Commission=suckage

So I went to the mall to kill a little time on Saturday (before the birthday fiesta). Macy's was having a 75% off sale on shoes, and who am I to resist a perusal? I actually need some brown dress shoes to wear with my dress pants, and they had a pair for $11. Sweet. The clerk who had brought out the mate to the one on the rack put them on the back shelf while I looked around some more. I ended up finding another pair of boots to try on, but by then the clerk was busy helping another customer. So when another clerk asked to find the mate, I said okay.

Shortly after I get the mate, the original clerk shows up asks if I need another mate from the back. I said no, that someone else had brought them up for me. She acted all confused, so I pointed to the other lady and said she had offered to get them for me. The first clerk was all upset, and told the other lady that she had been helping me.

And that's when I realized they work on commission. How the crap was I supposed to know that??

The rest of the time I was in there, the first clerk was polite to me, but only just barely. It was obvious she was mad that I may have cost her part of her commission. I apologized for having made things complicated (even though I didn't really feel like I should have to apologize at all!), and she was all coolly accepting of it.

So the thing is, I'm thoroughly annoyed at stores that put their clerks on commission. Partly because I have no way of knowing, as a customer, when that's the case; and partly because in busy times like Saturday, it would have meant I had to wait an extra five minutes just to get the attention of the one clerk to try on the 2nd pair of shoes. How inefficient is that? What does that say to the customer? Basically that your time is less important than making our clerks be pushy about sales.

Meh. Yet another thing to irk me. I needed that.