Why can't I work retail?

Ack, horrible customer stories, I got a million of 'em! I’ve worked in flat fold fabric stores where I’d spend hours refolding a huge pile of challis (very thin, floaty, light fabric) only to have a gaggle of Indian women stampede in and unfold EVERY.SINGLE.FUCKING.LENGTH on the table, leaving it looking like the aftermath of a singularly pissed off tornado and then they’d actually buy one package of buttons or something for the whole gang. Gah. :mad:

Working at a convenience store/gas station where we had the nearly naked guy–six foot something, built like a total brick shithouse, very dark black skin, shaved head, wearing NOTHING in a California valley summer heat day but a very tiny pair of tighty whities (did I mention the “blessed, and kinda cheerful” part?), no shoes, how his feet weren’t blistered all over I do not know–wandering in, paying for his gas and wandering back out (scaring the hell out of the little old lady in line before him) seemingly profoundly unaware that he’d forgotten to get dressed that morning. That was surreal–scenic, but definitely surreal! :stuck_out_tongue:

Then there was the guy who freaked out after my partner told him “have a nice day” and started screaming that he was tired of people making assumptions about his sexual orientation… :confused: And the guy who went into our only toilet, came out again, left and never bothered to mention the fact that he’d managed to get shit all over the toilet, the ring, the floor, the walls, sink, doorknob… shudder :eek: And the old woman who came in every day for cigarettes wearing the same five or six sweaters in layers (remember, California/hundred plus heat) obviously never washed because she smelled like the wrath of god on a Gorgonzola ass cracker–but she always had a fresh layer of horrible makeup piled on atop the geological strata of troweled on crap from decades gone by, not to mention the incredibly lengthy nail extensions covered in layers of chipping polish. :eek: And the time when our 24/7/365 operation was sidelined by a massive city wide power failure–we didn’t have locks on the doors since we were never closed, I had to get a bike chain and chain the doors shut because people could NOT accept the fact that I couldn’t (and more astonishingly to them, WOULDN’T!) sell them “just a pack of cigarettes” or “I just need a pop” due to the flimsy excuse that the cash register wasn’t working. They would yell and argue through the door, rattle the chain like pissed off gorillas in the zoo, try to get me to pass them stuff through the door–it was like “Day of the Dead” in there, I swear! :smack:

Then I guess I figured that working customer service on the phone would be easier or better in some way. Yes, I am a fool who learns nothing from previous experience, thankyouverymuch. Working on the phone merely exposes one to a greater range and variety of regional specialty idiocy and assholishness than those garden variety local crazies. After doing that crap for several years, I’m very happy to be a supervisor these days and one of my chief delights is taking escalated calls from these shitheads and not only telling them the unpalatable truths they don’t want to hear, but also telling them how little I appreciate them abusing my reps and informing them quite firmly that their little tantrums might have impressed their spineless mummies but I’m made of considerably sterner stuff and if they want to get anywhere they’d better chill out, behave like adults and speak in a normal tone and volume of voice or they’ll be talking to a dead phone. Lots of times this makes them cuss at me, and I hang up so fast I sprain a finger!

Ah, my year as a cashier at K-Mart. I remember it well.

Old, cornball 70-year-old man in a suit with weird hair comes in. He’s buying a pack of razors. They scan as five dollars. He says they’re supposed to be three dollars. We have to dispatch an employee to check the price on the shelf. While the employee is checking, he says: “That’s the reason I don’t like shopping here. You always ring up items at the wrong price.”

I pretend to ignore him.

He pounds his fist on the counter, and repeats his complaint: “You see, I don’t like shopping here because you always give me the wrong price.”

Me: “Really? That’s the same reason I hate shopping here.”

Another old man got angry about change. I put his change down on the little check-writing stand, rather than handing it to him. He was angry about this. He said. “Don’t just drop the change there. That’s disrespectful. Hand it to me.”

I pick up the change without looking at him at hand it to him, then start scanning the next person’s stuff.

Him: “Hey, look at me when I talk to you. Where’s your supervisor? You’re supposed to respect me. I’m paying your salary, you know.”

Me, without looking at him: “Really? Well then I want a raise.”

A customers (this one was fairly polite), noticed that we had only two lanes open on a Saturday morning. “Why are there only two lanes open. There should be more. Stuff like that bothers me, because I’m a stockholder in this company.”

Me: “Want a hot stock tip? Sell.”

[Less than a year later, K-Mart went bankrupt. I wonder if he followed my advice.]

I was not fired for any of this stuff.

Let me guess. They ended up giving her the refund.

I worked at Blockbuster Video. To this day, I wonder how society keeps working, considering that a large portion of people are too dense to figure out how to rent a video.

One day a couple came up to my counter with some videos. I asked to see their card. They didn’t have one, so I asked about their account.

Couple: We don’t have one.
Me: Would you like to sign up for one?
Couple: No.
Me: Uh. Well, we need an account to rent videos to you.
Couple: We just want to rent this video.
Me: Uh, um, yeah. To do that we need an account. It’s pretty simple, just a form that will take five minutes to fill out.
Couple: (angrily) We don’t want an account. We just want to rent this video.
Me: In order to rent a video to you, we need you to fill out this form.
Couple: We have to fill out that form?!?! Can’t we just get this done with?!?
Me: Yeah, it tells us who you are and how to contact you if we need to. We are renting out our property to you and need some information about who you are.
Couple: This is ridiculous! The local video store would never do this!
Me: I can put that back for you if you like.
Couple: I can’t believe this. You need an “account” and a “card” just to rent a goddamn video. No way I am going to get a goddamned account. throwing forms at me THIS IS WHY I DON’T RENT VIDEOS FROM HERE!
Me: Yes, indeed, it is.

I used to work the sporting goods department at Wal*Mart. It was always fun trying to explain to people why they had to wait 24 hours before they could take their shotgun home even though their background check came back okay (um, it’s the law).

Or the time I refused to sell someone shotgun shells because they didn’t have their FOID (Firearms Owner Identification) Card (again, it’s the law).

Or the time a police officer tried to tell me that the waiting period didn’t apply to him because he was a cop (he didn’t understand that the waiting period was waved only if he was making a purchase for the police department, had a letter from the department saying so, and did not pay with his personal credit card). I’m sure it was purely coincidental when I was pulled over a few days later by the same officer after leaving work.

When I worked in a supermarket, it was always fun to see customers try and argue the cashier into letting them buy beer or wine before 2:00 on Sunday, as if she’s going to risk legal punishment or losing her job just so this jackass can avoid haing to make a second trip in a few hours.

Those stupid blue laws were actually just struck down finally, on a related note.

I feel the same way. I had to work again today because I didn’t want to leave the boss without a replacement. But I won’t be there next week.

Luckily, this isn’t my full-time gig. I’m helping out my old manager because my other job isn’t giving me many hours this month and I thought I could use the extra cash. It’s been two years since I’ve worked in a mall, and I think that coming back during the Christmas rush was just too much for me.

Is it just me, or are people bitchier this year?

I live in Kansas, right smack dab in the middle of Tornado Alley as it’s called.

One summer, while working as a cashier in a large grocery/department store, the sirens went off for a tornado warning. The store broadcast a message that people needed to leave and seek shelter, as we had none. We cashiers were ripping the drawers from the registers, throwing them into the safe, and getting our butts to the restaurant across the street, that had a storm shelter. And some people still wanted to check out first, and got ticked when they couldn’t! The manager stayed behind to be sure everyone had left, and found one customer still wandering the aisles. When the customer saw him he asked “can you tell me where to find the strawberry jam?”

I wonder how some people live to grow up.

I’ve worked at two stores, and with both my problem was more with the treatment I got from those higher than me than with the customers. To work in retail, you need to have little or no self-respect. The pay is crappy, you have to put up with bullshit all day, worry about selling cigarettes or whatever else is age-restricted to minors (you can get huge fines and actually go to jail), all while remembering that you are just an unskilled laborer who could be replaced within a week. It doesn’t matter how smart you are or even how good you are at the job. You’re just a piece of dirt in the bigger picture of the company, and no amount of hard work and dedication will ever change that.

MRirian that unfortunitly is a situation you find in every field of work.

No, actually they didn’t. I think the manager ended up kicking her out, in fact.

However, our store manager once insisted on giving a refund to a woman after she threw a shampoo bottle at the cashier and hit her in the head.

Da’ hell?

Yeah, but most other fields of work pay more than retail, which makes it more bearable. :smiley:

Also, you don’t have to worry about selling age-restricted products to minors.

To add a retail story:

I just recently quit my job at a gas station. When someone drives off without paying for their gas, we are expected to chase them down the street. Yes, they expect us to run after a car, like a dog. For $5.15 an hour.

How about paying for a woman’s kitchen cabinet under the sink to be replaced. She had a bottle of liquid plumer leak while stored under her sink.

I’m your biggest fan.

I stand corrected. Your dream Sir, is the dream of Champions.
Fortunately, working in the back provides me with very little opportunity to interact with customers, so I lack the horror stories everybody else seems to have. The worst I deal with is having to jam my foot into the wheels of my pallet jack because some just jumped out in front of me without looking. The last thing I want to do is run over a customer.

I do remember once when our fire alarms went off. Nobody knew if it was real or a test (turns out it was due to workers in another store in the mall mis-wiring their alarm system, causing it to go off). I was going around, rounding up people, trying to get them to the front of the store and outside. I was amazed at how many people just ignored the alarms and myself. No, not just a second, leave now. It doesn’t matter if you just found the elixir for eternal youth, you ain’t buying it, seeing as how all of our cashiers are huddled in the parking lot in front of the store. Due the fact that the store is emptying out, it’s a fair shot to say that it’ll still be there when you get back. I think you can wait.

This made me think of something that happened at the library a year or so ago (not retail I know but I like telling the story).

Me: Excuse, someone smelled smoke in the back of the library. The fire department is on their way. We have to wait for them in the parking lot.

People on Computers: But… But… I’ll lose some of my Internet time! Can’t I wait inside?

:smack:

This thread actually has impeccable timing, because I quit my retail job just this afternoon.

It was my first time in retail (as opposed to food service), and I quickly realized that working with the general public was so not for me. I can be stubborn, and quick tempered… not good qualities to have. Plus, I have self respect. Once again, not a good quality to have.

These stories pale in comparison to some of the above, but y’all can probably sympathize with me. The first was my second day on the registers. I had been “enlisted” to stay an hour late, and so I had been standing behind the registers for almost 6 hours straight at that point. Remember, this is my second day working there. So, I finally had a manager come over and tell me that after this last customer, I can go. So, I finish ringing her up as my manager opens up the register beside me. As she is picking up her bag, this old woman pushes her aside and plops her mountain of stuff on the counter. I tell her (and I know I shouldnt, but I was exausted and annoyed cause I was late to an important meeting) that technically I was off, but I can ring her up real quick. So she starts bitching about us not putting up a sign to tell her that we were leaving. I just smile, nod, and agree with her as she proceeds to rip me a new one. I finish ringing her up, give her her bags, and proceed to walk away. She then turns to the manager beside me, asks to see the manager, and tells him that she wants to lodge a complaint against me for calling her the n-word and a bitch. THE MANAGER TOOK HER SIDE. After he had heard the whole thing!

The other event was a week before that. A woman brought her stuff up to my register, and I rang it all up. She then hands me a slip of paper with her card information on it. I was puzzled, so I called a manager. She shows me where to enter the stuff, and leaves. I enter in the information, and it was rejected. I entered it in again, and again and it was regected again. I apologized, and asked if the woman could give me some other form of payment, since her information won’t go through. She starts cussing me out, saying that it went through at another store earlier that day, and i must be doing something, since it isnt her fault. She keeps carrying on, I enter it in at least four times, but each time its regected. I finally call over a manager who takes over from there, since theres a line forming and getting annoyed. I dont know what happend to that woman, but jeeze!

I hate customers. And stupid managers.

I used to work the 4 PM to midnight shift in a combo convenience/liquor store/deli. In Las Vegas. We sold hard liquor as well as wine and beer, we had slot machines, we had the deli. Most of our customers were pretty decent, but we had some really weird ones, as well as some pretty abusive ones. We had the petty shoplifters, and the ones who would attempt to boost a fifth of booze. We had people trying to bargain with the deli worker to put a lower price on the bag of deli stuff (at that time, we wrote the price of the items on the bag), or get us to throw stuff into the bag without charging at all. I aquired the nickname of “The Hardass Bitch” because I wouldn’t give away merchandise. We had kids trying to buy cigarettes or alcohol, and when the cashier refused to sell the stuff on account of age, the kids would wander over to the slots and start feeding in coins. The gambling age at that time was 21. Don’t know what it is now. We had people buying the cheapest food items with food stamps multiple times, and then turning around to use the change for cigarettes and alcohol. Man, I’m glad that so many states have switched to using an electronic card for food stamps, to discourage this abuse.

We had the girls in bikinis with an oversized Tshirt tossed on, wanting to know which beer was the strongest for the money, because they were about to get into a hot tub and get drunk. We had one guy who wore two pairs of jeans…the first time I checked him out, I didn’t know WHAT to do when he unzipped the first pair, pulled them down…and there he was wearing his second pair, and he pulled his wallet out of that second pair. I guess he’d been pickpocketed one time too many. A lot of smokers expected us to know the brands and styles of their cancer sticks.

I liked most of the customers, but I really don’t want to be a retail drone again.

Omg! I woke up everyone in theh ouse laughing at that one. I spit out my coke. :smiley: