Adventure To The Warehouse Of Infinity

(I’m the weekend and night manager of a small university bookstore. I typically run the register, since the work-studies usually are in and out all day. I don’t mind it except when I get the bizarre customers.)

Customer: *holds a sweatshirt* “Do you have this in a medium?”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we are all out of that size.”

(I know for a fact that all we have of that particular sweatshirt are out on the floor.)

Customer: “Do you have it online?”

Me: “We do have an online store, but everything we sell online we simply pull from the stock we have here, so if we don’t have it here, we don’t have it online, either.”

Customer: “But I can order it online?”

Me: “No, ma’am, we are out of that size.”

Customer: “But you just said you have an online store?”

Me: “Yes, but we pull from the same stock. If we are sold out here, then we are sold online.”

Customer: “But if I go to [National Chain], and they don’t have it in the store, they can order it.”

Me: “That is a national chain; they have warehouses of stock. We are a small bookstore; we don’t have that.”

Customer: “But you have it online. You have to have a warehouse of stock.”

Me: “Ma’am. We are a small bookstore. All of our stock is in the back room. We don’t have a warehouse. If we are sold out of something here, then we are sold out everywhere.”

Customer: “Oh… So, there isn’t a warehouse?”

Me: “No.”

(Thank God she finally seemed to get the message that we don’t have piles of stock in some warehouse somewhere that we pull orders from. Sadly, I wish this was an unusual circumstance, but as most folks in retail know, the customers insist the stockroom is a magical place where every size and color of the rainbow is hidden.)