Retail: True Story

What's this, another retail blog? Why yes. Yes it is. And as a cashier of 4+ years I have my fair share of retail stories. They can be unbelievable. They can make you wonder what the hell is wrong with people. They can drive you crazy beyond belief. They can even take over your life. Cause when you work in retail who needs a life? But hey, that's retail for you. True story.

[retail-truestory]

Is it really that much to ask to not get screamed at for me simply following my store’s rules or policies?

[anxietyproblem]

[retail-truestory]

Apparently some people think it's actually worth it dropping every profanity imaginable over not getting $1 off on something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[retail-truestory]

Confession

I can't wait for the madness of this damn virus panic to be over. But what I can wait for is the return of unwanted comments from customers about how we should be trying to find "real" jobs. Even though no one ever had the right to say that to us and they sure as hell will have no right to say it after we're the ones who worked through this whole Coronavirus deal. I'm sorry random customer whose opinion I never once asked for, were YOU an essential worker coming into this and risking your neck every damn day, or were you working from the safety of your own home if at all?

[cashiercomplaints]

During March, I was hired at a well known gas station. So it’s my second week on the job and I overhear something about one location being basically shut down for the day. I ask about it. It was my younger cousin’s store.

Now here’s why. My job is implementing that 6 ft distance thing because of corona. A customer (customer B) was standing a little to close to another customer (Customer A) in the line for the cashier. A kindly asks B to back up, as they’re uncomfortable. B decides to respond by spitting in A’s face. DURING A FREAKIN PANDEMIC, MIND YOU!

Luckily, Customer B did this in front of an undercover cop. So I believe they were arrested. Store had to deep clean everything and limit how many people could come in for a day. I know people can be assholes, but that was straight up disgusting.

[retail-truestory]

You know what I really hate? When a customer comes to your lane to check out and their idea of checking out is asking for a price check on every. Single. Item. So they can decide what to buy and what not to buy. As they're checking out. Isn't that what we have price checkers in the store for...?

[retail-truestory]

New Drinking Game

Take A Shot Everytime •Someone comes in with no mask •Someone is wearing their mask incorrectly

[retail-truestory]

Attention older customers, it's 2020, LEARN HOW EMAILS WORK.

When you are verbally providing your email over the phone, there are some things to keep in mind:

What you do need to include: the prefix of the email, any punctuation marks (such as dots, dashes, or underscores), any numbers, the @ symbol, the domain name, and the suffix

What you do NOT need to say: “It’s all one word/all together/no spaces”, “All lower case”

No email address in existence has spaces and no email address in existence is case-sensitive.

also, this symbol here @

this is pronounced like the word “at”.  You MUST INCLUDE THE @ IN YOUR EMAIL WHEN YOU ARE READING IT TO US.  and stop attributing names of other symbols to it.

an asterisk is *

an Ampersand is &

an apostrophe is ’

also, YOU MUST DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN 0 and O, because a difference of even one digit can mean the difference between whether you receive your email or not.

Understand that we are trained to type anything you say as part of the email, and that any characters you do NOT explicitly tell us to include, we will not type.  so please, ONLY READ THE EMAIL ITSELF AS IT IS WRITTEN ON THE PAGE.  No descriptors, no modifiers, just [email protected]; we will read the email back to you to make sure it is correct.

[retail-truestory]

Customer is Always Right my butt. Just because you say there's no line doesn't mean there really is no line.

[retail-truestory]

This was a first. Not even joking, in all my years of customer service I don't recall a time like this happening.

Let me set the scene for you. It's the apocalypse. My store has the one way aisle to the registers set up, blocked from the shopping aisles courtesy of traffic cones and caution tape. The only way to the registers is to go under the tape or enter at the end where the line starts. The line is down the aisle closest to self scan, and it's one line for all the registers. The self scan attendent is also directing traffic from that end. I'm directing traffic from the cashiers' end, letting the attendant know which register number to send each customer to. Now a lot of customers, despite the fact that we've had this setup in place for well over a month now, like to completely ignore the setup and multiple announcements about going under the tape. I can't tell you how many people try to cut.

This one guy - you probably know the type, elder white male who thinks he knows everything - he limbo-ed under the tape and tried to go to one of the cashiers as they finished an order. I told him he had to go wait down the aisle where the line was.

"What are you talking about? There's no line!" he snapped.

Thing is, from where we were both standing, you could clearly see a guy at the front of the aisle waiting his turn. AND another customer just entered the one way to go to the cashier this guy was just trying to cut in front of.

"There is down that aisle. There's at least one guy waiting there and this customer coming is next. You have to wait on the line," I told him.

Completely ignoring the customer coming in our direction, this know it all scoffed in my face. "You don't know what the hell you're doing!" he yelled at me before storming down the one way towards the line.

But instead of going to the actual line, he tried to go to one of the self scans instead. I saw him put up a fight with the self scan attendant who was clearly trying to direct him to the back of the line. He continued throwing a hissy fit.

Surprise, surprise. There was not only the one customer coming, the first one waiting on line after him, but at least 10 other customers on the line before this guy showed up. So in a shocking turn of events, both I and my coworker know EXACTLY what we’re doing.

But that’s not the insane part. This whole part of the story I’m telling? That’s the setup for the real plot twist. Because what I’m about to tell you is a thing that, in all my years in customer service, I can probably count on one hand the times it’s happened.

When it’s this customer’s turn at long last, he comes down the one way to approach the open register. I direct him to my coworker, as I’d been doing the rest of my shift. And then, in a turn of events that I never once saw coming, this customer, the one that was SO impatient before, the one that was SO insistent we were doing our jobs wrong, the one that was putting up SUCH a fight about there not being a line even though there obviously was? Are you sitting down for this?

He apologized.

Let that sink in.

He apologized for being in the wrong before. And was actually polite about it.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This retail story that started out as something so horrible actually turned out to be a happy retail story, one about a customer that ended up not sucking. And that’s true. But you know what else is true?

That it’s shocking to actually hear a customer genuinely and sincerely apologize for not only being wrong, but for snapping at you, the retail employee. Because that’s a thing that so rarely happens ever. And that should not even be the case.

We are so used to be treated as less than dirt, being yelled at, looked down on, or downright abused on the job that we don’t even expect people to apologize to us.

So the moral of the story is to take a note from this customer. And show us, the customer service employees, that we should not only expect and deserve an apology but that we should also not be shocked when we actually get one because we feel and are taught we shouldn’t even expect them in the first place.

[cashiercomplaints]

Finally back at my job after a couple of months. They added those plastic shield to every cash register. Today I had a customer who wasn’t wearing a face mask cough all over the shield a couple of times. Like ma'am, you could at least cover your mouth! I don’t care if the shield is there & I have a face mask, please get in the habit of covering your mouth.

Then after her I had a customer wipe her nose with her fingers, then started touching the pin pad with those fingers. I really wish we weren’t allowed to not service these people. It’s so gross especially right now. 

[retail-truestory]

Retail PSA

If you're shopping in a store where there's one line for everyone to check out, please don't cut in front of people or walk down to see if any cashiers are open. Odds are you'll get called to the next available register when it's your turn. And if you're not sure what to do, just ask the nearest associate if they know.

[youcancallmeaddy]

[bjurnberg]

[retail-truestory]

With the whole coronavirus thing happening, i can’t say my store is taking all the precautions but they are doing some stuff. One thing we’re doing is, we have these traffic cones set up to create this one way street leading to the registers and we instruct customers to form one line down and aisle.

So like, let’s say the line starts down Aisle 12. We make an announcement along the lines of, “Attention customers when ready to check out please proceed to Aisle 12 and form one single line. We have tape marks depicting the 6 foot distance. An associate will direct you to the next register. Do not cross past the cones as it defeats the purpose. Please wait on line in Aisle 12.” And, of course, we have an associate asking the next customer if they prefer a cashier or self scan machine and then tell them when one opens. Sounds simple, right?

We’ve had mixed reviews about this method. A lot of customers have been saying we’re doing a great job organizing to the point where we should implement this for holidays. Other customers get annoyed because they wanna get out quickly and they can’t do that waiting on a long *** line. In most cases, the customer relents and waits on the line anyway.

This week I had a customer who was BEYOND pissed. You can probably picture him - old, mean, entitled white dude. He was outright refusing to go on the line. I explained the situation to him - since I was the associate directing traffic that day - that this is how it is right now and you have to wait on line.

“I don’t have to do nothing,” he snapped.

“I’m sorry sir, but there’s a lot of people waiting before you. You have to wait behind them.”

“I’m not waiting on a line.”

“That’s the rule right now. You have to.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

And we went back and forth, me simply explaining the situation to him and the guy being snappy, impatient, entitled, you name it. He was having none of it.

My manager ended up walking by so he could direct traffic and I watch self scan for someone’s break. The customer proceeded to give my manager a hard time about the line, refusing to wait on it and wanting to be the next customer. My manager’s response?

“If you don’t like it you can just leave your cart.”

Guy left his cart worth of $200 in the middle of the aisle and stormed out.

My manager and I both hope that he had to wait on an even longer line in the next store he went to.

[yuzukimist]

This has happened to us a couple times too! For everything from waiting in line to having to wear a face covering, some people are just too entitled to follow rules (or maybe just don’t like being told what to do) and end up complaining and sometimes storming out.

Our most common response to certain complaints is now, “We have the right to refuse service” and/or “If you aren’t willing to follow our rules, you have the right to shop at another store”.

[retail-truestory]

One of my coworkers actually did refuse service to someone who wasn't wearing a face mask. She told him to go to another register or to please leave the store. He chose the former, unshockingly. Another customer complained about having to go to the other side of the store to wait on line when there was a cashier ready right in front of him. It didn't matter that there was someone at the line already who was ready to go to that cashier or that we have a blockade creating a path from that line to the cashiers. The traffic cones and caution tape are up for a reason, customers are not allowed to cut underneath or through them! Guy complained the whole like fifteen seconds he had to wait on line for the next available cashier and continued to complain while walking to them. Sometimes I question which is worse - the complaining because we get the brunt of it like it's our fault we're not letting these entitled people get their way and not prioritizing them over our policies or safety, or the storming out because it's a high probability that food they leave behind goes bad if there's no one to bring it back asap.

[retail-truestory]

“I don’t have to wait on line, I’m an essential worker.”

Listen lady. I respect you. I feel you. I understand your exhaustion, fear, crankiness, and craziness. But here's the thing. I'm an essential worker. My coworkers are all essential workers. We are not allowed to cut lines in our own store just because we're essential. If none of us can cut our own lines, I'm sorry but, why the hell should we let you?

[retail-truestory]

Last night my coworker started this order. She scanned all of one item before the customer stopped her, asking her why her eyes were so red. It was 9something at night. My coworker had been up since 6 am. The obvious answer, which she shared is, "I don't know, maybe I'm exhausted." Customer didn't like that. She told my coworker to cancel her transaction and she went back to the line to wait for a self scan machine instead. Because my coworker had red eyes. When my coworker told me this later on as I was doing throwbacks, she told me that if she knew that was going to be the customer's reaction she would've just said she was the reincarnate of Satan and her eyes were red because her powers were starting to kick in.

[retail-truestory]

Had a customer try to tell me they weren't wearing a mask because they have a health issue and are exempt and if they get sick from wearing the mask it's on me and my store.