Battle ground: IKEA

For whatever reason, my work schedule has been a little strange lately. I think because a bunch of other people in the department are taking finals right now, they're requesting special hours, so my schedule got shifted around. Somehow, I ended up working the late shift on Wednesday, which I almost never do on Wednesdays, but I showed up at 2:00, ready to battle it out until 10:00. As soon as I set foot on the floor, a woman asked me where a particular piece of furniture was. Specifically, she was looking for one of the Malm dressers (if you don't know, everything at IKEA has a Swedish name - Malm, Ektorp, Expedit, etc. The names are assigned more or less at random, just used to identify products). She wanted it in black, but could only find it in black-brown. Close, but no cigar. I pointed to the other end of the department and told her where to find it. She scurried off, I stayed at my desk. Not two minutes later, her husband comes stomping through the department. He doesn't bother to come up to me to talk, but rather yells at me from thirty feet away (one of my pet peeves) "YO, YOU, IT'S NOT THERE."

My initial reaction is utter disgust for my job and pure hatred towards humanity. But I calmed myself down and politely walked over to him. He repeated "MY WIFE ASKED YOU FOR SOMETHING AND IT'S NOT WHERE YOU SAID IT WAS."

I informed him that it was indeed exactly where I said it was, they just didn't see it. He felt it was appropriate to respond "YOU CAN'T JUST STAND THERE. YOU HAVE TO DO SOME WORK ONCE IN A WHILE."

At that very moment, it took every ounce of restraint for me not to rip his hands off his body and slap him with them. Keep in mind, of course, that he's the one wandering through a furniture store at 2:00 on a Wednesday, while I was dilligently doing my job, contributing to society. Anyhow, being the sassy bitch that I am, I stopped dead in my tracks, looked him right in the eye, and said "Let's get one thing straight. If you expect me to assist you, I expect you to put your attitude away."

He immediately started getting defensive and running his mouth - "DON'T BE LIKE THAT, DUDE. WE'RE NOT GONNA DO THAT HERE. I DON'T WANNA HEAR THAT SHIT."

I silenced him and said "Sir, you're embarrassing me, and you're embarrassing yourself. Stop it now."

We continued on to the piece of furniture he was originally looking for, and of course, it was right where I said it was. Refusing to be civil, he said "THAT'S NOT IT, THAT'S NOT IT. I ASKED FOR ONE WITH SIX DRAWERS."

The chest clearly had six drawers, so I walked up to it, pointed at each drawer, counting out loud "one, two, three, four, five, six," looked him in the eye for a second, and then walked away.

To be honest, I enjoyed the whole confrontation. It's not often that I get to actively call out customers for being idiots. I usually have to just smile and nod while imagining them on fire. But since this guy was being so aggressive, I felt it not only appropriate, but necessary that I throw down with him. And if nothing else, it was an empowering start to an otherwise uneventful day.