Having a job in retail can be a stressful job at times and after a hard day I sometimes I find myself questioning whether it’s worth it to work there or if I would be better off just finding a new job that doesn’t entail screaming and cranky customers. Although there can be aggravation and frustration throughout a shift, in the end it is still a job that I personally think everyone should experience at one point in their life.

One of the biggest reasons I feel this way is the type of skills that I have learned as a cashier with dealing with customers. Customer service skills are something that cannot be taught by books or any professor no matter how hard they try. There is no type of training that can prepare a person for how to explain to an irate customer why their coupons aren’t working or why their card is being declined. It requires a lot of patience and a good temper to be able to actually get a point across to someone who is yelling at you for things that aren’t always your fault.

A second reason working retail is beneficial is that you learn to communicate with people and just have a genuine conversation about anything, whether it be the weather or their grocery order-- and conversation is key with many jobs. You'll always need to talk to someone; it might be a boss, coworker, or a client but if you worked a retail job you would have an advantage in this area.

A third reason I think working a retail job should be experienced by everyone is that you get to learn a lot about people. There are a lot of customers who come into the supermarket every day-- or pretty close to it-- and you get to know about them just in passing. You also get to see that there are really nice people in the world; one day I had a customer with an average sized grocery purchase who saw the women behind him was poor and probably didn’t have much money and decided to pay for her twenty dollars’ worth of groceries for her, and let me tell, you I have never seen a more grateful woman in my life. It warms the heart to see other people do kind things for each other. However along with the good people I meet there are also some pretty nasty and mean people who just about run each other over with carriages trying to beat each other into your lane.

One of the last reasons I feel like everyone should work a retail job might seem like not the best idea, but in the scheme of things it’s something to think about. Anyone who works in retail can tell you that holidays and time off aren’t really a thing, however this difficulty with getting time off and working some holidays makes me appreciate the time off I do get even more. So while I sometimes hate my retail job, in the future I think I will come to appreciate the life skills it has taught me.