Working in the retail and customer service industry is not for the faint of heart. One minute you're helping a sweet old lady find the perfect pair of shoes; the next, you're dealing with a Karen who's demanding to speak to the manager. And returns are a whole other adventure. It's like some people think the store is their personal rental service. Despite the challenges, there's nothing quite like the satisfaction of helping someone find exactly what they're looking for...or maybe it's just...

Some people have never considered that they can go for a shopping trip without bothering the employees. It's never crossed their mind that they could go grocery shopping without telling a teenage employee that the fruit “was better last week." This is the person who whines to a clothing store employee that the fabric seems cheap. Some customers get a thrill out of whining about unimportant, and sometimes unsolvable, first-world problems.

In retail, the number of customers who are convinced they know better than you is endless… Better than you when it comes to the products, better than you in terms of your store's policies, and better than you when it comes to the legalities under which you're trading. Having access to all the information with little understanding has emboldened people into thinking that they're experts after a few Google searches, even on impressively technical subjects. Of course, the rehearsed script often ru…

Dodgy off-book leave policies are something that you just come to expect after a while of working in the restaurant or retail world. From the first time you go to book leave and are met with the strong insinuation that maybe you shouldn't be taking any leave at all, giving you reasons of being too busy or too understaffed to possibly afford to be a “man down," you're going to be feeling that old resigned feeling of knowing that this is going to be that kind of place. The reality is that you're…

No one loves to admit they are at fault when they make a mistake. It's an uncomfortable feeling, and if the mistake costs money, that is even worse. But, as we are all adults, sometimes you have to own up to your mistakes and pay for what you caused. Not this customer though, he absolutely refused to admit to the damage he caused. In this Reddit story, two customers approached a car wash employee and accused the car wash of causing their cars to crash into each other. The employee, who had to d…

Let's get the record straight on this issue. If a store's closing time is at 7:00 pm, the employees can stop accepting customers no earlier than 6:50 pm. Even if there are annoying customers that come in 15 minutes before you close, and take their sweet time, you have to be loyal to the closing time that is known to the public. You can't just decide to close 30 minutes earlier just because you feel like it. Much like what the employee in this Reddit story did. A customer came into the store wit…

Retail is brutal for a number of reasons, but one of the worst is the fact that you get absolutely no respect from the public whom you're servicing. This is clearly evidenced by the audacity and sheer entitlement they feel in being able to bark orders at you and admonish you for “slacking” as if they're your boss. The thing is, when they're at their own job, they probably browse Reddit and spend ample time gossiping with their own coworkers but for some reason, these sorts of customers seem to…

It might be safe to say that we are slowly approaching a time when people no longer use cash. Not to say that cash will ever disappear, that is not going to happen, but with the ability to pay with debit cards, credit cards, smartphones, and even smart watches, people simply don't carry cash with them anymore. The slow disappearance of cash from our lives shouldn't and probably wouldn't affect our everyday life that much, but it can cause some inconveniences to some people, or more specifically…

Every customer should remind themselves when they go into any type of store, that the employees are there for a reason. They have had training, they probably have been working there for a while, and you are not the first customer walking in. The bottom line is, they know what they're doing. So if you, a customer, come in and ask for a product and an employee tells you that they don't have it, chances are, they don't have it. Calling the employee names or asking to see the manager, will not chan…

Retail is like the Wild West: it's vast and untamed. And who needs to maintain composure in the midst of such mayhem, in your humble opinion? That's the customer service agent, of course. The story that follows is from a disappointed sales department employee. The Original Poster (OP) holds a job at a small business located in the neighborhood shopping center. The business has had to deal with an increase in theft lately. Unfortunately, due to the shopping center's numerous rules and restrictio…

At certain times in your life—particularly when things have gone sideways—it's important to take ownership of the fact that your own actions and decisions are the things that got you there. Unfortunately, most of us struggle with this and, as a matter of self-preservation, will seek to displace blame towards anyone or anything that we can point a finger at. Sometimes, this displacement is plausible, reasonable even, but at other times, it can get unreasonably ridiculous… Tell me again, Carl, ab…

If there's one person you don't want to mess with, it's an EMT who has just finished their shift… EMTs are some of the hardest working individuals with a job that necessitates sleep deprivation, self-sacrifice, and trauma that reaches far, far above their pay grade. Even a shift for them that is “not bad” would be enough to send the rest of us looking for another line of work. While they're some of the nicest people, every EMT I've ever known personally gets through their job by being partially…

It's nearly impossible to stay up to date with technology. The rate at which the world changes is almost unfathomable. However, what happens if you deliberately select outdated technology to guarantee a smooth transition, only to be left with a dysfunctional device? The story that follows tells the account of a son who purchases a flip phone for his elderly father. OP chooses an easy-to-manage cellphone for his father, who can no longer keep up with the rapid advancements in technology. However…

Did you ever break something in a store and the employees demanded that you pay for it? There used to be a time when every store had those big 'You break it, you buy it' signs, and it was terrifying trying to walk through the aisles without touching anything in fear it would break. I never broke something in a store and then had to pay for it, which makes me wonder if those stores actually enforce this rule or if they simply pity whoever broke an item and just let it go. This post office worker…

Hierarchy is the cornerstone of the business world. There will always be subordinates and superiors in the organization based on seniority and experience. But what would happen if you were caught in the middle of an argument, or perhaps a more accurate description, an ego clash, between two of your managers? Well, the story below is an account of a dissatisfied store salesperson. OP has worked at a single shop for the past six months. Six months is a century in the retail industry, particularly…

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.