The Good, The Bad and the Far-From-Ugly Part 3: Hovering

American salespeople do this to some degree in shops. "Hello? Can I help you find anything?" Whenever they say this, I want to scream "NO! LET ME SHOP IN PEACE!" Of course, in reality, I just nod and say I'm fine. 

Today, I also discovered that some Japanese people do this as well. I was browsing for some Christmas gifts and the store saleslady literally followed me every step I took. It quickly drove me to madness and out the door. I felt like in that episode of The Office where Dwight tells the lady "I will literally be RIGHT HERE if you need anything."

However, Korean salespeople take the practice of bugging customers to a whole new level. The second my friend and I entered any sort of shop whatsoever, the employees were on us like a shark on a bloody seal. Sorry, a bit of a gruesome image, but I truly felt like the seal being ripped to shreds in some shops. 

At beauty-product stores, the ladies working there would follow me around and get WAY too far into my personal space bubble. They picked up product after product and told me what each one was. "This lip stick. It for lips." Wow, thank you for that insight. I NEVER would have been able to tell that it was lip stick from the sign underneath it that says "lip stick." Or, from the fact that I can recognise lip stick. You really enlightened me, Miss Beauty Store Employee. Thank you.

"Miss. This is face cream. It cream for face." Wow, really?! Face cream is cream for your face!? I thought face cream was for your foot. My mistake, thanks for clearing that up. 

I am not exaggerating. They told me what EVERY product was as if I couldn't figure it out from the English signs, or from just looking at the product. 

The scariest place for me was the souvenir shop in the airport. It was a feeding frenzy of sharks attacking me, the poor defenceless seal. I am amazed I made it out alive. My ears were bombarded by suggestions and more information about what each item was. "Miss! Miss! This chocolate strawberry." Yes, I have eyes, which enable me to do this magical thing called "seeing." Therefore, with this ability, I can SEE the display of the chocolate which shows a strawberry inside. Amazing.

"Miss! Chocolate is great gift! How about orange chocolate?" If she told me that orange chocolate was chocolate with orange, I would have literally lost my mind. The airport medics would have had to wheel me away in a straightjacket. 

I just wish these employees would realise that doing this simply made me want to buy products that I didn't even want to buy even less than I already did, which I didn't even know was possible. Had I been left to browse in peace, I may have actually purchased something. 

Patience Pays Off

Let this be a lesson to all you foot-tapping, line hating, obsessively watch-checking Impatient Ians out there (or Impatient Irenes, I guess I should hold off on the sexist language- wouldn't want to offend the feminists. On that note, I probably have to include more ethnically diverse names like Inez... it is so hard to be politically correct these days). Being in no hurry whatsoever makes life a whole lot nicer. Because anecdote-sharing is what I do to convey a point, I will use a recent trip to my beloved Target to explain to you all, Aesop-fable style, why patience truly is a virtue.

Around noon, while en route to lunch with my parents, I popped into the Target pharmacy and dropped off a prescription that they informed me would be ready in an hour, at 1 (in case you all didn't know that an hour after noon was 1... okay fine, 13:00 military time). He apologized for the abnormally long wait time and I flashed an understanding smile and told him it was fine and I'd be back after lunch (as if he were one iota interested in my post-prescription drop off plans). Anyway, lunch happened, but I need not go into details about the meal as the events that occurred at the restaurant have absolutely no relation to the main purpose of the story.

When I returned to Target, the pharmacists' expressions coupled with the length of the line rivaling those at Disneyland rides indicated that they were running a bit behind. My patient personality along with being in no rush whatsoever made this no big deal for me. When my turn finally arrived, the pharmacist informed me, as I expected she would, that things were taking a bit longer than normal. Her expression then distorted into one that indicated she was bracing herself for yet another angry reaction, but I just shrugged and told her I'd come back. By the time I returned a few minutes later, they still needed more time, and I must have still appeared intimidating despite my extremely passive former reactions because the pharmacist took me aside, apologized as though she had just backed over my pet cat with her Hummer, and handed me multiple coupons for $3 off my next purchase. In all honesty, they probably should have saved this monetary method of begging for forgiveness for one of the many irate customers behind me, but hey, I'll take it!

Ummmm it'll be about five more minutes!?!?

So I just scored the equivalent of a gift card to my favorite store, and it doesn't end there. When they thought they finally had my prescriptions ready, it turned out that they overlooked one that my doctor had faxed in, so Heaven forbid, I had to wait a whole five minutes more. No big deal for me, but they still had this idea that my patience was about to reach the breaking point. Therefore, they waived my medication co-pays. Awesome.