First and foremost, retail employees are in no way, shape, or form, your personal punching bags -- especially during the holiday season.
As the winter days slowly but surely creep toward us, we get closer and closer to approaching the wonderful holiday season when gift buying is one crazy day after another. This being said, it is important to remind all shoppers that your actions do in fact have an impact on the people who are trying to help you during your shopping excursions.
I can honestly say that I do not know anyone who wakes up ready to go to work their retail job every day saying, "I cannot wait to great cursed at and condemned over a '50 percent off' special on video games that expired days ago, that will not work today. Trust me, hardly anyone can really look forward to being treated awfully by a random stranger within the vicinity of their place of employment.
The same goes for anyone who works, or has previously worked, in retail.
If anything, people who actually understand what it is that we go through should be more understanding of how vulnerable we feel about being attacked over things not always in our control.
For the sake of all of us who work in retail, please, make your visits as harmless and painless as possible this year. We are not out to get you from behind our registers, while walking through isles, or even when the one person on the intercom informs you that our store is closing.
I understand the fact that shoppers have the mentalities of: "not my job, not my problem" or "you are wasting my time; just give me the discount," but in all reality, employees breaking the rules in order to appease you may be great in the moment, but it can seriously put our jobs at risk.
If you think about it, we are just people trying to go to work, get our jobs done, make some money, and go about our day just like anyone else. We have no hidden agendas of concocting a plan to make sure that your coupon for laundry detergent is not going to work, Linda.
And this does not even extend just through Black Friday, or Christmas shopping in December -- it goes for every day of the year, really. There is not a single day of the year where you, as a shopper, need to be a rude, offensive, disrespectful person to someone who is doing a service for you and helping you out. For the most part, everyone who works retail, many of which are people who needed an entry level job for work experience, look to just come into work, handle their business, make their money, and return home not wanting to dread their next shift because of the people who make their work lives harder than need be.
If you really have a vivid selection of words to say in regards to the service you received during your visit to a store, try calling customer service or corporate. They are trained to handle these things.
With all of this being said, enjoy your shopping, and remember: it does not take much to be a decent person.
