Book 1 : The Paper Shop

The Customer Is Always Wrong: The Paper Shop.

By, Kelsey E. Searles

There they were, it was the same thought that he had five days a week, every week for nine years. Two clear glass automatic doors, they had a glitch, which made them open and close sparatically on their own. They looked like the maw of a giant beast that gradually sucked the soul out of anyone who entered. Those doors were attached to 'The Paper Shop,' a large white warehouse that had started as a simple paper shop and had slowly expanded into just another office supply store. Alec Bendton had started working there at the age of 16 and here he still was at age 25, drowning in stagnant water.

“Bendton!”

Alec snapped back to reality and saw that standing on the other side of the maw was Jack Randall, a mouse of a man pretending to be a rat. He was also the boss's pet... or so he liked to believe. The look on his face told Alec that he was in trouble... probably something about the customer that he had before closing the night before.

“Bendton, Mr. Taylor would like to see you in his office... now.” He paused and grinned as large as his face would allow him. “If I were you I wouldn't even worry about changing into your work clothes.”

Alec smiled and walked through the maw without anymore thoughts to its soul sucking abilities. He paused before Randall. “Must be the big raise that we have been talking about.” Alec bent at the knees and begun to check his hair in front of Randall's teeth. Randall's face grew red. Alec laughed and slapped Randall on the back hard enough to make the guy think and walked off. He was most definitely in trouble if Randall was that happy with himself. Most definitely the customer from last night.

Alec wasn't too worried as he made his way back to Mr. Tim Taylor's office. If Tim had really wanted him gone, he would have done it ages ago. Alec had a file that was four inches thick, full of complaints. The golden rule of the retail industry was the fact that the customer was always right... no matter what. The unfortunate thing is that customers are very rarely right; the golden rule of the retail industry should be that the customer is always wrong. Customers are horrible soulless people, surely, they are normal human beings at some point but the moment they walk through those automatic doors they become customers and customers are just... not human anymore.

Alec knocked on the door and waited for the muffled response before he let himself inside. Mr. Taylor’s office always took Alec a moment to adjust to. The walls were deep purple with a gold border straight through the middle, the chairs were all purple with nice plush seats except for Mr. Taylor’s which was bright gold... almost as if he were a king, Alec had always wondered what Tim's home was like. Tim was a short, fat, and balding. He always wore a suit with a weird tie that looked like he'd let his children pick it out... if he even had kids. As a rule Alec didn't ask Tim about his personal life.

Tim looked up. “Alec, have a seat.”

Alec let himself drop down into one of the plush chairs in the office. “What's up doc.” It was a rhetorical question. Tim knew he knew... it was apparent from the look on the little fat mans face.

“I got a phone call at three in the morning today. Can you guess who I would get a phone call from?” Tim asked. He had gone back to the stack of papers in front of him on his desk.

Alec shrugged.

“It was Steven Boddard. Do you remember Steven Boddard? Our district manager... my boss.”

“Oh yea... comes in maybe once a year with high demands that don't make sense in real life? Is that the guy you’re talking about?”

Tim sat his pen down. “Yes that's the one. He said he got a ten-page e-mail from a woman who came in last night to make a return. According to the return policy, she had every right to return a case of paper. Then the employee who she spoke to told her to remove her old trash from our store... and to take the case of paper with her. She is not happy Alec, and neither is Steven. I have assured him that we will take care of the situation.”

Alec slouched back in the chair. “It was the box from the case of paper with five reams of different paper in it... don't ask me what happened to the other reams of paper. A case is ten reams of paper not five. She returned five. I told her I'd give her the money for the five even though she didn't buy them at our store.”

“And how do you know that.”

“Because they had another store name on them.”

Tim sighed. “Alec you know what our policy is.”

“The customer is always right.”

“Exactly.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Except for the fact that the truth is just the opposite.”

“You will take care of the situation. You will take care of the transaction when Mrs. Doet gets here and then you will apologize to her for how rude you were.” Tim stood. “Do you understand?”

“Mr. Taylor.”

“I don't want to fire you Alec.” Time sighed. “But I'll be forced to.”

Alec stared at him. It was a lie. He'd heard the lie many times before. Empty threats. When he was sitting in front of Steven Boddard, that's when he could be assured that it wasn't a lie. “I'll think about it.”

Tim laughed. “Well, Mrs. Doet will be here soon.”

Alec stood up. “Great.” He started towards the door. “I've got to punch in... wouldn't want to be late. It might look bad.” Alec smiled and let himself out of the office. Apologizing. The word sent a shutter through his body. He was not good at that part.

“Hey I heard you had to make an apology.”

Alec turned around to see Steph a tall, muscular, brunette, that unsurprisingly enough she was the only female that worked at the Paper Shop, most girls didn't like the heavy lifting part of the job. “Bah.”

Steph laughed. “I'd pay a hundred dollars to see that one.” She hit him on the shoulder. “You... apologize.”

Alec brought his hand up to rub his shoulder.“Do you think I should?” Alec asked. Every night he came back to his apartment and told his girlfriend, Maggie about all of his horror stories. She always tried to tell him that they were people too, she'd make up stories for each one of the customers in hopes that he would see their side of it. Maybe she was right, maybe Mrs. Doet had just had a really bad day and maybe something terrible had happened and she really needed the money from that case of paper. He supposed that it was possible.

Steph shrugged. “You know what the boss says. The customer is always right.” She impersonated Tim's voice. “If you want to keep your job. Although, I would think that they would have fired you by now.”

Alec put on his vest and walked out of the break room.

“Sir.”

Alec stopped in his tracks to see a little girl standing a foot away from him with her hands behind her back. “What can I do for you?”

“Can I use the bathroom?” She asked fidgeting.

Alec squinted at the girl, she had brown ringlets, brown eyes, and a look of pure innocence on her face. “Sorry we don't have a public bathroom.”

“But I really gotta go.” She jumped around a bit as if to make the point clear. “Please.”

People used the bathroom, they left disgusting messes, and children were the worst. “Sorry kid.”

She groaned. “But I've gotta go now. I can't hold it.”

Alec rolled his eyes. He was going to regret this. “You promise you won't make a mess?”

“Yes.”

Alec sighed and led her through the back room and into the bathroom. “Alright, quick, and let yourself out. And remember, no messes.”

“Thank you so much.”

Alec nodded and walked off. It wasn't even five minutes later that he heard Randall over the radio.

“Steph, the bathroom is flooded and there is toilet paper everywhere. Get back here and clean it up.”

Alec glanced over as the little girl walked out of the store with one hand in her mothers. She gave him one hell of a wicked smile. Stupid kid. Just one more reason why giving the benefit of the doubt was a bad thing. Maggie would probably say that he had made up the whole story to try and prove her wrong.

“Alec, you are needed at customer service.”

Alec glanced over at the counter and saw Mrs. Doet. Time to face the music. He could make Mr. Taylor's job easier or he could do the right thing. But what was the right thing? He'd tried doing the right thing with the little girl but that had blown up in his face. But, he couldn't put it off.

As he walked over to the counter he noticed, the people around him pay very close attention. Randall actually had the nerve to follow him over to the counter. When Mrs. Doet saw him a large smile broke out on her face, quickly she hid it again. She needed to maintain the fact that she was in control, and she was in control because she was angry.

“Mrs. Doet I presume.” Alec asked walking back behind the counter.

“I hope you realize that I had to come out of my way and mess up my schedule just so that I could come all the way back here just to have this mess sorted out. I was assured that everything would be taken care of and yet, here you are with a job. I assume that you are only here as long as it takes you to grovel. I made it very clear that I wanted your job gone.”

Alec forced a large smile onto his face. “Apparently good help is hard to come by because I won't be losing my job. Now, I have been instructed to do the return on the case of paper, even though, according to our return policy you need to have at least seven of the ten reams of paper to return a whole case. I did offer to pay for the reams that you wanted to return which I'm technically not allowed to do, but I was willing to do that for you. I thought I was giving you a fair deal. I'm sorry for that. So, let me take care of this return as I have now been authorized to do.”

Alec watched Mrs. Doet's eyes narrow. “Is that your idea of taking care of the situation. I want my money back from this damn case and I want to be compensated for the time that I have lost having to make this trip twice! Moreover, I still cannot understand why you still have a job. You are a rude jerk that needs to learn his place. You are not worth anyone's time you do not exist. You are just a no good loser that can't hack it in the real world which is why you have a shitty job that you can't even get right. You are not a person; you are here to kiss my ass!”

Alec watched as her face began to turn red as she continued to yell at him. Everyone in the store was now watching the display now, not just the other employees, hell even Tim had come out of his office to see what had happened. Alec studied the woman closely, she was plump which meant that she was well fed, she wore an expensive black pantsuit, she wore pearls around her neck and in her ears, and her left hand had a rock that would surely down her.

“Excuse me Mrs. Doet, have you just come from a funeral?” He asked.

The shade of her face deepened so that it was almost purple. “Excuse me?” She asked affronted.

“Are you in mourning?” He asked.

“I am not in mourning. What the hell is wrong with you? Haven't you heard a word that I have said?”

Suddenly a wave of relief swept over Alec. He smiled. “Well ma'am since no one has died and you’re not just emotionally distraught right now then I suppose it's my turn. I was well prepared to break the rules for you yesterday, I was ordered to break the rules for you even further today, and now you’re just being plain rude. You don't deserve your money back, I'm not going to give you anymore money for the time you had to waste coming back because you decided to be irrational yesterday. I don't owe you anything and in case you haven't noticed my name tag doesn't say ass kisser, I am a person, all retail employees are people, and as such you owe this entire store an apology, hell you owe the other customers an apology for making their shopping experience awkward. Now since you decided to act like a child I'll treat you like a child. I'll give you the same offer I gave you yesterday, the offer for today is off the table, so you can take it or leave it.” Alec grinned. The look on Mrs. Doet's face was perfect.

She stood there with her mouth open.

“No answer?” Alec cocked his head to the side. “Okay, have a wonderful day Mrs. Doet, and please, do not return unless you want to act like an adult.” Alec turned around and walked back towards where Tim stood.

Tim stood there, the look he gave Alec was not one of surprise... it’s like the older man had already known what the outcome was going to be.

“What the hell? Mr. Taylor I-.” Randall ran up to them. “Mrs. Doet is-.” He was panting with confusion and frustration. It made Alec happy that he’d sent the rat into such a panic.

Alec placed a hand on the fat man's shoulder. “Sorry, just couldn't do it. By the way, I'm gonna take my lunch now.” He laughed as he entered the break room.

Randall watched stupidly after Alec. “Mr. Taylor how can you let him get away with that?”

Tim Taylor smiled and patted his stomach. “Lunch sounds good. Call me if you need me Jack.” He exited back into his office, leaving Randall there shocked in the hall.

“- and when I tried to empathize she told me I wasn't a person.”

“Wow.”

Alec looked to his side to see a beautiful red head. Maggie Malthowe. She had her head bent over a magazine, flipping through it carelessly. “So maybe I might be right...” He asked wiggling his eyebrows.

Maggie looked up at him skeptically. “Most people are inherently good. I highly doubt that Mrs. Doet came into the store purely to cause you trouble.”

A voice came over the loud speaker announcing a flight to Italy. For a moment, Alec had forgotten what he had come here for, Maggie was on her way to Italy to join the rest of the Malthowe family for their annual trip to Italy. Alec watched Maggie put her magazine away and gather her bags and paperwork. “A month.”

Maggie glanced up from her passport. “Yup, just like last year, and the year after that, and the year after that.” She sighed and looked over at him. “It'll be over before you know it.” She sat her bags back down and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Help me with my bags?” She asked.

Alec grabbed the bags and walked with her to the terminal. A stweard took the bags when the arrived there. He took hold of Maggie and wrapped her in a hug. “I'll miss you.”

“Me too.” She said and took a step back. “Just a month.” She said as she started down the hallway.

“I love you.” Alec called after her, he shook his head as she waved a hand over her head as she walked away.