I think I may be done working retail...........

[OhMari]

OP-You would of totally had me at the Chocolate.

Just remember, there are a ton of us, that shop later at night, or online and try to avoid those lines. Sorry you have to go through the stress of crazy people this time of year.

 

[kafitty]

Unfortunately, it's because 9 times out of 10 it WORKS.

This is EXACTLY why the "customer is always right" theory is COMPLETE b.s. and is pretty much destroying human decency. Um, no, you are not right - i do this job EVERY DAY, methinks i know a little more about what i'm selling than you do!!!

And to customers like you - THANK YOU. For you I would bend over backwards & change the rules to make you happy.

seriously.

One tactic that I love pulling is to kill them with kindness...

as a waitress, i do this too...they get rude, i get sweeter & sweeter...they have no idea how to react! i swear sometimes people WANT to see whomever they're abusing react & get flustered...nuh-uh, you're not gettin me!!

 

[Disfan1]

I had a customer call me yesterday asking for PC2100 RAM for her computer. I said, "We are out of PC2100 but..."

"WHAT??? Did you check?!? Can't I talk to someone who actually knows what they are talking about?!?"

"So sorry ma'am. Was there anything else I can help you with?"

*click*

If she hadn't been so rude & interrupted me to scream at me, I was about to tell het that PC2700 RAM was backwards compatable for PC2100 and we had plenty...

 

[HM]

See, if my kids were to break something, I'd pay for it. In fact, I did that at a Hallmark store once. Luckily they discounted it so I didn't pay full price for a broken item. My usual modus operandi, was to remind the kids before we enter the store to only look not touch. They were always very good at this. This instance was a jacket getting caught on a display and a piece falling off.

Oh don't even get me started on the unsupervised kids!!!! (I think this thread has been great therapy for me today - I'm actually off work & in my jammies yet - and venting!!!)

I work at Yankee Candle. 99% glass & fragile items. Yes I have kids, and personally I would never even take them in a store like that unless they were secured ina stroller. But obviously that's just me. I have to roll my eyes 20 times a day when I hear, as the parent is struggling to get the double-wide stroller (empty of course because "hee hee oh Billy just won't sit today")around our displays "don't touch, I said don't touch...didn't I just tell you not to tough....I SAID STOP TOUCHING!! DON'T TOUCH!! PUT THAT DOWN!!! Crash!!!

Then of course it's MY fault that the kids smashed things, of course it was a domino affect that broke 15 jars & 489 accessories. "YOU didn't have the lid on right. YOU had this too close to the edge of the table. YOU should put this out of the reach of children." As the parents leans in to comfort the crying child "oh Billy it wasn't your fault, they shouldn't have these glass things around, come on let's go" as they bolt out the door without an apology or offer to help clean up or pay (not that we'd ever make you help clean up or pay but an apology sure would be nice!)

 

[It'sWDW4me]

Center Valley!

Here wait....let me check....nope sorry, none up my *** for you!

Sorry, couldn't resist. Now watch me get this thread closed!

If it makes you feel any better Center Valley is also sold out of all of the holiday light-up plugs-ins that are on sale. I had a customer on Friday who went to every sales person (we had about 6 working) begging to go check in the back for a Christmas Cookie one - after being told we were out, and watching the previous associate go check. I know, it was YOU! Way to go wasting everyone's time!

Actually, I was the one banging on the door at 9:10. (just kidding)

So what hours are you working this weekend? I want the manager!!!

 

[luvmy3]

I have to admit a part, albeit a small part of misses it, I really liked my job, even when I had to deal with those customers. They always gave me something to laugh about after work. It really wasn't until I was pregnant that I felt I couldn't handle them. I remember one man yelling at me because his ins. didn't cover something on his glasses and I yelled right back at him and ran into the back and busted into tears. I knew then it was time to start my maternity leave, and I haven't been back since

 

[C.Ann]

I worked it one year - never again.. I much preferred working in a doctors office with patients who were sometimes very cranky due to not feeling well.. That I could understand..

Are you going to try to hang in there through the holidays?

 

[Disney Doll]

Take all these same people, make them sick, and add their crazy family into the mix.

Now you have my job.....

 

[DisMN]

OP, I feel for you...well..WITH you actually. With regards to difficult and downright MEAN customers this has without a doubt been one of the most trying years I've ever had.
I try to kill them with kindness too and also try to remember that maybe, just maybe they've had a really frustrating day they're just taking it out on everyone else. If I don't take it personally I don't take it to heart as much.


I have to say though the wonderful, nice and just plain friendly customers really make my day and usually make up for the mean ones....so to the nice guys I thank you from the bottom of my cashier/customer service oriented heart!! You have no idea how much your kind comments lift our spirits especially this time of year!!

 

[DisMN]

Take all these same people, make them sick, and add their crazy family into the mix.

Now you have my job.....

Wouldn't wish that on anyone!

(and thankyou for doing your job!)

 

[dalt01]

its all i have ever done............you need thick skin.......people think sales people are dirt under their feet for some reason.........the guy who first said "THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT" most likely got to go back into his office after he said it.

 

[maxiesmom]

WTH would she have been able to do about it yesterday if I had? Could she pull one out of her rear? I think not.

We say that all the time! I swear some people think you can just pull merchandise out of your rear!! For example, someone will ask if we have any pink flannel sheet. We go in back, and there are no more flannel sheets of any color. Come out, tell customer 'All our flannel sheets are on the salesfloor." Customer will say 'Do you have any blue ones in back?" HELLO!!!! I can't just make them for you!

 

[GemmaPixie]

I also work in retail and I am currently looking for another job as I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

I understand that people are frustrated this time of year what with trying to provide for Christmas and everything but don't take it out on me.

Once I was actually blamed because the toilets are on the top floor of our shop (umm I didn't design the shop???). She actually blamed me personally...my fault?? How does that work...IM A SALES ASSISTANT!!

My pet hate are the managers who always side with the customer (who is completely in the WRONG) over me after the customer has treated me like crap. It happens all the time and its completely OUT OF ORDER! Managers if your reading and you do this....DON'T! Customer assistants don't come into work to have abuse thrown at them by customers and we certainly don't wait to be undermined when you just give the customer what they want (refund out of date, coupon out of date etc) and expect us to put the transaction through the till.

I also get frustrated shopping around this time of year....but not at sales assistants (unless they are being so rude like talking to each other while serving me etc) I get angry at the managers for lack of managment. We just got a new Hollister store in my area (probably the most frustrating shop for slowwwww service) and my mum was outside the store at 8:45am waiting for it to open at 9am. All the staff walked in at 8:55am, They let my mum and the rest of the customer in at 9am and she grabbed her three items and was first in line at the tills. "Sorry our tills aren't ready yet, we have to set them up" ummmm okkk. Mum got served at 9:25am....20 minutes of waiting for the to open the tills. Not the sales assistants fault...its the managements!! Mum complained to the manager about the tills not being open and they said "yeah well they take a while to open up in the morning" so mum said "yeah but how about you get your staff in earlier or open the shop later to avoid this". This is the first Hollister in the country and always chockerblocked so it was just ridiculous that they did this on a saturday (when mum finally left at 9:35 there was a queue to the door- all hollister staff are very slow, that includes A&F and H stores I've been in over America)

Ahhh rant over

 

[DisMN]

its all i have ever done............you need thick skin.......people think sales people are dirt under their feet for some reason.........the guy who first said "THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT" most likely got to go back into his office after he said it.

I've had other jobs but for some really crazy reason I honestly DO like retail. LOL What's up with that? LOL LOL

We ARE treated like second class citizens though and that always always bugs me. I was getting screamed at the other day (yes, screamed at by a MAN no less...it's usually women that are the meanest but not this time.)
The angry guy was SO mad that it made my manager uncomfortable to the point that she came and stood next to me for support. She knew I could handle it but I think she could tell the guy was trying hard to intimidate me so she wanted to show her face.
This man was angry as all heck because *gasp* I didn't have my light on.
He said I HAD to have it on, was insistent and demanding, waving his arms around like a madman...I was waiting on people but he was completely irrational that my light wasn't lit. It happened to be the crossover time of day where I was just a fill-in cashier so my light is supposed to stay off while I finished my end-of-shift chores.

I mean get real...who gets that upset about stuff like that? Not cool.

By the way, the customers after him were so so sweet. They apologized for the jerk and complimented me on keeping my cool. I love my customers!!....well...most of them anyway.

 

[bumbershoot]

I have some stories from working at amazon...so glad I didn't have to be face-to-face with these people. Especially the lady in NY state who didn't order her son's b'day present in enough time for it to reach her, big long story she was actually pretty lucky it was getting to her *at all*, she ended up putting her little bitty son on the phone with me, and she was so so so so lucky it was ME on the phone instead of ANY of my colleagues who were listening in (and did the prairie dog thing as soon as they heard my voice change to "talking with kid" voice), and she seemed to not understand that UPS drivers will GO HOME when there's an ice storm, as was happening at the time.


But anyway, I just wanted to publicly thank JC Penney this weekend! They really impressed me!

DS and I went on Saturday (or Friday? not sure)...needed to do a simple return of gloves that had never been used, bought in November but DS saw some gloves he wanted more (the ones I was trying to remind him of when he insisted he loved the JCP ones). Took us awhile to return them b/c of various things, but tags on, still closed up with the plastic tabby things...easy peasy.

Also wanted to ask them about the quality of a jacket we bought with the gloves...we got home the day we bought it, DS put his arm through, and the snap that keeps the inner fleece jacket connected just came right out, the seam was terribly sewn. He had worn the fleece, but not the overjacket as it had not yet been that cold. I wanted to see if this was the normal quality, etc...they offered to exchange it for me! They went in the back to search for that size...it took them awhile, but that was OK, they found one! Woo!

Then I realized I had forgotten the hood. Absolutely no problem (I was offering to come back with it, if they could hold that one jacket for me), they even offered me the second hood, as there was nothing wrong with it and the jacket was going to be discarded however they discard things like that...I didn't take it b/c I didn't need it, but WOW how nice of them!

Then as she was processing the return/exchange...she noticed taht the jacket was $10 less expensive now than when we bought it...and she refunded me that amount!!! Wow! I thanked her several times and asked her to thank her colleague who had started out helping me then asked for assistance to find the jacket.

With that transaction, I got the link and code to a survey. I had gotten one when I originally bought the things, but had lost the code. So I got home and did the survey, and got a 15% off code.

Yesterday, we all went out for some things, and I used the code to buy a purse for Yule (officially from hubby, who pretended to disappear to buy it then pretended to hide it from me with DS's help, they are too funny), and the cashier was super-nice.

So...yay for JCP policies and employees!

Also, it was really nice and clean in the store, though they could do a better job with signage for departments...

 

[TaraPA]

bumbershoot - it's soooooo nice to see your kind words for the sales associates at JCP! It's very rare that retail employees get complimented on our service, we usually only hear the complaints.

I urge everyone reading this to personally thank one nice sales associate this week - better yet tell their manager if they've done a great job, and if you have time write a letter/email to the store/home office if they've gone above & beyond. Sometimes it's one person's thanks that can make your whole day.

 

[golfgal]

Oh don't even get me started on the unsupervised kids!!!! (I think this thread has been great therapy for me today - I'm actually off work & in my jammies yet - and venting!!!)

I work at Yankee Candle. 99% glass & fragile items. Yes I have kids, and personally I would never even take them in a store like that unless they were secured ina stroller. But obviously that's just me. I have to roll my eyes 20 times a day when I hear, as the parent is struggling to get the double-wide stroller (empty of course because "hee hee oh Billy just won't sit today")around our displays "don't touch, I said don't touch...didn't I just tell you not to tough....I SAID STOP TOUCHING!! DON'T TOUCH!! PUT THAT DOWN!!! Crash!!!

Then of course it's MY fault that the kids smashed things, of course it was a domino affect that broke 15 jars & 489 accessories. "YOU didn't have the lid on right. YOU had this too close to the edge of the table. YOU should put this out of the reach of children." As the parents leans in to comfort the crying child "oh Billy it wasn't your fault, they shouldn't have these glass things around, come on let's go" as they bolt out the door without an apology or offer to help clean up or pay (not that we'd ever make you help clean up or pay but an apology sure would be nice!)

When our kids were stroller aged they opened a Yankee Candle shop in our mall. I remember the first time I got to go to the mall without kids after that opened I made a beeline for the store because there was no WAY I was bringing the kids in there.

When Ds17 was about a year old I was shopping with my mom. We were at an Irish store in an old building and I was upstairs in the loft and mom had DS in the stroller downstairs. I heard this crash and the first things out of my mouth were 'how much is that going to cost me". The sales clerk said "nothing". She said they get a lot of damaged merchandise from swinging purses, etc. and NO one had EVER volunteered to pay for things they broke. There was one glass our of a set of 4 of Irish crystal left and I even got to keep that (which I still have).

 

[JoiseyMom]

I can so sympathize...I worked at Staples for awhile and BB&B...nope not again. I now work for an internet based company with a showroom and appts only. But man...the entitlements and the phone calls

We sell high end espresso machines and grinders and accessories..wow..some of these people. Most are raelly nice. We also sell parts and it says all over our website that we can't take part questions at the call center, that we have over 5,000 parts and we need a paper trail, to send an email. I get so many calls..and I nicely and calmly tell them to go ot the website..well there are always these few that insist on speaking to a person that can help them. I tell them that if they need to talk to a tech, I need their credit card info, adn it will be an $85/hour charge to talk to a tech for their 3.00 part!! Well they don't like that answer. I have been hung up on, laughed at etc.

I also get calls for people who didn't buy their machines from us, and expect to talk to a tech for free . We provide excellent service..for OUR customers!!! I tell them they can send an email and a tech will help them if they can, and I think that is very generous of them to do!!

We had one women today that was mad at our shipping prices and wanted us to Lower the UPS charges...hmm....that is what comes up in the system..sorry if you don't like it, but the charges are what they are, you can buy your item elsewhere if you wish! She called 6 or 7 times today. The last 2 times, I begged a co-worker to handle her...she pissed her off too!! The last time our mgr picked up, she was nice to him! But he did have us enter DO NOT SELL on her file!!

There are certain people he won't sell too...they are PIA and it isn't worth the money to deal with them!!

Oh, he also got an email from a person saying he was interested in a certain machine..it costs 1400, but it was out of his price range and he wanted to pay 1000 for it!! Hey, I want a bmw...it is out of my price range too..guess what...I DON"T BUY IT!!!

It is just amazing what people want and their attitudes. Scary out there!! But at least I am only dealing with them on the phone or through paper orders!!

 

[NeverlandClub23]

I urge everyone reading this to personally thank one nice sales associate this week - better yet tell their manager if they've done a great job, and if you have time write a letter/email to the store/home office if they've gone above & beyond. Sometimes it's one person's thanks that can make your whole day.

I agree!! I was a waitress for many years at several different restaurants. Getting the nice letters handed from management that a customer wrote was nicer than any tip I ever received (and they always seemed to come when I was having a horrible day with the worst customers ).

I try to make it a point to write down people's names that are extra friendly or are doing really well (or are having a visibly rotten day and are trying their best) at retail places, restaurants, amusement parks, etc. I don't tell them what I'm doing, I just thank them personally for their great service. Then when I get home I write a letter or email to management. I don't know if every letter gets to that employee but I just want someone to know what a great job they're doing when I'm sure they get a lot of complaint letters/emails.

My local Kroger is probably sick and tired of my letters/emails . I just can't help it. EVERY single cashier there is so nice and goes out of their way to ask about you and asks numerous times if you found everything ok, etc.

 

[DramaQueen]

OP! I'm there with ya!!! We haven't gotten to that point yet, but I can feel it coming.

I work @ HMV (which is like FYE, but smaller), and sometimes the people that some in looking for stuff are downright horrible!! a lot of the time people come in asking me if we have some obscure bands CD and when we don't have it they somehow think it's MY fault and flip their lids on ME.
It makes me laugh how shoppers always think it's the sales associates fault when something is sold out or unavailable

i used to work at a movie theatre as well, i got berated on a regular basis if a movie was sold out, if the theatre was too crowded for someone's liking, if the popcorn was too salty/not salty enough....you name it, someone yelled at me for it.

i'm sure there are issues like that with pretty much every job where you have to deal with the general public.