Working in retail or " Why I want to kill myself"

There’s a topic that generally upsets me. I’m on my way home from a ten-hour shift, questioning my whole existence. Why did I choose this? What did I bring upon myself? What have I done in life to deserve this punishment? Why did I not follow my childhood dream to become a funeral operative (and this is not a joke)? Because after working in retail for almost a year, I’d rather see the people I deal with dead than alive. Now, you might think that that’s a bit harsh. You might even be a bit scared of your next grocery shop. There’s no need to worry. Most of the people I deal with are quite nice. Or let’s say, we live in peaceful coexistence.

What makes a “bad” customer then? I’d say that there’s the three stages of horror. First, we have the “ignorant customer”. I’m pretty sure that every ignorant customer has either never worked in retail or is as done and retarded as I am after a long day of interacting with people. The ignorant customer identifies as followed. I work at the till, he or she comes up to me. I ask how they are, if they’d like a bag, if they’ve found everything they were looking for. No response. Of course, I give up after the first few questions. I’ve put a customer’s shopping through without them saying a single word. People complain about “the machines and robots taking over”. How about you stop treating me like a robot? But, those people aren’t the worst. A customer comes to the till, I ask my questions. “How are you today?” They stare at me and will say: “Discount!” This is where I start to bite my tongue not to say anything back that could get me fired. Have they not taught you to speak in full sentences?

Another thing that I find more amusing than annoying is when people get sent into the shop to get a specific product for them. This often ends up with a distressed call, because they notice that we have more than one type of shampoo. But instead of letting the person explain what exactly they want, they just give me their phone. Then, they usually run off to somewhere and leave me chit chatting to their relative. “Uhm…okay. I’ll give you back to your son then, okay?”

There’s another issue that really annoys me. It’s Saturday morning, I try to list reasons in my head on why I should not just quit and live under a bridge. I put a customer’s shopping through, he or she smiles and says, “Have a nice weekend!” Uh…thanks I guess? I mean I will work all day today and highly likely tomorrow as well. Thanks for considering me but I’ll enjoy my weekend as much as I enjoy eating liquorice: I wouldn’t do it If I wouldn’t get paid for it.

The second stage of horror would be the “custoMEr", that think that the only reason that I’m working is to satisfy all their needs. It starts at “Do you have any more left in stock? Can you check the back?” Sure, I’ll say in most cases. I don’t know who needs 20 kilograms of yogurt but I’m not here to judge. But, we obviously have a system, so I often know that there will be nothing downstairs. “Okay, can you check anyway?” You know what I will do when this happens? I will go to the back, walk around the shelves, walk back to the customer and say: “Sorry, we don’t have any I’m afraid.” What a surprise! 

We also have custoMErs, that generally always mean trouble. We obviously can’t really brag about them, but it’s funny to see a troublemaker come into the shop and suddenly everyone has some business to do off the shop floor. The only time I see anyone break down cardboard boxes. Sometimes, the custoMEr gets lucky though. What really upsets me is when people don’t even try to find a product, walk straight from the entrance to me to ask for general things like bread. It gets worse though, I’ve had people come into the shop, hand me their shopping list and basically let me do their shopping. You seem to have perfect eye sight, you can walk fine and are under 60… are you just lazy?

Another annoying trait of the custoMEr is, when they decide to do their weekly shopping five minutes before we close. I mean…really? I personally think that every person that comes into the shop 15 minutes before close should go to hell. You obviously give them constant reminders and do everything in your power to get them to pay and leave. It’s three minutes past close, I finally say: “Listen, my colleagues aren’t getting paid to stay and wait until you’re done…” The custoMEr will look me straight in the eye and will reply: “Don’t you want my business?” Yes, I do! But during opening times. At one point, a few of these poor mistreated custoMErs will use the most dreaded sentence in retail history: “If you won’t do this or that, I will take my business elsewhere!” Taking your business elsewhere? GASP! I will go on my knees and cling to your legs, just so you finally make your threat come true and never bother us again! I am just a Sales Advisor, I don’t own this shop. As long as I get paid my (minimum) wage, I wouldn’t care if nobody entered the shop for the whole day!

Some custoMErs also think it’s a good idea to block the queue at the checkout. Either by trying to be funny or by telling me their whole life story. I must admit though, I’ve met the most interesting people at my work and I generally love to chat when I have a spare minute. But then I have a person talk about their dogs and how much they like peanut butter. I start to get a bit distressed about the wellbeing of the dogs while glimpsing at the angry people in the queue. I finally get the dog owner to leave and put the next persons shopping through. I get the next product out and shut my eyes in disbelief. Not that again! I turn the packaging around a couple of times. The price sticker fell off. I slowly look up to the customer, panic is rushing through my body. I’ll have to leave the till and search for the product. Then, the customer puts on a wicked smile and says: “Haha. Must be free then.” Before I started to work in retail, I thought the “Must be free.” joke was a myth, and nobody would say that. I hear it at least once per week and it really pisses me off.

Now, it’s time to talk about the crème de la crème of bad customers. I’m not even trying to come up with a funny name. There is no general description for a bad customer. They just make your day a lot worse and leave you either upset or super confused, but always speechless. I remember the one time, a customer wanted to buy “regular” gluten free flour. The problem with that is that such thing doesn’t exist. You can either get regular flour, which will have gluten, or you can buy gluten free flour which will be a mix of for example rice flour and chickpea flour. Now, try to explain that to a customer who is “always” right? “But I just want normal gluten free flour! I always buy that here.” “Are you sure? Because this simply doesn’t exi- ““Is there anyone that knows something about gluten free flour? Can I speak to the manager?” Then, suddenly because my manager says exactly the same I did, the customer understands it. 

Just a few days back (huge thanks to all the customers for being so horrible), I had a woman come in 10 minutes to close. She had bought black radish, but it had accidentally been put through as sweet potato. I gave her a refund and weighted the radish again. “That’s 20p you get back. Card or cash?” “That can’t be true! Weigh it without the paper bag!” After an 8-hour shift, I just couldn’t do anything but chuckle at her request. Customer is king, so I still weighted it without the bag. I’ve got so many people come in that demand a refund over 10 pence. Another customer made me give her a refund, then she said: “Shame, it’s just a waste of time.” For what ever reason, I thought she wanted to be nice to me, so I said: “That’s alright.” She laughed at me: “It’s wasting my time, obviously.” 

So, what should I say? Do I hate my job? No. Could I imagine working in retail for the rest of my life? Hell, no! There are some pretty annoying customers in this world. But the amazing customers make up for it. I could write a whole article about the lovely people I have met, too. This article is supposed to make my fellow retail heroes laugh a bit. But I hope that I have also opened the eyes of some customers. Maybe, when you’re next doing your shopping, try to be a bit nicer? We’re all human beings. Not robots just yet.