Mmm… Meat Slushies

(I work in a kitchen store which sells mostly gadgets, but we do have several appliances and cookware sets. The store is very busy, and it’s just the assistant manager and me working. I am up front, checking out customers, while she is off helping someone. My line clears up and I decide to walk around the store to see if anyone else needs help. As I am walking, I hear my assistant manager talking with some customers who obviously know very little English. They are looking at a very pricy blender.)

Assistant Manager: “Ma’am, you cannot use this to chop up meat. None of the blenders here will chop up meat.”

(I am very confused to hear this, as I have never heard of a blender being used to chop meat. We do, however, carry things meant to do so, which the assistant manager is trying to show the customers, a daughter and a mother. I listen for another minute, then notice my line starting to build up again so I rush off to help. Soon after, the assistant manager comes up, flustered.)

Me: “Are you okay?”

Assistant Manager: “They want to chop meat with a blender. I keep trying to tell them they can’t. I’ve shown them everything we have to chop meat, but they want none of it!”

(We switch spots, so she is now checking people out and I am walking the floor. I see the customers she was talking to. They have opened the box of the blender up in the middle of the floor to look at it, despite it being on display right in front of them. They notice me and flag me over. Again, it is very obvious that they know almost no English.)

Customer: “We get new box?”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “This opened. We get new box?”

(This really irritates me, as they are the reason the box is opened and now looks horrid.)

Me: “Let me go see if we have another.”

(I go into the back room, wait about a minute, and go back on the floor.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have any more of those blenders. If you wish to buy one, you will have to buy the one you have opened.”

Customer: “Oh, okay.”

(I take the box up to the front for them to fix it while they browse some more.)

Me: *to my assistant manager* “If they ask for a new box, tell them we don’t have one. *wink*

(After a moment, she catches on. I turn to the other register to help another customer, when the women buying the blender walks up to my assistant manager’s register to pay.)

Assistant Manager: “All right, if you buy this, and chop meat with it, and decide you don’t like it, you can not return it, because that is not what it is supposed to be used for.”

Customer: “Okay.”

Assistant Manager: “Got it? Chop meat, can’t be returned.”

Customer: “Okay.”

(They pay and leave.)

Assistant Manager: “They are gonna chop meat in that, aren’t they?”

Me: “Yep.”

(A few weeks later, we notice the type of blender they bought in the return pile. The store manager was in that day.)

Assistant Manager: *to manager* “Hey, who returned this?”

Manager: “Some foreign people; I think it was a mom and a daughter.”

(The assistant manager and I look at each other.)

Me: “Open it up and smell everything.”

(We open the box and smell every cup, with no meat smell until…)

Assistant Manager: “OH, MY GOD!* *gags*

Manager: “What?”

Assistant Manager: “Smell the blades!”

(The manager and I smelled the blades, and of course, it smelled like raw meat. We now inform every person who works there about situations like this to prevent it from happening again.)