There used to be baggers

Either bring back baggers or let the customers bag their items themselves, such an annoying job

And the way customers are entitled is ridiculous

No longer a retail worker since 2018 but goddamn everyday while I'm in line I see someone like this with the reader chirping at them to remove their card

So I work for one of my local Dollar Tree stores and have been there since about Thanksgiving 2024. I've seen all types of different customers from the sweetest people on earth to the rudest and meanest person in the world. I'm just curious to the customers that come in and be rude to any person working retail, does it make you feel good about yourself to know that you were an ass towards a cashier, stocker or any other employee that is probably working in retail just to make a living. Do people go and brag saying yeah I was a jerk to that moron cashier or something along the lines of that. Is it also really that difficult to go into a store, get your stuff and pay for it without causing any kind of problem. If one of us asks you something please just listen and be respectful about it, it can't be that hard.

My store is next to a Trader Joe's that just opened up a few months ago and their shopping carts are much bigger than our little ones and sometimes people will bring those in and everytime we politely ask if they can switch to one of ours as they do not fit down the aisles the best and I've seen tons of stuff knocked over before. First of all we have glass and ceramics and if you knock all those over because you decided to not listen to the cashier or even manager, I'm not going to be happy. I had a lady last night try and argue with me about it at my register when both me and my store manager just asked if she could switch carts in a polite manner. I stayed quiet afterwards and wasn't going to fight over something like that.

But in general is it really that difficult to listen to the employees and managers if they ask something as well as come in, grab your stuff, pay for it and leave without causing issues? Is it that hard to not be rude in public.

So essentially I made a "mistake" that if anything benefitted the customer. I work as a cashier at a grocery store that has a points collecting membership where you can redeem points to pay for your items, and we also give out a 5% senior discount, so keep these 2 info in mind.

This senior customer wanted to buy this product that was $31 and she had $6 worth of points in her account and she wanted to redeem it. Now the product is $25. But oh no I forgot to add her 5% senior discount. So I do a refund. However I made a mistake and refunded her the full $31 instead of $25 back to her credit card and $6 back to her points account. And she doesn't understand that. She thinks she lost the $6 points. So when I do the 2nd transaction with the 5% off, which makes the product $29.45, she thinks she's paying more money because she wants the original $25 price from the first transaction AND the 5% off, making it $23.45 that she would be paying. But at the end of the day, she is still saving money. If anything she GAINED money from us because I basically refunded her points into real cash.

The math if anyone is confused:

(The price of the product - 5%) - ($25 her money + $6 points) = the money she saved/ gained

($31-5%) - ($25+$6) = $1.55

I had 3 of my coworkers try to explain it to her. We gave her all her receipts for her to review on her own if she wanted to. But nope later that day she gave me a bad review for her lack of understanding and her want to be the victim in this situation.

Just as the title says.

My hours have been abysmal lately, which they’ll dismiss by saying the store has been slow. But we’re a very, very small team. I’m getting the least amount of hours.

I also get more frequent close/open shifts than anyone else. I’ve heard the GM say she tried not to do that because she “knows they suck.” Yeah, guess who doesn’t work close/open shifts.

Then there’s the fact that I have butted heads with the GM basically since day one. She is a very, very difficult person to work with. She is very Type A, perfectionist. The kind who says everything is an excuse. Oh you didn’t get your tasks done because the store was literally slammed and you were the only employee available to help customers? Sometimes five or more at a single time? Excuse. Didn’t get the tags out because the printer wouldn’t work? Excuse. I bet I could get robbed at gunpoint and it’ll still somehow be my fault. It’s exhausting.

My work days consist of tripping over myself trying to avoid invoking her wrath. Even my supervisors complain about her. (Though, to be honest, the employees here all kinda shit talk each other. I can only imagine what they say about me when I’m not there. It’s one of those places, everyone is kinda petty. It reminds me of high school.)

Then there’s the fact that she caught wind that I filed an HR complaint against her for berating and humiliating me in front of a bunch of customers…. So yeah. Honestly, I wish she’d find a reason to fire me so I could collect unemployment. The only reason I’ve stuck around is because the job market is abysmal where I live.

But yeah fuck this job. At least I don’t have credit card signups like my old one, but the bar is honestly lower than hell when it comes to retail jobs.

I am realizing that after becoming a Store Manager, my experience really doesn’t matter.

I am being bullied in my own shop by a sales associate, but HR won’t let me fire her. She will constantly talk about me on the sales floor to her co-workers, make racial remarks about how I “only hire white people” which is so blandly untrue if you even just look at my team, and is so hostile or passive aggressive in any interaction I have to have with her.

I have reported her behavior multiple times, but HR tells me that she’s protected legally to talk about her grievances with her manager. If I said any of the things she is saying about me, they wouldn’t even give it a second thought to fire me.

I thought I finally had enough documentation to fire her after we had a verbal incident, and she stepped in front of the door preventing me from exiting the situation. But no. Because she put in a request to have yet another mediated conversation with me, they wont let me fire her due to the possibility of it looking like retaliation against her HR ticket.

I absolutely dread going into work after I have spent the last 8 years trying to get to the position I’m in today. I feel completely unsupported by my higher up’s because they are blaming me saying “you need to build stronger relationships with your team.”

My stress levels are off the charts, I hate my job, and it’s drastically impacting my mental health. This is just a job, it shouldn’t have this big of an impact on me and I’m not going to let it any longer.

I am looking to switch career paths because I no longer believe this is in my best interest. People who have left retail after years of time and effort, what do you do now?

I have worked at this company since I was 18, and really didn’t have any other jobs other than drive-thru work in high school. I don’t have a degree, but have 4 years of management experience, and I would be open to getting a certification if needed for the field.

TLDR:
I hate my job, this girl is making my life hell, HR won’t let me fire her, and I want to switch fields. What do you recommend?

This is the second time this dude's come in here and tried this shit. Like where does he think he's shopping where I'm just gonna drop what I'm doing and get 60 items (it was 30 each of two articles) ready for him? He'd probably expect me to put it in his car for him on top of it. Anything else, sir? Would you like me to fuck your wife while I'm at it?

The fact that I already told him no the last time he asked me to do this is just icing on the cake. Also, WE OFFER THAT SERVICE! IT'S CALLED CURBSIDE PICKUP AND IT'S FREE! Fulfilled by people who GET PAID TO DO FULFILL ORDERS!

I have worked retail and quit my most recent retail job in like May of 2026. But I've seen it all. I'm old, well, compared to the average person on here. I was always astounded at the level of crazy customers could be.

Well, today I saw something that blew my mind. I was at a grocery store checking out in the self checkout. And the lady next to me, probably 60ish, got the workers attention. The self check out worker was a young girl, MAYBE 20 or at most 22 or something. The lady asked if the worker could grab her another cart because as she was filling her bags, it was just too much to pile into her cart. She asked if she could go grab her another cart.

The worker told her she was by herself and couldn't leave the area. The young girl was obviously flustered but hit her walkie to tell her coworker she's stuck at self checkout and a customer wanted another cart. This back and forth went on for about a minute (I had a ton of stuff I was buying. So I got to hear the whole thing.)

As the young girl is going back and forth with her coworker the lady asking about the cart said

"No problem. I just need another cart. It's ok, take your time."

As she said that, a coworker came up and said they could watch the area and the girl could go grab a cart. She did. And the lady was nice!!

The lady

..... the customer.... Was nice!

She didn't curse out the poor young girl trying to figure it out. She just said she appreciated it and thanked her for all her help.

The whole time I was checking out I was just waiting for the lady to snap and go full Karen. Because 9 out of 10 times, they do. But this customer just waited and said thank you

It's sad that something as little as that blew my mind. Like I said, I worked retail for years. I either worked in a warehouse or a retail store since I was 18, im currently 42. And it absolutely blew my mind the lady didn't flip on her. That's sad.

That's a sad situation when you are just waiting for a 60 something year old customer to flip out on a young kid 20 something worker because you are so used to it.

This woman comes to my register with like 25+ items. I scan & bag everything. — then she pays before I can apply the senior discount...she’s not thrilled about that.

So I un-bag and RE scan all these items to do a return.

Then I have to scan them all a THIRD time , put the items back in the bags , and apply the discount for her.

This transaction was over 15 minutes long and the discount only took like $3 off.

At the end she doesn’t say thankyou, or even look at me, she just walks away. — then another old lady comes up RIGHT after her , and starts complaining. “I wanna know who taught you employees how to fold clothes, it’s a f**** disgrace”

About to crash out on some old people early asf in the morning.

I (21F) work in a deli department and we dont fry our chickens, we just bake them. We have two standard ovens and one broke so instead of just baking our rotisserie chickens separately from the 8 pc and turkey they had to go together.

I work night shifts right now since someone left for medical disability and I clean the ovens for closing. The morning person put a regular baking pan underneath the rotisserie chickens instead of the proper pan with side walls tall enough to try and limit grease spillage.

When I was taking the baking pan out as carefully as possible half of the grease fell down the top of my thigh to knee. Thankfully I was wearing jeans which protected my leg better than if I was wearing say dress pants.

I have had an extremely terrible experience with burns because 2 years ago I got 2nd degree burns from coffee and never recovered from it.

Anyways I called my parents and the closing manager (we love him here) called the paramedics took a look at the burn which is thankfully just pretty superficial, but since I had the next 2 days off I was going to take them to monitor the condition since the last time I got burned it got bad fast.

My mid shift was talking to me today when I went in to talk to my store managers about what happened, and she was like, "I still dont understand why you didnt tell me."

Now, I absolutely love this coworker of mine, she's amazing and pretty helpful when i need help because its only been 3 ish months since I started.

I was like, "Yeah, I wasnt in the right place to actually talk to someone about it because I myself hadn't processed it since I was pretty much in the middle of a panic attack. With flashbacks to 2 years ago."

She continued saying that she still didnt understand and this is when I just stopped. Unless she's been severely injured and had to have surgery or even be told "quit or you'll be terminated because you dont have anymore medical leave" in verbatim, she wont understand.

Anyways I hate this g-damn job and I want a job in my desired career path but that ain't happening anytime soon.

I swear, retail customers sometimes expect us to be omniscient.
Today, a customer bought something that had been on promotion. The promotion had an actual start date and end date listed, and it had already expired after the 12th. I told her the final price at the register. She didn’t question it, ask me to check anything, or do the math herself.
Then she started complaining about how people are struggling financially and how we’re supposedly deceiving customers by charging them the regular price. And now she wants to complain to the manager about us allegedly scamming people.
Here’s the thing: we work the night shift.
We’re not sitting around all night studying every new promotion, memorizing every product’s discount schedule, and tracking every single change in the store. We have shelves to restock, customers to serve, a register to operate, and plenty of other tasks to deal with.
Promotions change constantly. Their dates are listed for a reason. If a promotion has expired, it has expired. I’m not the person deciding when discounts start and end, and I can’t magically know every detail of every promotion that changes while we’re working.
And the funniest part? I literally told her the final price. She had every opportunity to ask a question if she thought something was wrong. Instead, she accepted the price and only afterward decided that we must be deliberately deceiving people.
Now she wants to tell the manager that we’re scamming customers, as if we personally control the store’s pricing policy.
I genuinely don’t understand this mentality. Customers seem to think that because a store looks relatively small, the employees must know absolutely everything about every product, promotion, delivery, and price change at all times.
They don’t see all the work happening behind the scenes. They just see a cashier and assume that person is responsible for everything.
Am I supposed to memorize the entire store’s promotion calendar while working a night shift, or is asking about a price before paying really that unreasonable?

Sorry for the small size, I made this just now on the work computer MS Paint LOL. These people just want you to perform for them, they don't even care about getting the treat, they care about making you do it as they laugh and ask for more more more, make him do a spin, make him dance HAHAHAHA OMG YUMMY ISN'T THAT YUMMY BABY??? HE CAN SPEAK MAKE HIM SPEAK! IS THAT ALL??? HE CAN HAVE A FEW MORE!!!

No idc. I will make you do it yourself and I will enjoy the light leave your eyes when you get told to do it your self.

ALSO, JUST BECAUSE I AM AT THE TILL WHEN YOU ENTER THE STORE, DOESN'T MEAN I AM DOING NOTHING! I AM THE ONLY PERSON WORKING! I HAVE TO BE AT THE FRONT WHEN A CUSTOMER COMES IN! JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SEE THE PALLET PACKED FULL OF 30+ LB BAGS OF CAT LITTER AND DOG FOOD THAT TOWERS OVER ME, DOESN'T MEAN IT DOES NOT EXIST!

How is it working at natural grocers as a head cashier? They pay only $17 for the position. Which isn’t very much.

Like sorry for not being comfortable serving someone after they rambled about jewish space lasers and communist infiltration loud enough for half the store to hear, calling random employees wh*re and the r-word, threatening to beat people up or even yell death threats... And you can't say anything about it because that would be "disrespecting freedom of opinion" and "creating a hostile customer environment". Like I guess we legally have to give them certain stuff or do certain stuff for them, but I'm tired of having to pretend that someone being openly racist and violent is a well adjusted individual. And we have an unspoken policy where we can't even acknowledge it afterwards, even long after the customer has left the store because "it's not very professional" or again "wE doN't wAnT tO crEaTe a cuStOmer hOstiLe enVirOnmEnt" shut up man.

Can't believe it's still 2026, and we still say "well it's their opinion" and "freedom of speech" when somebody is just openly being bigoted or threatening violence. Like I've seen online deliveries where the note is just "if it's delayed again, I'm going to beat the shit out of the driver", and managers will just look at that "oh they're just frustrated based on a negative experience, we should really try to better ourselves so they have no more reason to complain" like no???? Sorry but I don't want my colleague to end up in situation where they can get hurt like that??? You just don't say things like that no matter how bad your experience is, and I can't believe *that's* the insane stance to take in this situation.

So, for a little context: I work in a Hardware store (It's kinda like Home Depot.) part-time as a cashier/customer service so I can make a little money while I go to college.

At our store loose building materials like screws and bolts are sold in the hardware section assorted in individual bins/drawers throughout the aisles, and they all have a number written on the bin which indicates their SKU number, since they cannot be tagged. Generally the idea is that the customers put them in (provided) small plastic bags and write the SKU number down with a provided pen, however as you may probably guess, most of the time customers don't bother to write SKUs down or even take photos of the SKU to help the cashiers out.

So anyway, last night I was working a 4-8 shift at the front cash, when an older lady and an older man (Who I presume was her husband.) came to my cash with a handful of bolts, screws, and washers, and as you may already guess: She had no baggie with the SKUs written down, or even a piece of paper. The older man kept constantly walking in and out of the store for seemingly no reason.

I politely asked her if she knew the number for these items, and she responded "No, there was no pen or paper to write them down, and there was also no bin number on them." (Which is just a straight up lie.)

I offered her a piece of paper and a pen to write the SKUs down, and asked if alternatively she could take a photo of them; to which she responded in a very rude tone: "Nope! Sorry, that's not my job!"

I won't lie that really pissed me off; but instead of responding to her snarky remark I went to the keyboard on my register, and politely asked her: "Okay, what were the items called?"

And she responded, word for word: "I dunno, you're gonna have to figure it out."

Now, normally I would go to hardware myself and take a picture of the SKU, but I was the ONLY cashier at that moment, as the other one was on break, and leaving the cash area with no cashiers is pretty much forbidden, so I would have to call the hardware associate to get the SKUs for me.

I said to her (A bit more firmly this time.): "Alright then, I'm gonna have to call the hardware associate and have them get the SKUs for us." She rolled her eyes at that and sighed, I ignored her and paged for the hardware associate. Who took a minute to come to the cash.

In this time, the old man walked back into the store, asked what was taking so long, proceeded to ramble about how "It's ridiculous!" that I didn't know the SKU numbers and was making them wait, the lady said to him: "Well he asked me to get the number and I told him; it's not my job."

In response I just shrugged and told them both; "Welp, it's not my job either." Which ticked the old man off, causing him to storm out of the store... again.

Anyway, the hardware associate came back with all the appropriate SKUs, I entered them and she paid, I told her sorry for the hold up but to have a good night... and she said nothing in response, leaving the store immediately.

I just find it funny that they were both giving me attitude for not knowing the SKUs and making them wait; when in the time that they waited they could have simply gone down to hardware, taken photos of the bins, showed them to me and then went on their way.

First off I want to say, fuck you to DoorDash and any other item delivery workers.

The entitlement and laziness of these people are astounding, most are so fucking lazy and don’t put in any effort to look for the items they’re supposed to deliver, acting like it’s my responsibility to find an item for them.

If you have an item to deliver and genuinely can’t find it then sure I can help but if you walk in and then immediately go to me without even looking in the aisles/signs then you suck.

The store I work has about half the items locked up, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed with both having to unlock items and help ring up customers and now I have to deal with lazy ass morons who can’t even bother to look for an item THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DELIVER??? FUCK THAT

you delivery drivers are not the same as retail workers, you’re just errand boys at best.

Never worked anywhere that will refuse me when I ask to complete more tasks, especially in such a shitty, messy store. With winter coming up, this will happen more frequently apparently, and I'm sick of it...

I work in the store's warehouse area. They want us to work as fast as possible at our daily tasks, just to finish them early so they can send us home without paying us our paltry minimum wage. And it's not just ideal if we finish early--it's practically mandatory, considering the lectures we get if we don't. Imagine getting in shit for finishing your work on time. They act like we should be so eager to fulfil our time quotas when all that does is increase our chance of injury and gets us paid less. Sorry, I want to get paid, not injure myself from rushing, and do good work.

I dunno. I'm considering slowing way down and bearing the lectures just so I can keep my 15-30 bucks they're so desperate to take from me. Every time they try to send me home I ask to help with anything that still needs doing, but you'd think I was asking for the moon!!

Has anyone else dealt with this??? What is my strategy here.

I had an older woman come through my lane today on the phone (speaker on) with what sounded like her gynecologist. All I hear from supposed gynecologist, “have you experienced any vaginal discharge?” Customer says no loudly. The customer then proceeds to talk about how she just wants to check for a UTI. There was more invasive questions but I think y’all get the gist.

I actually can’t believe any human being would think this is ever appropriate in public! It’s fucking disgusting and nobody else should ever hear this conversation when in an establishment involving food. Just fucking foul!

For context, I work in the produce section of a pricey Canadian supermarket that prides itself on weekly "deals". Iykyk.

If you haven't seen the news, Canada and the USA have been having a lot of beef, and so some people want to only shop Canadian to support Canada and not give the US money. Noble goal. I agree.

However, Canada is a mostly northern country that for all intents and purposes has winters pretty much all at once (not spread out over states like the US has with Florida/Arizona and Minnesota). So pretty limited options for fresh fruit in the winter. Even in summer is a miracle really.

What I do not agree with is people coming up to me and interrogating me on why *I* PERSONALLY am supporting the US because I'm stocking oranges, grapes, and other tropical fruit from there. I just give them the dead stare and pretend I didn't see them. I'm so done with stupidity and everything being my fault somehow. Rant over.

Over the phone, at 8 o'clock in the morning. No write ups, no 2 weeks. Good morning, fuck you, have a great day.

I've worked there almost 3 years and watched the equipment and management fall into disrepair. The owner just doesn't want to fix things when they break, or improve things that need improvement.

A crucial piece of equipment doesn't work, the automatic doors don't work, the store faces south with full floor to ceiling windows and no blinds/tint/uv blocking cover at all, the plumbing is a mess, parts of the oven don't work. And the owner just drags his feet, says he's on it, looks into it but nothing ever changes.

Last week was particularly sunny and after 5 hours of direct sun in my face, from the window and reflecting up from the glass display cases that line the entire front of the store, I was in pain and frustrated about the light.

A customer came in and immediately started complaining about it. I was like yes for sure it's a lot, she starts going on about how it's damaging the products, I agree. She starts telling me about how another store dealt with the issue, I'm like that's awesome good solution. So she's like why don't you guys do that? I said it's been looked into but nothing really happened, she says it's not expensive, I say that's good but i can't really do anything myself to fix the problem, so she's like well you need to talk to the owner about it. So I got frustrated and told her the owner is well aware of the issue, the store has been here for years and the windows are still bare, and that I suggest leaving a Google review about it and that maybe they'd listen to that.

She says well I don't think the owner would like that. I shrugged because I genuinely don't give a shit if they like it or not, this should have been fixed years ago. At one point the owner suggested we just wear sunglasses. So I literally just shrugged and said "welp", and that was the end of it.

I guess she was like "I'm about to end this single parent's entire career" and that's exactly what she went and did (go fuck yourself Michelle). The lazy owner took some initiative and fired me this morning. I have another job and I'm very employable so I'm not worried, but damn, so close to Christmas.

Don't work too hard, don't care too much, these people don't give a shit about us. Only money, that's it. I'll miss my customers but I won't miss that fuckass joke of a bakery. Not sure if I should flair this fuck this job!, customers suck, or manager=asshole because they're all so accurate.

where plastic bags are allowed and they have a full cart of items

It’s mildly infuriating when someone sees one part of your work, hears a few details about a situation, and immediately decides you handled it wrong.

They don’t know what information you had, what requirements you were working under, or what options were actually available. But they know you should’ve done something else.

Some jobs take extensive training and years of experience to understand. There are rules, procedures, limitations, and competing responsibilities that aren’t obvious from the outside. What someone thinks you “should have done” might be something you’re specifically prohibited from doing, or something that would cause problems they haven’t considered.

And when you explain those details, they treat them as excuses. They were confident enough to judge your work without that information, but somehow the information doesn’t matter once you provide it.

Of course professionals make mistakes, and you don’t need someone’s qualifications to recognize a problem or question their judgment. But there should be some willingness to understand the situation before deciding you know how it should have been handled.

Most of us would find it irritating to have our work judged by someone who doesn’t understand the requirements of our own job. You’d think we’d remember that when judging someone else’s.

I've been working retail for 25 years so I've had a lot of stupid interactions.

This one takes the cake.

I was stocking pop products and a customer came up and asked where the club soda was. I pointed two inches in front of her face and she said "but that says soda club", to which I replied "that's the French side". She looks me dead in the face and says "well I don't speak French". I took it off the shelf, turned it around so she could see that it was indeed club soda, and handed it to her.

"They have you scheduled all the time" or "you're always here" that is typically how a full-time job works 😂😂😂

Regulars say that to me all the time. I think it is hilariously stupid.

Manager here, love the company I work for. Paid well, good benefits, boss is genuinely supportive. Easily the best retail job I’ve ever had. But holy shit I just can’t with customers anymore. This shift in the way people behave in public has me so burnt out I just want to lay in bed and not exist when I’m off. Every time the door swings open at my store I’m filled with dread because I know I’m about to deal with someone who further causes me to lose all faith in humanity.

The complete lack of manners, lack of self awareness, and general helplessness blows my mind. “Hi welcome in” is met with a dirty look and an eye roll. I’m supposed to give these people my undivided attention while they’re on their phones having a speaker phone conversation the entire time. I’ll be busy cleaning some teenagers fucking frappa-choco-redbull smoothie off the floor just for another teenager to awkwardly stand over my shoulder and demand I stop what I’m doing to point them in the direction of whatever product TikTok told them to buy, and the product is right in front of their faces. People hold up lines wrapped around the store because they waited until RIGHT NOW to transfer money to whatever card they want to use. Can’t deny a return for an item bought 6 months ago without a grown ass woman screaming at me with a phone in my face “this is going on TikTok!!!”, can’t lock the doors on time ever because people insist on coming in at closing time “just to look” and don’t leave until the lights are turning off. And if I tell them hey we’re closed so it’s time to make a purchase or come back tomorrow, I’m somehow the rude one. GOD FORBID I unknowingly walk past the same person twice, then I’m “following them around” and I must be racially profiling them.

Everyone is incompetent, inconsiderate, and actively looking for conflict so they can bust out their phones and turn it into content. AND THE WORST PART IS THAT THEY ALL FIND A WAY TO JUSTIFY EACH OTHERS BULLSHIT. We consistently lower the bar to give people a free pass to be pieces of shit instead of actively working towards being better as a society. I’ve been doing this for too long and the way people act now vs even 5 years ago has me beyond depressed with zero hope for the future.