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Malone tangles with sycophantic shop assistants

The sales person greeted me with such exuberance I wondered whether I knew her. Or had she seen me do stand up or DJ? “Hello! How are you!?” Being polite I said, “Good, how’s it going for you?” Halfway through her rubbing foundation onto my cheek, I realised I didn’t know her and she was obviously going for some sort of award in customer service.

Normally I moan about the standard of modern customer service, but when faced with happy and helpful service I’m confused and suspicious. What is she trying to sell me? I’m in a make-up shop. Probably make-up I remind myself. She’s so nice to me and my child I wonder if I do know her though… She has a face like a million people.

Blonde with her own teeth. If we have met before, I wouldn’t remember. I am blonde with my own teeth. I don’t expect people to remember my face. When I meet people for the second time I usually introduce myself with an introduction of where we met: “Malone – we met at a bar/you’re my dentist.” That way no one is embarrassed.

“When faced with happy and helpful service I’m confused and suspicious”

Apparently I have one of those faces that look like somebody you already know, mainly people’s cousins. “You look like my cousin, do you know Kevin Davies?” No, I don’t. I am proud that I do not have a forgettable face, but instead and more preferably a face that looks like everyone’s cousins.

The make-up sales lady was so friendly I was half expecting her to say, “You’re my boyfriend’s boss.” There was never an explanation of her utterly over enthusiastic niceness. The sales assistant was perhaps just really excited about selling me a foundation with an SPF.

I wonder if this is what is feels like to be like a celebrity. A famous person must get this all the time, people being nice to you for no apparent reason, all the time wondering if you have met before. I’d be asking my PA: “Do I know them?” They’d shake their head replying, “No ma’am, (I’m obviously not just famous, I’ve married royalty) it’s ‘cos you’re famous”. I would need constant reminding. Fame must be weird, people being nice to you just because you‘re famous. People feeling like they know you really well, but you not knowing them at all.

Do you ever do that thing where you see someone you know and say “hi” and then realise actually they work on the stall in EastEnders, and actually they are very famous? Or the other way round where you think you’ve just seen someone off EastEnders but actually it’s the girl who works in the ice cream booth on the seafront.

The sales assistant bagged up my purchase, handing it over, saying: “See you! Lots of love!” Lots of love…? Now that’s good customer service gone too far! She must think I’m her cousin.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Mama Malone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.