Actual Stories from Retail @real-retail-stories - Tumblr Blog

Buckle in, because I’ve got a story for you.

I need to tell you about these two customers in the motor carts because, oh my god, they made me want to shoot my foot.

First, they dictated how I should do everything before hand. How I should bag, what order I should do rainchecks. Like I don’t know how to do my job after being there for 6 months.

Then, for every item on sale (which is the vast majority of them), they demanded to SEE the physical price deduction themselves. Not usually a problem, it always shows up right on the screen. But then THEY QUESTIONED. EVERY SINGLE ONE. And when we assured them “oh no, that’s supposed to be it,” they didn’t even TRUST US until we SHOWED THEM the math to prove it. In one case, two of the specials were combined into one (five bottles of juice were 1.49 each instead of 2.49. This happened when $5 was taken off at the end, however, they didn’t believe us) and asked to speak to a manager because “you made the ads misleading.” (Like I have control over that?) It was even worse with the rainchecks when I screwed up the pricing and had to deduct items to fix it, and they refused to believe I took off the right amount (even when I did). FINALLY, after I thought I was done with them (and ready to tear my hair out), they had the AUDACITY to continue to question me on prices on the receipt after they were supposedly satisfied.

Can you even imagine being such a micromanagement FREAK? It was enough to irk me for the rest of my shift.

Dear Customers

As much as you would like to think that I have the power to force your card to decline, guessss what? I really fucking don’t. And i have been working retail for 7 years and have yet to see anyone else who could.

This goes to the two men who came back yelling at me through the entrance of my store “It works! You should have tried it another way!” And then proceeded to flip me off

So small trigger warning for sexual perversions

So I worked at a place that rhymes with Ged Gath and Geyond. I worked customer service and have plenty of stories I could tell you but this one sticks out cuz it was one of the last ones I took before I quit. So to start have you ever watched a video where you know something gruesome is gonna happen yet you cant look away? That's what happened with this phone call I just couldn't put it down. So I start my spiel saying thank you for calling this is galaxy how can I help you? The guy says "oh this isnt michelle?" No this is galaxy theres no Michelle that has ever worked here. "Oh maybe I called the wrong store" ah yes this is the store in CT maybe you meant the one in MA because both towns had the same name. "Oh well can you do me a favor?" And me being the epitome of boss makes a dollar I make a dime so I waste time. I of course say sure what do you need? "My sister in law is going to pick up the phone and be laughing just say this is Michelle and then hang up" that's an east task so I say sure why not? Yeah big mistake. The guy then proceeds to say "yeah she pulled a prank on me this morning. When my brother left for work I went downstairs for breakfast and there she was in the kitchen in a see through night gown and she talked to me for 30 minutes in a completely see through night gown" for some reason it didnt click to me that that had meant something more and I was just like ok??? He then proceeds to ask "yeah so do you want to know how I'm getting her back?" I respond by saying yeah by me saying my name is Michelle and then hanging up. "Oh but theres another part I'm sitting completely naked in my room and watching porn can you hear it?" He then proceeds to turn the volume up on whatever he was watching and I can hear it. "Do you want me to turn it up louder?" He asks and I like shout/whisper no and he goes "oh well I'm watching some skinny white girl get fucked by 4 black guys" and whatever sick morbid part of me finally let go and I slammed the phone down onto the receiver. I fucking hated that job. I had customers take pictures of me and it was just one of my worst experiences ever. It was hell

#trigger warning #cursing #submission

Ive had people walk up to me and ask, "do you have this item in the back", and our company policy, or my manager herself, told me that I am not allowed to check in the back for times or get someone to do so. So I had to tell someone that we didnt have this item, and that I'm not allowed to look in the back of the store for more. And they got mad, demanding why not and I apologized and told them my manager said I cant. They got pissed but this happens alot D: like, I'm sorry?? I cant do anything

#Anonymous

When i started my job i worked mon-thurs now i have to also work every other weekend. They asked me to work the saturday of my weekend off and when i said i couldnt they purposefully let other people who were supposed to work sunday have the day off so i had to work. 1. It’s my day off & 2. They were fully staffed they didnt need me they were just punishing me for actually wanting my day off off to you know celebrate my birthday

#Anonymous

I work in a deli at a grocery store. We also do fried chicken. We have a hot bar that we serve lunch/dinner at but we close it at 6pm. I was in the bakery doing cupcakes(our deli and bakery are connected to each other). My coworker was cooking fried chicken to put out for the floor. So this guy comes over asking if i can serve him from the hot bar. The guy is a regular and is in the store like every other day. He comes of really nice but is actually an asshole. Well i go over to the hot bar and realize that it is turned off and in look at the time and it’s 6:15. I ask my coworker how long it has been off and she says 30 minutes. I then tell him that everything in there would be under temperature and i cant sell it to him. He then threatened to get a manager. All he wanted was tenders and i tell him that its going to take a while, especially when my coworker is still in the middle of dropping chicken in the fryer. So her and the customer compromise to make something quicker and she says its going to be about 25 minutes. He says he’s fine with that. So I go to the freezer and grab my coworker a bag of what she needed and i go back to the bakery. Only a few minutes go by and the dude goes to the customer service desk where one of our managers is. Our manager then comes back and asks about the food and my coworker said that she had it in the fryer cooking. The customer says that he doesn’t understand why other customers are able to get special orders but him. I think he was referring to people who order stuff a day or longer ahead of time. Like if he wanted something specific and wanted it garented he could of ordered it a day ahead or just go to an actual restaurant or fast food. So after he ahd gotten his food, he had come over to me and told me it was would of been quicker to do the tenders and that we wasted 45 minutes of his time that he wont get back. It was not 45 minutes and would of been a lot longer to do tenders. And he also said the we were incompetent.

This dude has complained for years that the service at our store is horrible. Even writing a mean letter about our department head saying that she is the worst and should be fired. Even going as far as complaining to corporate. He is really nice most days. But we are prettey sure he is bipolar. He even blamed me and our department head that we should of cooked the chicken instead of my coworker. Probably claiming that it would of been faster.

So, I used to work for Wal-Mart as a cashier. One thing I'll preface this with, is that cashiers have almost no contact with the other departments. So, when Dr. Customer got into my line, during a busy time of day, I was quite startled to find a sales floor associate, squeezing through the line behind me to warn me about her.

She had, apparently, spent the last four hours demanding the sales floor associates bend to her every whim, having reported them to the managers for so much as forgetting to smile for a moment, threatening to call lawyers for one out of date box of cereal being on the shelf, etc.

So I nod a little, and thank the associate for telling me, and proceed to take care of my line. Now at this point, Dr. Customer is already looking at me with suspicion. I try to ignore it, and take care of the person in front of her, and she mutters some vitriol about how she would have been out of here if I hadn't been chatting with my boyfriend--the other associate. I grit my teeth and ignore it. She starts conplaining that I was talking th the other customer too much (I had told them to have a fabulous day, and thanked them for shopping with us).

So I apologise to her for the wait, and she snaps, "Stop talking, start scanning." Nevermind that I was already scanning. I focus on my work, and she demands to know why I didn't choose to have a bagger. I informed her that it wasn't an available position.

This goes on with various complaints throughout the transaction. We come to the payment part, and she takes out a gift card, and looks me in the eye and tells me, "You have to run it as a shopping card."

I nod, take the gift card, and hit the gift card button. She leans over my register, and this look of anger passes over her face, and she says, "Why are you running it as a gift card? i told you, it's a shopping card!"

I inform her that the two are synonymous, and she goes on a whole massive rant about how she knows there's a shopping card button, and she's not stupid, she has a PHD, while I have customers waiting. Meanwhile, I ran her payment, and it went through just fine. She was still complaining when I started loading her groceries into her cart, and immediately turned toward the customer service counter to complain.

She got not four feet, when the cheerleader in line behind her loudly said, "God, what's her problem?"

Before I could even respond, Dr. Customer turns around, hands in fists and looks at me like she wants to murder me, and screams, loud enough for the whole front end to hear, "Excuse me?! How DARE you talk about me behind my back!" She demands to see my manager.

So I call her over, and she tries to defuse the situation, and Dr. Customer goes on and on about how incompetent I am, and how I was talking shit about her to other customers, even going so far as to stare down this now terrified cheerleader as her teenage friends, and demand to know if I was talking shit, trying to use the fact that I was standing there and intimidating them as an excuse why they sided with me.

It was a total shitshow. The customer ended up getting store credit (on her shopping card), and I got a write up.

I'm trying to quit

My job, which I've been working for 10 months, is killing me slowly. I'm temporarily working 40+ hours a week with no benefits and i'm in so much pure pain that I can't really go farther than to the bathroom 50 feet away from my bed. I already have early onset arthritis in both my knees, which is so bad that some days I can't walk up and down the stairs without excruciating pain. On top of this, I have near chronic back pain. I'm mistreated at work, told constantly to shut the fuck up, made fun of, and told my opinion doesn't matter. I get reprimanded if I ask for more than one day off in a month. I've been accused of abusing sick days because of my knees and back. Today I cried because someone told me "fill the cases and this time fucking do it right." I'm so tired and it's 2 in the fucking morning I have to be in at 9. I think I'm gonna die if I keep doing this for much longer.

corporate greed??

So, I work at a big name place that has books, and I'm not going to name it obvs because me and whoever else would get in trouble, but anyway. Sometimes, the stores get visits from the CEO. This person seems like a decent human, they're super involved and always visiting the stores around their home area,charities through the company, etc. I live on the other side of the continent, so we don't usually get visits from them, so it's kind of a big deal. When this person came in, they had a team of about 6 or 7 people with them, who just followed them around the store. I was stuck up at the cash desk, so I couldn't see what was happening for the most part. They come up in line and are behind a little girl and her mom. The little girl is buying some books to read, I think in the 9-12 area?? So, the CEO decides that they're going to buy the books for the little girl and her mom. The CEO pays, and the girl and her mom are grateful and are on their way. Their total was about $20. The CEO then turns around to me once they are gone, and asks for a cash out on the books she just paid for. Like are you serious???? You run a company worth how much money and you literally can't spare $20??? The enitre thing was to keep up appearances. I was so highly disturbed by it. This was like, over a year ago now, and it still bothers me. I hate corporate type shit with a burning passion.

when i was fairly new at my job a customer approached me and demanded that i let her talk to the store manager. apparently the previous night a man had tried to kidnap her daughter and her friends, and management had done nothing to help the woman find the culprit. she accused the store of conspiracy to hide the attempted kidnapping. still have no idea what happened with that

I work at an art retail store in NYC, where certain clothing under $110 aren't taxed. So at the start of 2019 this customer comes in to buy our leftover seasonal gift items - which lo and behold - include socks from Christmas that we placed on Clearance for less than $1. She gets very upset over the fact that she had to pay 6 cents on 6 pairs of socks. I tried to explain to her that these socks, while they are indeed clothing, do not count as 'essential' clothing that is covered by tax exemption since she is buying clothing from what is essentially a Michael's store. We are not known for selling clothing so her socks are considered non-essential novelty/luxury items, and are thus taxable. She throws a fit, calls for a manager (that's me btw), and she proceeds to lecture us about how ridiculous and illegal our policy was, asking me to basically 'make up' a tax exempt ID to get rid of her 6 cent tax. I obviously refused to do so and she finally left after paying for her tax, but I ended up have a 15 minute conversation with this idiot OVER 6 CENTS for 6 pairs of out-of-season Christmas socks from a art supply store. Jesus Christ.

I used to work at Jooster Buice. One day while I was working the closing shift, the phone rang. It was a pretty slow night and I was alone (I was bored out of my mind) so I was kind of glad for the call. We didn't have a caller ID at the time so every time someone would call I'd have to guess who it could be. Lol. The guy called at around 9 PM and told me that he's the owner of the store. He was like, "My name is ___. I'm the owner." in this deep husky borderline creepy voice. I've met him before and he was really nice so I ignored the weird voice. He asked what time the store is closing and I told him 10. He then told me to wait for him before I close the store. I agreed because duh he's the owner. I didn't really think anything of it until it got to around 9:50. I texted the manager saying that if the owner doesn't show up before 10 I'm leaving. The manager was like, "It's okay. You can leave. The owner has a key." I closed the store and I literally just got to my car when my phone rang. It was my manager telling me to get the hell out of the store immediately. Apparently the person who called isn't who he said he is. The manager called the owner right after I texted him and the owner said he has no idea who I just talked to.

They reported it to the cops and changed the phone to a newer model (with a caller ID), thank heavens.

I was covering a bagging shift because our front end needed help. With my first customer I dropped a lemon. It bounced, then went rolling across the floor. After picking it up I asked the customer if he wanted me to get him a new one. "Nope!" He laughed, grinning evilly. "Those are to make a birthday cake for my ex-wife."

I work for this grocery delivery service so I have a big cart that I take around the store when getting orders togeather and customers take stuff off the cart when my back is turned. Like you don't take stuff off other carts. That's not how this works.

Consignment is kinda hell

I work at a small consignment shop and we often have consignors come in who have gotten exceptions on things in the past and then get nasty about it if they don’t get them again. One lady came through the other day and wanted to check the balance on her consignment account, I was in the back room so she was talking to my coworker and it’s policy to ask for ID since some people have balances that are hundreds of dollars. Well this lady went OFF when my coworker asked for ID. She claimed that she had been consigning there forever and that everyone knew who she was (she should kno our policy if she’s been there forever but also I have worked there for two years and didn’t recognize her). She yelled about how she didn’t want to walk all the way out to her car for her ID and she wanted to speak to a manager. Once she found out that there was no manager (bc there’s no managers at all just the store owners who are never in) she yelled about how she was gonna call them and tell them how disrespectful my coworker was and blah blah blah. The worst part about stories like this is everytime we tell the owners they just go “Well that consignor has never been rude to me so *shrug*” like gee thanks. All my coworker did btw was explain that it was policy and then backed off while this lady kept walking away and then turning back to say MORE aggressive things before finally leaving.

Crotch goblins... A learned behavior

So... I work at dollar tree, I was having a pretty damn good day. Then out of nowhere this little crotch goblin comes running up to me, he seemed to be either 5-7 years old. And he says with a straight face " I've got my stuff ready, there's nobody at the checkout. Could you like do you job?" I was like what the fuck? Trying to keep my cool I said in the most politely way possible, " I'm sorry I was just doing this part of my job until someone was ready (which was recovery which included pushing around a cart and cleaning up after other crotch goblins.) He says well I'm ready, and your job isn't shopping" and then I saw red so I quickly menuvered around him so that I wouldn't slap him silly. meanwhile his mother or nanna comes toddling over and starts talking to him. She was standing no less than five feet away when this happened. Do you think she said anything about the way he approached me? No...the answer is no she says something about need to find more things. I stopped no less than three feet away from her give her a "your the scum of this Earth look" and walk away for a minute, To cool off.... literally. I went into the back and just yeeted myself into the freezer for five seconds. Came back out because I knew I couldn't leave the register unattended if anyone happened to come up ( which is why we use our signs and phones, which I face palmed after because I had forgotten to put it down before my interaction with the crotch goblin, so that's completely on me) but there was and there NEVER should be any reason what so ever that the child was talking to me the way he did. You know what MY mother or Nanna would've done? They would've absolutely pimp slapped the shit out of me. And then made me apologize. Better yet I knew from a very young age that your treat everyone equally with respect. It's not always easy of course...

But moral of the story is ( which there were still other interactions after I came back out) watch the way your treat people around your children. Some part of me believes that he must have seen one of his parents talk to a worker that way. And now just assumes that, that is the only way you are supposed to talk to people to get your way.

So...to his parents or guardians if they ever see this ( I know what I said about respect but...) 🖕

Okay I personally do not work, but my mother mentions her stories all the time. This includes one time when she went to tell a costomer "Sorry for the wait" (She works in a resuraunt) and he slapped her saying "Woman in my country don't talk back to men." I am so sorry any of you have to go thtough that, and when I get this new job, wish me luck starting retail next month. >///<

WTFFFF

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