Just A Shopgirl II: Deep Thoughts

Six weeks on this "pour-girl" winery job, and here's what I've learned:  it is impossible to smile and yawn at the same time. 

At the bookstore, I worked my ass off for 8-10 hours at a stretch on concrete floors, but I was working for friends.  For people who know me, know what I'm capable of, what I'm worth, what I'm good at (and what I'm not so good at:  counting [anything]).

Here at the tasting room, though, where no one I work with has ever indicated the slightest interest in who I might actually be, I "talk to customers too much."  "Don't clean [i.e., polish crystal] when people are in the store." ["Uh-huh.  And when they've indicated they don't want to be bothered, how should I look busy?"]  Sales are down from this time last year--quelle horreur!  Could it be that people don't have quite so much disposable income, what with the economy and all?  Naahhhhh.  The shopping center is flooded with folks, but they're all going to the movies or eating dinner or both; they're not buying wine on the way either to or from.  They bunch up outside and ogle the $250 Riedel crystal decanters in the windows (and me, polishing), but they don't actually come in, most of them.  They're intimidated, and rightly so.  Or they're just too smart.  Most of what we sell is available for much less, elsewhere.  Like oh, Trader Joe's or Cost Plus.

But according to Management, we worker bees just aren't doing our jobs!  Bottom line: we're not Selling Enough Wine.  So it's Our Fault.   Short of launching ourselves out the front door, tackling folks and dragging them in, what should we do? we wonder.

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, we should tackle them and drag them into the store.  Management has these 2-for-1 complimentary promotional winetasting cards, and someone should go out among 'em, the Great Unwashed, and hustle up some custom.  We worker bees all stare at each other--or, rather, all my fellow worker bees stare at me.  Moi?--yup, vous!--(pas "toi," parce-que nous ne sommes pas les egales, ici)--should go out among 'em and hustle up some biz.

I pretend to be a little shocked, but I'm really thinking, "Oh shit YES, anything to get OUTSIDE and WALK AROUND!"  So I take a handful of cards and sally forth.

I head straight for Cohiba, across the way.  More than a cigar store (no wooden Indian in front, for instance), it's a cigar boutique, a small storefront operation featuring a stylish inventory of cigars in a stylish environment in which to set said seegars on fire and suck on them while striking postures of exaggerated machismo:  sumptuous leather sofas, a few bar-style perches, torch-sized propane lighters, bigscreen TV, mirrors all around.  And a spectacularly hard-eyed proprietor in the best seat in the house.

Effortlessly at home in this all-boy environment, I ask him "You still here?"   He's so startled, so caught-off-balance by this sudden so way-cooler[not to mention taller]-than-he-is big blonde,he has no reply.  So I ask the 300# bouncer whether I can solicit custom; he says sure.  I work my way through the testosterone fog of blistered tastebuds--"You like wine?" I ask.  Ever so eager to appear hip and cool, to a man (and one woman) they reply Yes, yup, you bet, Baby, we do!  Well then, come on over! I suggest, handing out cards.  Ten of them.

In the next hour, eight of the recipients show up at the winery.  Of these eight who can't possibly taste anything, six spend more than $150. 

"How did you DO that?" a co-worker (not Management) asks.  "I don't know," I respond, shrugging.  "Musta been something I picked up in graduate school."

Comments

[Chris Clarke]

"Musta been something I picked up in graduate school."

Snerk.

[Chris Clarke]

Oh, and I really like the, um, blitheness of the trackback to this post.

Chris: Me, too! Evidently, they're dead to sarcasm down there in Jesusland (surprise, surprise!)

[Chris Clarke]

Damn. Am I talking to myself again?

Chris: No, you're not.

Chris: Shut up, you two. I'm trying to get some sleep in here.