Inert
He drove a long way.
The man in front of me grew impatient. “Every two minutes you step away to help someone else”, he growled. “I drove many miles to get here, and I’m not going home without a kitchen.”
“Sir”, she replied, “I’m doing my best to help you. You didn’t make an appointment for a design consultation, so I’m working with you and trying to help other customers at the same time. I’ve called for help, but no one else is available.” He offered no response beyond the boiling hatred in his eyes.
Valiantly fighting back tears, the flustered associate explained the situation to her manager. By the time she turned her attention to me, however, she had completely unraveled, with no stoppage of waterworks in sight. I stood awkwardly paralyzed, aware of her intense humiliation, desperately wanting to give her a hug. But these things are not in my repertoire. My repertoire sucks.
No, mean IKEA customers suck!
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You could have offered to buy her a coffee or swedish meatball…those always make me feel better.
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this touched me.
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I miss being an IKEA coworker. I love those mean customers. I was always able to disarm them with kindness and calmness due to my ability to dissociate from reality (thanks years of child abuse!). If you ever see that Kitchen coworker again, tell her the mean ones only stick around if you feed the fire with tears or more fire…if your nice, they run.
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