fandomhigh | Retail 101, Monday morning, All and Sundries

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.]

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

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

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

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

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

"Was it solid?" Jaye asks.

"It was," Zack paused for effect. "Empty."

"That's what happens when you drink something," she tells him matter-of-factly.

"How dare you suggest your products defectiveness is my fault!"

"I'm just stating a fact, sir," she says, and leans over to sniff the air in front of him.

Zack flailed at Jaye. "Why are you sniffing me?"

Jaye can't smell alcohol, and she's not sure if she would be able to. "No reason," she says. "So you bought an entire empty case of vodka and didn't notice it was a little light?"

"Of course not! It was full when I bought it."

"Okay, rummy, you know once you've bought the stuff, we're not responsible for what happens to it."

"Nonsense!"

"Security!"

"I protest!"

"I'm sure. Look, you can't buy something, use it, then return it. Unless it's like, a dress that you'd never wear again but you had a wedding to go to. And even then you have to return it in the same condition. I'm not buying it, buster."