Retail Boundaries: A Comic About When a Customer Has Your Number
Peter gets friendly texts from a customer and spirals. A 4-panel comic about why having someones number for work does not make it personal.
This is Part 6 of "No One Taught Me," a comic series about the texts nobody prepared you for.
The Texts That Look Like Something But Aren't
She said you're literally the best. She said she can't wait to see you. She used a heart emoji. And you stood behind that counter replaying every interaction you've ever had with her, trying to figure out if the way she handed you her credit card meant something.
It didn't. She bought a rug. She was being nice about the rug. The heart emoji was punctuation, not a confession. But nobody teaches you that. Nobody sits you down and says, "Hey, when a customer texts you with warmth, it's because you provided good service, not because they're falling for you."
The ambiguity is real. These texts read differently depending on who sent them and why they have your number in the first place. That context is the answer you're looking for.
How Do You Know If a Customer Text Is Just Professional?
Ask yourself one question: how did they get your number? If the answer is "because they bought something" or "because I'm their point of contact for a service," then you have your answer. The channel they're texting you through is a business channel. The heart emoji doesn't change that.
This is the same spiral Peter goes through when he overthinks texts from anyone. The only difference is that professional contexts give you even more data to work with. You know exactly why this person has your number. You know the relationship started as a transaction. That's your baseline.
Why Do Friendly Texts Feel Like Signals?
Because we're pattern-matching machines and we're bad at it. A heart emoji from someone you're interested in feels like a signal. A heart emoji from your dentist's office feels like nothing. Same emoji, completely different context. Your brain strips the context and keeps the emoji.
Greg's one-liner cuts through it: "My dentist sends heart emojis." It universalizes the moment. Friendly texts from people who have your number for professional reasons are not invitations. They're thank-you notes. And if you find yourself reading romance into every customer interaction, the problem is not the texts. It's that you're looking for something that isn't there.
Not sure how to read a text? Vervo gives you three reply options in seconds -- so you can stop spiraling and start responding.