Indignantly, she shoved her cell phone at me after she’d scrolled through a thousand doe-eyed selfies to find a photo of the four-poster bed she needed to sell, ASAP. After all, she was moving tomorrow. She and her bed had to be out of the apartment by noon. “I got 400 hits on Facebook,” she said, “and not a single buyer!”
It was a tale of woe, millennial-style. One of her potential buyers showed up and really liked the bed, but he’d have to borrow his mom’s mini-van in order to move it. Sadly, Mom lived in another state. Another thought it was perfect until he asked if she had proof that the wood had been sustainably sourced and made by an artisan who earned at least a minimum wage with benefits.
“It’s a family heirloom,” she snarled. “How the heck would I know? These randos* wasted my time!” (Rando: a millennial term for an unknown person, especially one who is odd, suspicious or engaged in awkward behavior.)
I’m not sure what annoyed this young woman more: her immature peers or the fact that she’d discovered one thing that couldn’t be accomplished by social media, that is, sell her furniture. She might never forgive Facebook.
Ah, millennials. There are 80 million of them born between 1981 and 1996. They’ve got a bad reputation as spoiled by helicopter parents, undisciplined and overly dependent on technology. But they are also lauded for being socially conscious.
FCG would have loved to help our millennial customer, but our delivery trucks were fully scheduled for the day and she’d run out of time to sell that problematic bed. She stuffed her phone into her pocket and wandered away. But I did see her looking at some of the furniture and check the price tags approvingly in the showroom as she made her way to the exit.
Maybe she’ll think about consignment when she settles into her new home. After all, our pre-owned furniture is exactly the eco-conscious solution that millennials want in their food, homes and furniture.
