The charity shop gets a new manager, who is some kind of personal acquaintance of the previous manager (who is retiring). He used to work for a big retail chain, and some of the habits of that place keep coming through.

The old and new managers are going through the financials:

New Manager: “So, I’m looking at these numbers, and they’re not very good, are they? Have you considered reducing payroll costs to increase profits?”

Old Manager: “Two problems with that… we’re a non-profit, and outside of you and me, everyone else here is a volunteer.”

He didn’t last very long. Apparently, working with people who couldn’t be controlled with money made him very uncomfortable.

CONTENT WARNING: Gross

When I was eighteen, I worked the cash register at a Goodwill-like store during summer vacation. Two other coworkers (we’re all women, but they’re both twenty and twenty-one) were talking on break.

Coworker #1: “I’m broke until payday again. I wonder if Old Reg is gonna come by again soon, or maybe I should call him?”

Me: “Who is Old Reg?”

Coworker #2: “Oh, the local pervert.”

Me: “The local what?!”

Coworker #1: “He’s some older dude that used to come in a lot when us girls worked, and always asked if we ever got any used panties in.”

Me: “Used panties?! In a charity store?!”

Coworker #1: “Yeah, we told him that we don’t think a charity store will sell used underwear, but he was adamant and had us write his number down to call him if any used “thongs or bikini-style panties” came in.”

Me: “That is so gross.”

Coworker #1: “So gross.”

Coworker #2: “And creepy.”

Coworker #1: “After a while, I was running behind on rent, so I called Old Reg and said we had a bag of used thongs for sale, but they were a little pricey. Twenty dollars a pair because they were from Victoria’s Secret. Dirty b*****d was here in twenty minutes and bought the whole set. I made $100 from him by cleaning out my old underwear.”

Me: “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

Coworker #1: “Meh… sometimes you gotta take advantage to make it through to the end of the month.”

They ended up not calling him that time. The boss knew about it but looked the other way when it did happen. The whole thing creeped me out, but I guess no one was getting hurt, so I just avoided talking about it for the rest of the summer I worked there. 

Ten years later, that same coworker now manages one of the best restaurants in town, so I hope she can now make rent without needing to… supplement.

I’m in line checking out at Goodwill when the cashier asks the lady in front of me:

Cashier: “Would you like to round up your total by 29 cents to donate to people who need help getting jobs?”

Customer: *Totally perplexed.* “Why would people need money to get jobs?”

Cashier: “The charity helps them get set up for job interviews.”

Customer: “But I don’t understand why anyone in this world would need money to get a job?”

Cashier: “The charity helps them out with interview outfits, transportation, a telephone for communication if they need it, shower and cleanliness supplies, help with their resume, that kind of thing.”

Customer: “Why?”

Cashier: “Because all those things cost money.”

Customer: “Why can’t they pay for those things themselves?”

Me: *Having had enough.* “With what job?!”

The customer looks at me, blinks, looks back at the cashier, and says:

Customer: “I still don’t get it, so I’m going to decline.”

I used to volunteer at an op shop (opportunity shop – a second-hand charity shop). We had a whole bunch of old PC games donated, you know, from when they came in those huge boxes. 

They didn’t really know whether anyone would buy them, but I convinced them to put them out on the shop floor. I said, ” Hey, you know, some of these old games are classics, and with the original boxes, are really collectable.” They stayed out on the floor for weeks, admittedly without really selling any. 

One day, a guy came in and was looking through the PC games. I don’t remember how much we priced them for, but the prices varied from like a couple of bucks to around ten to fifteen dollars for some of the classics.

This guy came up to the counter and complained.

Customer: “Those games are so expensive! They’re so old! They’ll be so hard to install on new computers. You can just buy them on Steam for cheaper!”

Me: “Yeah, but the boxed copies are collectable, some people like them just to be able to put the box on their shelves.”

He was clearly interested in them, but was trying to guilt the price down.

He went off to browse the shop, picked out like a blender or some junk, and finally came back to the counter to pay for it, joined the queue to pay, and wouldn’t you know it, a guy who had come into the shop after all this had happened, had got in line right before him, after picking out a whole bunch of the PC games. 

It came to this other guy’s turn to pay, and with the angry guy completely unknowingly right behind him, he proceeded to gush about:

Other Customer: “It’s so cool that you have these old games, especially considering how collectable they are! Also, these days, it’s good to have these physical copies. It’s fun to try to get them to work on new PCs.”

I am just staring at this guy because he is perfectly and inadvertently countering the angry guy’s argument.

When he left, and the angry guy was next, I had the biggest s***-eating grin on my face. The best part is it was like only the third sale we’d had on any of our PC games, and he’d bought out most of what we had.

As a retail worker, I thought I would be blessed with at least one instance of perfect comic timing in my career, but when it did happen, I was actually a customer, and I merely overheard it, but it’s still something worth telling.

I’m browsing in a charity shop. A woman walks up to the cashier working the counter and says:

Customer: “In the short walk from your entrance to this counter, I have seen that sign three times.”

She points to a sign behind the counter that says:

Sign: “This is a charity shop. What you see is what we have. We sell donations, so we don’t have items in other sizes or colours.”

Customer: “It’s a bit excessive, don’t you think? It seems like you’re insulting the intelligence of your customers.”

And then the cosmic alignment of comic timing happened. Another customer struts up to the counter and barges into the conversation. She’s holding a cardigan of some kind.

Cardigan Customer: “This is nice, but can I get it in a size larger? Oh, and if it comes in other colours, I would like to see it in blue. Thank you.”

The cashier just gives a long, hard stare at the first customer, who silently slinks away.

When I went back a week or so later, there was a fourth sign.