Yeah....I'm back.

Been away far. far. too. long.

Tales from the LSS:

The store that I work at has 2 special events per year. One in Jan and one in May for National Scrapbook Day.

For those two days, the store owner arranges with companies to come and teach a class...usually a two page layout, for FIVE DOLLARS.

The companies that come don't donate the supplies. They don't prep the supplies. The owner buys everything that's needed, plus often more for the store. She cuts everything out, even things that need to be hand cut, and assembles it all into kits.

I have seen some of the invoices for just the kit supplies and often, even at 5 dollars a kit, she's not covering the cost of the supplies, NOT to mention that she's definitely not covering the time it takes to put it all together.

She has 3 rules:

No bags in the classroom (stuff walks away)
No children in the classroom
and YOU MUST ATTEND THE CLASS TO GET THE KIT.

The reason, obviously, is that if she is spending all that time and money to do this for her customers, she also hopes that they will COME TO THE STORE and spend some money. She only has sales twice a year...the same days that she does these classes. On those days you can get 25% off of your ENTIRE PURCHASE.

Yesterday, well, was a mess.

Part of it was my fault.

I had a friend that signed up for the classes. Pretty sure I told her that she had to be there to get the kits, but I can't honestly remember now.

Her daughter ended up having a dance competition at the same time. When she got to the store, she'd missed half her classes and couldn't get the kits OR a refund.

So I'm standing there at the counter while they go back and forth...my boss upset because she'd been having this same issue all day with people just wanting to take the kits home for friends who didn't show, etc. My friend is in tears, my boss is frustrated, and it pretty much looks like its all my fault.

Fast forward a bit. I have to teach two of the classes because the manufacturers were from out of state and couldn't send someone.

I get in the class and start calling names to hand out the kits. One lady has her name on two kits and says that she's already arranged it with my boss to take the other one home.

WHAT?

She is also sitting RIGHT NEXT TO MY FRIEND.

I tell her that I have to check with Kathy. When I get to the list, there are three girls in back whose names I didn't call. I ask them if they are signed up for the class and one replies, "Yeah, because all the other ones were ugly."

I go up front and check the sign up cards. Sure enough, they're signed up for two classes, but NOT for the one they are currently sitting in. I go back to tell this to the lady and she says, "There is NO way we would have signed up for THAT class. We hated the project!"

Nicccce.

I run back up front, trying to put out fires and NOT teaching anything. My boss is stuck at the register and tells me to send the people in question up front.

So I tell the "arrangement" lady that she needs to talk to my boss. She heads out. I tell the three girls in back that they need to go up front to talk to the boss, she can't come back because she's stuck with customers.

As they flounce out of the room,the vocal one says, "Well, what the HELL are we?"

Sigh.

After "arrangement" lady leaves, my friend's sister mutters, "Well, SHE'S been getting extra kits ALL DAY."

I haven't BEEN there all day. I have no. freaking. clue.

My boss comes back into the room and tells me to give the three girls kits, but tells arrangement lady that she can't take an extra one. I notice that arrangement lady does NOT mention she's taken them for the rest of the classes.

As I teach the class (which mostly consists of answering questions) I can hear a dialogue from the back of the room from the three disgruntled girls:

"OMG...they are Nazis here! And the kits aren't even cute."

"That's why I always go to (insert competitors name here.) They have better stuff and they're not all bitches!"

And all I can think is...please please DO go there, and don't let the door hitcha on your snotty little fannies on the way out.

Just as the class is over, arrangement lady calls me over and says, "Can I talk to you outside for a minute?"

Oh. No.

She says, "I need your advice. I DID make arrangements to take the kits home and she must have forgotten. I would NEVER have signed up for two if she had told me I couldn't take one home."

Uh...what does she think I can do about this?

So, I just tell her what I've been told...and that she needs to talk to the boss. I turn around...and boss is RIGHT THERE.

Now...my boss is funny about a lot of things, and while I agree that people should have to attend the class, I don't necessarily agree about not giving store credit back if they miss it, especially if they sold the kit to someone else. But one thing about her, she always does right by me. She could see that I was upset about what had happened with my friend, and she made it right. My friend left happy.

But I, well, I had had enough.

When did people get so rude? So entitled? One other thing...we had just gotten in a lot of darling Doodlebug product because we had them do a class. And almost everything on that display WALKED AWAY. Someone stole it. People went to buy it after the class and it was ALL GONE.

Scrapbooking isn't a necessity. You don't need it to survive. And you're not going to get much for product on Ebay anymore.

Someone just felt entitled, somehow.

What a long, long, day.