It has only been a couple weeks since I began working in retail and already I find myself seeking anger management. I’ve never realized how frustrating customers can be and I wonder if I was ever that customer that makes a sales associate want to bash their head into a wall. Not to say that all customers are demon spawns but...the majority I have met are definitely so.
The first, most mind-boggling question is when someone walks into a store and here I am in my bright red uniform with the store’s logo stamped right on it, AND I’m stocking things on shelves. But you still feel the need to ask me if I work here. Because you are justified in that I could just be wasting my time in a store pretending like I work there with my uniform that I copped from Goodwill, so go ahead ask away. Going from that, when you come up to me and ask if we carry a certain product, do me a favor and I don’t know, maybe, if it’s in your intellectual power, tell me THE NAME OF THE PRODUCT. Please for the love of sweet baby Jesus, do NOT come up to me describing a product: “It’s yellow, shaped like a chicken leg, weighs about as much as two ceramic plates,” and expect me to be able to help you at all. I’m going to have to escort you quietly to the door so you can reevaluate your decisions.
However, let’s say we do find your product and you are unhappy with the price. What I NEED for you to understand fellow consumer is that I am not the corporation, therefore I don’t have even the slightest power to change the price, so you trying to negotiate with me is going to result in me giving you a very forced smile that implies where I think you should go shove it. Don’t yell at me if you cannot afford something, I am working minimum wage in an office supply store, if anyone should be yelling it should be me. When I tell you that we unfortunately do not carry a product, don’t look at me like I just told you that the Illuminati is involved with all the celebrity deaths of 2016- as an employee I cannot tell you to try another store. But with that being said, I’m telling you to probably try another store, I am deeply sorry all your needs were not met at this very moment- what a privileged life you must live always getting what you want when you want it.
Even with all the bullshit I go through, I really do enjoy helping people out. With those few diamonds in the rocks that are pleasant, easy going, and make you feel important for just those couple minutes that you help them, I guess retail isn’t at all that bad. But I mean I am trying to get another job nevertheless.
