Four types of salespeople we meet

In a country filled with shopping malls the height of skyscrapers, we spend more time with sales assistants than our family members. In fact, we sometimes begin to know them better than our own family members.

Here are four types of salespeople we meet in our everyday shopping:

These intensely passionate and hardworking salespeople seem to have dedicated their entire lives to “protecting” the cashier. They camp around the cashier and barely even have time to leave the counter to come serve you, in fear that it would mean leaving their phones the cashier unguarded.

Under their seemingly meticulous façade, these salespeople sit at the counter with their phones glued to their hands. Even when we do ask for help, they murmur some instructions and raise a lazy hand to direct us.

Remember how your grandmother shoves every single dish right under your nose during a family reunion dinner? Well we get reminded of our darling grandmothers in some retail stores, when ridiculously-excited shop assistants start shoving their stocks right in our faces.

Somehow they assume our telling them we’re not interested in an item means that we would love it in another colour.

But honestly though, we can’t deny the fact that we do enjoy the attention lavished on us.

We’ve all met that one sales assistant that somehow has tried everything in the store, and wants to recommend everything to you. She raves about her experiences that somehow are all pleasant and have improved her complexion, her demeanour and her marriage.

You finally leave with a bag full of products that still is smaller than the amount of stories you’ve heard about her life and can associate every product to one pivotal moment in the epic tale.

These sales assistants lock their gaze on you and within a split second, have their arm locked with yours. They then proceed to stare deep enough into your soul to figure what you’d need for the next fifty years of your life.

Some people can convince you to buy things you don’t need, but this person convinces you that you have needs that you don’t even know you had. And before you know it? You’re walking out with several colours of snow coats in sunny Singapore.