The cashier's life: blog number one

One thing I was thinking about doing is writing down, from my point of view, what ideal shopping situations should look like from a retail workers point of view. If you have ever worked in retail, you know that it is a daunting and draining experience in so many ways. This series of blogs that I am starting on here is not meant to be taken too seriously and may give people who have never worked in retail an insight into how I view the public in general. I am in no way an expert in anything and everything I say in these posts should be taken with a grain of salt.
That being said, the first retail experience that I would like to take on is: people, in general, are stupid!
If you have worked in retail for any length of time, you may have noticed this plague of stupidity that is running rampant in society. Anyone who tells you there is no such thing as a stupid question has never worked in retail. One of my jobs is at Petsmart. There have been quite a few times when customers have come up to the register with an outfit, hold it up, and tell you "I have a (breed of dog) at home, do you think this will fit him/her?" At this point, I look around and do not see a dog with the customer at all. If you don't get why this question is a little stupid, let me help you out. Would you walk into Walmart, Target, etc alone, grab a child's shirt off one of the racks, then go up to a cashier and ask the cashier if that shirt will fit you're nine year old child? I doubt it. You would bring your child into the store, pick up the shirt (perhaps in a couple different sizes) and have the child try them on to see which one is the best fit. You see, animal clothes are like human clothes in the fact that different manufacturers make clothes that fit differently. A small in one brand may fit the same dog differently then a small from a different brand. Then you have the added complication of dogs not being the same size, even if you have two dogs of the same breed. One dog may really love to eat while another is very active. Instead of asking the cashier, you may not have ever met or even seen you dog, if that outfit will fit, bring in your dog and try the outfit on the dog or, if that's not an option, take a couple of outfits home, try them on, and return the ones that don't fit.
Another example of why I question the intelligence of the masses is when people call the pet store and ask a question like, "where is the nearest kennel?" The reason this makes me question a person's intelligence is because, unless you have your local pet store's phone number on speed dial, I am relatively sure that you had to Google the store's phone number in which case, you could have just as easily Googled where the nearest shelter is. There was one time a guy called the store and he told me that he had an emergency situation. He was going to the nearest Six Flag amusement park and the park would not allow his dog in the park and he needed to board the dog somewhere while he went to into the park. He was from out of town and could not leave his dog in the car. I informed him that we did not have a list of local kennels, we did not have a kennel, and the closest Petsmart that had a kennel was a half an hour to forty-five minutes away. This was not an option that he liked so, he asked what grooming options would take a few hours so that he could go to the park. In that situation, since the guy, being from out of town. obviously had to Google the number of the closest Petsmart, wouldn't it have been a quicker use of his time to Google nearby kennels when he realized we did not have one?
The last, and quickest example that I have for you involves receipts. One of the first questions cashiers are supposed to ask is if the customer wants their receipt emailed or printed. You'd be surprised at how many people have to take a few seconds and actually think about it. This one time though, I asked a customer if he wanted his receipt emailed or printed, and he seriously asked me, "which one is cheaper?" And before you ask, he was not joking.
That's it for this blog. Let me know what you think about this retail inspired blog series of mine and whether or not I should continue with it? I hope I am not coming of as too much of an ass. I actually think these situations are amusing and I find people, in general, to be amusing as well. We don't always pay attention to what we do or to the world around us. Hopefully, we never do because the world will end up a boring place.