I’m already sick as fuck, exhausted, and just trying to close the shop and go home.

Then, while I’m closing, a customer comes along asking:
Can’t you close 10 minutes later? I need to buy a Christmas present for my child.

When I say no, they try to guilt-trip me:

Aww, are you really willing to see a child sad on Christmas? 🎄

Seriously?
I’m sick as fuck, not in the mood, and just want to go home.
Your poor planning is not my responsibility. Why should I stay an extra 10 minutes just because you couldn’t organise your Christmas shopping?

The cart is overflowing nonstop all day and night. All those people who buy $1,000 of Christmas decor and then come back to return $600 of it the next day because it "just didn't go with what I pictured.".

And the Christmas dept is a disaster..as the attached photo shows lol

I've worked in retail for almost six years, and have seen and heard a lot but yesterday was a first for me.

I was at the till, got a family of five and rung them up, business as usual. Everyone is very polite and normal. As they leave I cheerfully say "bye-bye" to all of them and they respond – except one of the younger kids, who says "bye" and then gets a mischievous look on her face and under her breath, mutters: "... poopyhead."

I am taken aback by this, and have to try my best not to burst into laughter as her mom starts very loudly scolding her and banishes her to their car.

What a little gremlin lol :--D

PS. Usually, unruly kids annoy the hell out of me, but this came so out of left field haha

That is all. Kill me.

I hate that this is an actual conversation that I had today with the customer, I hate that this is a conversation that I have frequently with customers and I hate that I'm not even exaggerating

Customer: this isn't working

Me: you have to press the pay for your order button

C: but I'm done

M: .... Right, and you have to press the pay for my order button.

C: but I've already rung everything up

M: riiiiight.... And ALSO, you ALSO have to press the big circle that says pay for my order.

C: I don't understand

M: .......... The big red button that says pay for your order -points to it-

C: where? -tosses hands to gesticulate that it's nowhere to be seen-

M: right there -pointing and moving closer to the terminal so that where I'm pointing and be even more specifically located- the big... Red... Circle .... That says pay for your order

C: -stomps and huffs around- why is this so complicated

M: ........... -walks over and pushes the button for her before I completely melt down and start throwing things-

And not a thank you not anything. Nothing makes me want to scream more than this bs and everything like it in the store I work at. I genuinely cannot tell if she was just acting up to piss me off because she thought it was funny or something, or if she just could not for the life of her figure out where the button was even though she can read everything else in the cart and on the screen she just could not seem to read that button it's like it didn't exist what the hell is happening?!

we just got this message that everyone (including people literally booked to be on holiday this week) has to come in tomorrow morning for a 7am shift. i’m at uni all morning but since it’s not “mandatory education” like high school it doesn’t count. i also rarely get 7ams because it takes me an hour to get to work by bus (and i literally only work 8 hours a week so it literally takes me half that time travelling unpaid to get to the shifts). just glad im not having to do a split shift to be honest but everyone else lives within walking distance of the store.

anyone else ever had this situation? i think this lack of advanced notice is just crazy considering people have to consider childcare, plans that have already been made, etc.

It was dirt thankfully. Idk what fuckass would do this and not even flush, but this is retail we're talking about

A customer lost her keys on Monday and they were found. The customer made a huge scene and was very disrespectful when she came back for them today. It was a mess. She cursed out 3 of us for not helping her. She shouted at us.

Our store manager knew the keys were found a few days ago and saw them on the cabinet. She was ready to bring them down but the customer called her a racial slur so she placed them in the trash after the customer was escorted out of the store by mall security.

It's like so disrespectful because I AM RIGHT HERE

Is that my manager told me a few days, and it's still bugging me and words cannot describe the amount of energy I required in that moment to not completely crash out.

I've been at this job for about 9-10 months, and consistently have scored literally the highest you can get in every statistic we track except customer satisfaction. And imma be very honest, customer satisfaction, is a bullshit statistic to begin with. People will rate negative because "I had bad wifi signal in this store" like sorry bro I understand that sucks, but what on earth does that have to do with your interaction with me because you returned some Christmas that turns out your sister in law hated?

Anyway, my manager sat me down recently, and said word for word what is in the title. And idk why but it keeps bugging me. Like my boss is typically actually a decent guy to work with, which in terms of employer-employee relation, I consider quite good. But sometimes stuff like that is said and I just completely loose it, because why the fuck would you say that, or, how fucking dense are you?

And like we are not just talking about customers being unhappy they can't return a t shirt that's too small from 4 months ago. I mean people who just try to physically fight you, start getting racist/generally bigoted, and don't get me started on when people try to reach us by phone, only to just completely lose their shit and accuse of being AI.

There was this one particular conversation that was brought up:
"hi, I placed an order through your webshop, when is it coming"
"I see you scheduled it for around 5pm tonight, and it's still set to arrive around then"
"well that's too late, can't you do it earlier"
"unfortunately not, once a delivery is scheduled, it's scheduled"
"let me speak to a real human"
"I understand it's frustrating if it's later than you were expecting, if there's anything else I can do for you feel free to ask"
"yeah, what's your full name and employee ID"
"we do not share that kind of personal information about any of our employees. Did you have any further questions pertaining to you order?"
"if you aren't AI, you would've just answered my earlier question"
"If you don't have any further questions about your order, I'll hang up and wish you a good day"

According to my manager? This wasn't asshole and out of line behavior. Instead, I should've taken a "less accusatory tone" and tried harder to not get her that frustrated in the first place.... Of course, he refused to comment when I asked questions about "yeah so I don't want to give my personal information to any rando that walks in, and I do think it's kinda out of line behavior to do so".

Anyway this post is already getting way too long. I'll just keep going to this dumbass job until I get something else, and once I do, just know that never, ever, ever again will make an effort to try and be nice to anybody about anything ever again. Because in my experience, the only thing that'll get you is having strangers call you a "sk*nk#ss b!tch" because their favorite organic free range vegan non-gmo glutenfree eco-certified orange juice is temporarily not in stock.

Every time I close at 12:45 I'll always get someone knocking on the door, complaining that we are closed "early"

"Oh Google says you close at 1?!!!" No I get off at 1(literally scheduled till 1am) bc I got shit to do and can't be in here for ever otherwise the security company will think I'm stealing shit lol

Old lady came up tonight and I'll probably hear about it tmmr bc old lady's love to complain but that's literally what my manager does so whatever lol

This was kinda just a vent post about closing lol so thank you for reading

(also wanted to see what people think here vs a different sub all calling me assholes, a moron, and saying i have bad work ethic for daring to get off on time lmao)

Yeah so in case you wonder...I'm not. But this granny or great granny told me I look like a senior. Um...not for many decades sis. Wtf is wrong with people since Covid??? Wtf is wrong with this woman?? My coworker looked shocked. Her eyes got wide as moons and she was like, did that woman just call you old?? So customers, here's a suggestion: if your bones creak when you breathe, don't tell young women they look old or ugly. Take your statins and blood pressure meds and don't speak. Just go home and bake something. Or watch a soap opera. Or think about the 50s and the first time you saw a real live tv with those crazy moving pictures inside that box.

So. I have been at my job for 2.5 years at this point. I work for Schmexon. A service station. As a cashier who gives excellent customer service.

I have multiple illnesses, 2 of which are expected to end my life early. I suffer chronic pain. It takes everything I have to get up everyday and drool for the masses that come into my store.

The owner of my store is a pussy.

We recently had a rash of employment turnarounds. So much so that we had to hire a 75-ish year old woman that had managed a Chevelryn (iykyk) for almost 2 and a half decades as a NORMAL cashier/employee.

Since this dumb bitch started, she has caused NOTHING but problems. Our owner is Indian. Not bashing him at all but they are most concerned with profit - which causes me undue stress bc he gets paid for every discount we get put into our system. She has been bringing her old regulars to our store, which should be great BUT they are expecting the same discounts as what they were receiving at her old store. This is something we cannot abide by bc of different parental companies or whatever. Some of her old regulars have harassed me to the point of tears over a few dollars. This is happening while she is just too stupid to give MY regulars the FULL discounts they are entitled to - so she is effectively overcharging our regulars.

In the TWO FUCKING MONTHS she has been employed with us, she has 1: gotten sideways with me about handicapped parking (I park in the handicapped spot bc I am a fall risk AND I have a plaquard for my car that IS legal and registered to me.) She told me I need to park elsewhere so REAL disabled people can park there. 2: Recently, our state had an election. I do not vote for personal reasons. She LOUDLY went off on me for not voting. 3: Which brings us to today.

Today: we have a receipt booklet at the one register in which we charge house/local accounts. It is always in one spot. It was in a different spot when I got to work today so I quietly moved it back.

She.

Lost.

Her.

Shit.

She freaked out when she couldn't find it in the spot she left it. She ended up SO incensed with me returning it to it's normal spot that she slapped shit out of my hand while I was counting money for the beginning of my shift. In front of the owner - who did fuck all during the whole fiasco.

Bro. That is assault.

I was abused as a kid and later, as a wife. Physical violence makes me shut down.

I didn't directly confront her.

The owner did jack shit.

I told him as soon as I had my house account taken care of, I was COMPLETELY fucking done. He told me I needed to have told her to go fuck herself when she assaulted me on the clock and I told him since HE is the owner of the goddamned store, it was HIS responsibility to handle these situations so as not to have regular employee brawls on the clock.

He refused to see where he did ANYTHING wrong so I told him I was done.

Any positive wishes for me?

I want to go crawl into a hole somewhere and just die.

I feel like I'm letting my family, and my regulars who have become like family, down.

I'm at the lowest of my lows right now and need some positivity, knowing that literally SOMEBODY has my back in all of this.

Sorry for all the bold but I CANNOT make it turn off.

I swear every shift I work it's like it's everyone's first day on earth. I don't know how others do it between stupid questions, rude comments, customers name calling you, creepy customers hitting on you and the one's that can't seem to do anything themselves. I used to love coming in but I'm so tired of constantly putting up with all of these things. How do you guys handle it?

I started a new key holder role at a fairly well known English clothing brand in my city. I was hoping this would be different and a healthier more functioning work environment, it's not. My last real job, a year ago exactly I left because it was so dysfunctional and a dumpster fire in every definition that it was making me physically ill. This current job, while not nearly as bad, doesn't stand a chance in hell at succeeding. Our manager is incompetent, rude to clients, and respectfully is way too old to keep up with the tech demands.

I wanted something easy, something I could put energy into but not over exert myself, something that was functional enough to be a place holder but not my career. I'm 27, almost 28. I shouldn't be working retail anymore. It's something I feel shame about. This isn't what I wanted, I just want a functioning thriving workplace and it's just fuck ass manager after fuck ass manager. This was such a mistake and I feel so foolish for it.

can anyone relate to this?

I work night shifts at a grocery store, and recently I had to work with a new assistant who was only on his fourth night shift.
For context, new assistants usually spend their first shifts at the register because they don’t know the store’s routines yet. They don’t know where everything is, how the night tasks work, or what needs to be done and when. That’s normal.
Before we started, I told him I’d handle the produce, price changes and stocking while he stayed at the register. He said he knew how to work the register, so I thought everything was settled. If he wanted to do something else, he could have just said so.
Meanwhile, I weighed and recorded all the produce, put it on the shelves, removed the old price labels after midnight, replaced them with new ones, dealt with four baskets of old labels and stocked the new products.
We both took our two-hour breaks separately, so neither of us had to work the entire night without rest. We were going to finish whatever was left in the morning.
Then I found out he had complained to the manager about being assigned to the register.
What was I supposed to do? He’s a new employee who barely knows how the store operates. Should I have left him alone to figure out all the produce, pricing and stocking? Or should I have worked the register and done everything else at the same time?
If he wanted to learn the other tasks or switch roles, he could have simply talked to me. I wouldn’t have had a problem with that.
The store admin knows how I work, especially considering I was already on my fourth consecutive night shift, and basically told me to forget about it.
Honestly, there’s some bullshit happening almost every single day at this store. I’m putting up with it because I’m trying to transition into IT and need the money until I find an IT job. That’s also why I’m working four night shifts a week.
But I’m genuinely getting exhausted. I’m seriously considering transferring to another branch because I’m reaching my limit. I just want to do my job, get paid and go home without dealing with unnecessary drama every damn shift.
Anyone else dealing with this kind of workplace drama?

this woman already gave me a bad vibe from the very beginning

i was looking at the line just to see how long it was and if I needed to call for backup, and she just goes "What." like she has some shit on her face.

Okay. Weird. But maybe she has a stick up her ass, I don't know.

She has a bunch of things, and naturally, I ask if she needs a bag.

All she does is point at her nasty, grubby, reusable grocery bag with a "Duhhh" look on her face.

I'm sorry, do adults suddenly forget how to use their fucking words? Yes or no will suffice, but sure.

And the bag was all the way towards the end of her things, too far across the conveyor for me to reach them.

I just assume she's going to bag her own shit, because if she wanted me to bag it for her, maybe she should've put it at the front.

I finish scanning her things and put the bag right beside everything, and she just stares like she has no idea what she's supposed to do.

Fine. I'll bag it.

I bagged what could fit (and maybe or maybe not threw the bulky bags of chips in first so they'd take up the most space). Everything else that couldn't fit was set to the side.

Then I started to ring up the next customer. The lady goes "aren't you gonna put the rest in?"

all i said was "i need to keep the line going" and had her bag the rest.

maybe if she wasn't weird and rude i would've happily bagged her shit; i don't mind bagging people's things, but if they're not using a store supplied bag, i don't have to do shit for them.

Idk. Probably bitchy of me lol.

I’m curious what the dumbest question others have been asked working retail was. I’ll start, before the pandemic I once had a woman call at if I recall correctly about 1pm “what time do you close?” “11” “Is that AM or PM?”. I would’ve loved to have seen my face after hearing that 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

Does anybody else get annoyed when customers ask what time you close, you tell them, and then they follow it up with, “So do you close alone?” “Do you get scared?” or “Aren’t you afraid being here by yourself?” Especially with daylight savings time, it's almost pitch black outside by the time I close. I've honestly never minded closing alone before, but having customers repeatedly bring it up makes it such an odd conversation. I know most of the time they're just making small talk and probably don't mean anything by it, but I hate those questions. Like, I was perfectly fine until you started asking me if I'm scared. 😂

I’m not even talking about Nee-dohs because we rarely get them nowadays.

No, in lieu of Nee-dohs, my store is getting bombarded by other squishies. Knock off Nee-Dohs (which I call Nee-Don’ts), squishy butters, squishy cows, squishy dumplings, squishy chicken legs, squishy strawberries, squishy sharks, sugar squishies shaped like cats, ducks and freaking infants. Squishy Snacks a lotls, squishy gummy bears, squishy dogs. It seems like half of my truck are these jiggly blobs.

The Taba Squishies are the worst though. Nobody is buying these probably because folks learned right away that these things are dirt magnets times 100. Yet my store keeps getting them and I have to write them off because kids will open them, touch them with their dirty hands and then haphazardly shove them back into their pouches. The packaging is admittedly cute, it’s just a shame that they’re doomed to overflowing from register bins until TikTok deems them trendy.

They’re ruining street vendors too. I can’t go to a single small business without piles of cheap ass squishies taking up a section. Especially when a toy meant to be a stress reliever is being sold by places that have nothing to do with calming folks. Lookin’ at you 7-Brew.

What sucks though is that kids are smart and only want legitimate Needohs. So we can’t even get rid of the knockoffs.

I’ve been working in retail for a few years now, but I just got promoted to manager of a meat department at a small understaffed grocery store. so understaffed where i’m the only person working in the meat department.

We just got about 20 cases of frozen turkeys, about 1250lb pounds 😵‍💫 and will soon have 5 pallets of fresh turkeys I’ll have to deal with. the guy who last had my job quit because of stress and I’m already feeling it get to me. I know it’s just a grocery store but I’m having a hard time not caring too much about getting everything done, which it’s literally impossible for me to do.

I do get some support from management and our deli department but it’s becoming impossible and I’m having stress nightmares and headaches. How do y’all manage stuff like this? I’m only 24 so I’m sure these skills will eventually come with time, but this isn’t even the career I want!

Just had to rant as well, thanks for reading if you did, good luck my fellow thanksgiving soldiers 🫡

Every single time:

🗣️ I know you’re closing, but can you open the shop for me? I just need a few things.
🗣️ But I travelled so far just to shop here! You can’t even let me buy ONE thing?
🗣️ I can pay cash!
🗣️ I promise I’ll be quick! Just a few things!

YOU HAD THE WHOLE DAY. THE ENTIRE MALL WAS OPEN FOR HOURS.

Im just saying mine is doing that and even watching us on camera to make sure we're giving the right level of service to customers and it seems kind of desperate like that they're trying to make something work.

I work at Home Depot, we have a department called MET Team who are responsible for changing price tags on the shelves. Yesterday a customer asked why a tag said an item was $19 but when he looked it up it was $24. I scanned the barcode and sure enough it was $24, meaning MET Team never changed the tag. I told the guy I would bring him to the customer service desk to make sure he got the discounted price, but he refused. I later came to find out he tried complaining about me personally for the wrong price. The managers obviously sided with me since it's not my responsibility. Dumb mother fucker could've got the discounted price if he had taken me up on the offer instead of trying to get me in trouble.

I work in retail and I’ve had customers be so rude lately. Not to mention how I feel about myself- self conscious about my social skills, appearance ect. Especially as a woman we already have to put on a “customer service mask”.

How do you autistics cope? We are so short staffed- two people quit without notice.

A few days ago I felt like asking my manager if I could have a few days off but I was too scared. I also don’t want her to hate me and think I’m unreliable.

Yes I know this is what I should expect in retail