Misuses Of The English Language And Other Assorted and General Idiocy

The following events all took place in or around the concierge desk at Victoria's Secret on Lexington Avenue in New York, allegedly "our must luxurious store ever." As you will surely detect from the following incidents, it could never be described as "our most intelligent store ever, or even as compared to a fake Victoria's Secret store run by a second grade class in Kansas."

i.
Associate: I have a customer downstairs who is looking for a bra, it's a push-up and the color is merlot (mer - LOTT).
Me: Merlot?
Associate: Oh, is that how you say that? Anyway.

ii.
Manager on store walkie talkie: Associate Jane Doe, meet me in the foyer.
Associate (walks up to concierge window): What's a foyer?
Me: It's like a hall or entryway at the front of a building or house.
Assorted conversation that leads to the following statement from the other concierge associate:
Concierge: Nobody knows what that means.
Me: Everyone knows what that word means! It's a totally common word.
Concierge: No it's not.
Me: I bet you if you bring five people over here and we ask them what a foyer is, they will know the answer.
Moments later.
Me: What is a foyer?
Associate 1: Ummm...
Associate 2: Ahhh...
Associate 3: Erm...
Concierge: See? No one knows what that word means. I told you!
Associate: That's a French word, I speak English.

iii.
Song playing over the store radio.
Me: Did you hear that?
Concierge supervisor: Hear what?
Me: The song that's playing. In another song they play in here they bleep out "bum," but in this song they just played GD without bleeping it. How weird is that?
Concierge supervisor: What's GD?

iv.
Associate: Hey, you know how we were doing the mamogramming?
Me: Um, monogramming?
Associate: Yeah, whatever. Are we still doing that?


That last incident requires a little more back story. First, it has to be said that the mamogramming comment was not made for the first time to me. In fact, one of my co-workers was quizzing the other associates on our monogramming service, and one associate answered: "Oh yeah, monogramming. That's when we check the women's breasts to see if they have lumps." Disturbing on several levels, the biggest one being that this girl seemed to earnestly believe that WE DID THAT IN THE STORE.

The above described incident actually happened on my very last day at Victoria's Secret, and I felt like someone upstairs was really looking out for me. I considered it my going away present.


More to come soon.

cheers,
e. cawein