Retail 101, Monday morning, All and Sundries

[blackadder-nth.livejournal.com]

All and Sundries is, frankly, a mess. Baldrick moves quietly through the store sweeping and gathering up debris, but it's fairly obvious that there was some sort of ruckus here recently.

Edmund stands by the cash register waiting for the students to all arrive and sign in. Once they are assembled, he begins.



"Retail is often a demeaning and frustrating occupation. Its rewards are few and sometimes subtle. Being overtly insulting is entertaining, but sometimes, hard on one's bones.

"Better is the pleasure of informing your customer that they are a complete blithering idiot and having them thank you for that privilege.

"Baldrick will now assist me with a demonstration."

Baldrick shuffles forward holding a piece of paper in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. He looked at the paper and read stiltedly, "Good. Afternoon. This," he held up the shopping bag, "Hat. Is too. Small?"

Edmund rolled his eyes at Baldrick's recitation but responded. "You do have a very large skull there, don't you, sir? You hearten men everywhere who have ever heard 'size doesn't matter.'" Then he plastered on a smile that would make small children cry while Baldrick gaped like a dehydrating fish and said, "I will exchange your hat right away."

He shooed Baldrick away and turned back to the class. "Obscure. Possibly obtuse. I have insulted Baldrick and he may have even thought I was complimenting him, but I have amused myself and perhaps compensated for the fact that my employer has told me that I'm fired if he hears one more complaint from a customer about my bad attitude.

"Retail, children, is a war - us against them - clerk against customer. They hold the power of the purse, you hold the power of the cash register, the 'we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone' sign, and the key to the store. Never compromise, and never back down.

"Again, I want you to break down into groups. Two groups of two, one group of three. Practice your veiled insults with each other in a clerk/customer setting. I will assist you with object lessons as you progress."

"Your assignment is to insult at least one person this week and have them not catch it. I expect a complete reporting of that in our next session. Failure may at your mun's discretion be rewarded with detention."

[ooc: Break up, chat, insult each other. I'll be along as soon as I can to have Blackadder deliver his critiques, but I'm on PST, so it will be later in the day for the east coasters.]

Comments

Practicum

[blackadder-nth.livejournal.com]

Clerk and customer/s. Returning something? Can't find what you need? My goodness, this shop is a mess, what sort of establishment are you running here?

Ready, set, snark.

Re: Practicum

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

"Serving wench," Zack affected an arch manner. "I say, where are you plebe?"

Re: Practicum

[fates_jaye]

Jaye stares at him. "Seriously?"

Re: Practicum

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

Zack shrugged. "Felt I should give you some good ammunition."

Re: Practicum

[fates_jaye]

"Oh, okay," she says. "Carry on, then."

Re: Practicum

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

Zack coughed and slipped back into character. "Underpaid register monkey, I wish to make a complaint."

Re: Practicum

[fates_jaye]

She looks him over. "I bet you do," she says slowly. "What's up or whatever."

Re: Practicum

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

"Last night I purchased a case of vodka from this establishment," Zack said. "This morning I discovered that it was defective."

Re: Practicum

[fates_jaye]

"Was it solid?" Jaye asks.

Re: Practicum

[lovechildblair.livejournal.com]

Blair leaned against the counter and chomped on imaginary gum.

Re: Practicum

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn grinned cheerfully at Blair. "Hi. Do you work here? I'd like to buy a kumquat."

Re: Practicum

[lovechildblair.livejournal.com]

"Nope, I just hang out behind the counter for fun." Blair smirked, or at least tried to smirk. It came off as more of a grin and he was bouncing.

"A kumquat is a good choice for you, that much calcium will do wonders for yellow teeth."

Re: Practicum

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn eyed Blair. It did look like he was having fun back there.

"Yellow teeth?" Dawn looked a bit alarmed, and yeah, she'd totally be obsessing over this later. "I was thinking more for the tartness."

Re: Practicum

[lovechildblair.livejournal.com]

"You have a need to be abnormally tart?" Blair arched his eyebrow as high as he could and cheated a little, using his finger to push it up more. There was no way he was going to be able to mimic a Blackadder eyebrow arch without cheating.

Re: Practicum

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

Dawn bit her lip to keep from laughing at the eyebrow arch. "Yes, it's exactly what I was looking for!" Then she looked worried. "Or is there something more tart that you might suggest instead?"

Re: Practicum

[lovechildblair.livejournal.com]

"I am not an expert in tartness, but I do believe the North Korean kumquat is believed to be the most tart of the varities, plus it helps with water retention." Blair bounced. "Or would you rather I search out something more tarty enough to suit you?"

Re: Practicum

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"Do I..." She glared at Blair, folding her arms across her chest. Dawn wasn't going to ask. At least not right now. And she wasn't a tart, thankyouverymuch. "Extra tart, please. And no more of those remarks. My patronage helps pay your salary, you know."

No, she had no idea why she sounded like Giles when she was pissed but still trying to be polite.

Re: Practicum

[chasingsnitches.livejournal.com]

Cedric leans on the counter, pretending to be busy staring at the counter.

Re: Practicum

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Willow attempted to get into the role of an obnoxious customer. This involved tilting her nose up. "Excuse me, I would like to buy something, for I am a customer and I must custom."

Re: Practicum

[chasingsnitches.livejournal.com]

Cedric tries to give off an air of interest yet only mildly. He doesn't think it quite works.

"All right," he says, looking at her. "What would you like to custom?"

Re: Practicum

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Willow was momentarily at a loss. She hadn't thought this far. She pointed to something at random. "That." She looked. "Um. Tic Tacs. I'm a collector."

Re: Practicum

[chasingsnitches.livejournal.com]

"Rather interesting thing to custom," Cedric remarks, looking down at the tic tacs. "Anything that combats halitosis gets high marks in my book."

Re: Practicum

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

"I'm mostly interested in the color," Willow said. "And how they create the chemical combination so that they taste really good when you start? And then after like a minute they turn into candy evil?"

Re: Practicum

[chasingsnitches.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps that change is due to consumer error," Cedric says lightly.

Re: Practicum

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

"There's a specific way you're supposed to suck it?" Willow replied, dubiously.