Adventures in Retail:The Professional

This happened at least four times with four different people. Talk about déjà vu, déjà vu, déjà vu. I'm going to tell it in present tense.

A guy in jeans and a suit jacket with no tie comes in the hobby shop. I break the ice with, "Hello." I rarely to that 'may I help you?' stuff.

He says, "I'm a *professional* architectural model builder." He emphasizes 'professional' like that sets him apart and above me like I'm a dirty little plebe. That puts me off and I am predisposed to dislike him.

He goes on, "I've built a maquette." 'Maquette.' That's fancy talk for 'diorama.' More of, 'I am so superior to you it hurts.' Two strikes, buddy.

Then he gets to the reason for his visit and this is where there's some variation among the four, because they all built their maquettes in different scales. It doesn't really matter, though. The outcome will be the same. "I built a model of a building and I'm looking for people and cars to put on it to give it a sense of scale."

I ask, "What scale is it?"

The four scales used were 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 and 1:300. They used those scales because the math for the conversion is easy. I start by telling him there aren't any people or cars available in that scale. Then I tell him what the closest scale is and what's available. For 1:50, there are trains, cars, tanks, trucks and people in 1:48 and cars in 1:43. For 1:100 there are trains, people, cars, and animals in 1:87 and cars in 1:90. For 1:200 there are trains, animals and people in 1:160 and for 1:300 there's nothing, sorry. Not quite true, there are military vehicles, tanks and soldiers in 1:285 and there are ship models in 1:350.

What follows is extreme frustration on the part of the professional architectural model maker who has made a maquette. The scales that are close are not close enough and won't do. He suddenly looks like a pitiful animal looking at oncoming headlights in the dark. And he proceeds to chew me out because there isn't anything for him in the scale he's chosen. Then he stands there looking at me like he expects me to do something for him to make it all right.

Finally he leaves dejected and all I can think is, 'If you're so professional, how come you didn't come to see me and find out what's available before you built your maquette?'

Someone asked me if I like working retail. I said, "Not really."