When working in retail, every day is a little bit different. While employees learn the technicalities of the workplace, such as floor sets, merchandising, and how to process transactions, retail can teach you so much more.
1. Kids are weird and annoying. I know we were all kids at one point, but I don't remember doing half the things I see kids doing in stores. I remember hiding in racks; that seemed pretty normal. However, I've seen everything from kids picking up the size clips from hangers off the floor and throwing them in the air screaming, "It's raining," to kids licking windows and mirrors. The little humans also like to pick sale signs out of holders and throw them on the floor, stand in your way, kick balls at employees, and scream their heads off over anything and everything. I'm not sure what their parents allow them to do in private seeing how they act in stores, but I can imagine that it only gets worse.
2. Checking in the back is actually a mini-break. When a customer asks you for another size or color or shows you an item from online, 99% of the time it follows with, "Well can you check in the back?" Most employees know what's in the back and what isn't but don't think we don't use this opportunity to go in the back and grab a few chips, some water, or talk with other co-workers. Sure we'll check in the back for you, but don't get upset when it takes longer than two minutes.
3. Holidays are dreadful.
Unless you're one of the few that gets the holiday off, giving up, your shift is the only way to avoid working on holidays. We work crazy hours through the holiday season anyways; adding Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Christmas Eve into the mix just makes holidays not so enjoyable. The best part about working holidays? How many times we hear, "You're working on Thanksgiving? Oh my gosh I feel so sorry for you." I promise it takes everything inside us to not say, "If you weren't in here I wouldn't be either."
4. Closing time isn't closing. Some retail places are small and don't take very long to close down. However, when you work at department stores and other large clothing retailers, closing time simply means no more customers let in. Even after closing time, we have to wait until all the customers are finished shopping to "close." Most clothing stores have employees still in the store for an hour or even more trying to refold and hang the clothes and put everything back in its place from that day. Contrary to popular belief, magical elves don't appear and refold things every night.
5. Customers "calling corporate" means very little. Customers like to believe in situations that when they're wrong or something didn't go their way that threatening employees makes it better. Little do they know, if they actually do call corporate, they're going to sit through robotic menus and be on hold longer than they want. If they're really upset they'll wait to talk to someone, but even then they'll probably get an apology for a bad experience and a coupon. It's very rare in the retail world that we get called by corporate asking us about the situation, etc.
6. Nobody seems to understand how business works.
Whether it's "this shirt is beside the one on sale so can I get it for the same price?" or "you g*uys need more people here working," I've quickly realized that a lot of customers don't work in the business industry. Customers seem to believe that us retailers are simply meant to cater to their every need. I promise us employees have no control over any of the things you're yelling at us about. We just work here.
7. Time is always against you. On lunch breaks, time goes by too fast. During shifts, it goes too slow. You find yourself having not enough time before or after shifts for anything. Sometimes you don't get off as scheduled whether it's 20 minutes late or 4 hours late. At some point while working retail, you realize time is never on your side.
8. Name tags mean nothing. If there's one question that always makes me question customers it's: "Do you work here?" The part that gets me the most is when customers watch me folding a table, read my name tag, and then ask me if I work here. Sometimes us retail workers are tempted to say no and keep working, but hey, that's frowned upon.
9. Store music is actually horrid.
Customers don't really pay much attention to the music playing in stores. However, the employees hear the same songs day in and day out. Once you hear them, you can't forget the words or the beat, and they're usually stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Most of the time the music playing is music that the company didn't have to pay much money for, so you know, it's not today's hottest hits. One of the worst songs I've heard at Old Navy was a song that just repeats "Let's go to David's house" for three minutes. Then there's five different versions of "Santa Baby" during the holidays, and a song about sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.
10. People will try anything. Customers will try to get almost anything to go their way. Between making up imaginary coupons they left at home to claiming we damaged an item they bought, there's nothing a customer won't try. I've had customers bring in shorts with cigarette burns in them and say that they didn't do it, and I've had customers saying another employee told them they could have an item for x-amount but they don't remember which employee.
