working in retail/service?

[mrdude2010]

I think it's because people in retail/service jobs tend to deal with far more people in an average workday than, say, a mechanic or a laborer. Everyone can relate to having to deal with absolute dickheads, especially since people frequently look down on retail/service people more than they would a mechanic, at least partly because they think it's a job anyone can do (I'm not saying it's as difficult as a lot of other jobs; there are way fewer people who can excel as programmers or engineers than people who can excel at service/retail jobs, but anyone who has worked those jobs has seen an astounding amount of incompetence and lack of ability, even from people who are good at more "difficult" tasks).

That, and retail/service people are generally grossly underpaid.
Along with having to deal with absurdly incompetent management.
As well as being shafted by the company they work for at every possible opportunity.

 

[The White Hunter]

astounding amount of incompetence and lack of ability, even from people who are good at more "difficult" tasks).

Astounding does not begin to describe the abject lack of competence I have experienced in retail

 

[shootthebandit]

This is one of the keypoints of being in retail/service hehe even if they do act like the biggest...rudest person in the world, you cant just go 'f u , theres the door..screw off' (unless you were the boss or had a very good reason to do so.)

Dont you have the right not to serve someone if they are abusive or using foul language? I dont think "f off" is the best tact but a polite "if you continue to be rude and I will not serve you" seems pretty reasonable to me

But on the flipside of that, to go into the other direction, as posted earlier..Im barista and waiter where I work..so Im that chap who draws those hearts into the cappucino's hehe. I do that for every customer, no matter how rude or friendly they may be. Ill greet everyone with a 'normal' (not over the top friendliness, but more of a homely type of friendliness seeing as thats what Im accustomed to.) 'good morning how can I help you?'. Some greet me with 'good morning' back, where as others just 'Ill have this and that-.-' Ill still give the same product to both, but that first person is more then likely to also compliment what they were given, and this in turn makes me enjoy my job then if they come back later and tell me that it was great .

I wouldnt say the customer who didnt say "good morning" was rude. I always say please and thank you but if someone doesnt they arent going out of their way to be rude. Its a bit ignorant but its not malicious.

Personally I like to be polite and cashiers usually have a bit of a chat/joke with me (nothing that keeps me waiting or holds up the queue). I must have one of those faces.

And really, if you spend Ill say..8 hours smiling and greeting everyone friendly per day, and you have just 1 person coming up to you roughly around the middle of the day complimenting you and your work, that will (atleast for me) give enough fuel to burn through the rest of the day knowing that someone acknowledged how much work you put in it.

Its always nice to be appreciated. I dont think those who dont compliment you are not appreciative perhaps they are in a hurry or had a bad day and just need a coffee and because its routine they forget that someone has put effort into it.

 

[rebelscum]

I work in a £1.99 charity shop (paid position, mind) which seems to rank me even lower than other retail shops in the public's eye Some problems specific to charity shops I don't think have been brought up yet:
-People flipping out when they're told that we charge 2 whole pence for a carrier bag. Never mind that we have to pay for carrier bags like every other shop, and never mind that we sell them at a net loss anyway, some consider it an insult. Some people even say they won't pay for one "on principle"
-"Why should I pay X amount for this? You got given it?" Yes. That is how charity works.
-People donating what's clearly a bag of rubbish. I have sorted through bags full of stained underpants. Bags full of broken toys or books with pages torn out. Even though we're a charity shop the goods still have to be decent (rubbish clothes are less of an issue since we recycle them and get money from them that way)
-Thieves. For some people £1.99 is just too much to ask. Unfortunately we're not allowed to accuse anyone directly of shoplifting, so hilariously we are advised to be as passive-aggressive as possible.
-Upper management staffing the shop with one or two staff members per day, assuming volunteers will fill the gaps. The thing is that on some days we have almost too many volunteers in, and on others we don't have any. The shop needs at least two people in to get anything done (One on the shop floor, one sorting/hanging/steaming stock) and at least one day a week has just me running the shop with no volunteers.

That's a lot of whining, but I still enjoy my job. One of my favourite memories is when someone donated us a wedding dress and four matching bridesmaids outfits. Us being a £1.99 shop, we stuck them all out ASAP at £10 for the lot. About ten minutes later a couple ran in, saw the dress would fit perfectly, and bought the lot, thanking me profusely as they did so. Knowing that I made a random strangers' wedding that little bit easier was a lovely feeling.

 

[Eamar]

Dont you have the right not to serve someone if they are abusive or using foul language? I dont think "f off" is the best tact but a polite "if you continue to be rude and I will not serve you" seems pretty reasonable to me

You have that right and it's perfectly reasonable, yes. But if your manager won't be prepared to back you 100%, forget it. If that customer complains to head office, they'll take the customer's version of events over yours and it'll be your ass on the line every time.

To be fair, some managers are great and their staff do feel empowered to exercise their right to refuse service, but it's by no means universal.

 

[EvilRoy]

Well, in NA the first job many people ever work will be in retail, or some other type of customer service. Primarily because those jobs have high turnover, seasonal periods, are typically unskilled in nature and can be easily commuted to for most (a retail outlet by definition will be easier to get to than a lumber mill, particularly for a carless teenager.)

This all sort of whirls together into a perfect system for this kind of stuff to come up on the old interwebs:

1) First jobs range from shitty to outright traumatic. You have no idea what you're doing, but the high turnover means you aren't worth training. People expect shit from you that you won't be able to predict, and will put you in social situations you aren't used to dealing with, while doing work that you aren't used to doing. The first three jobs I had were in retail and nearly ten years later (from the first one) I remember crap about them even as my memories of highschool fade.

2) The internet is generally dominated by younger people, though the median age has been slowly increasing as the first adoptive generation ages. So the vast majority of what we hear online is going to be geared towards what the vast majority of internet users can relate to. Tales of retail bullshit are pretty much the definition of crap that teenagers have to put up with, so it isn't surprising there is a lot of it on the net. This is relative to other jobs such as management that would be typically dominated by people who predate the internet and may or may not engage in it beyond email.

3) Unskilled work coupled with high turnover are just about the worst combination around, and lend themselves to customers being douchebags. A customer probably wouldn't diss a barber even after the scissors get put away for two reasons; first, they are aware that they probably couldn't barb for shit, and second, they realize they may need to see the barber again in a few months and a grudge can last a lifetime. The knowledge that not only could anyone do a given job, but that the customer may never see the employee again after today (even if they visit the store daily) seems to embolden the asshats.

 

[Cheesy Goodness]

A lot of people here are making very valid points about how retail jobs suck, and I don't wish to regurgitate what they've already pointed out. I worked at both K-Mart and Sears - two of the worst chains ever - for years and can vouch for just about everything you've read.

Although, all the complaining about working retail can be summarized in one event: Black Friday. This is the probably the worst day to be alive if you have to work at any kind of retail store. (I'm exaggerating a little, but it is pretty bad.) I've seen customers get in fist fights over cheaply made TVs that weren't even at a good discount to begin with. I saw an elderly man almost get trampled and have one of those TVs fall on his head. This also happened when K-Mart got the bright idea to start opening Thanksgiving morning when even Wal-Mart was still closed. This caused practically all stores to start Black Friday sales early, which is now very frequent.

When the doors first open, you'll hear a stampede of carts and people usually running towards the electronics department. They will hop over the counter to grab whatever items you're withholding at that moment, regardless of what it is. Basically, people will just act like complete animals, and I've seen it all. Hardly any of the sales they feature are even worth getting up in the morning to put up with that crap, much less kill someone over.

When you hear a story about how a Wal-Mart worker gets trampled to death for some stupid sales, you start to really ponder how insane the general public has become, and if there is any hope for those poor, lost souls.

http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/

 

[Lilikins]

Dont you have the right not to serve someone if they are abusive or using foul language? I dont think "f off" is the best tact but a polite "if you continue to be rude and I will not serve you" seems pretty reasonable to me

aye ofc hehe that was a very drastic way of putting it I admit. But emm, I work in the guest area of a firm, so as spoken, these are managers etc and my interraction with them then has an effect on the firm itself. Though Ill say that most have 'good' manners and are very aware that they are guests, but ofc theres the couple few. For instance once I had some chap sit down and whistle and snap his fingers at me, (while there were folks who were ordering something) then after 2 minutes he came up to me and asked why I wasnt reacting? (at this point of him snapping his fingers etc I was already going 'douche' in my head haha so I didnt really care much for him..)
Nevertheless I told him that this is a guest lounge, and there is no snapping fingers..whistling etc...or other manners such as that to be presented seeing as this is NOT a restaurant...nor would the restaurant accept that kind of behaviour either. He went into a huff and said everywhere hes been he always does that and folks react, I told him thats nice but..thats not how it works here, haha.
Mind you, he got the point, but yeah that whole discussion went through him being a prick...to me answering very calmly even though I was already quite annoyed by him.

And by all means I dont expect everyone to say good morning/afternoon and thank you etc, I know that alot of folks are in a rush and/or have alot on their mind at that current time. I was just adding that line to show that atleast for me, if one person comes up to me and says thank you etc, and that it was very well made and stuff like that. It gives a moral boost towards me seeing as I do take quite a bit of pride in my work hehe

Fact taken Im going to say Im 'lucky' in the area of service Im in. Seeing as I get a proper wage, in comparison to other areas of service, therefore I dont get any tips hehe. So basically its weighed out in a way I spose.

 

[shootthebandit]

Dont you have the right not to serve someone if they are abusive or using foul language? I dont think "f off" is the best tact but a polite "if you continue to be rude and I will not serve you" seems pretty reasonable to me

You have that right and it's perfectly reasonable, yes. But if your manager won't be prepared to back you 100%, forget it. If that customer complains to head office, they'll take the customer's version of events over yours and it'll be your ass on the line every time.

To be fair, some managers are great and their staff do feel empowered to exercise their right to refuse service, but it's by no means universal.

I suppose you have a point. Foul and abusive language should never be tolerate but at the same time people dont want to lose their job.

black friday

Ive heard about this but its not really a think in the UK. We have new years that are really busy but nowhere near this bad. Its genuinely disgusting

Personally I hate sales. Id rather pay full price for something I want/need than pay less for something I dont need/want

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Like I said im not having a pop at you guys, you do a stellar job and youve got a lot of shit to contend with while being massively underpaid but im just trying to fathom why there seems to be a lot of complaining and "you dont understand till youve worked retail" mentality that you dont really see with any other job

I think its one of two things, or a combination of both.

Retail is a lot of people's first jobs. It's easy to get, easy to learn and you can get by with minimal effort. So I'd say a majority of people who work in retail are young. I work in retail myself and I'm 22, all but three of my 13 colleagues are younger than me.

Minimum wage. I get it. It's a starting job, the pay isn't gonna be great unless you're working for a big company. However back to my personal experience in retail I'm tied to a 21 hour contract and I earn £6.31 an hour, however when I started last November I was on 8 hours a week. All of my previous jobs have been 9 to 5, 40+ hour desk jobs. But I've gone from being an IT call out engineer to a "Sales Assistant" for a subsidiary of Poundworld called Discount UK. With my current job I earn no extra on bank holidays, no time and a half/double time. Yet my list of responsibilities is huge compared to my previous job. Sometimes I'm pulling 12 hour shifts (08:30 to 20:00) with the slimmest of slim chances of advancement.

At the end of the day, I think it comes down to being massively underpayed, undervalued and overworked. Because of its low-skill status everyone who works in retail is replacable. Your voice is never heard because of the tangle of management (our shop alone has three supervisors, an assistant manager, shop manager, branch manager and regional manager and that's just within the Discount UK subsidiary, before hitting Poundworld's authority).

I'm grateful to have my job, I'm grateful to have decent managers who always throw extra hours my way because I work hard for them. But some days the monotony gets to me and I realise I'm working towards nothing, because when a manager leaves a new one will be assigned from another branch or employed by people who don't know me or my colleagues, or how hard we work.

 

[NiPah]

Something ive always found weird about service and retail workers is that there seems to be a lot of complaining from people who work these jobs. I often see internet memes like "things on retail workers will understand" and such like. It got me wondering why we only see groups like this. You dont see pages called "mechanics problems" or "things only manual labourers will understand"

Im not saying its an easy job and im not saying you dont get obnoxious dickhead customers (I probably fall into this catagory sometimes) but customers pay the wages of the staff

Surely ever other job equally has stuff to complain about. You dont see manual labourers complaining lugging bricks around all day. You dont see lorry drivers complain about long shifts and time pressures and you dont see nurses complain about being overworked, underpaid and understaffed

Like I said im not having a pop at you guys, you do a stellar job and youve got a lot of shit to contend with while being massively underpaid but im just trying to fathom why there seems to be a lot of complaining and "you dont understand till youve worked retail" mentality that you dont really see with any other job

Most everyone bitches about there job, it's just retail/service tends to be more entertaining to ***** about due to just how weird some customers are.
There's also the fact that almost everyone to a certain extent has worked in a service industry.

I have a good friend who is a trucker and he complains all the time about trucking, especially not being able to see his new wife enough. Also when I worked in a hospital the nursing staff complained a lot too...

Sure a lot of younger people tend to work service jobs, this means they may be more tech savvy then your average cubie so more of their complaints get posted online...

Also tone down the veiled insults, saying you're not having a pop at retail/service workers doesn't help if you're still insulting retail/service workers.

 

[MindFragged]

I still wouldn't want to work in a call centre.

Maybe it's because I'm part time (freelancing is my other job) but I haven't found retail too bad. People do treat you like crap sometimes, but they can also be really nice and put a smile on my face.

As for being an expendable employee there is the flip-side that you can probably find another job in retail before too long if you really dislike where you are. In this way you're not the only expendable thing in the employer-employee relationship I live in London, so maybe this doesn't apply to others as much.

Horrid bosses and co-workers and workplace pressures can exist in any job. I've been fortunate enough to have avoided what seems to be my fair share by this point; I've heard bad stories from retail, office, construction - whatever sector I've had friends in.

That said, I think that when working in retail you often have to interact with people who show you less respect than is polite because you are in a servile role. That's difficult to deal with, difficult not to take personally, and probably not how it should be. But hey, people can be asses.

 

[shootthebandit]

Also tone down the veiled insults, saying you're not having a pop at retail/service workers doesn't help if you're still insulting retail/service workers.

I dont think I was being insulting (well not intentionally anyway) and I apologise if thats how it came across. Everyone has every right to complain. I was just wondering why we hear more complaints in the mainstream from these groups than any other career.

Im not here to say "you unskilled peasants that do everything for me have no right to complain". I have very limited experience in retail so I wanted to get a bit more of an insight as to what type of complaints were being made and why they were being made

 

[NiPah]

Also tone down the veiled insults, saying you're not having a pop at retail/service workers doesn't help if you're still insulting retail/service workers.

I dont think I was being insulting (well not intentionally anyway) and I apologise if thats how it came across. Everyone has every right to complain. I was just wondering why we hear more complaints in the mainstream from these groups than any other career.

Im not here to say "you unskilled peasants that do everything for me have no right to complain". I have very limited experience in retail so I wanted to get a bit more of an insight as to what type of complaints were being made and why they were being made

You hear more complains in the mainstream because retail/service are more interesting and relate-able.
Even if you're someone who has never worked in the service industry you understand what it's like dealing with an absolute idiot who doesn't understand or won't follow directions, it's funny and understandable.

Now you talk about Jim the mechanic, he has a ***** of a day rebuilding an engine block only to find out the solenoid was installed backwards... makes for kindof a boring story that wouldn't be forwarded.

Almost everyone has a bad day no matter their job, also almost everyone will write a story or two online, just like all things online the entertaining stories get forwarded and the boring ones get buried.

I'm not here to say "you have a boring job that no one is interested in", I too have very limited knowledge of your job.

 

[suitepee7]

i worked in a supermarket cafe for 4 years, and got moved to night shift a little under 2 year ago. the cafe experience was very similar to that of regular retail, but with added bonuses

1 - strict on piercings, not due to fashion, but because bits might fall out. i totally understand this, except my piercings can only be taken out with pliers... i had to wear bright blue tape over my ears, despite the fact that i had to wear a hairnet

2 - customers got angry if a food item/meal was out of stock. the usual complaint being 'but you're a supermarket, why don't you go and get it?!'... yes, because we totally hand prepare every meal from scratch, have the time to do that for every person who asks for it, have enough staff to deal with you, have enough staff to send off department to go shopping just to make your meal, and are allowed to do it in the first place. the cafe was owned by the supermarket, but a completely different department, we were completely separate from the rest of the store and had our own product delivery.

2.5 - customers get angry for a lot of other reasons too. in the cafe we had a thing called the '**** club', which was exclusive for certain members of staff who had been called a **** by a customer. some of the members incidents were:
a) a customer came 10 minutes after we had stopped taking food orders. he argued that he saw food orders going out and therefore he should be able to have one, not seeing that the food has to be cooked before it can be sent out, and if we operated on his ideals we would never get to shut down and clean the kitchen...
b) a customer could not get a meal he wanted, because the person before him got the last one. said member of staff refused to serve him, and he complained to the store manager, who agreed it was unfair... that he didn't get the food he wanted. the store manager demanded we specially prepare it for the customer and take it out of the next days stock, and the customer got it for free.
c) a customer complained she didn't like an ingredient in her sandwich after taking a bite, not realising its contents. the member of staff allowed her to swap for an alternative free of charge, happy to help. said customers' husband comes back, accuses the member of staff (who was gay, incidentally) of trying to chat up his wife, and called him a ****. as the member of staff walked away, the husband took a swing at the member of staff, but missed.
d) i was inducted because i asked to see a customers receipt after they claimed they had been waiting for a food order for some time, and i needed proof of their purchase before i could sort anything out. they refused, got really angry... turns out they didn't have a receipt for the £80 food shop and £300 TV they had in their trolley either, as security came to investigate

3 - there were often clear signs saying 'wait time for food is currently x minutes', when it was above 20. customers still complained because they added in the time they waited in the queue, which if only 1 person was taking orders AND making all the drinks meant the queue time was pretty long too.

4 - near the end of my time working there (and one of the reasons i left) they introduced a new policy, i had to wear a snood because i wasn't clean shaven. at that point i had a very short beard (like, could be called long stubble length), and they claimed it would fall into food. thats fine, but they made me wear it when i wasn't even near the fucking food. after a few weeks of customers calling me hannibal lecter, i refused to wear it and went home, after arguing with my dept manager and two store managers on the basis that customers were taking the piss, and i had worked there for over three years without a single complaint about ANY of the staffs facial hair. i moved off department the following week, never looked back

 

[Splitzi]

The thing that upsets me about retail isn't corporate culture, it's the customers. I expect the corporation I work for to not give a shit about my wages or my hours, because they could easily give them to someone new. What I don't expect are the absolute animals that 1/10 of the population seems to be. I expect to be treated better by people because I am a person. Whatever happened to the fucking Golden Rule? I relish the days I work in the back room as a receiver because I don't have to deal with any customers.

Ugh, now I understand that 9/10 people are great and understanding, but that 1 person can ruin your entire day and lower your standing within the company due to a complaint. It's degrading and I hate being a doormat...

 

[Zeras]

I work for an inventory service that is contracted out by many different retail chains (i.e. Wal-Mart, etc.) and, while my co-workers and I generally "shoot the shit" and complain, the people (customers) we work with during our various jobs could not be more polite and helpful; they know why we're here, and they know why they're working third shift to first - to organize and plan ahead for the next fiscal year. Helping them out is part of why I really like my job.

 

[emeraldrafael]

actually I hear manual laborers ***** piss moan and whine about it all day everyday. they just don't do it on the internet. The reason most retail/service jobs do it (or at least is perceived) is because the majority is filled by 15-20 year olds and are part of the Y generation (or in some cases as my roommate and I theorize part of the X generation split that was the precursor to the Y generation where they got spoiled in the Clinton era of good times while some of us had to still ride out the really shitty Bush senior times for a few years) and they feel their problems with some guy treating them like the bottom rung (because they are) is so terribly degrading it sometimes feels like they think it's on par with the Civil Rights Movement (pick one, the Suffrage, the 60s, or the one now for those who aren't of a the straight variety in sexual appeal).

I mean, I get it. I worked at a theatre for a few years, then I worked recently in a dollar tree, and it sucks when people look down on you because they feel they're above you on the ladder. But the sad thing is, they pretty much are. and its your job to attend to their needs as the bottom rung. it's how the world works. No obviously they shouldnt physically reprimand you for not doing a job to their self perceived qualifications, or call you Boy in the same way I feel slave owners probably referred to slaves as "it," or make your job so overtly difficult it not only disturbs you but also other customers and just the general day to day runnings of the business (all of which i've seen and more in my time on the bottom rung), but that doesn't mean you can cry and whine about it like its the end of the world. Because the sad thing is, most people who work in retail (or at least the one's i've seen around [and its perfectly probably I live in he one part of the US where every we need to have 6 assholes per square foot as part of the population]) don't make it any easier for their fellow bottom rungers. They see the problem as something that is theirs and their friends' and that when it happens to someone else well "who cares, that's how I get treated at my job why should I bother to make the change?"

...

Then again I had this more or less same thought when this topic came up in the thread about <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.390971-You-Should-Tip?page=1>Tipping and felt the OP was so far off base, so I'm probably a little bias. and most of the whining people do on the internet/about this is always overexaggerated. I'm not saying there's not assholes (guy who kicked out a ladder from under me while I was hanging things up over a metal cage, but no, i'm not bitter), but most of the horror stories are from the complainer having a piss poor attitude or just blown out of proportion.

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

A fundamental principle of Kantian ethics is not treating people as a means to an end.

This is the foundation on which the retail/service industry is built.

And it doesn't have to be that way! I know most people complain about the customers and yes, the customers are a huge part of the problem. But my favorite experiences in retail have been the customers. I have my favorites, by far. (And there's no reason NOT to be nice to your servers/retailers. I cut my favorites some pretty sweet discounts.) And one time, we had some guy come in and he did a couple of impromptu magic tricks with the cashier. Which was awesome! I don't expect this from everyone, but a smile or a "Have a nice day" makes the "emotion work" a little less taxing.

But there are days where you just get a string of unpleasant individuals that it just leaks out into angsty posts on BuzzFeed.