When you are at the register checking people out, and making sure you get every correct amount of change in your register and out to the customer, you start to have an obsession with making sure everything is going right so that you aren't written up. When working in retail, you don't want to mess things up, or else you get the boot from the ol' boss, or just a slap on the wrist to signify that you shouldn't do it again.
What I'm trying to say is that no one who hasn't worked retail a day in their life has no idea what it's like to be yelled at by a customer, belittled over a price of an item you can't control, and having a manager being called because it's against the policy to give away coupons that the customer doesn't have. What most don't understand is how were treated on a daily basis, even during the holidays. We have families we want to get home to as well, we don't want to sit around waiting for you to decide what ugly sweater you need to get for your annual family ugly sweater contest. We also don't want to be held accountable on why you broke an item you just bought and left the store with. We're taught to bag right, and once it leaves the store, we all know it was you who used it the wrong way and broke the darn item you are trying to exchange out.
When working in retail, we are pretty much put through an obstacle during every shift. Which consists of stocking shelves, making sure labels are facing front, cleaning floors, and trying to find out where an item is because the store doesn't tell associates where they keep moving a specific item that a bunch customers are looking for at a certain time of year.
When working retail, you'll never know how hard it is to keep a parent at the register at all times instead of leaving there kid alone in the cart, just to go and get an item they forgot to pick up. Um, no mam, I can't let you hold up my line just so you can go pick up the item you forgot. Please, take your kid, your cart filled with items, and go find the item you were looking for. Then I will gladly take you up at the registers again to complete your transaction.
When working in retail, we will never know what we did wrong when a customer gets mad at us over something silly and petty. It's not our fault that we ran out of item. It's not our fault that we are having personal, stressful lives outside of work, and don't need to be told that we don't know what your life is like until we've walked in your shoes. How about this, you don't judge us based on our position, and we judge based on how ignorant and rude your being towards us right now. You have no idea what it's like to really work in retail until you've experienced what we have experienced day to day. Yes, we have our good days, and we have our bad ones. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. What you say about us retail workers doesn't matter. We were hired to do one of the hardest, most stressful jobs, and we don't need to be put down just because we're retail workers. Without us, you wouldn't really know what type of shoes you should get, or what color bicycle little Jonny should get for his birthday.
Trust me, think of working retail as walking in a pair of high heels. It's great and easy to walk in, but you will eventually be brought some tension to those heels from some customers belittling you, and telling you about something that you can't control. If you don't want to work our job, then don't belittle us for doing something that you wouldn't want to do.
