Welcome! Once again, RHU University students gather to absorb the knowledge we impart upon them in order to become Custologists or Crustologists. Today is our first day out in the field so please gather all your necessary belongings. Make sure your shoes are tied tightly, as the location we are traveling to may be boggy, messy or just all around unpleasant. We don't want to lose our boots in the morass now, do we? Got your safari helmet? Good. Exploring the unknown just isn't the same without it!
Keep a firm grip on your notebooks and pencils, and gather all your wits about you. Is everyone ready? Take a deep breath, as we are about to observe a very common species in the retail environment...
Ohh look there! It's the Piggy Shopper!
Family: Shopper
Genus: Custy
Species: piggy
Subspecies: Swine, Boar, or Piglet
This species of Custy is generally a nuisance rather than a dangerous Crusty. Custologists frequently encounter the leavings of the Piggy Shopper; if the Store is open, a Piggy will come rooting about. These creatures make a mess of their originally pristine environment. They will pick up an item, any item, and inspect it. From this point, they make either take it with them or just drop it on the floor. Sometimes they may shove it haphazardly into a random location or else pile it in a place considered hidden, such as a dressing room.
Dressing rooms are a particular favorite of Piggy Shoppers, who will pile their discards in alarmingly large stacks and abandon them. Many dressing room attendants find themselves victims of a Piggy attack, and can never keep up entirely no matter how swift or efficient they may be.
If you listen carefully, you can hear a Piggy's distinctive cry:
"It's-their-job-to-clean-it-up!"
This is either done in an ear-grating squeal or a guttural snorting noise, and any budding Custologist hearing it knows what they are in for. This cry is a sure sign of a Piggy instructing its young or its drove ('drove' being the name of a group of pigs) on the behaviors distinctive of its species.
Most Piggy Shoppers camouflage themselves particularly well; a survival trait that keeps them from attracting attention. If you turn loose a docile Customer and a Piggy Shopper loose in a store without knowing which is which, you'd never know by looking at them when they approach the registers.
Piggies can only be identified by their distinctive cry, or by catching them in the act of rooting carelessly through merchandise. An amateur tracker can follow the trail of a single Piggy quite easily, but such trails become more complicated depending on the number of Piggies in a single area.
Keep a note also, that the trail of a Piggy has a cumulative effect and serves as a calling card for other Piggies. If one Piggy encounters the trail of another, your new Piggy will find the concept of marking their trail all the more enticing. Piggy trails stand out like a neon sign to other Piggies; "Come in and root about! There are many things to drop around here!"
Custologists, or unlucky Retail Slaves, find that the trail of a Piggy is a full time task to clear out. The mess, as stated before, is cumulative, and can sometimes alter the behavior of common Customers into Piggy behaviors. If things are already a mess in the wake of a Piggy, the normally harmless Customer may fall under the effect of "Good lord. It's such a mess, why bother trying to make MY trail look nice? I'll just shove it haphazardly back. It's not like I'm the first."
In some ways, a Custologist can view a Piggy's trail as having a viral effect. Once one Piggy has made a mess, the "mess effect" spreads like a disease throughout the whole store, resulting, at the end of the day, with everything on the floor. Many a Retail Slave has collapsed while sobbing at the sight of a Piggy Shopper's leavings: knowing that there's no way in hell to get all that cleaned up in the narrow time frame left to them after hours.
There are three Subspecies of Piggy Shoppers. The Swine, named after the female name for the common, four legged pig, is non-confrontational and leaves a wake of mess casually and on the sly. The Boar, named after the male version of the common, four legged pig, is blatant, brazen and more than willing to make a mess openly and without reservation in front of as many witnesses as they please. Piglets make up the third subspecies; junior versions of the adults. Please do not be confused by the typically gender-specific names. A male piggy can be a Swine, and a female piggy can be a Boar. The names define the behavior, not the gender of the Custy.
Well, I hope your first field trip has proved to be informative, as you will encounter Piggy Shoppers quite frequently over the course of your career as a Custologist. I wish to warn you, there are very few retail positions that are outside the territory of a Piggy Shopper. If your retail environment is open to Customers, it is also open to Piggy shoppers.
Homework: Try to remember the worst experience you've had with a Piggy Shopper. If you like, Submit it to the class.
Class dismissed,
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