Badmovies.org Forum

Speaking mainly retail stores such as Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc.  I started working retail when I was a senior in high school for a popular pharmacy chain.  That lasted through college and lasted until about one or two years after I graduated.  

Its a field I don't look back on in fondness.  In other words, I left it ten years ago, hung my smock/name tag from the rafters and never looked back since.  I think most people have worked a crappy retail job at some point in their life.  The pay is low, the management usually doesn't know their @ss from their elbow and the customers can be really mean spirited.  I had people throw money at me, scream at me and one or two that I swear were inches from swinging at me.

On the other hand, I did make many friends in the business some of which I keep in contact with today.  Then there were the customers who I actually looked forward to seeing.  I recall one older gent who came in every Sunday from the old folks home nearby.  He'd always buy a paper and a candy bar and we'd shoot the breeze for a long time.  He'd always have a yarn to tell and I'd always listen with a smile on my face.  Then one day he disappeared which makes me think he may have passed on.  Wherever he is I hope he is doing well.  

I'd say I was pretty awesome at customer service.  People would bypass the other staff just to ask me.  I guess I got the reputation as "that guy" in the store who knew everything.  Perhaps thats why I'm a hard @ss on extremely bad customer service.  No matter how hard it gets I don't feel staff should ever disrespect the customer even if they are wrong.  

In that light, I guess if anything retail did teach me a bit of patience.  That and some wonderfull tricks at basic math.  But other than that I don't miss it or have any desire to go back to it, even part time.

So how about you?  Have you done your time in the retail world?  Are you still there awaiting parole?  What stories would you like to share?

I worked at Lowe's for three years.  It was awful, everyone was so pointlessly cruel.  I wanted to die.  Thank God I got out.

Oh God, yes, I did. Every time Black Friday rolls around I stop for a moment and express to the Supreme Being my gratitude for not working in retain any longer.

My first two jobs were retail oriented.  The worst one was K-Mart, just after high school.  They hired two of us the same day, me and this other guy.  They put the other guy in sporting goods and electronics, and I got layaway.  The problem, being, that I'm 5'3", 125 pounds.  The other dude was 6'2 and 235.  Logistically thinking, I'd assume that the job requiring a person to lift tv's and assorted heavy items up and down ladders would go to, I dunno, the taller guy who's a hundred pounds heavier than me.

Not to mention, I had to work Black Friday, and well, customers suck.

Let's see,

Foot Locker, JoAnne's I think, Autozone and Checker Auto.

Foot Locker blew

JoAnne's stunk

Autozone was cool except for Jason and Eric.

Checker Auto did not care about me or the other people.  I will never take my money to Checker Auto again and if I see my old boss Peggy stranded on the side of the road, I would keep on driving.  She made Checker Auto much more worse.

Later,

John

No, I don't work in retail but I do work with the public on a daily basis, 8 am to 4 pm. 99% of the time it is a pleasure but there is always that one client that ruins your day. I caught a researcher downloading all of the files on the reading room PC in the library: all the files are my work that is available for the public to use on site but this guy downloaded the lot. If I didn't hear the 'bing-bong' sound when he removed the memory stick, I wouldn't have bust him.

I also should have kicked his ass out of there I mean, asked him to leave, but I didn't.

That's pretty much the way staff members and clients treat me here as well ~ a noted film critic here asked to see my boss after working with me for about two hours and he asked her where she'd found me as "this guy knows more than I do". Now THAT kind of comment makes the 21 years of my life that I've dedicated to this job of film archiving worthwhile. The pay we get is not great but the customer satisfaction is.  :thumbup:

 :bouncegiggle:  There was one d!ckheaded manager I worked under that made my and a couple other people's life miserable because he just didn't like us.  Why, I really don't know.  However I said (and I still stand by it) if he got hit by a bus in front of the store I wouldn't bother to call an ambulance.  Yep I hated him that much and he deserved it.

I worked at a grocery store for about 2 and half years, senior year in High School, and the 18 months in Tech school.  I didn't care for most of it, mainly because the weekend shifts were never fun, Saturday mornings were busy, and Sunday Mornings after church got out (around 10 ~ 11 am) until about 4 or 5 PM were ALWAYS busy.  I generally never cared for working Sunday's mainly because I missed some sporting events during the day, and the times around any major US holiday that involve food being cooked were always busy.  The only things that I enjoyed about working Sunday's were that I got an extra dollar an hour (so instead of the 7 something I was making I would make 8 something an hour).  Plus I usually flirted a lot during that time with the female customers around my age.

There is one member of our staff here ~ not in this building where I am now, thankfully: he is in another department ~ that I dislike so much, I would not pee on him if he was on fire. I wouldn't want to waste the pee.  :tongueout:

In high school I worked as a movie theater usher. I had a blast! Not only did we get free movies but almost everyone who worked there was a teen-ager so it was kind of like a hang-out. We sort of ran the place and did just enough work to keep ourselves off the manager's radar. It was a geat teen-ager job.

Later I worked at a grocery store as a stocker and hated it. It was boring and most of the people who worked there didn't like it either. Made for an unpleassant enviroment. Also, I had to join a union, which seemed pretty silly to me since all I did was carry boxes around.

Then I got a job at Borders Books which turned out to be a love'hate thing. I loved working at a book store and some of the co-workers and customers were vey cool. I had some very interesting conversations at the store and went to some cool parties. But there were also customers who were terrors and managers so shifty and scheming they could have stepped out of an episode of The Tudors or Rome. When corporate started micro-managing the daily details of running the place, I knew the end was near.

Not retail but I have worked in parts, service, body shop and the front office of car dealerships and let me tell ya, there is nothing worse than people and their cars. ugh, douchebags every.single.day.  :lookingup:

I worked at Target twice.

The first time was awesome!  I worked in the toy department.
All the people I worked with were my age and we all got along really well.  Sometimes on weekends we'd finish zoning the store after it closed and go to this one chick's house (she worked with us) to party and get drunk.  I have fond memories of us hanging out at her house tipping back cans of Busch Light while still wearing our Target uniforms...khaki pants and red shirts.  (some of us still had our name tags on)
The management were all really cool, too. 

Then I went back a year later and it was absolutely awful.
All the cool people I'd worked with had been replaced by idiots with no sense of humor and even worse, no sense of fun.  The management had changed and they were all a**holes. 
It wasn't a very pleasant place to work the second time around.

I worked at:

* PJ's Pet Center
* Regal Shoes
* Sunglass Hut
* Florsheim Shoes
* Home Video Center

All of these jobs were between 1980 and 1991.  I haven't worked in retail since then.

When I was in high school I worked for several years  in the tropical fish department in a small locally owned 5 & 10 store. I even got my picture in the local paper when we got a rare albino Khuli Loach one day in a fish shipment (DIME STORE GETS RARE FISH!).

I had a great time!

I worked three summers at a carnival, another six months doing customer service/ticket scanning for an entertainment venue (no, not a theatre; more like a concert hall/rental hall/sports arena), a summer working retail proper at Rona, and about 6 months in sales.

I haven't held a job for a year thus far, but I've never been fired. The carnival work was contracted for the duration of the carnival only, I quit the customer service thing because of scheduling conflicts with my classes that couldn't be resolved without cutting my hours back to the point of me essentially not having a job anyway, and the sales thing has petered out without an official end. Rona, though...ugh. I'll never work for that particular store again. I liked the work itself, don't get me wrong; I love gardening and I'm happy to help people with heavy loads, so naturally I worked in the greenhouse and brickyard. However, the management sucked. Not only were we understaffed during our busiest season (during an economic boom yet!), but our manager had a habit of changing the schedule often. It wasn't uncommon for us to get a call from work on a day off wondering where we were, and then having to explain that we checked the schedule the day before and it said we had the day off, as well as having to point out that the labour laws here say that employees have to be given at least 24-hours' notice if there's a change in schedules.

The final nail in the coffin was when they laid me off for no logical reason and didn't tell me. I only found out when I asked why I my name wasn't on the schedule anymore.

I have a lot of respect for retail workers, I couldn't imagine having to work odd hours, dealing with strangers all the time, and having to answer to bitter or uncaring management.  I'm a little ashamed to admit that I got it pretty easy.. I got an internship at my mom's office a year after high school and have been there ever since.. I've been promoted 3 times in 9 years.  I'm a system admin though so I did have to deal with help desk stuff for our employees.. not necessarily retail but it is kind of considered customer service.  Since I've been in my new job, I've just been a back-up, so I don't do that anymore.. some people that just decided I'm their "go-to" person still call me though.

I did work for the local Chinese restaurant's Taste of Chicago booth though.. that wasn't fun.  One morning some drunk guy came over screaming and threatening everyone saying that Chinese people were ruining everything  :bluesad:.

Same here, worked three seasons in the garden center. Made 11 an hour and in the off-season it was back in the store.  We had some idiots, but mostly everyone was OK. 

It was the younger kids who would mostly goof off and stall for time and all that. One time a girl made a customer wait for 45 minutes while she walked around the store trying to find things to do to avoid him.

He caught her and let her have it lock, stock and barrel until the manager got in between them. What p*ssed me off is he let her go..they were laughing about the guy in the breakroom and making fun of him.  To me, that was wrong.

Still work in retail as a merchandiser. What's great about merchandising is a flexible schedule, I'm not tied down to a particular store, and I don't have managers breathing down my neck.

Black Friday!!!

Right now I've got some pull-ups scheduled for early Friday (actually anytime from 10pm Thursday to 5am Friday morning) and have put out the message to other managers that I'm going to be in the stores if they need work done. Both a solicitation for work and a warning for those who want to avoid me. :teddyr:

Why would anyone want to avoid you? You're a good person and a good pal: I wouldn't want to avoid you at all.  :smile:

Yeah, a guy with a grin like Menard's is hard to deny..they type of grin that says "you are crunchy and good with ketchup."   :tongueout:

I have worked all the jobs in retail from stock boy all the way up to store manager with a staff of over 100.  One day I just realized I had had enough and started making plans to go to grad school.  Now, 8 years later, I don't regret all the time I spent in retail, but I am sure glad I don't do it any more.  One thing for sure, I laugh my ass off every time I watch the movie "Waiting."  Even though I never worked in a restaurant, I can identify with so many of the plot lines in that movie.

By the way, I always liked Black Friday.  It was kind of a rush.  The worst day, by far, was the day after Christmas.  People wanting to return stuff without a receipt, mixed with marking everything down for clearance, with employees who don't want to be there. 

With the experience I've had in restaurants, Waiting pretty much hit the nail on the head.  Closer than people realize.  From the normal stuff all the way down to the kindly old dishwasher dishing out advice.

I own a business with a small retail component, but the closest I came to working in retail was as a janitor in a tourist complex (shops and restaurants) for a year in high school. That never put me in contact with the public though. I was one of a few teenagers who had the run of the place after closing. A lot of unofficial perks came with that job, what with the candy and ice cream shop, the fully-stocked restaurant kitchen, the specialty food shop and other stuff. Everything but adult supervision.

I accidently put the last one, but I worked at PJ's coffee for a summer in 08 to get 100 service hours.

I don't work retail, but I have for the past 6 or 7 years worked circulation for a public library. I'm not a librarian, so I don't get accolades for being the helpful guy finding people stuff (though I do that). I'm also not the unsung employee who makes the library work by shelving books and keeping everything in order. Nope, I'm the guy who gets to argue with people about their late fines.

If you think people feel self-entitled as a customer, wait until they're asked to pay for something they think is free. For some reason people who wouldn't balk at paying Blockbuster $5/day for late fines get really antsy when I ask them to pay up our $0.20/day late fees.

But, hey, I've long stopped caring about the way things will play out. I am not a person who likes confrontations, but at this point I will argue with anybody. And I do. In fact, when my coworkers don't want to deal with a difficult person, they will often call me in. I'm not a person with any sort of authority, but I'm willing to endlessly argue with people trying to finagle their way out of a couple dollars.

I really am genuinely helpful, and even with the most difficult customers I am trying to work out their problems so they can use the library. But they still have to settle up accounts.

Working with the public for so long, I've found that all of the good customers, those genuinely friendly folks, you don't remember. Those people are great, and usually fun to interact with. No, the people you remember are the a***oles. It only takes one a***ole to f**k up an otherwise great day.

If you get those people, send them to me. I'm unflappable and willing to argue. Why not? I get paid either way.

Yep well said although I do remember the good ones like I said earlier.  But yes, the unpleasant encounters I can recall as if they were yesterday.

I think many members of the general public are sadists at heart.  Especially the church going older folks who you'd swear differently about.  They are simply looking for a punching bag to beat the hell out of verbally who won't strike back.  Its good Mofo you don't take the sh!t about late fines.  The customer is always right but there are exceptions.  If the customer doesn't realize those exceptions then they are mental.  If I know I'm right about something as a customer, you'd better bet I have all the facts in line.  Some people just shoot off verbal diarhea just to hear themselves talk.

The customer is always right. What a misunderstood saying that is.

The customer is always right about what they want. They are quite often wrong about what you can give them.

I currently work at Toys R Us.  I'm the Go-to guy there. 

One summer at a small local grocery store. I loved it! The people were friendly although honestly mostly I worked alone. Still had some fun coversations with customers. Really wasn't such a bad job but of course this was a very small-town store.

Now that you mention it, I think people are generally in a much friendlier mood when grocery shopping, and the staff at grocery stores seem far more cheerful and helpful.

I wonder why that is? Maybe because we visit the grocery store a little more often, and people are more familiar. Or maybe it has something to do with the types of things we're buying.

Good observation.  My guess would be its because people are less apt to check what price things are being rung up at seeing they're busy unloading their cart.  Large quantities of items bought probably mean less of a thought on the actually price.  Which is in fact odd because there are many dollars to be saved at the grocery store.  Sure there will be receipt checkers after the fact and they very well should check.  Hence the service desk staff being less courteous in my experience.  

At the store I worked at people would get about ten items tops.  I had people looking at the check out screen like a hawk waiting to pounce on a baby rabbit.  I guess my feeling on the store I was at was there was really no big savings.  They'd put out sales where one could save 10 cents on a roll of paper towels.  Little did the morons know, they could have bought it at Walmart for much cheaper without a sale price.  Then again, we had a lot of older clientele who refused to drive the extra 5 miles out of town.   :lookingup:

Side note, what are the ultimate pet peeves you had/have for customers no matter how minor or major?  I had a HUGE issue with people not handing me the money.  Especially the older ladies who emptied out their purse.  They always seemed to pull thi sh!t during a major rush.  Older ladies I found I either loved or hated depending on who it was.  There was no in between.  

I also had a major beef with several photo department clients.  You had the ones who insisted on looking at every god*mned photo to check for dust spots.  Then there were the ones that insisted the pictures were off color which many weren't.   I can guarantee most people buy their photos, look at them once and put them in a drawer where they stay forever.  

Then there were the people who didn't say "hi" back when you greeted them.  Hell even today I make sure I say "hi" to every cashier I run into even before they greet me.

I've worked retail in three places. The first was the backroom guy at Sears, it was a nice job, I got along with the boss okay, I didn't really have to do alot in the way of customer interaction and all I really did was refurbish ratchets all shift.

My next job was at Meijers (a Michigan version of walmart) as a stocker. That job was hell, boss was always railing on you for every freaking mistake, and i frequently was pulling 50-60 hour weeks. I've always been glad that i've never had to go back.

My current job is at the college cafeteria, working as a grill guy, dishwasher and custodian. I usually try to put pride into the food I cook, but sometimes I just could care less. My biggest pet peeve is when people don't take care of the dishes properly :hatred: :hatred: :hatred:. When its clearly marked in big letters where your plates, glasses and silverware goes how hard is it to put it in the proper spot? Apparently it's to hard for most college age kids to grasp!

I once worked at Macy's for several months, then I worked at this appliance/electronics store called Lechmere for about the same amount of time.  The one thing that stands out for me about working in retail is that it can seriously make you hate the human race.
 :bouncegiggle:

I worked at Wal-Mart for just under two years.  That was enough.  It was so nice to go from retail into a job where December was considered the slow season.  It was so nice to be able to stay away from the rat race, to have a life again, and be able to attend family events on a more regular basis.

Many times, Big Lots, K-Mart, Target, Ward's, JC Penney, Wal-Mart, Radio Shack.  I am not a huge fan but I'm much better in a sales position.  You can relate a bit better to customers and there are certain demands that are removed.  Often times, by nature you can deal with them much longer and turn their opinion around then when you are a cashier or stocker or such.  My first retail was in Wal-Mart and didn't last long.  Toy's associate and it sucked worse then I could imagine.  First being the "babysitter" for parents in the store and then we used to have this family that would ransack it all the time.  I hated the experience.  K-mart was next and much better overnight stocker.  I liked it, nobody to deal with just stock.  Big Lots wasn't bad but being a stocker there, you also had to cross train as a cashier.  Didn't like the quick change from one to the other.  Target was anal about facing.  I spent from close at 10 pm - 2 am just facing.  Never fun.  JC Penney, Wards, and Radio Shack were the most enjoyable.  They were all sales and you basically got to deal with customers as much as needed.  There were no gears to switch as your job was to sell product.  I was good at it and you got to learn about people and get to know them pretty well.  I liked that nature and that it was my responsibility to get things done.  No one wants to think about that fact but sales job are very much self paced.  As it was said "Sales is either the lowest paid easy job or the highest paid hard job you can ever have." 

Not from retail, but from ticket scanning for a carnival. If you're going to hand somebody something as small as a ticket, please either put out your cigarette or put it in your other hand! Nobody likes cigarette burns!

I work at a convenience store/ gas station on the west side of knoxville tn. Its amazing to me how little things like common courtesy and respect and kindness go right out the window when it gets around this time of the year.  I  get yelled at on a daily  basis because of the high gas prices, like i have anything to do with that . I got robbed at gunpoint last friday evening, this is the 3rd time ive gotten robbed while in this line of work. Im tellin you now if my MegaMillions numbers hit tommorow night,  my fat butt wont be behind a counter much longer

I actually worked at Circle K for awhile.  I feel for you.  The customers seemed much less friendly then anywhere else I have worked.