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[Booker Dewitt]

I've had to turn away a lot of families coming to watch a films for which their children clearly aren't old enough.

The most recent absolute shit show was Deadpool. Had this one family of which the son clearly wasn't old enough.

First they blantantly tried to lie about his age. When they realised I wasn't buying it, the dad argued I should mind my own business and that as the father he knew best and it was his estimation his son was old enough to see the film.

When I asked him if he had seen the film he said no, at which point I asked him how he could possibly know then that his son was old enough? I then had to remind them that I wasn't just enforcing company policy but actual laws. He then angrily demanded a refund so I told him to queue up or phone customer service.

I've had many encounters like that before and since.

Ahh movie theaters, just yesterday I got multiple phone calls shaming me for trying to profit off of victims of a tragedy.

Also can't forget the time I was yelled at because the ticket was cheaper than the customer thought it would be.

 

[TheChamp]

Ahh movie theaters, just yesterday I got multiple phone calls shaming me for trying to profit off of victims of a tragedy.

Also can't forget the time I was yelled at because the ticket was cheaper than the customer thought it would be.

The one that makes me laugh the most is when people book online and still manage to book the front row when meaning to book the back... like seriously the booking page says SCREEN in massive writing on it

 

[Silent_Ocarina]

Entitled people are the absolute worst. The thing that always threw me for a loop is the way some customers are so shamelessly rude. Like when their tone drips with impatience and scorn because they see you as an obstacle to the world class service they deserve.

Who the fuck do they think they are? How do they even function in a world that's not specially engineered to cater to their personal whims, if they can't handle a minor delay or a clarifying question? Some adults behave like actual children in grown-up suits. It's astonishing.

It really is something to witness. Like, did they ever learn basic manners growing up? It's crazy how quickly their attitude changes when they get what they want, too. There was a picture shared my Facebook feed that said something like how the current retail system rewards customers for acting like brats.

 

[Browny]

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet - Clerks - F**king Customers.

 

[BlazingDarkness]

Now this is torture when you are forced to listen to the same songs on repeat for 1 1/2 months.

I remember working two 12 hour shifts on consecutive days over Christmas. There was one point I almost cried because of the music. (They had ONE 50 minute CD on repeat from late November until January.)

 

[Maximo]

Now this is torture when you are forced to listen to the same songs on repeat for 1 1/2 months.

Yep working Christmas time during Retail is hell, did Nightfill for awhile it was alright until we got new management and instead of letting everyone play Radio music on the speakers we were stuck with Christmas music and instore advertisements.

 

[Lupercal]

It really is something to witness. Like, did they ever learn basic manners growing up? It's crazy how quickly their attitude changes when they get what they want, too. There was a picture shared my Facebook feed that said something like how the current retail system rewards customers for acting like brats.

Well, it does. Yell long enough and 99% of managers will give you what you want or something close to it to get you to shut up.

But most people aren't that horrible to be like that, but when you get one, oh boy.

I once had a customer scream for 35 minutes before mall security could escort him out. He came back the next day too for a rematch.

 

[françois]

There's always that customer still swanning about the shop floor 1 minute before you close. as though they've got all the time in the world - then you need to herd them about. Have you people got nowhere better to be?!

Oh my god these are the worst. Finished college this summer, but used to work saturdays at a major retail store in the EU. 15 and 5 mins before closing they announce that the store is closing. 10 minutes after closing time they're still waltzing around, security then tells them to go to the cashiers and then they simply put their stuff there and then walk back into the store.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Some children are more polite than the adults.

 

[Monocle]

It really is something to witness. Like, did they ever learn basic manners growing up? It's crazy how quickly their attitude changes when they get what they want, too. There was a picture shared my Facebook feed that said something like how the current retail system rewards customers for acting like brats.

Yeah, seeing a jerk's attitude change on a dime is so weird, especially when they're some flabby time-ravaged oldster who just threw a tantrum over the size of their coke or whatever. No self-awareness, no empathy or consideration for other people. It's "Me, me, me. I'm going to be a child until you give me my happies, then I'll turn on the charm and be a big boy again!"

Working a customer service job opens your eyes to the seedy side of the general public. And to think all those emotionally unstable people are allowed to vote and raise children. I want to believe there's a fair and humane way to curb the bad behavior of overgrown babies who waddle around spreading their misery to others.

 

[?oe?oe]

Watch this pilot episode of a comedy set in retail: Rostered On. Too good.

 

[mrkgoo]

I've worked retail. the employees and employer were awesome, the customers ranged from awesome to completely insane.

 

[neorej]

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet - Clerks - F**king Customers.

This was our mantra.

Customers, generally, are dumbasses. I worked in clothing, guy came in, asking for a dark shirt. I come back with a black shirt. No that's too dark. I come back with several dark shades of different colors. None of them to his liking. After a good 50 minutes of back and forth, he leaves the store with, I kid you not, a white t-shirt.

Woman picks up a pair of Daisy Dukes, I tell her she needs a size bigger, as these tend to be on the small side. She stubbornly declines, even after I insisted she took a larger size, and she heads for the dressing room. About 15 minutes later, she sticks her head out, red with embarrasment, she can't get out of the pants. She's stuck. We drew straws and I was the lucky SOB who got to cut her out of those pants. I saw things that day I wish I could unsee.

We had these big-ass signs saying UP TO 70% DISCOUNT. For some reason, customers only managed to either read or register the "70% DISCOUNT" part of the sign. So there were some heavily dissapointed customers at the register, some even violently so.

But never forget, there's cool customers too. Dude came in, high as a kite. Told me he needed pants. I sold him 20 pairs of jeans. He came back the next day, looking for me, as my name was on the receipt, asking why the hell he got 20 pairs of jeans all of a sudden. I told him the story, he laughed his ass off, told me he wasn't mad, he'd keep the jeans and took it as a sign from god to cut back on the mary janes.

We had a sheik come in with 6 servants, and all he did was point and the servants would pick out the thing he pointed at, then they dropped all of it at the register. Dude was packing 5000 euro in kid's clothing, the pile was humungous. And he didn't ask for a discount either, all he asked for was for it to be kept in our storage untill the end of the day so they could get their van and pick up the bags. We were happy to oblige. Got a 200 euro tip each at the end of the day too.

Coolest customer was an escort girl who came in right before closing on a slow night. She walked around the store in her lingerie and knee-high leather boots, looking for a last minute outfit for a private party in the hotel near the mall. You can't top that. Ever.

 

[easterislandhead]

I had a blast in retail I miss those carefree days. Everyone that worked with me there was under 24. Half male half female. Everyone was from a different parts of town and schools so we'd all invite each other to different parties most weekends.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Only those of us who have worked retail have come to realize the true depravity of the human race.

 

[Smellycat]

Only those of us who have worked retail have come to realize the true depravity of the human race.

Yep

People are just awful and stupid too. It sucks that the worst ones tens to stick in your memories and they ruin your day no matter how many other great people you meet.

 

[Monocle]

I had a blast in retail I miss those carefree days. Everyone that worked with me there was under 24. Half male half female. Everyone was from a different parts of town and schools so we'd all invite each other to different parties most weekends.

I have to admit, the people I worked with were generally awesome. Really great people, with rare exceptions.

 

[friskykillface]

If you are a 16 year old high school student i'd say working retail / more specifically a supermarket is the best job a high schooler can get, really wish I had done that.

The only job I've had has been retail hell for the past 5 years (5 years in December) and it's had its highs and lows.
I'm a grocery stocker and let's just say I can do anything I want basically , the stickler managers aren't in my department which I love.
It's just basically stock and rotate , that's it , any dummy can do it
I've only had a few bad customer experiences , some guy yelled at me for not having eggnog on the day before thanksgiving and said I ruined his families turkey day. I had to try not to laugh , there was 5 within 5-20 minutes in my town.

Retail hell would be tolerable if the music was actually good, I remember once for a few months we had nothing but 80s and 90s, fucking sweet child o mine played and it was awesome 😎 Then 3 Hall & Oates song played during my 6 hour shifts , so good.

I also love the "that's it , I'm not shopping here anymore" rant , why the hell do I care.
Also people arguing to me about prices boggles my mind, I have no control over it lol

 

[esmith08734]

So many assholes I had to deal with when working retail. Some of my 'favorites':

Dude accused me of being racist because I asked him to move to the front of the queue.
Guy called me a 'fucking retard' because I accidentally shorted him a nickel on my first day.
Dude swung at me for saying we don't let the hoses wrap around at the gas station I was working at.
A woman asked me to wash her windows for her, it was sub zero and snowing, I told her we put our buckets inside for the night because of the weather. She complained and insisted I filled up a bucket, wash her windows. I was fighting off a smile when the water/soap froze instantly on her windshield.

There's so many others. People are so entitled when they think they are 'better' than you. I just think, how does your interaction with a retail employee effect your mood that much? These fuckers act like they were handed a six-figure salary when they were first starting out.

Working retail definitely put hair on my chest and helped me really understand how to treat people.

 

[Spiral Insanity]

It's a rite of passage IMHO... every kid needs to work restaurant or retail once in their lives to appreciate the service industry and the value of money.

Yes, this is true.

 

[shingi70]

I work retail and it can suck at times. I'm not a fan of the way out new Manager is doing the schedule myself either.


The big take away is seeing people stuck in the retail rut and not wanting that to be me, and only being 24 I'm going to start school in the winter.

 

[Jmille99]

I didnt work retail, but I did take orders over the phone for products. The sense of entitlement from customers in particular is fucking disgusting.

Product deadline date to order in January and received multiple notices to order? Who cares, call in May and bitch when you cant order at that time.

You placed an order? I dont see it in our system, did you print out the confirmation screen? "No". Do you have the email confirmation? "No". Did you write down the confirmation number? "No". Do you have a charge on your card? "No". Unfortunately it appears an order wasnt placed. *Insults ensue*

God Im so happy to be done with that. Now if only our sales reps could stop being treated like kids with how they treat employees that would get the lower staffers fired immediately (like calling someone a racist and making threats).

 

[choco-fish]

Entitled people are the absolute worst. The thing that always threw me for a loop is the way some customers are so shamelessly rude. Like when their tone drips with impatience and scorn because they see you as an obstacle to the world class service they deserve.

Who the fuck do they think they are? How do they even function in a world that's not specially engineered to cater to their personal whims, if they can't handle a minor delay or a clarifying question? Some adults behave like actual children in grown-up suits. It's astonishing.

Agreed, part of the problem is the age old mantra the customer is always right. Mrs Chocofish recently got asked to do a refund on a pair of trousers for a really massive guy, he has no receipt and claimed they were too tight for him. She took them out the bag but couldn't recognise the item. The trousers stink of piss and are really dirty and worn. She refuses to refund and the guy demands to speak with a manager. The supervisor shows up, takes one look, says sorry to the customer and offers him a free replacement in a similar style and the correct size and apologises to him!!

It turns out these trousers aren't from the previous season but the previous year! He'd worn them till he was too fat to get in them and cone in for a brand new pair, in the knowledge that the store will back down.

This happens all the time, the managers are spineless and off replacements and refunds even without receipts, it makes my Mrs feel like an idiot when she says no and tries to do the right thing.

To sum up: Piss stained old clothes? Wear them out then return for a free replacement every 12 months. No proof of purchase required, just an entitled fucking attitude.

 

[Schadenfreude]

Was a slow afternoon, a regular comes in with what I'm assume is her daughter. Orders her food, whatever. They go on their way. Not five minutes later the daughter comes back in with a look on her face that even Mr. Rogers would want to punch. Here we go.gif I call one of my kitchen bros over to get her on her way as fast as possible. "Yes ma'am, how can I help you?" In the bitchiest, most insincere tone she can muster "Can you show me in this bag where my (missing item) is?" Kitchen bro proceeds to look through bag even though we both know it's missing and that was the point this soul sucking harpy was trying to make. Kitchen bro apologizes and goes to get her the missing item plus a little extra. "Can I get both your names and your manager's name?" I give her the names and she says, and I kid you not, "That's not your fake name, right? Hehehe." I can only assume this she-beast from the lowest pits of hell does this at every place that dares to insult Her in anyway and she's gotten fake names a few times. Whatever, I wasn't gonna get fired over one complaint. So she gets her food and goes on her way. Kitchen bro starts freaking out about possibly getting fired. If hell does exist I'm convinced it's consists of having to work in retail/food service with only that one chick as your customer for eternity.

 

[HyperCubed4]

Working retail sucks balls.

So many stores are so fucking out of touch.

Say what you want, but Walmart seems like the most lax retail place to work.

They don't have to suggest sales and shit, and don't really have to give a fuck. Not saying it's a great job, but it seems to throw out the whole pandering to the customer BS and stay at the top.

Let me give you some examples of things I witnessed working at a single Wal-Mart store:

• Overnight manager wrote up a clerk for working too slow. She was on light duties at the time.
• Employees fill out an annual, anonymous survey on the quality of their store manager. Entire store was asked to take the survey again because the results were so overwhelmingly negative, they thought it was a joke. It wasn't.
• Another overnight manager stood behind every night crew clerk, watched them take said survey and made them choose all positive responses the second time around.
• Department managers are full time, hourly employees, subject to getting their hours cut. All full-time employees were working 28 hours a week for a few months.
• Cosmetics manager (full time, non-salary worker) was written up for refusing to work during her unpaid lunch break, after she had punched out for said break.
• Every employee was scheduled a time to take their lunch break during their shift. This was enforced regularly. When two neighbouring departments took their lunch breaks at the same time, the on-duty manager attempted to get them to leave to help them do something. When they refused, the manager stood in the lunch room and waited for them to finish their break.
• Night crew members are given a quota of how many skids of merchandise they should be stocking during their shift. Managers would frequently lie about workers not fulfilling this quota to write them up (fuck you Britney, glad you got fired, you fucking bimbo)

Then you've got entitled customers who demand things their way because "THIS IS WALMART!" as if Walmart doesn't have their own policies and standards in place. Employees are expected to work like dogs by their superiors, taking abuse from horrendous excuses for human beings, for money that is less than liveable.

Yeah, Walmart is pretty great.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

I find all the horror stories surprising. Well, not exactly, since I've heard a lot of it before, but it's just so different compared to my experience.

I work pizza delivery; the bosses are super chill, and just about everyone loves to see the pizza guy so the customers tend to be super chill, too. I'm a little miffed that our per-delivery pay isn't enough to cover gas and wear and tear on the car, but I'm making $15/hr (sometimes more) on an average day, so eveen if 5 of that gets eaten up in vehicle maintenance and gas I'm still doing pretty well.

Plus I get to listen to audiobooks/podcasts like 60% of the time I work, and delivering to big birthday parties or whatever is fun.

 

[cyberheater]

The Excalibur Effect is something every retail drone has witnessed and will continue to witness until the end of time.
The time is 8:45 a.m. and posted store hours are 9 to 9. Three people stand patiently outside the shop on their smartphones killing time, waiting for the door to open to conduct business.
Suddenly a fourth party appears, and unbeknownst to you or your peers, this man or woman believes themselves to be King Fucking Arthur of the retail world. Despite the other people standing around the front door and the lack of an open sign, this knuckle-dragging winner of our hearts and minds takes a firm grip on the door handle and pulls like they're trying to start a lawnmower.
Bad news for you, champ. This isn't Camelot, and you sure as hell aren't getting in until I finish my cup of coffee.

Wrote this up ages ago when I still worked in retail.

Congratulations on getting in the word unbeknownst. It's an awesome word and sadly under utilised.

 

[Clint Beastwood]

People should be forced to work retail for atleast 3 months to see what it's like.

This is probably how we achieve world peace.

 

[Psychological Intellect]

Call centers are worse

 

[Bubba T]

This thread gives me memories of my days in retail. Getting fired from that job was great for me long term. I'm surprised it's still in business, considering it lost over a billy last year and hasn't made a profit since 2010.

 

[Nevasleep]

I've worked three retail jobs. One bad, one okay, and one was great.

Compared to some of stuff I have to deal with now, if the money was the same there's times I'd love to go back.

 

[bjork]

No retail job will be as good as my anime shop was.

But you have to treat every day like performance art. That's the only way to survive without losing your sanity.

 

[Mupod]

I think I'd be a homeless drifter before going back to work retail.

And I'm not kidding.

When I was on the doorstep of being that I got on a wage subsidy program and had the choice between night janitor and retail. Chose the former. Would do so again.

 

[catofthecanals]

I worked for GameStop for like ten years. I do not recommend it.

 

[hydruxo]

I worked in asset protection at Best Buy for about 2 months last year and had all kinds of crazy customers. Standing up in the same spot for long ass shifts all day and having to deal with people who treated you like dirt was awful. I dreaded going to work everyday.

Also worked in the backroom at Target before that. Quit after a week.

Never again.

 

[gwailo]

I remember working two 12 hour shifts on consecutive days over Christmas. There was one point I almost cried because of the music. (They had ONE 50 minute CD on repeat from late November until January.)

I used to work in a warehouse in a Mervyn's. Our muzak PA system (which was bad enough) went out so instead of enjoying the silence, a manager got the bright idea of playing one of her Christmas CDs that had the wonderful dulcet tones of Michael Bolton belting out Jingle Bells and the like. They would play this same CD over and over, even when the store was closed and I was stocking shelves at 6 in the morning. Absolutely horrible. I would activate the store PA and then just put the phone down so we would get at least a minute of silence instead of hearing Celine Dion mangle Little Drummer Bout for the 1500th time.

 

[Jimothy]

I deal with it by getting drunk and relating to everything portrayed in Super Store.

 

[Trey]

Will be worse until society gets over the "work is virtue" mentality, at which point it will become better.

work ethic is a virtue, and should always be encouraged. what society needs to get over is "only those who work should be able to house, clothe, and feed themselves" mentality, as well as the "fuck yours, got mine" failure of a society paradigm.

 

[Abstrusity]

I work as a vendor, used to do walmart, target, winn-dixie, and publix.

Walmarts were always trashed, but not because people aren't working, they may don't have enough people to do it.

The only time i wouldn't get asked if i worked at a place was when i was wearing the sorry color everyone who did work there wore. Red shirt in tsrget, blue in walmart, green in oublix, bkack in winn-dixie.

Nothing have me more pleasure that some entitled, snobby shithead fucking with me as I worked, leading them on until they ask for help, then sending them in the wrong direction. That only ever happened at walmart, though.

Plus, I can take a break whenever I want to, just walk out of the store.

If you have retail experience, consider getting a job with Lay's, Kellogg's.

I do not recommend Crossmark or TNG, but Acosta might be good.

 

[dragonflys545]

Working in retail does suck (Worked at CVS for 2 years), but it's just as bad dealing with retail workers who doesn't give a shit or just plan suck at doing his/her job.

 

[BlazingDarkness]

I used to work in a warehouse in a Mervyn's. Our muzak PA system (which was bad enough) went out so instead of enjoying the silence, a manager got the bright idea of playing one of her Christmas CDs that had the wonderful dulcet tones of Michael Bolton belting out Jingle Bells and the like. They would play this same CD over and over, even when the store was closed and I was stocking shelves at 6 in the morning. Absolutely horrible. I would activate the store PA and then just put the phone down so we would get at least a minute of silence instead of hearing Celine Dion mangle Little Drummer Bout for the 1500th time.

The worst for me was Mariah Carey warbling on like some evil Christmas banshee.
It got to a point where I used to actually walk off the shop floor for a few minutes whenever it came on.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

No retail job will be as good as my anime shop was.

But you have to treat every day like performance art. That's the only way to survive without losing your sanity.

Ah, the second-hand memories we all got from that anime shop. I remember it fondly.
I hope you noted those down, since that could make a great ebook to sell on Amazon. But I think I suggested that before already.
---------

I've been spared working retail in a store with immediate customer contact, though obviously you get enough from grocery store work too. Thankfully before smartphones and so on, so I've also been spared the 'super entitled prick I just want to violently murder' thing. Then again, like others have said: fucking Christmas music. At some point one of those had, and this is true, Richard Cheese's cover of Down With The Sickness on it, as a goddamn Christmas song. Clearly, the selector did not understand English at all.
Let's just say that I avoid retail during Christmas now.

Though I have been selling stuff online in recent years, which is somewhat comparable to retail, so I'll share, and I've seen every single stupid "life hacking" trick people think that makes them the smartest little shit on the planet, when I can tell from the first fucking misspelled word whom I'm dealing with. And the lack of a proper 'hello' at the start. Everybody thinks they're so fucking smart, and not in actual good smart ways.

Smart ways like:
Knowing how to spell words and shit.
Knowing how to make proper sentences that can actually be read by other fucking people.
Knowing how to flatter another person while still trying to undercut their price so you're not being a total prick about it. Sure, I'm still mad, but you're respectful at least.
Knowing how to properly start and end a goddamn message.
Knowing that you have money for your hobby, or you fucking don't (this is real btw, sooooo fucking many people 'but I ain't got no...' such wastes of space and time, unbelievable).
Knowing to show proper respect for the process of a business transaction, motherfucker.
Knowing better than to try and troll a seller by a variety of means that would take too goddamn fucking long to list. Instead, here is Samuel L Jackson saying motherfucker a lot.
Knowing to say 'I'm disappointed but I understand' in those exact fucking words.

I'm going to stop here, and tell y'all fine gentlemen and ladies to just work retail, take what you've learned from it, start a web store and immediately outsource customer service to a company where people literally have the worst job imaginable. Hell IS other people.

 

[Air]

Retail is horrible. I worked at Victoria's Secret for about 2/3 years and aside from some of the cool people I met, everything else was horrible.

 

[Dastardly Jerks]

It's a rite of passage IMHO... every kid needs to work restaurant or retail once in their lives to appreciate the service industry and the value of money.

And not only that, but to learn how to be a good customer.

If you've never worked in customer service at all in any part of your life, you end up being a shit customer who doesn't know how to be respectful to staff.

If you've worked in customer service before and are still awful to staff... Well then... You'd just be a shit person in general then, wouldn't ya?

 

[Torokil]

I've previously worked in fast food and retail and I'd rather spend the rest of my life locked in a retail store than one shift in a fast food kitchen ever again.

 

[kris.]

i worked at bed bath & beyond for a few months when i was 20 and honestly it was a pretty decent job. sure there were aspects that sucked and customers were sometimes kinda shitty but eh, compared to the work i did after (recycling toner cartridges in a shitty hot warehouse for 10 hours a day), it was a great.

 

[Sober]

Let me give you some examples of things I witnessed working at a single Wal-Mart store:

• Overnight manager wrote up a clerk for working too slow. She was on light duties at the time.
• Employees fill out an annual, anonymous survey on the quality of their store manager. Entire store was asked to take the survey again because the results were so overwhelmingly negative, they thought it was a joke. It wasn't.
• Another overnight manager stood behind every night crew clerk, watched them take said survey and made them choose all positive responses the second time around.
• Department managers are full time, hourly employees, subject to getting their hours cut. All full-time employees were working 28 hours a week for a few months.
• Cosmetics manager (full time, non-salary worker) was written up for refusing to work during her unpaid lunch break, after she had punched out for said break.
• Every employee was scheduled a time to take their lunch break during their shift. This was enforced regularly. When two neighbouring departments took their lunch breaks at the same time, the on-duty manager attempted to get them to leave to help them do something. When they refused, the manager stood in the lunch room and waited for them to finish their break.
• Night crew members are given a quota of how many skids of merchandise they should be stocking during their shift. Managers would frequently lie about workers not fulfilling this quota to write them up (fuck you Britney, glad you got fired, you fucking bimbo)

Then you've got entitled customers who demand things their way because "THIS IS WALMART!" as if Walmart doesn't have their own policies and standards in place. Employees are expected to work like dogs by their superiors, taking abuse from horrendous excuses for human beings, for money that is less than liveable.

Yeah, Walmart is pretty great.

Yeah I bailed out of Walmart 1 week in. You can probably skate by if you land in a large enough department where you can usually keep to yourself, but if not you are kinda screwed.

I applied for a position not knowing what it was and it was to basically drag the carts back into the store. The problem is like everyone kept quitting that job because it was complete shit, so there was no one to train you and the managers above me in that department didn't really give a shit either, which meant you'd be doing the job solo (an entire store's worth of goddamn carts) with not even one other person to commiserate with, during a back-breaking physical task, sometimes in extreme weather. At one point they had someone from maintenance who was on special/light work from an injury helping me even when he shouldn't. Should've called the stores' ass back to HR but I was tired every night that week.

Also retail is harder if you work at like a pharmacy/retail store like CVS, Shoppers Drug Mart because they aren't huge enough like a big box store, they'll almost always (from my experience) run really lean on staff. Like during the evening shifts it's basically just 5 or 6 people vs a dozen or more during the morning hours. And when you run really short and people either start getting sick or taking days off or leaving it gets fucking annoying getting called in to try to cover all the missing shifts that suddenly pop up.

That plus I have the shitty task of being a supervisor which means I have to babysit my staff (which are generally cool) and getting tugged in 50 different directions during my shift while the managers basically sit in the back to leave me to run the minute-to-minute of the store while they just sit in the office and do orders for an hour and then go internet surfing. I basically get paid as much as the people I supervise while also being the one that managers will blame if something goes wrong during my shift.

 

[bjork]

Ah, the second-hand memories we all got from that anime shop. I remember it fondly.
I hope you noted those down, since that could make a great ebook to sell on Amazon. But I think I suggested that before already.

Still got em. Just haven't done much with em. Maybe one day.

 

[HyperCubed4]

Yeah I bailed out of Walmart 1 week in. You can probably skate by if you land in a large enough department where you can usually keep to yourself, but if not you are kinda screwed.

I applied for a position not knowing what it was and it was to basically drag the carts back into the store. The problem is like everyone kept quitting that job because it was complete shit, so there was no one to train you and the managers above me in that department didn't really give a shit either, which meant you'd be doing the job solo (an entire store's worth of goddamn carts) with not even one other person to commiserate with, during a back-breaking physical task, sometimes in extreme weather. At one point they had someone from maintenance who was on special/light work from an injury helping me even when he shouldn't. Should've called the stores' ass back to HR but I was tired every night that week.

Also retail is harder if you work at like a pharmacy/retail store like CVS, Shoppers Drug Mart because they aren't huge enough like a big box store, they'll almost always (from my experience) run really lean on staff. Like during the evening shifts it's basically just 5 or 6 people vs a dozen or more during the morning hours. And when you run really short and people either start getting sick or taking days off or leaving it gets fucking annoying getting called in to try to cover all the missing shifts that suddenly pop up.

That plus I have the shitty task of being a supervisor which means I have to babysit my staff (which are generally cool) and getting tugged in 50 different directions during my shift while the managers basically sit in the back to leave me to run the minute-to-minute of the store while they just sit in the office and do orders for an hour and then go internet surfing. I basically get paid as much as the people I supervise while also being the one that managers will blame if something goes wrong during my shift.

I know people who work at Shoppers and they hate it for exactly the reasons you described. I can't tell you how many times I've had them tell me they got called in on their day off because somebody called in sick. Ludicrous.

I was a department manager for about a month and a half, but at least the staff were competent. I can't imagine being in a situation of authority and having everyone else be... borderline useless.

 

[Prez]

I work in optical retail but it's alright actually, I'm very sure that nearly every other retail job is many times worse. It's far from my dream job but it's very low stress with little pressure to sell. I'd like to do something else but I can't think of any other full-time job you get home from and still have lots of energy for hobbies.