I hate the holidays!

I'm going to try and write this without spewing profanity, but I apologize in advance if I slip up a bit.

Its the holidays and forgive me for being the Grinch, but I say the month of December should not exist. Again, this is coming from a cynical retail employee in the midst of a holiday rush. I am actually writing this on my Blackberry during a quick break.

I just experienced a smart ass customer. I know that people out there view retail sales employees as slimy, crooked, and stupid. Unless you live under a rock, you will know that my employer launched a new product that rivals another competitors product. The only real similarity that my product has and my competitors product has is; the touch screen. That is where the similarities end.

Understandably I'm going to try and sell you one.

I can get into debates all day long about how my product is better and far more superior, but that's a boring argument. I will win every time.

What makes me even more mad is that people have totally unreal expectations.

For instance:
I happen to be standing next to our new product and see a customer getting frustrated with it. He said that the product is just not intuitive enough. It doesn't move as fast as it does in the commercials.

Well duh! Nothing ever is the same as it is in the commercial. My audi doesn't do jack knife reversal moves right off the lot. Should it? It did it in the commercial. But I don't know how to do it, so therefore my car won't do it.

This isn't the Matrix. I am not going to learn something just by watching the commercial or loading a program into the port on the back of my head. I have to spend time learning it.

So when you walk up to a display and start pushing buttons on a screen like court reporter trying to document a boxing fight, no, it isn't going to work like the commercial because the guy in the commercial isn't a screen molesting jerk. He is pushing a button, waiting for the product to respond, like you should in real life.

If you walk up to my sales floor and you tell me that you are a customer and tell me you don't like the new product, that's fine. If you want it to be like a competitors product, then just go buy the competing product. I will not tell you what you want to hear just to make the sale. I will be honest with you and tell you that it has its limitations. It isn't Jesus. It won't turn water into wine. Just by touching my product you can tell that it isn't as intuitive huh? What if I made snap judgments about you? I will walk up to you and touch you, then procede to tell you that you aren't as intuitive as your commercial. Let me do what I do best and walk you through how everything works first before you snap judgment on it. I'm the professional, not you. I'm trying to show this product and help you gauge how this works in real life. You, just touching it and beating it up like an economy class rental car isn't going help you figure anything out. Its like beating your wife and expecting her not to leave you.