Retail!

[Death's Spook]

For those of you who have worked in retail, what was your worst experience with either a terrible customer or really bad coworker or boss?

Mine was easily a customer at the Starbucks I work at who first decided to complain because I dared to give her packets of sugar instead of filling a cup with sugar. The sugar was completely identical, mind you, and she didn't ask for a cup specifically. Then, a few weeks later, she comes in through my drive through again, and asks her friend to ask me to throw something away for her at the window. This is super not allowed and I tell her so as politely as I can. This annoys her, so she asks my coworker on bar the same thing, only to get the same response (see "super not allowed"). Then, this brilliant woman, who was getting her morning coffee at 1 pm, came down from the drive through to the store specifically so she could yell at me in front of everyone for being rude and lazy.

The shift manager, bless his heart, cut me off before I blew a gasket, then filed an incident report so that she could get banned from the store.

[Noblejanobii]

Mad respect for people who work in retail. I've never worked in retail but more often than not in stores when my mom and I go shopping I end up getting confused for an employee in a lot of stores. And I know what you're thinking but I'm not joking that happens to me often enough for it to become kind of a nuisance for me. It's probably because I'm always folding up clothes and putting them back and stuff but that's mainly just because it bothers me when people throw clothes or merchandise just willy nilly.

I think the closest I've come to actually working in retail though was when I was a girl scout. So, fun fact, in the USA when I was a Girl Scout, Girl Scouts troops bought their cookies from one of two cookie manufacturers depending on pretty much where they lived geographically. According to the Girl Scout website, they still use two different bakers so I assume this is still an applicable issue for tropps. So a lot of times we had customers asking if we had Samoas or Tagalongs because our cookie manufacturer doesn't make Samoas or Tagalongs, they make Caramel deLites and Peanut Butter Patties. Same cookie, different name. Don't ask me why I assume it's for legal reasons. In fact most of the old school cookies, besides Thin Mints, have two different names as a result of this manufacturer split. And while nowadays there's only four cookies out of twelve with this kind of issue, if I remember correctly it used to be that all the cookies except for Thin Mints had this double name issue. And while most customers, once you explain that it's the same cookie with a different name, are understanding and buy the cookies, you occasionally get these... special buds who refuse to buy it because "it's not the same". I can remember one time I was selling with my mom outside a bi-lo and a lady wanted some Samoas but didn't see any on our stand. When I tried to explain that Caramel deLites are Samoas just with a different name, she started to tell me I was wrong and demanded some Samoas. It got to the point where the patrol officer that always hung around the place had to get involved to keep the lady from physically harming us.

[Chakramaster]

Oh I work retail and the way things are going in the store lately. I'm on board with getting out of there soon as I can. So many things are being run so poorly and apparently the only response to that is longer hours for some and less for others. I loved doing what I was doing, but getting pulled off to help with the front end cashiering again. Only to stand around a lot doing nothing and have to work weekends again when I've had them off forever now. Not to mention even the store director said specifically I would keep weekends off (so apparently the one making schedules doesn't care). I'd be okay with my schedule changing hour wise a little, but forcing me to work weekends when I was told I could keep them off is wrong.

Oh and lets not forget that I handle the entire store's safety walk/report every Monday. Something like that takes time and efficiency right? Apparently the lady that runs it up front doesn't think so and wants me to rush it so I can get on the register for the "morning rush" of 1 person every 30 mins - 1 hour. Pretty pathetic really that she thinks the guy up front can't handle 1 person. In fact, just today it was so dead she sent him out to find me doing the inspection outside and tell me she said "hurry up." I gave him the craziest look as I looked over to the empty parking lot and just laughed lightly and said "okay." I've never face palmed so much lately. So I'm on the lookout for a new job ASAP. Not have to deal with this anymore. It's more than stressful and annoying. It was so good for about a year, but now.....it's not even funny anymore. Really it takes a lot to get underneath my skin with something like this and I love to help, but to take advantage of my kindness and make it easier for them while putting all the stress on me and expecting me to do things efficiently while rushing through things? No. Once I find a new job I'm out. If it gets too much worse I'll jump out before it gets to me any worse.

I've got many of stories I could even share of rude customers too. It's just these take the entire cake before any rude customer right now