“Excuse me Miss.”
Just as I was going to skim through the latest recipe book, “Yes, how may I help you?
“I’m looking for the Oxford Primary Dictionary and the Oxford Primary Thesaurus.”
I check the stock. Damn. No stock for the dictionary and only one left for the thesaurus. In the children’s section. And knowing my amazing luck, it would be impossible to find.
Realising how the children’s section is almost always completely thrashed (due to children of course), it would take me forever to find the book; not only would I upset the customer, I would lead her to nothing-ness. Consequently, with my sheer brilliance, I passed the task to Emi, who was in charge of the children section and just as new as me
With the job off my hands, I made backup phone calls to transfer stock for the thesaurus and dictionary only to find that the system is down in other branches. Brilliant.
“Eh!” Emi called for me, “I couldn’t find the book – I think we’ve stopped ordering Oxford Primary book-lah.”
Snap. “Sorry miss, but I’ve just called the other branches about the books you’ve requested for and their systems are down.”
“Oh,” the customer replied in disappointment, “then what to do -ah?
“I’ll have to wait for their calls back. It would be easier if you left your name and contact details,” I said passing the customer enquiry sheet to her.She scribbles her details quickly while I proceeded to start my other customer service work. However, I then noticed that she still stood next to me and stared blankly.
“Um…miss. I’ll call you back when I hear news of your books.”
“No worries, I’ll wait.
It was getting uncomfortable.
The phone rang and I excitedly picked up the phone. “Oh So you have it?” Finally some good news from the other branch, “Can you transfer it to our branch? Great. Thanks.
“Miss, good news – the other branch has stock for your books so I asked for a transfer. It’ll take ten working days for it to arrive, and I’ll call you when the book arrives, Miss.”
“Great! Thanks so much!”
I happily went back to my other customer enquiries when I realised that she was still hovering around the counter.
“Miss? Can I help?
“When are the books arriving?”
“Two weeks time. We’ll call you.”
“Oh what about the one here?”
I was getting a bit annoyed, “We don’t have it.”
“So where are the books?”
“Coming from another branch, Miss.”
“When?”
Oh dear. “Two weeks time.”
This carried on for another fifteen minutes. When I finally was able to convince her to go home, I decided to check to store room/office to get some tissues out of my locker.
Only to find a copy of the Oxford Primary Dictionary in the store room.
