If you want to receive, you must ask… nicely. That's especially true if the person you're asking a question to happens to work in retail ! The retail workers of the world spend a lot of time helping customers and answering their questions. At lost of jobs, workers quickly realize that customers ask the same two or three questions all day long, like asking where a specific section is, or asking about the same sales. But sometimes customers throw a question at you that you're not expecting. Then…

Have you ever done a deep cleaning of your house and discovered silly oddities and funny trinkets that you imagined were long gone? Crusted with dust and buried in the forlorn corners of our homes, there are hidden treasures from decades past that are revealed when we take a moment to clean up our space. Like the moment you uncrumble a $20 bill in your winter coat, there's no better feeling than finding your own precious valuables squirreled away in the clutter.

We'd all like to think that we have something to offer to this world. If we didn't, what would be the point? While this is kind of a baited question, the easy answer is that there's more to life than your monetizable value, despite what society might otherwise try and tell you... So, go outside and smell a flower, for gosh sake, and stop overcomplicating a life that is already overcomplicated enough. Still, because of our obsession with our own value and the value of things in our possession, i…

One would think that if an employee were to go so far as to record themselves getting fired, they would very much be in the right. In fact, one would think that the purpose of recording the meeting at all would be to gather evidence proving that there was no wrongdoing on the park of the employee. However, every so often here at FAIL Blog, we come across a dramatic workplace situation like this one , in which an employee may think they are in the right, but upon looking at the evidence, it beco…

Two basic rules are taught to us when we work in customer service. First of all, we should never presume that consumers will read the small print at the bottom of our signage. The second universal guideline is to never, ever concede that you are correct and the client is mistaken. The story below is an account of a frustrated arts and crafts store manager. OP has been managing the store for a while, and quite frankly, presumably has encountered an endless amount of difficult customers. However,…

These workers have to follow all of their employers' rules , whether they agree with them or not. For many people, moving is a stressful process from start to finish. As you pack up all your belongings in the space of a few weeks, you start going crazy looking for things you've already packed. At the same time, you're worried you won't be able to pack everything in time for the move! Once everything is safely secured in layers of bubble wrap, it's time for movers to take your belongings. In wha…

Some like to complain, while others take pleasure in solving problems. However, for a strange reason, we always encounter the 50% of the population who get their kicks from criticizing and complaining about those around them. The account that follows is the story of an innocent bystander who was the target of an irate customer who was attempting to mail an item through the postal office. At this point, you probably think this is just another typical event. Unfortunately, it probably is. But thi…

When booking a hotel room, one typically has the expectation of privacy—that's actually kind of the whole point. You're paying a premium for the accommodating service and so that you have your “own” room for the duration of your stay—rather than booking a hostel or an Airbnb in someone else's home, where you'd get to hear a German tourist strum their acoustic guitar until early hours of the morning.

Depending on how long you have been impatiently awaiting support, customer service can truly seem like a never-ending nightmare. The person we are chatting with half the time has no idea who we are, why we are calling, or even if they have the authority to tackle the issue we are experiencing. The story that follows is an account of a clever customer who is tired of being inconvenienced by customer service representatives. To put things in perspective, OP is a business owner who decided to relo…

We should all strive to leave the world a better place than we entered it—unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be a very high priority on a lot of people's to-do lists. There are quite a few people who seek to selfishly maximize their own position without a care for anyone else or a regard for the effects of their reckless need for self-aggrandizement and wanton urge for wealth and power.

You might not expect a grown adult to lose their marbles over a 69-cent cup of the ranch, but when it comes to entitled people and paying petty amounts of cash, you can always expect there to be an issue.

After working in customer service, there are some experiences that will stick with you long after. These experiences will mostly be the exceptional ones that stand out even from every other bizarre daily interaction.

Even if your work, knowledge, and contributions make you irreplaceable in your organization, your employer is never going to admit it. For one thing, they probably aren't even going to be aware of it until long after you're gone. They probably think that there are dozens of people out there who can do exactly what you do. For another, if they did admit how valuable you were, they know that you'd likely want to be paid fairly for that fact—and that's just never going to happen. No, it's better t…

It's kinda sorta hard to dress too casually for a job you don't have. For one thing, it's not your job, and, for another—well, it's not your job. As long as you're wearing a shirt and shoes, you can pretty much go anywhere you'd like… Although those signs usually fail to mention any requirement for pants, so that one's up to you.

From glitter to an actual bear, it's truly shocking what hotel workers have discovered in rooms after guests leave. Not only is there a ridiculous number of folks who refuse to clean up after themselves, but also there is a startling number of guests who should at the very least alert the front desk that there has been an issue. Some of these guests may have been trying to get out of being charged extra, but in many of these cases, those extra charges are bound to come so you might as well just…

Being a retail veteran means that you're nearly immune to the tactics of wily entitled customers, hardened to the core with the scar tissue of encounters with other customers—that or just completely dead inside—but it's all the same thing, really. Even if you leave the retail industry far behind, you remember the way people can act toward retail staff long afterward and how it's almost like people become another person when they begin talking to someone they deem to be a “servant" and beneath t…