back clothes that my boyfriend had bought. It was a suit and two T-shirts. Receipt intact, well within return-by time, we walked into the city centre discussing DANNY's new website (overhauling it again), his new film (Wuthering Heights) and the weirdness of fans writing about fans writing about fans - was there any mileage in it for me? (No.)
So, as usual, we are yakking nineteen to the dozen, three miles go past without us noticing. We go into Primark and up to the customer service desk. We queue. We get to the top of the queue. We tell the girl. No problem, she's beeping them through.
Suddenly we hit a snag. Only one of the two T-shirts is on the receipt.
If you're not familiar with Primark, the only information their receipts show is a price and a code, no item description. So we count the items up. I bought six, I'm returning four. It should be there.
Then I spot that there are two items with the same code. The two T-shirts are different, there's your problem. Both T-shirts are khaki. Assistant has assumed they were the same T-shirt and put it through twice, hence same code. Problem solved.
Huh, you think?
Oh no, just the start of the fun. She has to get a supervisor to check this
It might be as well to interject here that the t-shirts cost £3 and £4 respectively. They've charged me for two at £3. So, this means that if I was trying to pull a shoplifting scam I stood to make £1. If I was super cunning the most I could earn from it would be £4. I'm not quite sure how I'd make that work - it's too clever for me - but you could see what would motivate someone like me to put myself out for £1 - maybe £4 - us junkies can't resist beige linen suits.
So we get a supervisor, who isn't a supervisor, and so it goes on.
In all, three assistants come and offer their half pence worth, muttering darkly about us having to take a credit note.
No, say I, this is the shop's fault. It's been rung through incorrectly and I am not taking a credit note. All very polite, but beginning to get just a little strained by the inordinate amount of fluffing over a £1 discrepancy. Which, you realise, makes no difference because they would refund me the lower price, which is the one I paid, back onto my credit card (you are still following this, aren't you?) . No matter, managers must be called.
Excellent say I, genuinely pleased by this turn of events, this looks like progress, please call a manager.
Nope, we get some kind of floor supervisor. Now, she's a pippin. She arrives by pushing between us (I kid you not), actually shouldering us aside demanding, "Excuse me" like a cop at a traffic accident. She's obviously awfully important. I can tell.
Immediately my 'annoyed' jumps up fifteen notches to 'shortly someone is going to get an earful'.
It all gets a bit blurred after this because, sadly, adrenaline has just entered the building, shouldering logic aside along with my corporeal body, but, she says something along the lines of, 'Just give her a credit note' – like I'm not pinned to the wall by her elbow, within earshot – and I say, with a very short fuse indeed by now, No, a credit note is not acceptable. Unbelievably, although a film of red mist is now covering my eyes, I am still polite.
She immediately turns on me, all skinny, blonde five foot five of her, and says, smiling yet, "Am I talking to you? Did I speak to you?"
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Scenes like this do make me wonder, long after the event, what kind of image I project. By the time I've calmed down and walked it off and ranted about it a bit I start to question myself. Do I look servile? Do I project meek, a pushover?
I just can't see it. And yet, here she is, the scrawniest, snippiest little bitch with an 'o' level that ever walked a shop floor saying to me, a customer, who's more or less been accused of shoplifting, You shut up, no-one was talking to you.
I, of course, do what I always do when I lose my temper – a sight which is fortunately very infrequent – I am immediately in her face, voice raised to truly awesome levels, but not shouting, so that the whole store stops and gawks.
I won't repeat what I said, not because it was foul, which actually I don't think it was, but because I can't remember it. I remember saying "Don't you dare take that tone with me. Who the fuck are you to take that tone with me? Think I'm one of your fucking staff, or something?" And then after that it really was a blur.
I remember her jumping back about two feet then trying to cover it up by lifting her hands up in a repelling gesture and doing a fake cocky smile and saying "Hey back off, just a minute", and then, and this really is unbelievable, she starts pulling these faces like I'm mad and starts sneering at me. Yes folks, after keeping me waiting, questioning my honesty, making me go through four other members of staff, pushing me to one side, talking to me like the janitor – all this for £1, mind you - Primark's finest then sneers at me.
Talk about red flag to a bull. Now I am shouting, but still oddly restrained (I wish to fuck I knew how I do that). No idea what I'm saying, but it sure as fuck isn't complimentary. She's backing into the rope still doing this insulting shit with her hands, the sneery smiles, and she keeps telling me to be calm.
Who the fuck taught these people that this is a good thing to say to someone who has just lost the rag? I can only assume they pick it up off cop shows on TV.
It's like the Simpson's dog. All Santa's Little Helper hears is 'Bleh, bleh, food'. All I hear is 'Bleh, bleh, you've no right to be angry'.
By now she's panicked but no idea how to get out of it. Belittling has always worked before. The staff all hate her, sure, but they 'respect' her. And yet, it isn't working here. What's more, this seriously deranged woman, for all her middle class voice, middle class clothes, well-spoken boyfriend (who is also shouting by this point) is about to tear her limb from limb. But, all credit to her, (or possibly just more blind stupidity) she keeps sneering, pinned up against the counter and starts hiding behind Security. "Do you want me to call Security?" she threatens. She manages to make it sound like "Do you want me to send you to the headmaster?"
Oh, that works. I go right in again. "Go ahead," say I "You call security." That throws her, so she keeps repeating it. Strange, it always works on fourteen year old boys throwing chips at her, why not me?
And here we reach the clincher. This is the part in the story where it stops being a brawl and moves into a whole different territory. The six 'o' clock news, perhaps.
In a split second, round about here somewhere, I come incredibly close to punching her in the face.
Now, I can't lie and say this is the first time, because ever since The Trolley Incident in Safeways about two years ago, this has happened to me more and more, and often for much lesser things than this. But these moments of crystal aggression always stand out because there's something different about them.
When I was younger I was much more aware of making a scene, what people would think. While here, for example, I only noticed the entire store, within earshot, had stopped to watch during a hiatus while we were waiting for the actual (assistant) manager to arrive.
Younger, I could always feel myself losing my temper.
Now it just happens, like clicking my fingers.
I used to think twice about violence, realising how unpredictable it is, how dangerous, where it can unexpectedly take you.
Now I don't appear to care.
Maybe I would if I was facing down a coal haulier instead of a snippy little shop assistant, but I have a niggling feeling I might not.
In short, if I'd had a hand gun right at that moment I'd have used it. As it was, there was a don't-give-a-fuck part of me that was so close to the civilised me there wasn't room for a breath between us.
In fact, that reckless part of me is now so comfortable in my everyday psyche that I have bemoaned endlessly, as my boyfriend will attest, on how I fear That Primark Moment is going to be one more of my many life's regrets.
Because I lost my temper?
Hell, no. Because I should have decked the little bitch, right through that smirking, self-satisfied, smile.
I ask you, what is a £3 refund, an appearance at County Court, a fine of £200 for assault compared to the satisfaction of taking down one of life's uglier little whelps?
Now she will go on through life, blameless, safe in her autocracy, wielding her petty tyrannies, because I never took that tiny step into my dark side.
A perfect hand-gun moment lost - for nothing more noble than money.
P.S. Did I get my refund?
What do you think?
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18:15 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Email this
Comments
I've been a shopper at primark for years now,both me and my girlfriend go in there at least 3 or 4 times a week.. and yeah it can be mad,crazy in fact!! but Since when Have primark ever done credit notes?? I really dont know why I'm wasting my time in writing this.. just that it seems bullshit!! You must have been shopping somewhere else.. are you have nothing better to do then write half a page which is all made up. me bored now. pete
Posted by: pete rushworth | Monday, 17 July 2006
If I may borrow your style Pete, which I must say is both elegant and concise:- are you nothing better to do then write half a witted reply which is all made illiterate. me beyond bored, me gobsmacked. chancery
P.S. I can't believe Primark have been issuing credit notes behind your back. And you in there four times a week too. If I was you I'd sort the fuckers out.
Posted by: chancery stone | Monday, 17 July 2006
LMAO this is the funiest story ive heard
but put youselves in ouur shoes we get moany customers everyday who can not comprehend the simple fact that you need a receipt for a refund or exhange and we have a 28 DAY return policy
ps we dont offer credit notes
Posted by: till op | Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Hi till op, glad you found it funny. But, much as I sympathise with you on the "moany customers", I ain't one of them.
As to the credit notes, somebody obviously needed to tell the assistant that, because she sure as fuck didn't know.
Posted by: Chancery Stone | Thursday, 24 April 2008