Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-09-09 | Page 63 | Ever Hear of the "Shop Hen"? the Ex-Salesgirl Knows Them !

Ever Hear of the "Shop Hen"? The Ex-Salesgirl Knows Them! By an Ex-Shop Girl XTHAT is a shop "hen"? Queer term, " Is It not? Well, if you want a good, definition, just ask Mary Smith, who works In the dry goods department of .Jones & Co.'s clothing store of your city, or Sue Brown, who stands behind the lace counter of the same establishment. establish-ment. They and thousands of other clerks could give you a. definition in terms more forceful than any of Noah Webster's. We have shop "hens" in New York; we have them in California; they infest the stores of Philadelphia. In short, every city and town of the entire country, coun-try, whether the population be fifty or five million, boasts or. rather, laments the fact of the "hen" plague. Time and time again the magazines and various other periodicals have published pub-lished articles on the courtesy with which clerks and all other employes should treat their customers; but rarely, if at all, has anything ever been said about the courtesy with which custom ers should treat clerks. And this brings us to the question of the shop "hen." In brief, then, the shop "hen" is the customer cus-tomer who is a liability rather than an asset; it is the troublesome shopper from whom the clerk is inclined to run away. I know that I have been guilty of escaping and hiding from such customers cus-tomers on scores of occasions. The instant in-stant I would see one entering the door I would bolt to some other part of the store. And furthermore, were I to return re-turn to my old position of shopgirl, I would still be inclined to resort to the same means of escape. We all know what a splendid thing courtesy is. It has spoken and alwavs will speak in terms of good hard cash. The majority of shoppers especially women shoppers have wonderful theories the-ories on the why and wherefore clerks should be courteous, while thev well, the point is: They do not get paid for it! The average clerk gets from $7 to $15 a week. and. despite tired feet and aching head, she is expected to meet the "henny" customer with a smile of wel come. Well, ten chances to one, the "hen" never gets the smile; and if she does get one, I assure you that it isn't of the good, genuine sort. Can you always blame the clerk? She is human, you know real flesh and blood and not a mechanical device that can be made to smile at situations unpleasant as well as pleasant. When we meet with disagreeable dis-agreeable things in life, do we generally smile? Are customers who unreasonably unreason-ably and persistently overtax the strength and patience of a clerk to be met with such pleasantry? There are many types of shop "hens," and unreasonableness and inconsiderate-ness inconsiderate-ness are their dominant characteristics. I know of women who are in the habit of going into the stores merely to "look around" with probably no intention of buying. Such women expect the clerk to tear down the shelves in order to give them an idea as to what certain materials look like, and then, after their curiosity has been satisfied, they go home and order the same sort of material mate-rial from some mail-order house. True. it is the business of the clerk to divest the shelves of all their contents, if need be, in order to accommodate a customer, but no employe cares to waste time on a "hen." What If thtr clerk were working work-ing on commission? A great many do. Could they always eke out a living by wasting time with such customers? Then there is the type of "hen" who masquerades under the guise of an economist. Generally, I found this to be true: The woman of the so-called "higher class" Is the one who commits the greatest number of sins in the name of economy. Economy, if carried on within legitimate' bounds, is a splendid splen-did thing. Especially In these wartimes it Is becoming vested with the nature of a virtue. The post-elevcnth-hour customer is another source of annoyance to the clerk. I have known women who on Saturday night would first attend the theatre or gossip with friends, and then, just about shop-closing time, would como tearing into the store with an: "Oh, my! Closing timo. already! Just give me some stockings for my children," chil-dren," etc. Before the eight-hour working law was enacted In our State I had been kept at the store as late as 11 o'clock on Saturday evenings by just such inconsiderate in-considerate women. If outsiders could only realize how played out a clerk is when Saturday night comes, and how at times she has all she can do to drag herself about, I am sure they would not cheat the girl of an opportunity to go home at the regular closing hours. Heaven knows, she needs the rest! And now, in conclusion, let me whisper a little secret: Remember that a clerk Is human, and. therefore, never will resent a pat on the back. Occasionally Occa-sionally merely occasionally why not give Mary Smith a little tip of appreciation? appre-ciation? Tell her that you just love to have her wait on you, as she is always al-ways so nice about ransacking the shelves to find material to your liking; or that it Is a pleasure to buy goods of her, because she Is so willing to give you helpful suggestions.