If you haven’t worked retail before then I would like to consider you a lucky one. Retail can offer a lot of experience—both pleasant and unpleasant. Retail can be mentally exhausting and if you work/worked retail then you know exactly what I mean. Before working retail, I loved to use the phrase, “retail therapy,” but now I can see that retail is not therapy (but it might leave you wanting therapy.)
The holidays have passed and now we can all breathe. The stress and the rush of the Black Friday deals and the pressure of finding our loved ones gifts is now over. Another year has begun and new resolutions have been made, and let’s be honest, a lot of them won’t be kept. Winter is in full swing, however, it is having a slow start with strange temperatures and nice weather. For some, the anticipation and dread of snow also brings in a new season; a season that every retail worker knows all too well: Return Season. Once the holiday season is over and all the shopping has finished, the returning can finally begin. As a retail worker, I know firsthand that next to the extended holiday hours, this time, period is not pleasant. If I had a nickel for the amount of times retail workers have heard “This was a gift,” “I overbought,” “I just don’t want this anymore,” or any combination of these phrases, I would have more money than the New York Powerball has to offer. Returns are very simple for most stores; with the receipt you get your original payment, without the receipt it’s a store credit. Sounds simple, but when you get those customers who will not accept anything but their original payment problems can begin to arise. What makes no sense to me at all is when the customer puts up such a fight for their original payment, denies store credit, yet leaves the store with $100+ in groceries, clothing, or merchandise.
If there is one thing that working retail has taught me it's that you need to have an insane amount of patience. Being a 19-year-old girl with an incredibly high pitched voice is not helpful when I want to stand my ground against “grown” adults. The fact that my face turns as red as a tomato when I’m under pressure is also not helpful. I’ve been working my retail job for a year and a half now and honestly I did not expect to ever encounter half the things that I have. Personally, the most irritating thing is when a stranger, a “grown adult,” yells at me over something as simple as expired coupons/promos. If my own parents, who have dealt with me for 19 years, do not yell at me, then what makes a stranger think it's OK? This job has taught me how ugly people can be when they are angry. Hearing someone shriek “Go back to Mexico!” to my co-worker/friend because she shut her light off, indicating she was no longer taking any customers because her shift was over, left me speechless. Hearing a customer tell my manager that she feels that “people who speak Spanish shouldn’t be hired” because they can’t offer her the “assistance she deserves” left me dumbfounded. And having a customer tell me to my face that I shouldn’t try to accommodate or give my Spanish speaking customers more assistance because they “should know English in America by now” left me infuriated. The absolute worst part of all this is that two out of three people I have just described left with a 25-dollar gift card courtesy of one of my managers for “customer satisfaction.” Rewarding the blatant racism makes my stomach churn, but anything to keep our reviews up right?
When I first started my job I was very passive and I tried to do anything to make the customer happy, as I was taught during training. However, I would like to say thank you to all the customers who have yelled at me, and I would personally like to thank the woman who called me an idiot and said I didn’t deserve my job (she returned an item and the money wasn't refunded “fast enough” to her account). All these moments have helped to create my backbone. I no longer let someone walk over me and I now speak up when I know I am being disrespected. Working retail has also allowed me to meet some amazingly kind people and work with people who I now consider lifelong friends.
Please don’t let this article stray you away from working retail. There are some truly amazing people and honestly, it is one of the best ways to gain experience. Just know that there will be days when customers will push your limits and make you crazy and there will be the good days when everything will go according to plan. The next time you’re out, just remember to be nice to everyone, you never know who might need a smile that day.
