Having a retail job is a great experience for teens, young adults, and adults of all ages. Many, many lessons can be learned from working retail and customer service. Having a job in retail usually means working long, exhausting hours doing the same monotonous things over and over. Many life lessons can be learned and great friendships can be formed, too. The people that I have met in my retail ‘career,’ as I will call it, have made a huge impact on my life. We have been through a lot together: bad employees, bad managers, rude customers, and long shifts. Although you may learn many different skills while working retail, there are many things that retail workers go through that anyone who hasn’t worked retail just wouldn’t understand. So this article goes out to all of the retail workers that I know (and all of you that I don’t), I appreciate you and everything that you go through daily.
Random thoughts about retail:
1. Customers are waiting at the door half an hour before the store opens.
Store hours are posted at the front of almost every store I have ever seen in my life. But still, customers are super eager to get inside and shop, shop, shop! Some customers get pretty upset that the doors aren’t unlocked super early too. Sorry, we don’t have payroll.
2. Boob money.
Please for the love of all things holy -- do not hand me money out of your boobs. If you must store your money there (for whatever reason), the least you can do is take it out of your breast area before you arrive at my register.
3. Returns.
Each day in retail is full of doing returns. Returns can sometimes be quick interactions, but sometimes not too. Not every store can look up a return from the card that you paid with, and it is not the associate’s fault. Oddly enough, the associate actually has nothing to do with the register system at all! Weird. Also, the return policy is printed on the bottom of the receipt (which the associate again has nothing to do with), so no we cannot accept your return from three years ago without the tags attached.
4. Paying with cash/coins.
Paying with cash is totally cool and obviously accepted. Ask any cashier what the biggest pet peeve about a customer paying with cash is (besides boob money). Most would probably say that customers lay their coin change (quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies) out on the counter instead of laying them in the associate’s outstretched hand. I’m sorry, but this is the most inconsiderate thing a customer can do. We don’t stretch our hands out for high fives, it’s actually for you to hand us your change like a decent human being.
Side Note: I once broke a piece of my counter because I over-exaggeratedly leaned across the counter to slide each coin off of the counter. The customer still did not care. Whoops.
5. Breaks.
It never fails that when the time finally comes for your break, a customer stops you and asks you a question. Most of the time, it takes like five extra minutes to answer the question and finally head to break again. And all retail workers know that a break doesn’t technically start until you have gotten your phone and snack out of your locker and got seated comfortably in the break-room.
6. Managers.
We’ve all had a manager that when you see their car in the parking lot you want to run your car into a tree. Okay, maybe not so drastic, but sort of. And on the other hand, we’ve all had a manager that is super cool and we look forward to working with. The hardest thing about having super opposite managers is not knowing expectations from one to the next. Some managers are even above and beyond managers who really make a difference in workers’ lives. I have had two of these, and you know exactly who you are. This is such a great feeling -- not only does a manager have expectations for you inside of the workplace, but they care about your life outside of work and actually want you to be happy.
7. Co-workers.
I have made such great friendships with a lot of my co-workers. I have also had some not so great co-workers. I understand that a job is a job, but dude it isn’t that hard. Cashiering and keeping a sales floor cleaned up isn’t super tough. Work friends are the best friends. You go through a bunch of work crap and drama together (yippee).
8. Newbies & Training.
I'm not even going to write anything here.
9. Long shifts.
Me: “I work 9:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.”
Manager: “Oh, you want to work 9:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m. since you’re already here?”
That pretty much explains it all. Sometimes we get scheduled a silly four-hour shift, and other days our four-hour shift get extended to a 10 or 12-hour shift. Retail workers are used to working early mornings, late nights, and often times holidays.
10. Rude customers.
Sometimes the store is a mess. Sometimes a garment has a hole in it. Sometimes an associate is having a bad day. Sometimes the bathroom just stinks. Any of the aforementioned items can cause a really upset customer that will not be happy regardless of any solution that is offered to them (unless they get free stuff, ha). Shouting, pouting, and smirking can often accompany an unhappy customer.
11. “Must be free”
Anything that doesn’t scan properly or doesn’t have a tag “must be free”, right?
I think I will end there. I hope this article brought my fellow retail workers laughter and happiness. I hope the list was relative to you, and if it was, I’ll be praying for you. Thanks for working retail and dealing with these retail norms every day.
P.S. Working retail is really not that bad. It just has a lots of ins and outs. Retail is different than working the food industry, sales industry, computer industry, everything. Retail is just a different world. A good, fun and sometimes exhausting world, but, I wouldn’t change working retail for the world.
