Inspired by the blog post on Elite Daily, “27 Things Anyone Who Works In Retail Wishes You Knew,” I have decided to come up with my own list to hopefully inform all you readers and help you become a more sympathetic shopper. Although the holiday season has already started, the frenzy of last-minute Christmas shoppers only grows greater day by day. As if Black Friday wasn’t terrifying enough, the prospect of working on Boxing Day haunts my dreams. Thankfully, I have not encountered many of the terrible shoppers depicted in the Elite Daily post, but I have come across a few customers who believe that it is my job to kiss their feet and bend to their every whim. Now, I know that none of you wonderful people are overly self-entitled and pretentious, but after reading this post you may find that you are not as innocent as you think. Here are some confessions that I have about working as a retailer.
I am not Customer Service, they are in the center of the mall.
I do not know how long the mall is open every day of the week. I do not know what time Santa Claus will be in the plaza. I do not know where “Store X” is. It is not my job to know any of those things. It is my job to know the details of my own job related to my shift. You are unjustified in getting mad at me for not being able to tell you when the elves will open up the play pen (even more so when I politely direct you to Customer Service).
I don’t know why the clothes are so expensive.
Just because I happen to work for a certain company does not mean I am told every single detail of how the company operates. Sure, that plain purple shirt may be $50 and made out of polyester, but I didn’t make the price. Asking me why the garment is so expensive is not going to make it any cheaper.
I don’t know why we don’t have a certain size, color, or style of clothing.
Should you feel that the brand needs sparkly purple legwarmers in their next line, feel free to email headquarters and make that suggestion. We are not trying to ruin your life or sabotage you by not carrying sparkly purple legwarmers.
I can’t return the item that you bought four months ago.
Where I work, we have a return policy of 30 days. That’s pretty generous considering most retailers give you between 7 and 12 days. If you were not told the return policy/did not ask about it, the receipt clearly outlines the details for you. It isn’t my problem that you live in Alaska and your second cousin three times removed bought you this present a couple months ago and just delivered it to you. The system will not accept your receipt and no amount of sheer will power will change that. Also, verbally abusing the cashier will not change that either. Just try selling it on Kijiji.
Speaking of returns, major holidays are not a good time for you to do a return at all.
It is fairly obvious that the store is busy when the person at the till has not moved for over 45 minutes and the line to the register is not getting any shorter. Thus, when you have waited in line for 15 minutes and there are a good number of people still behind you, it might be a good idea to wait until it’s not Boxing Day to return your item. You’ll get more money out of it anyways.
“I’m not going to shop here” or any variant of this phrase is an empty threat. Most threats are empty.
When someone says this to me, I’m not entirely sure if they believe that they are the only person who will ever shop here or what the mentality is. But unless you were planning to spend about $300 on your purchase, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. If I see you holding a $15 shirt in your hand and you’re complaining how we don’t have your size and then are unwilling to go to another store, it’s not our fault nor is it our company’s fault. There’s a slim-to-none chance that a threat will actually make us feel bad for you.
Chances are that if I can’t help you, there’s little my manager can do.
Though I may still be in the trainee phase to some degree, I’m not incompetent. If an item that is not marked as a sale item is not coming through as a sale item, then chances are that it’s not a sale item. The system doesn’t lie. Even if the item was placed with all the other sale items, you can’t just assume that the item is on sale without checking the price tag. My manager can’t magically wave her wand and give you a discount because you don’t know how to read or extrapolate information.
We understand that you’re in a hurry, the computer doesn’t.
If you literally have 5 minutes before you are supposed to be somewhere, maybe shopping around for the last 20 minutes wasn’t a good idea. No matter how fast our fingers are, there is no way for us to make the computer process something faster. The technology where I work is archaic and trust me, it annoys us more than it annoys you. Maybe try managing your time a little bit better when you go out shopping.
The freshly mopped/swept floor is not a good place for you to track your muddy boots through.
You saw me mop that section of the floor literally five seconds ago, and I’m also sure that you are aware of how dirty your shoes are. Making eye contact with me while I go back and mop the area you just walked through is not awkward for me but I hope that it’s embarrassing for you. It is especially frustrating when a customer only stays in that little area for a couple seconds and doesn’t even pick up an article of clothing. I wouldn’t mop if the store wasn’t busy, so maybe take a hint and notice how everyone else isn’t walking over the area of the floor which is noticeably cleaner than the other areas.
No, I will not get you a discount.
This one is mentioned in the blog post I initially linked, but I felt that I needed to stress the importance of this. If me telling you that I’m not allowed will not convince you to stop bothering me, maybe me telling you that it’s illegal and that we could both potentially get sued will. Yeah, it’s that serious.
Please note that this post is not meant to offend anyone, merely point out some of the annoying habits of human beings that we retailers have to put up with. We’re still humans, too. 🙂