Working retail is a hectic and endless stream of customer interactions that balance on a knife's edge, with any one of them threatening to teeter off into a full-blown customer meltdown with possibly little to no cause. It's a way of living that leaves you emotionally drained and completely exasperated, while weekends end up giving you just enough time to self-isolate and prepare for your next shift. Meanwhile, despite claiming to have the customer's best interest at heart, upper management mak…

Many a misguided middle manager has had the idea of hosting meetings at a time that is convenient for everyone: say during lunch hour when everyone is on break, so won't have any meetings scheduled… except that break is unpaid and, well, when are people supposed to eat their actual lunch when there's suddenly a meeting jammed in there. No matter how fun they try to make it sound, “zazzing” it up and naming it something they think is cool, like “Power Hour Lunch Sync,” the reality remains the sa…

Never judge a book by its cover

Remember the days before the self-checkout line? These days, you can do self-checkout at maybe half of the places you shop . When you go to a drug store for some shampoo and cleaning supplies, you can expect to ring that up and bag it yourself. At some grocery stores, they want you to scan and bag all your own purchases, not to mention weigh your fruits and veggies and type in the right code for them. It's an irritating thing to some people, but for those who hate waiting in line, a self-checko…

Requesting time off from work is kind of a weird ritual. While you're technically “asking” for time off, that time is, is usually less of a “want” and more of a “need”—even though your employer will treat it like the former. It's not as if you can ask your cousin to reschedule their wedding just for you or your entire family to reschedule their family reunion. Still, lots of businesses have periods of high trade where they're exceedingly strict about granting any time off—or there during holida…

There's drama at the designer purse store ! Fashion trends are constantly changing. What's popular right now will be so off-trend in three years. In ten years, it might be fashionable again! That's why a lot of people like to avoid all that hoopla and buy something timeless. Many designer companies like to tout that their bags and clothes are timeless pieces that are well crafted, and they're happy to ask their customers to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for that designer merchandis…

Some customers literally cannot wait to get their hands on the next big product release. For a certain type of consumer, having the newest tech or best-selling book or new clothing line drop is absolutely essential. When it comes to electronics, why not wait a few months to let people review the product and make sure it actually works well? For other products, however, it does make sense to try to get it as fast as possible. If you lived through the original “Harry Potter” craze of the early 20…

It's never simple to work in the service sector. However, working in the service industry under incompetent managers' oversight and without the ability to take breaks is even worse. An employee's explanation of their frustration is provided below. The original poster (OP) is the manager of the local auto parts store. Unless someone else has been appointed to take their place, managers are not permitted to leave the store or take a lunch break. When his supervisors began requesting that he work…

Providing customer service is never an easy task for a number of reasons. The hardest part is the fact that you cannot predict who you'll run into or what type of attitude they're going to have. The story below is an account of a frustrated employee. The original poster (OP), who is employed in retail, was hit with threats over a $1.63 charge. But rather than standing with OP and protecting the worker from the enraged client, management decided to stick by the client and reprimand OP for suppos…

Ahh, retail… a fine industry where middle manglement regularly tries to shove a dirt sandwich down your throat while whispering sweetly to you it's actually honey. The story shared in this post is a tale as old as time in retail, where management will happily tell you with a smile that the company's official policy is that the customer comes first… but that the unofficial policy is that making sure staff never claim or report overtime also comes first. So, then, what happens when you're working…

Navigating your way through a crowded store is one of those experiences you won't soon forget, squeezing through cramped aisles between situationally unaware strangers who have made it their prerogative to move as erratically as possible. To make matters worse, you always seem to be in a hurry when this happens, and you need to get in and out as fast as possible while everyone else is moving like the walking dead. As whenever queueing—or any basic social order and decorum—is expected there's al…

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…