So you hate dealinf with customers? Don't work retail!

The BBQ Pit
61

Two things, I did mention in my OP that customers who are assholes should be treated as such, but more importantly telling a store’s employee “This other store has lower prices” is not trying to scam the store. Even informing such employee that the other store not only matches prices, but offers an additional 10% off is not scamming the store, it is trying to get the best deal you can. Maybe you’ve heard the same question 10,000 times, but it’s the first time the guy asking has done so. And what you call a stupid question like “How long are these curtains?”, when the information is printed on the package is a perfectly valid question from someone who looked at the package, but not being familiar with the format on the box failed to notice the information printed there. Remember, you’re familiar with your store and its stock, the customer is not, which is why you are the one who gets asked the questions.

And finally, bitch to your heart’s content. But I’m going to bitch about your bitching too.

62

Why do you think you’re a lot better than what you get in the employment world?

Suppose I come along and assert that, no, you’re worth EXACTLY what you get in the world. Far from being “a lot better,” you, in fact, are worth precisely what they’re paying you and how they’re treating you, and not worth a bit more.

What evidence might you offer to contradict me?

  • Rick
63

And we’ll bitch about your bitching about our bitching. And you’ll bitch about our bitching about your bitching about our bitching. How meta. Even PoMo. :wink:

64

bayonet1976, I’m way ahead of you. I work retail, and even posted in the original thread that attracted your derision. However, I work retail because I am unskilled. Sorry, I was born that way. When I have my degree, I will be skilled and will be able to get a job that I enjoy more.

However, I’m still a person, and don’t appreciate getting shit over stuff I can’t change. When someone comes into the store asking for a discount, I explain store policy to them. Do you think they accept that?

Fuck, no! They keep trying! “Oh, please give me a discount” they cry, in spite of my very clear explanation that I am unable to give discounts, our store doesn’t give discounts and even if we were to give discounts (which we don’t), I cannot give them a discount.

So these guys are basically asking me to risk my job so they can save a couple of bucks on a stereo. And, now I’m the arsehole?

And to Fin_Man, I’m always polite to my customers when they deserve it, and remain just as polite even when they don’t. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been truly rude to a customer, and these were in high stress times (such as holiday periods) and the customers that really deserved it.

Still, you worry about these few times, knowing that there’s every chance the store will take the customers side. Working retail can be incredibly demeaning; not only are there people willing to treat you as sub-human, you cannot even defend yourself against them. I think a mild bitch in the pit every now and then is a relatively low key response.

[customer voice]But I drove all the way from North Easthills just to get a flame! And you’re saying that you can’t give me one? Fine customer service you have here! Besides, I needed my flame for tonight! I’m going overseas to give my son a flame for his birthday! He lives in a country where flames aren’t allowed, and now he won’t be able to get one! Besides, you didn’t even check if you had a flame! I think you don’t give a shit whether I get my flame or not. You could at least have a look! Can I speak to your manager?[/customer voice]

65

Amen. I still have nightmares about it. I used to come home and cry after work everyday-it was the only release available to me.

66

Well, after I got through beating your head against a wall until I got just the right splatter pattern of brains and blood, I’d say this:

"Most retail jobs place minimal demands on the people who do them. Working a cash register, stocking inventory, etc. … things you could just about train monkeys to do. Many people who do such jobs are high school grads and college grads, having demonstrated an ability to do higher math like algebra, read and understand fairly complex texts, and a lot of other things. Years are spent instilling these abilities into most high school grads and all college students. Yet as soon as they graduate, they often face a couple of years doing such routine tasks while they search for more meaningful work. Many take careers that fail to maximize their abilities after awhile just because they despair of using their abilities to the max.

A society that really was interested in maximizing its return for all that schooling would work very hard to place its grads in jobs that would maximize the training they had, getting the most out of the skills they have and giving them every opportunity to build on those skills. But we don’t, we take most of our kids and train them to be monkeys on the job, and so they become monkeys. Pretty sad.

Can YOU justify this pitiful waste of human ability?

67

And be careful about deciding such a question is stupid too quickly. I was at K-Mart last week (I hate that store) looking for knee pads and elbow pads for my son. I found a set, and went down the aisle to see if the employee there knew what size they were, since the package wasn’t marked with a size (not even youth or adult). I said that the package wasn’t marked when i asked the question. After rolling her eyes and looking at me like I was the dumbest person she had ever seen, she said “it’s right here” , then looks at the package and said “It’s not on here”. I thought (but didn’t say) “No kidding. That’s why I asked you”

69

When I began my career in retail a year ago, I loved going to work. I looked forward to standing behind my counter or wandering the aisles, helping people find what they were looking for and sending them home happy. I genuinely enjoyed helping people figure out exactly what they needed done at the copy/printing desk, and doing it for them so well and quickly that they were pleasantly surprised. I’d show up early and stay late any time I was asked. I loved my job! I really, truly did!

I loved my job all the way through the Christmas season. Things started to wind down a little bit then; it felt like more and more people were complaining and fewer and fewer were happy with what I did for them. I stopped showing up early.

In the early spring, I started to dread going to work. I’d show up just before it was time to clock in, paste a fake smile on my face, and go tolerate the public. Every once in a while I’d get a really nice person who’d brighten my day, every once in a while I’d get a real asshole who’d ruin it, but most of the time… people were just people and I just wanted to leave.

Summer approached and my eyes were no longer bright and eager. I was cutting my breaks a little long, being a lot less cheerful. I really hated my job. I still tried to be friendly, but when I wasn’t actively engaged with a customer, I was standing there listlessly, not volunteering for any odd jobs or anything.

Burnout is a killer in retail. No matter how well you start out you’re going to get worn down by the people. One asshole isn’t going to do anything lasting to you. Assholes you get pissed at, then you get over it. It’s the constant stream of questions you’ve heard fifty billion times before. It’s the repetition. It can be a perfectly legitimate question but over and over and over again until you hear it in your dreams and it makes you want to scream and/or have the answers tattooed on your forehead. People who can last an entire career in retail and still be cheerful and genuinely care about each and every customer have my admiration, because they’re either made out of pure diamond or they’re really, really good actors.

As soon as I can afford to, I’m going back to school, and as soon as I have my degree I’m getting a job editing crap at the newspaper, where my contact with the public will be limited. It won’t be soon enough.

70

Another retail worker here. Let me just say that I do try to do my job as best I can. I smile, I’m polite, and I try to be as helpful as possible. If I don’t know the answer to something, I’ll find out for the customer. I think I do a pretty good job. And I still get abused, mistreated, and humiliated. Not by everyone, of course. Ninety percent of people are good and decent and treat me with kindness.

But then there’s the other ten percent. They are the ones who call me “Blondie” and “Fucking bitch.” They are the ones who assume that just because I work retail, I’m somehow a second-class citizen and can be treated as such. Two Christmases ago, a customer humiliated me so badly I cried right there at the register. Another customer threatened to beat up a co-worker of mine in the parking lot because she wouldn’t take back a pair of jeans without the tag or receit.

There is a reason I work retail, and it’s not because I’m stupid or because I do drugs. I have a degree in print journalism. But I don’t have a car. I cannot get a job as a reporter without one, so I work at a store to save up. I don’t think that makes me a loser. I realize that no one here implied that I was, but that’s the feeling I get from the ten percent.

My point is, as others have said before, retail work is a job like any other that involves the public, and occasionally we have to vent. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

71

You used your first post for this? Tsk, tsk, is all I can say.

72

You know, I was right with elmongo until he started that stupid “Why don’t you go back to Cuba” shit.

74

Pfft, he’s not the first. Funny thing is though, the part where he says:

He’s actually more right than he knows. At age 12 I was sent to the top school in Cuba, Escuela Vocacional V. I. Lenin, because, based solely on my grades, they felt I would make a good communist. However, I was soon expelled when it turned out that I had a penchant for calling “bullshit” during Marxist ideology studies.

75

My, my, so much anger from so few working neurons.

76

By the way I think is completely appropriate that my post to GMRyujin declaring that I might have been a good communist was my 666th post.

On the other hand, I screwed up that nice confluence with my reply to elmongo2, whose name by the way would cause no end of laughter in Havana, since it, minus the “2”, would brand him as “the idiot”. I’m not kidding either.

77

Speaking on behalf of most Americans, I’d like elmongo2 to be the one shipped to Cuba, while we keep bayonet, who doesn’t seem all that unreasonable.

78

You should have said something. Many I time I’ve given a “Well no fucking shit, that’s why I’m asking you” to some idiot that pull the stunt you speak of.

79

As you can see for yourself, it’s a hot day in my office.

80

Both Mrs. Rick and I worked retail when we were first starting out.
We both feel that 99.9% of the customers are no problem. The other 0.1% and management are the problem.
The same dumb question 10,000 times in a row really wasn’t a problem, we understood that it was the first time the customer asked. We had stock answers that just kind of came out of mouth, without thought.
Q Where is the paint department?
A. down the aisle, turn right at the next corner.

There were a few mind numbingly dumb questions that stick in our minds even 30 years later. My buddy managed a sporting goods department 30 years ago. If I call him today and ask him the following question, he will respond the same way he did 30 years ago when the customer asked the same question.
Cust. How much is this bicycle? (points to rack full of bikes)
employee Ah, which one sir?
Cust. The red one! (five red bikes on rack all different prices)
employee Ah, (guessing) the one marked $29.95?
Cust. Yes
employee It’s $29.95, sir.
Cust. What colors does it come in?
employee Red, sir.
[cust.** Thanks (wanders off)

Along with those customers were the ones who were out to cheat the company, and treated us like dirt. They did not make us happy.
Right up there with that group was store management that treated us like shit.
The straw that broke the camels back with my wife was the store requiring her to work unscheduled overtime to clean the store after closing. The next pay day the same manager that made her work overtime gives her a ration of shit for having overtime on her check. WTF?
About the fourth time this song and dance occurred we looked long and hard at our money and made the decision that we could in fact do without her income. So she quit.

82

Man, what the fuck is your problem?

83

Someone’s being a dick.