Alt text: a text post that reads:
Work in retail long enough, and you'll eventually realize the rules for dealing with Customers are exactly the same as dealing with the Fae:
Avoid eye contact.
Never reveal your full name.
Accept nothing They offer you.
Never verbally agree or disagree with anything They might happen to say.
To apologize is to acknowledge a debt owed.
Under no circumstances are you ever to thank Them.
Remember that They are incapable of reading signs in human languages.
I'm trying to come up with a dialogue that follows these rules, but it gets weird fast.
You ghoulishly sloush around the aisles, avoiding eye contact at all cost, but still a customer talks to you:
C: "Hi, excuse me. I'm looking for tomatoes."
You: "We are out for today."
C: "Oh, that's unfortunate."
You: "" (still avoiding eye contact)
C: "Well, how about I come back tomorrow?"
You: "There will be a new shipment of tomatoes by tomorrow."
C: "Okay, great! Then I just come back tomorrow?"
You: "If you come back tomorrow, there will be a new shipment of tomatoes."
C: "Are you alright?"
Avoiding eye contact, you silently slither away.
I don't know why, but I can only read this in a robot-like monotone way. Which makes it so much better.