for all those who have ever worked retail...or haven't

[RickwithaTbird]

As long as you know your shit you will always have something to say back to the asshole customer. Be confident in your knowledge. I think managers are pussies usually.

When I worked at Sports Authority for 5 months I sold shoes. Do you know how pissed off people get about shoes? Wow. And then they all want a damn custom order. So I always had to go to the back of the huge store and make like 5 phone calls to different stores around the country and ask if they had a product, then once I found one I had to get the persons address and do a manual copy of their credit card, and fill out a report. Then my managers got mad because shit got stolen since nobody was watching footwear. Then customers got mad because they couldn't get any help and the shoes were out of order, or I didnt have their size and couldn't get it for them, theres no more in the back, they got mad because my name was Rick, and they didn't like my shoes, they were mad because I was born in the first place, all over some damn 39 dollar convereses. Fuck... I hated retail, but it was so fun because of the people I worked with. But it sucked when we were busy, or if I worked alone. Which was like 80 percent of the time.

[xokayxo]

wow. someone had a traumatic working experience. bummer.

[LancerZero]

I think that humanity as a whole would be improved if everyone, and I mean everyone, were required to work in retail or fast food for a fixed period of time. It'd be like joining the Army when you turn 18, except that it'd be for a two-year stint instead of four, and it'd be required. I think that it might give some people a better perspective of how much other people can suck, and be inconsiderate - and enlighten them as to how nice it can be to have a polite or helpful customer when you're having a rough day. The idea would be to make people be more considerate, to be the sort of person that workers like to have shopping at their store - but then, it might just make them hate all of humanity for ever and ever and turn their closet into a war room for their secret plan to take over the world.

You know, it's actually quite retarded . . . someone works at a minimum-wage job, thinks it's stupid and takes no pride in their work, goes nowhere, and is surprised and angry to find that they don't end up going anywhere and are still working for minimum wage years later. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right. I take pride in my work, even if I think the job's worthless. Eventually, someone notices. True, my job at Big Lots doesn't bring in "da hi-dolla", but in the 2 and a half years I've worked there I've gone from just stocking the shelves to also being the only male non-manager cashier, the only male non-manager customer service desk person, and they're training me to be a bookkeeper due to my attention to detail. I could just piddle around, and get by - I'm in college, and I'm not going to be working retail for the rest of my life or anything, so I don't have to do well in it or anything - but I've worked hard, and everytime I've been up for review, I've gotten a 10% raise.

Yeah, I know. Whoop-dee-doo, I've gone from making $6 an hour to now making $7 an hour. But it's almost always little steps, and consistently rising, even in a low-dollar work environment, shows you're not a totally lazy ass when you graduate college and look for a better job.

On a minor rant . . . Big Lots is a closeout store. Another store goes out of business and doesn't sell all their stuff before they close down, the BL suits buy the stuff and distribute it. A Target or Wal-Mart buys more of a product than they can sell, the BL suits buy the extra. Reconditioned stuff gets bought. Stuff with typos on the label that they didn't want to sell elsewhere gets bought. That sort of thing. What it means is that we can't order stuff, and can't count on having a certain item in, say, a week or two. So customers get mad when we don't have something some friend of theirs thinks they saw a few months ago.

That $0.20? Yup, I've seen people go and get all cheesed off over that much. Less, in some cases. Or they'll get all pissed off because we can't just pop the change drawer and give them a roll or two of quarters. It's like, "Sorry, ma'am, but we're not a bank." Stinkin' bank charges extra for change delivery, and we can't just give change out because then the registers run dry. And ooooohh, that really makes people mad (I know, because it's happened before). The sheer pettiness of people is absolutely amazing. I've slowly and regretfully come to the conclusion that World War III will start as a civil war, between the stale-french-bread-wielding rebels, the rotten-cabbage-throwing nationalists, and the environmentalists who will simply poke people with fully certified organic soy noodles.

. . .

. . .

No, it wasn't supposed to make sense. There was once a lady with a very legitimate complaint, though. She pulled up in her shiny new Avalon (I was out getting our carts), and asked me a question. I saw something in the corner of my eye and called out a warning, but it was too late. One of our metal shopping carts had come downhill (ah, the nastiness of a sloped parking lot) and smacked her new car solidly on the passenger door, giving it a nice dent. She asked if she could sue for that, and I calmly pointed to the sign behind me that said Big Lots couldn't be held liable for loose carts . . . I don't think she ever came back. I've got four dents in my passenger door from one (yeah, ONE) cart that went downhill. Sucks. I parked as far uphill as I could after that - less space for the carts to gain speed.

[/rant]

Okay, I feel better now.

[King Of Crunk]

i think you dudes are more knowledgable about retail than cars! lol