Since the holidays have come and gone and a lot of people still have a gift card burning a hole in their wallets, many malls across America have seen a huge influx of shoppers trying to spend their, essentially, free money. These shoppers are looking to go in and out of the store, finding exactly what they want in less than 30 seconds flat. However, sometimes it is not always possible to find it in an instant; a lot of the times many shoppers need the help of a retail employee. The employees that are designated to help you, smile at you, make you feel welcome and do their very best to serve you seem to be some of the nicer people society has to offer. But, when that final transaction is rung out, these workers will not hesitate to turn around to their co-workers and complain about you. As a customer, you forget that these employees are people and not machines that are programmed to do whatever it is you need. With that in mind, you also do not realize what actually goes on over an eight-hour shift and the frustrations that a retail employee has to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
The amount of work a retail employee has to do usually goes unseen by the general public. Many employees start their days at 6 or 7 in the morning to restock shelves, change prices, and a multitude of other things that are generally never done on the sales floor during hours of operation. These associates usually end their days at around 3 or 4 in the afternoon; this is longer than a shift at a full-time job in a lot of cases. These associates are expected to maintain a high level of energy and help shoppers who are rude, difficult to work with, and unappreciative as well as ones who are not. The disregard that many customers have for the amount of work an associate puts in outside of store hours is something they notice and do not appreciate.
A retail employee is trained to live by the motto that 'the customer is always right', but if you have worked in retail for any period of time you would know that this is the case...about 30 percent of the time. In any store, most of the time the customer is either asking for something that the employee is not physically capable of doing or is in the wrong store and has yet to figure that out. Since they refuse to be wrong, they instead choose to demand a manager comes out and deals with the problem. Then these shoppers get to hear the manager tell them they are wrong as well. This situation is so infuriating to an employee that they will talk about this to anyone who will listen; co-workers, family, and friends, whoever has an ear available. This seemingly arbitrary encounter that the shopper perceived is a huge upset too many associates. An employee is usually as informed as management, so unless they decide to call them on their own volition, you can assume that what they are saying is true.
Overall, these people are happy to help customers and give them an amazing shopping experience. However, it is the customers that come in and do not realize the effort these employees put in to make the customer happy. Please keep in mind that associates are people too.
