DAY 38 OF 46
To most Americans, this news will come as neither a surprise nor an interesting bit of information. In Britain, however, it's today's #1 story on the BBC's website.
Bannister's claim to fame came playing Mr. Lucas, a character on the 1970's BBC sitcom, Are You Being Served? (AYBS). Just as America has its brand of situation comedies for TV, so does England, where AYBS has been a favorite. Set in a Harrods-styled London department store, fictionally named Grace Brothers, this series centered on the lives and foibles of staff in its gentlemen's and ladies' departments.
Mr. Lucas - his first name being something of a mystery - worked as the "junior" clerk behind the men's counter, the lowest rung on London retailing's hierarchial ladder.
Once, when challenged to supply his first name during a staff meeting, Bannister's character grimly refused, insisting, "Just call me Mister Lucas". Another character, the bawdy custodian Mr. Mash, called him "James", but writers for the series eventually realized naming him the slang version of "Richard" would play well against the show's suggestively homosexual character, Mr. Humphries.
Indeed, contrasted with Mr. Humphries' stereotyped flamboyance, which in that day was rare and risky for television, Bannister's Mr. Lucas considered himself quite the ladies man and store playboy. He was forever arriving late after an all-night date, and forever crassly wooing Miss Brahms, the far more competent junior on the ladies' counter. As the novice salesman, he clung onto his job usually by the skin of his teeth. His character valued authority the least, and teased Mrs. Slocumbe the most. He marveled at the illogical ways retail sometimes works, and generally preferred giving up a sale rather than fun.
British comedy has been described as an acquired taste, and indeed, not a lot of Americans find it laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the time, English humor comes not from blatant jokes or hilarious storylines, but from intricate writing which draws viewers into each character's persona. British comedies tend to engage our shared humanity by encouraging us to live their shows vicariously through strongly-defined characters. We're not expected to simply be a static audience and watch, so scripts are written both to elicit laughter and convey an almost familial poignancy as we infer well-nuanced personality traits into changing plots.
Welcome to Jas. K. Wilson
Even though I'm personally saddened to hear that the man who played Mr. Lucas has died, however, Bannister's passing has gotten me reminiscing about something else. Back when I was still in high school, I got a job at an upscale men's store at the mall, and I worked there for over six years. Whenever I watch AYBS, I can't ignore how the show parallels my own real-life experiences in retail.
Although it had become part of a nationwide corporation, the store for which I worked, Jas. K. Wilson, retained distinct local characteristics of when it was a fine haberdashery in downtown Dallas, just down the street from Neiman Marcus' flagship store.
Our clothes were expensive, and we were known for our service and attention to detail. The styles of our clothing ranged from the old-fashioned to the moderately trendy, and we were never reprimanded for evidencing a bit of snobbery when customers asked for something too bourgeoisie. We were fond of joking that "there's no such thing as a short-sleeved dress shirt." And I can even recall managers clucking that "the customer is always right, except when they're wrong."
So maybe now you have a better idea of where I've gotten my spurts of attitude.
It wasn't all posh and refined, however. I helped catch an alleged thief once, while working in the shoe department. A customer reported that purchases she'd taken back to her car were stolen during a subsequent burglary of her car. Among the items stolen was a pair of bedroom slippers for her father that she'd purchased from me. Imagine my surprise when the next day, a bedraggled, greasy-haired white man brought the very same stolen slippers back to the store for a refund! Complete with store bag and receipt! I wasn't sure how to handle it, but managed to keep the guy engaged in conversation at the cashier's desk while one of our managers notified the police.
Once, when challenged to supply his first name during a staff meeting, Bannister's character grimly refused, insisting, "Just call me Mister Lucas". Another character, the bawdy custodian Mr. Mash, called him "James", but writers for the series eventually realized naming him the slang version of "Richard" would play well against the show's suggestively homosexual character, Mr. Humphries.
Indeed, contrasted with Mr. Humphries' stereotyped flamboyance, which in that day was rare and risky for television, Bannister's Mr. Lucas considered himself quite the ladies man and store playboy. He was forever arriving late after an all-night date, and forever crassly wooing Miss Brahms, the far more competent junior on the ladies' counter. As the novice salesman, he clung onto his job usually by the skin of his teeth. His character valued authority the least, and teased Mrs. Slocumbe the most. He marveled at the illogical ways retail sometimes works, and generally preferred giving up a sale rather than fun.
British comedy has been described as an acquired taste, and indeed, not a lot of Americans find it laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the time, English humor comes not from blatant jokes or hilarious storylines, but from intricate writing which draws viewers into each character's persona. British comedies tend to engage our shared humanity by encouraging us to live their shows vicariously through strongly-defined characters. We're not expected to simply be a static audience and watch, so scripts are written both to elicit laughter and convey an almost familial poignancy as we infer well-nuanced personality traits into changing plots.
Welcome to Jas. K. Wilson
Even though I'm personally saddened to hear that the man who played Mr. Lucas has died, however, Bannister's passing has gotten me reminiscing about something else. Back when I was still in high school, I got a job at an upscale men's store at the mall, and I worked there for over six years. Whenever I watch AYBS, I can't ignore how the show parallels my own real-life experiences in retail.
Although it had become part of a nationwide corporation, the store for which I worked, Jas. K. Wilson, retained distinct local characteristics of when it was a fine haberdashery in downtown Dallas, just down the street from Neiman Marcus' flagship store.
Our clothes were expensive, and we were known for our service and attention to detail. The styles of our clothing ranged from the old-fashioned to the moderately trendy, and we were never reprimanded for evidencing a bit of snobbery when customers asked for something too bourgeoisie. We were fond of joking that "there's no such thing as a short-sleeved dress shirt." And I can even recall managers clucking that "the customer is always right, except when they're wrong."
So maybe now you have a better idea of where I've gotten my spurts of attitude.
It wasn't all posh and refined, however. I helped catch an alleged thief once, while working in the shoe department. A customer reported that purchases she'd taken back to her car were stolen during a subsequent burglary of her car. Among the items stolen was a pair of bedroom slippers for her father that she'd purchased from me. Imagine my surprise when the next day, a bedraggled, greasy-haired white man brought the very same stolen slippers back to the store for a refund! Complete with store bag and receipt! I wasn't sure how to handle it, but managed to keep the guy engaged in conversation at the cashier's desk while one of our managers notified the police.
I don't think the suspect was ever booked. Since the slippers' value was far below the threshold of a major crime, and since simply being in possession of items related to a car burglary doesn't necessarily prove one's a burglar, I don't recall the police did much of anything with the suspect after discreetly escorting him from our store.
The take-away for us was that my customer got her purchase back, her father got some slippers with a far more compelling provenance, and our store's reputation for exceptional customer service got some polishing. For my bit of derring-do, I received some award at a company-sponsored breakfast banquet at a local hotel honoring employees across our company who had contributed to what the industry calls "loss prevention".
Speaking of loss prevention, I had three individual store managers who ended up being caught embezzling from the company. Yes. Literally. Three. That we knew of. Just from our store.
And the police were never called on any of them, for crimes involving much more money than the cost of a pair of gentleman's slippers...
Minding the Store
Our retailing drama wasn't all negative. Each quarter, a fancy sales meeting would be held at a Dallas country club or luxury hotel. Corporate executives would present the upcoming season's signature fashions during those breakfast banquets. Top salespeople were regularly fetted by corporate with trinkets, including silver award pins designed by Tiffany & Co (no, I never sold enough to receive one!). There used to be formal training sessions at headquarters in Dallas. Yes, like at Grace Brothers, there were occasionally far humbler and mundane store meetings, but at least the firm sprung for the boxes and boxes of donuts we'd devour.
The take-away for us was that my customer got her purchase back, her father got some slippers with a far more compelling provenance, and our store's reputation for exceptional customer service got some polishing. For my bit of derring-do, I received some award at a company-sponsored breakfast banquet at a local hotel honoring employees across our company who had contributed to what the industry calls "loss prevention".
Speaking of loss prevention, I had three individual store managers who ended up being caught embezzling from the company. Yes. Literally. Three. That we knew of. Just from our store.
And the police were never called on any of them, for crimes involving much more money than the cost of a pair of gentleman's slippers...
Minding the Store
Our retailing drama wasn't all negative. Each quarter, a fancy sales meeting would be held at a Dallas country club or luxury hotel. Corporate executives would present the upcoming season's signature fashions during those breakfast banquets. Top salespeople were regularly fetted by corporate with trinkets, including silver award pins designed by Tiffany & Co (no, I never sold enough to receive one!). There used to be formal training sessions at headquarters in Dallas. Yes, like at Grace Brothers, there were occasionally far humbler and mundane store meetings, but at least the firm sprung for the boxes and boxes of donuts we'd devour.
Like the staff at Grace Brothers, we were at least artificially exalted in our otherwise lowly positions. We were salespeople, after all, and we were expected to sell - not to clean our store or water its live plants. Custodians and porters did that, and we contracted with a niche company whose employees went around tending our lush broad-leafed foliage. No plastic ficus trees for us! We hired temps during the Christmas holidays just to wrap presents. We had cashiers to prevent salespeople from being off the sales floor for too long. After all, ringing up one sale means you're not making another one! We had in-house tailors. I remember one of our porters would carry customers' purchases out to their cars - which was almost unheard of at a suburban mall.
However, on the other end of the employee spectrum, our company management could sometimes be as clueless as the management at Grace Brothers. One time, a corporate official who didn't think were were "pushing enough goods" tried to demonstrate to us some proper selling techniques one busy Saturday. He left quietly around noontime, not having sold any more than any of the rest of us.
However, on the other end of the employee spectrum, our company management could sometimes be as clueless as the management at Grace Brothers. One time, a corporate official who didn't think were were "pushing enough goods" tried to demonstrate to us some proper selling techniques one busy Saturday. He left quietly around noontime, not having sold any more than any of the rest of us.
Indeed, I learned to value personal experience over book knowledge. If you saw the amount of junk we were expected to sell that had been ordered by corporate buyers who'd never worked one day on a sales floor, you'd understand why I don't give a lot of credit to people just because they have an MBA after their name. One of my managers used to describe them as being "educated beyond their intelligence".
When I began at Jas. K., an elderly gentleman named Coy worked there part-time. Back then, we employees had sales books much like they had at Grace Brothers, and I imagine Coy's was about as empty as Mr. Lucas' was! Coy never sold much because he was practically deaf, and almost as blind. I remember watching him hold merchandise up against his face, and then extending his arm out as far as he could, squinting to ascertain something for an increasingly dubious customer. Yet he lent a certain stateliness to the place, kind of like some of the characters on AYBS did. He also had been in retail long enough to know a thing or two about it.
He used to like to encourage us younger salespeople with his philosophies of life. He'd hold court in the middle of our enormous wall of dress shirts, or at one corner of our massive necktie counters near the front cash register, ignoring customers walking by as he shared his insights. One of his favorites was that everybody should work at least one year in retail when they get out of school, before they go into whatever other career they might really want. Retail, according to Coy, provided one of the best venues for learning about human nature in all of its quirky, goofy reality.
I learned that sometimes, you have to go along to get along. I had one manager who tried to banish me to the stockroom every chance he got. Eventually, I figured out that everybody in the store was aware of my situation, and my ability to tolerate it gave me a lot more credibility with them than it did my manager. Maybe it didn't put money in my pocket, but people respected me, and to me, that was worth something.
And I also learned how hard people have to work sometimes for not a lot of money. Our economic system pays workers based on how much our society values the work they do, rather than how much work they actually do. That means people can labor exceptionally hard but earn far less than somebody who puts in far less physical or mental effort. Again, however, if our personal integrity survives our workday, that is something, even if we can't immediately take it to the bank.
When I began at Jas. K., an elderly gentleman named Coy worked there part-time. Back then, we employees had sales books much like they had at Grace Brothers, and I imagine Coy's was about as empty as Mr. Lucas' was! Coy never sold much because he was practically deaf, and almost as blind. I remember watching him hold merchandise up against his face, and then extending his arm out as far as he could, squinting to ascertain something for an increasingly dubious customer. Yet he lent a certain stateliness to the place, kind of like some of the characters on AYBS did. He also had been in retail long enough to know a thing or two about it.
He used to like to encourage us younger salespeople with his philosophies of life. He'd hold court in the middle of our enormous wall of dress shirts, or at one corner of our massive necktie counters near the front cash register, ignoring customers walking by as he shared his insights. One of his favorites was that everybody should work at least one year in retail when they get out of school, before they go into whatever other career they might really want. Retail, according to Coy, provided one of the best venues for learning about human nature in all of its quirky, goofy reality.
I learned that sometimes, you have to go along to get along. I had one manager who tried to banish me to the stockroom every chance he got. Eventually, I figured out that everybody in the store was aware of my situation, and my ability to tolerate it gave me a lot more credibility with them than it did my manager. Maybe it didn't put money in my pocket, but people respected me, and to me, that was worth something.
And I also learned how hard people have to work sometimes for not a lot of money. Our economic system pays workers based on how much our society values the work they do, rather than how much work they actually do. That means people can labor exceptionally hard but earn far less than somebody who puts in far less physical or mental effort. Again, however, if our personal integrity survives our workday, that is something, even if we can't immediately take it to the bank.
Maybe Coy was on to something after all.
So... when I learned today that the actor who brought Mr. Lucas to life had died, I felt compelled to spend a moment and commiserate over my own days in retail. When I, too, was young and learning the ropes. And even still had a lot of hair, like Bannister did.
Instead of asking our customers, "are you being served?" however, we were coached to ask, "how may I help you?"
I suppose if I had asked the question with a British accent, I might have gotten more sales.
Instead of asking our customers, "are you being served?" however, we were coached to ask, "how may I help you?"
I suppose if I had asked the question with a British accent, I might have gotten more sales.
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