What do you do when your manager is a thieving fraudster, and their boss refuses to listen because, on paper, your manager is getting good results? This is something you'll likely come across during the long course of your career, and you might be dismayed to find yourself powerless in the position. Heck, most bosses will be willing to look the other way for someone who is performing high in whatever KPI upper management is currently prioritizing… Just as long as things look good and people are…

Specialists exist for a reason. For this retail worker , jewelry is their career. They're a diamond specialist who works at a privately owned business. Even though they have impressive expertise at their job, there are always customers who think they know better than a trained professional. Something customers don't seem to realize is that expertise matters. As a customer, you go to see someone who's spent 10,000 hours learning a trade because they have knowledge that you require. That's the wh…

When working retail and customer service, you're playing a constant tug-of-war with customers over policy, laws, and even the simple ethics of trading—and it's not uncommon to have someone standing in front of you passionately quoting some piece of slightly relevant legislation their aunt's friend told them about, with flecks of spittle flying in all directions. The only problem is that they clearly don't fully comprehend the trading act that they're quoting, but there's no way they're going to…

When customers demand help , they want to be helped immediately. And instead of listening when workers actually try to help them, they seem to shut off their ears, and end up throwing a tantrum instead. Cashiers don't get the respect they deserve, and lots of customers are very rude to them on the daily. U/NiftyGoblin had a strange story to tell, which they shared to r/TalesFromRetail, a subreddit for retail workers to share the realities of life behind the cash register. This OP was just tryin…

Working in any kind of customer service, you're constantly exposed to the worst sorts of people. When you're still fresh and green into a customer service job, you approach it with a certain sense of optimism, telling yourself and anyone who asks how excited you are to help people and make a difference in their life with your incredible service. With bright eyes, you look around you, wondering why your seasoned coworkers are so haggard and embittered, approaching the day with a thousand-yard st…

Don't judge a book by its cover. In fact, don't judge a book at all—especially if you've never seen a book before and don't really understand what a book is. Sure, you've seen rectangular-shaped objects in the past, but if your single-celled existence hasn't even begun to understand what the term “reading comprehension” means, then you have no business giving us reviews on books. That's essentially what this Karen was doing when she demanded to speak to a man about her paint, having reached the…

There's nothing more satisfying than a story about an entitled person getting their just deserts. This Reddit user, u/SimMinnie, shared their story of exactly this to Reddit's r/EntitledPeople subreddit community. This one certainly ticks all the boxes. u/SimMinnie explains that the story took place when they were working as a supermarket cashier. Which, like any customer service position, puts you straight in the firing line of an entitled Karen. They go on to explain that things could get ext…

You really shouldn't say something that you don't mean that could cause an outcome that you don't want to someone who will happily oblige you. Retailers love to set rules and swear by them as if they had been written in stone since the dawn of time—and definitely not something they made up 15 minutes ago. These rules will blatantly disadvantage workers and be strictly enforced to the point where there is no nuance for grey-area scenarios. After all, being able to predict extremely obvious gray…

Leading from the front is important for any leader—you need to walk the walk that you talk… but when it comes to sales and commission, you don't want to be competing with your own team to make the wage that you should be earning anyways for managing the business. Anyone who has ever worked in a retail environment that heavily prioritizes sales probably has encountered the subject matter of this post. For those who have never worked on a sales floor for commission, if the environment isn't manag…

What should you do with your delicious dessert waffle when you're done chowing down on it in the nostalgic comforts of a mall food court? Dispose of your waste and neatly stack your tray in the holder on top of the trash can? No. If you're this Karen, you're taking it to the nearest clothing store and demanding that the workers there dispose of it for you—under firm threat of having smashed waffles and ice cream all over the floor and clothes. Hey, at least it's not as bad as cleaning out the c…

It should be understood, at this point, that straying into a store with a uniform consisting solely of a specifically colored shirt—whilst wearing that same color of shirt—is a risky move. It should also be understood that even wearing a similar color shirt is likely to attract every Karen and disgruntled manager within a 100-meter radius. If you choose to do this, you do so at your own peril, but at least you can write a story about it later to share online. This guy happened to stray into a l…

Unnecessary rules and processes must be followed to the letter—because some manager who has never actually done the job decided it must be so. As long as they only waste your time, they'll remain in place indefinitely as you're hounded mercilessly about the resulting drop in productivity (thanks to these new processes.) However, as soon as these processes infringe upon the time of the manager who made them, it's miraculous how quickly they can disappear, which means the easiest way to get rid o…

This customer wasn't happy about the service she had received or the price she had been charged—especially surprising considering she had been given a discount. She thought she could even get against the shop for the perceived slight against her and decided to execute a ‘malicious compliance’ by paying her repair bill entirely in pennies. She failed to calculate the fact that the owner might be happy to oblige her preferred method of payment—simply to watch her have to haul in sacks and sacks o…

This is precisely the type of thing you encounter while working in a bike shop. Of all the customer service roles you could ever work, working in a bike shop will confront you with some uniquely bewilderingly entitled experiences. The idea of “you haven't done enough for me for free” will somehow recur time and time again as 1-star reviews bombard you for going out of your way to help someone who doesn't understand how much they don't understand about their bike. Bonus points here for being bla…

You can't have your cake and eat it too—and the people who work for you are people, not cake. I don't really know exactly how to unpack that statement further… but let's just say that you shouldn't be surprised when your workers want greater compensation in exchange for the increased responsibility you've been giving them. If they're doing the job of a manager already, make them a bloody manager. The amount of hoops that retailers want their employees to jump through in order to achieve a promo…

There are glorious times in customer service when doing what the customer has asked necessitates doing technically nothing. It's a rare occurrence but oh-so-good when it happens to chance upon you. When this worker promised to give an angry Karen a refund, they did so by promising to refund the amount that it would cost them to park on the street: Nothing. This left the Karen happy to go merrily on their way, and with the problem now out of sight and out of mind, she was never the wiser. It's g…