Everyone should be required to work at least six months in retail. It builds character and empathy and a real tolerance for bullshit, but once you work in retail, you never really leave. You can switch jobs or careers or countries, but I guarantee you, the unwanted experience of working in a shop or fast food place will stay with you forever, in both good ways and bad.

1. Your customary greeting

Your "hi, how are you's" will be forever ingrained in your muscle memory, so much so that even switching jobs will not help you escape from the urge to ask "do you have your membership card with you?" and "can I help you with anything else?" Beware, asking someone how they are will always sound fake to you after retail. There's just no genuine way to ask that without your brain zoning out in response like it always had to do with customers.

2. Smiling at people in stores

The other thing about customers is that they will always bring up your best fake smile. Nothing shoots down comments like "you're useless!" better than a really fake grin and an even faker apology. But even acknowledging customers in the aisle will stay with you forever. No matter what store you're at, you're always going to feel this grinding urge to gently smile or nod your head at everyone you pass in the aisle. That's why when you're working in retail, customers smell you even when you don't have your name tag on, even when you're not on duty. It's the smile.

3. Fixing merchandise on shelves

The other urge you're always going to have is to fix items that are out of place on their shelves. Whether it's straightening books in bookstores or putting things exactly where you found them in grocery stores, the instinct to clean up the area that you're shopping in is overwhelming.

4. Being nice to retail workers

It all comes back to this. Once you work in retail, your empathy towards other retail workers is unbreakable. You ask them how they are at the register, and try to fold the shirt you're looking at back into the exact, pretty way they folded it as not to add to their workload. They could curse you out or spit in your face (which they never would), and you'd still probably wish them a good day.