American Shoppers Are Back. Unfortunately, My Colleagues and I Are Now a Sales Team of Zombies.
An associate will be with you eventually.
My co-worker Tyler has become a professional at slinking around and avoiding work at all costs. I mean the guy truly does nothing. His ability to disappear from the sales floor at peak hours over and over again is astonishing. There’s an artfulness to slinking around, especially when you’re six-foot-four. It’s impressive, actually. One does not simply slip that kind of frame through a closing door without anyone noticing. Tyler does, though. The man bides his time, as do all the great slinkers. He waits for the perfect moment, and then boom, he’s in the third-floor warehouse playing MarioKart on his phone before you’ve even noticed he’s gone.
When I walk into our shoe department, I often find several confused customers standing around, checking their watches, craning their necks, wondering what the hell happened to the tall guy who’s supposed to be bringing them those Nikes. “Tyler should be back any minute,” I say. He won’t be. In fact, he probably has no plans to return until he sets a new personal record on Rainbow Road.
Tyler wasn’t the only one on staff to turn into a zombified sales associate between the day we were both furloughed in March 2020 and the day we both started back in January 2021. A number of my formerly hard-working colleagues are now mostly disinterested in the physical world and its inhabitants, much less tourists who want to try on some new hiking boots. It’s not uncommon for me to spot my manager Jen watching an action movie as she strolls down the store’s main hallway, oblivious to the shoppers trying to flag her down.
Whatever customer service advantages brick-and-mortar establishments like ours are still clinging to disappear when the resident experts are too immersed in “John Wick 3” to provide all of that helpfulness and genuine spirit that only humans possess. Now, you could argue that the Amazon robot that helped ship me three new pairs of underwear and a box of fresh masks last week might have been watching “John Wick 3” on the job as well; the robot is just better at multitasking. And maybe Jen will eventually get so good at watching movies at work that she will be able to effortlessly assist customers with a big smile on her face while also being fully immersed in her favorite flicks. But right now she sucks at it. She and Tyler both. That’s what’s devastating for stores like ours. While the customer service robots are excelling at becoming more human, the customer service humans aren’t exactly killing it as robots.
This is a problem because American shoppers have not missed a beat. Watch them move through any large retail store in search of new things to buy, and you wouldn’t necessarily gather that there had been any sort of global crisis. I’ve actually been inspired by American shoppers’ resilience lately, specifically their resilient need for options. You’d think a year-long shutdown that took away pretty much all the options might change that. You would be wrong. The people are back. Back in the stores. Wondering where the fuck all the options are. Every time someone looks at our enormous wall of athletic socks, turns to me and asks, “Is this all you have?” it’s a comforting reminder that America is back, baby.
I’m not sure my co-workers are coming back, though. I mean, yes, they’ll be here in the physical sense, slinking and binge-watching their way through the workday. But they might not ever be here like they were before. So customers will just have to sit back and be a little more patient. “Tyler will be back any minute now,” I’ll tell them. “He didn’t forget the Nikes. He’s just learning to multitask. He’s in the early stages right now, but come back in year, and you’ll find him retrieving shoes at lightning-fast speed while also being fully engaged in a real nail-biter with Donkey Kong. In the meantime, how can I help you?”