Imagine being a supervisor at a retail store.

If a customer came up to you and praised one of your employees, would you mess with the employee and let them worry that the customer was complaining, or would you reassure them right away that it was good news?

In this story, one supervisor is in this situation, and he does the first approach at first, but he also has a kind heart and truly makes the cashier’s day.

Let’s read all about it.

The *other* way a ‘can I speak to your supervisor?’ conversation can end, or why I am a really bad supervisor

One of my jobs is working at a fabric and craft store.

The best thing you can really try to do in retail is to keep things light. The surly, sour, ‘can’t do that company policy’ people seem to generate the most friction and the biggest problems. The light (if not to say downright chipper or cheerful), bright, ‘I’m sorry we can’t do that, but here’s what we can do instead’ people seem to have an easier time of it.

Then there’s me.

He has a couple interesting ways of describing himself.

I’m like the Loki of supervisors.

Maybe that’s a bad simile, but I think saying that I am the Coyote of supervisors would cause more confusion (shoutout to Christopher Moore!).

Anyway, I’m not looking to destroy or overthrow, I’m just looking to have fun, often (lamentably) without predicting the cost of such actions.

He has a favorite register.

Sooooo, I’m at my favorite register, a register across from all the other registers and we face each other.

I don’t like this register because of its being separate from the other registers, I like it simply because it starts each day with a TON of $10 and $5 bills, and the others only start with a desultory few $5 bills (company policy, what can ya do?).

A customer with a freshly-bagged order walks up to me and asks me if I’m a supervisor.

He sounds like a really good supervisor.

I know who rang her out, because while I am the Coyote of supervisors, I am really a Coyote of good supervisors, and always keep half an eye on the other transactions, looking for signs of confusion on the cashier’s faces, seeing transactions that seem to be taking too long that shouldn’t be taking too long, seeing customers gesticulating exaggeratedly, things like that, so I can call over to see if someone needs help.

Anyway, I tell this customer that yes, yes I am the supervisor of the employees herein, yea, and all those that may come in at any time during my shift, world without end, by the power of Greyskull.

I saw the cashier ringing another order but darting glances at me. She couldn’t see or hear that the customer was singing her praises (her register was like all the way down at the end of the row, I was at the opposite end).

So I gambled. I put a consoling look on my face, my best ‘awww’ look, because I knew it could be misconstrued as ‘awww, I’m sorry’. Crossed my arms. Shook my head from time to time.

All while cheerfully (but in a low-pitched voice) telling the customer I would be sure that cashier would be recognized for their excellent customer skills.

He had to share about the flair.

I could have then excused myself and gone to write the cashier up (not a bad write up, read on) to receive the particular bit of esoteric flair our store uses.

I need to vent about our flair for a sec.

When you do something out of the ordinary (but I have to stress this, in a good way), there is an opportunity to receive a particular piece of…oh screw it, it’s a pair of scissors. It’s a fabric and craft store, what kind of flair do you think we’d be giving out??

The scissors say ‘a cut above’ (cue laughtrack). You get 10 of those lead gray ones, you get a gold one. There are others that look like banners and say “100” on them, but I have no idea what they mean. Want to know why? Well, if not, skip the next paragraph.

Here’s some background on the store…

My store is technically a new (3 years old now) store, but the store had existed in a much smaller format prior to the move. We moved less than a mile away.

I was one of the newbies move-wise, we took on a number of the old guard, the ones bearing a lot of gold flair.

I don’t know how they got that flair, or even what it means, because even people who had worked at the old store for 4 years – 1 year less than I’ve been there – have those weird 100 pins.

All I know is, people in my store hardly ever get even the basic gray scissors, even though people in my store do awesome things.

He likes to give out flair whenever possible.

So I hand them out as often as I rightfully can.

Which is to say, I don’t give them out willy-nilly, but definitely when they’re deserved, which pretty much no other MOD seems to do.

It may seem kind of stupid, but look, we’re retail wage slaves. We will all take any ounce of recognition we get. We have to, it validates us, officially.

The cashier looked worried.

Anyway, I could have disappeared to the back to write the info on the little card for the little scissors, leaving that cashier in the lurch, but heck, I’m not that cruel.

So after the customer walked away, I walked to the cashier, who, I admit, was looking a little shaken. I tried to mollify that by approaching her with a smile.

No dice. So I got right to it.

“You were amazing. Whatever you said to her, she’s like your biggest fan right now. You are definitely getting a pair of scissors.”

He realizes how it sounds, but it actually is a big deal.

Typing that out, it makes it sound so lame. But you have to understand, if it weren’t for me, no one would get scissors, like, ever. Even among the old guard.

I don’t know what changed (besides the management, the management structure, all of the new rules on store closing and store opening, etc), but I want to see some of my fellow newbs have gold scissors, and dag nabbit, they do really great things.

I won’t get any, because most of the people above me are either the old guard, who seem to distrust/ detest the newbs (and yes, I’m a newb even at 3 years), or are the new guard, who appear to think scissors are deserved only for rescuing an infant from a violently burning warehouse (as long as an accident report doesn’t need to be filled out).

I’ve even given scissors to some of the old guard, because their source has dried up too apparently.

The cashier was a little bit too happy about the scissors.

If you can’t depend on some useless flair to give you a brief moment of happiness in the face of all of the evil transactions you have to deal with, wouldn’t it just end in anarchy and riots? I want to avoid that, and I want the people that deserved to be recognized, to be recognized.

Anyway, I went right back and got her the scissors she so richly deserved.

I was almost ashamed over how happy she was about it. I’d much rather the giving of the scissors be more like a ‘chuckle oh what, again?’ kind of thing than a lifting the baby lion into a sunrise kind of thing (Hamalaia, heya Macarena).

Yet, he’s aware that he’s not a saint.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I screwed with her first.

And it doesn’t at all mean that I wouldn’t do again.

That’s only slightly ahead of me walking up to a newb and asking “Can I ask you a personal question?”, and when they haltingly, stutteringly answer “um…sure”, ask them “Can you sign this return slip for me?”.

Because at heart, I am really benevolent.

But I’m also a Coyote.

That was such a fun story, and the fact that the prized item is scissors is kind of silly. However, that makes it part of the fun.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person has a suggestion.

Another person shares what the pins mean.

This person has a question.

Another person would love a pair of scissors.

The silliest prizes can sometimes be the most meaningful.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.