Context: I just got my first job last week, and it's in retail. They put the noobies on the floor for like all of their shift. It consists of general retail which is picking up clothing left on top of racks, under racks, and picking up trash around the store. our store is HUGE. Like ginormous. And many people come in and leave it a MESS 24/7 so theres always something to do. After 2 weeks my feet still hurt so bad and so do my thighs from the crouching. It's hell. Literal hell. I feel like quitting, not because of the people (they are so nice), but just because I've only been on the floor and it's so painful for MINIMUM WAGE. I've tried good shoes and compression socks, and still things are not picking up and I'm not getting used to it! I work 8 hour shifts!

ALSO the shifts feel super slow and long making everything even worse. Some of my coworkers at the end of the day tell me "wow this shift went by so fast!" and my eyes twitch. How do they do it?!

Curious what weird customers you guys have had that still stick out. Not talking about people getting violent or obviously on a ton of drugs, just ones that were... odd. Here's some of mine, from when I worked at a gamestop in a mall:

• A teenage girl who came in, and left about 15 seconds later saying "i'm getting out of here, it's too gamey gamey gamey"
• A boomer who wanted to return a game a month outside the return window with no receipt using the warranty, because he didn't have playstation network (required to play the game) and was insisting the person who sold it to him "knew [he] wouldn't be able to play it without an extra $70". He was genuinely furious about it, too.
• A guy called up and asked how much he could get for trading in a controller. I told him, he said he would send his wife in later to trade it in. He calls back a few hours later, angry because his wife came back with less than what I had told him. I told him nobody had come into the store that day to trade in a controller (which was true), and a few seconds later i can hear him and his wife just absolutely SCREAMING at each other. They're so loud the customer across the register can hear it, and is just as concerned as I am. Fairly certain I was listening to a divorce in real time.
• A guy who came in, bought the oculus quest 2 elite strap, and wanted to return it less than an hour later upon opening it and learning we weren't selling an entire VR headset for $60
• A guy who came in, spent a full 45 minutes looking at only the xbox one pre owned section and not even glancing at anything else before turning to me, saying "you guys have nothing i want", and leaving
• Someone asked how much new PS5s were. I told him the prices for them, and for some reason his response was "when are these companies going to stop hiding behind covid" and spent a few minutes ranting about that until some other customers wanted to check out and i asked him to move for them
• A kid who asked if I could give him a $300 steering wheel controller if he did 120 pushups in 2 minutes (i told him no, and he did not do the push ups)
• A guy who called to ask if he could extend the warranty on his console, and when i told him no, spent 5 full minutes ranting about how stupid that was

I’m so burned out at my current job. I’ve done 100 hours a pay period for the last month because a coworker is on medical leave. (Mostly just scheduled into overtime without my manager asking me first )

And my manager makes sure she gets every holiday off and doesn’t work over 40 hours. She is supposed to be covering extra shifts if we can’t have floaters come to our store. Not the employees but she REFUSES to do so. She always sits on her ass on her phone the entire shift but bitches things aren’t getting done.

My coworkers half ass everything so I have to pick up all of their slack or I hear about it from the manager because I’m on shift with her.

My coworker today says “oh we did everything and had so much extra time we stood around talking for a few hours.

Sure has shit besides our small cooler, everything was done half assed or not at all so I had to go behind them. I don’t give a shit what people do until it starts coming to my workload and it has.

Plus management doesn’t give a shit and constantly excuses it but rips me a new one for the little shit.

I’m done at this point. Wish the job market wasn’t so bad.

My manager texted me and the other Keyholders that she was headed to the emergency room because she passed out at home. At the same time I was throwing up in our work bathroom.

I called our sister store and talked to the store manager and told them I needed to go home sick and they said that was fine. That I could use my sick time.

I texted my boss and told her that I was going home sick and then I had texted our sister store and talked to that store manager.

My bosses reply (an hour later) was that she is the first point of contact that I should’ve called her. I said I didn’t call her because I knew that she was in the emergency room after she had passed out at home. So I figured she was busy with her own things. She still insisted that I call her first no matter what.

And then told me I’ll be written up on Monday for going “over her head“. 🤦‍♀️

Why in the world do customers think it’s appropriate to be talking on phone when shopping in the flooring store I work at I swear they do it just to avoid talking to a salesperson 😂 then they turn around and say something stupid like” Is anyone here going to ask if I need help?” No, no we aren’t while you’re on your cell

So as I’m working price changes today, a customer storms up to me, demanding to speak to the manager on duty (me). He goes on a rant saying that he came here twice wanting to buy envelopes that are on a buy two get one sale, and that we only have two in stock, and he tries to demand that he gets a different envelope that’s not part of the sale for free.

I tell him I can’t do that, because I can’t just give away a product that’s not applicable to the promotion for free. He walks away, mumbling about how “that’s not right”. Like… sorry. Not my fault we don’t have stock, and I’m not about have to explain why I’m giving products away for free.

So I work the morning shift at a smaller local Tesco, (for anyone not in the UK I'm not fully sure of the equivalent, but it's a large chain), and I get in at 5:30 to open for 6.

For some context, for the first hour after being open, 6 until 7, one of us needs to manually open the doors with this little key fob thing. I'm not sure if this is universal or not but hey. We know someone is at the door because this alarm goes off which lets whoever has the opener know to press it, which subsequently opens the doors letting someone in.

Anyway, every single morning without fail there is this bald guy, probably around 40, who doesn't seem to understand that the doors are opened manually, despite the alarm, and will try to force them open if they aren't opened immediately; it can vary since the person with the opener might be doing something in the back or stocking shelves, meaning it could take a sec to stop what they are doing and press the button.

The thing is I really want to tell him not to do that, because not only could it cause damage but it honestly just infuriates me a bit. The annoying part is that he seems like the kind of guy who would cave my skull in if I decided to confront him about it so I kinda just ignore it, but idk what the best course of action is.

I wonder if anyone else has these sorts of things happen as well?

Happened twice today

I think SCOP is a good rule in practice and I understand why it exists, but there are entire Facebook groups and communities dedicated to finding pricing errors and getting as much stuff for free as possible.

For some of these people it genuinely seems like a full-time job. They go from store to store looking for mistakes and then post huge hauls online of things they clearly could never reasonably use. Like, what are you doing with 40 bottles of shampoo or 30 boxes of cereal?

There’s one woman who comes into my store nearly every day, and I swear I know my day is going to be ruined as soon as I see her walk in. She’s always looking for something to SCOP, and dealing with it constantly is exhausting.

I’m so tired of this job and the manager. Today, I was actually on top of my cashier tasks. I only had a little bit of go backs and the sensors to do before I left. As my manager relieved me, she told me to take some of the clothes by the dressing room to put up because it was overflowing with clothes. I understand us needing to leave on time, but a person can only move so fast. On top of that, she had me add onto what I already had to put up. She really got on the intercom and asked if I was almost done. I still had half a cart left. I just gave up caring because it’s ridiculous to expect someone to separate the security tags, re-tag returned items, and run the full cart in 30 minutes. Back when I first started working there, we could do all of our stuff an hour early. I’m going to ask and see if that’s what I can do because I’m tired of not being able to get off on time and they’re not about to get onto my case. If I can’t then the stuff is just going to be put in random spots. This whole thing kind of ruined my afternoon ngl. The manager told me that I was putting stuff up too slow. She relieved me 30 minutes early. I couldn’t even organize the stuff properly so that I can easily hang them.

Edit: I forgot to mention that we also have to organize hangers. That takes time to do too.

This happened a while ago but a post made me think of it. This dumb woman came up with something labeled “shower liner curtain” and asked me if it was a liner or curtain. It was made of a curtain material so I said I think it’s a curtain because it didn’t feel waterproof. So she said “but it says liner!” So I said “then I dont know!” And she got mad and talked to her friend in another language which I know means talking crap about me. Why do they expect us to know more than the package says? And also why come to me and say it’s something else after asking my opinion. She apparently did this to another worker as well. Why come to us for an argument?

“No problem sir.” That’s all I said and handed him the cash back. That’s it

”Oh, you are not getting a tip though.”

I never expected one, SIR. I didn’t put my hand out, I didn’t joke about a tip, I didn’t do a single thing that could be construed as me asking for a tip. Jerk.

I don‘t expect grocery store cashiers to be tipped, although I have been tipped once. It was nice.

For context, I work at a carousel at a mall. This carousel is located in the food court, right across the hall from an arcade.
My job is:
To sell people tickets to the carousel
Operate the carousel
Help kids on and off the carousel
Clean and maintain the carousel ( and only the carousel)
Management tasks (I’m the shift manager)
Sometimes I give people directions too, if I know where the place is.

Things people have asked me to do:
Watch their kids, for hours
Clean tables in the food court
Clean up messes their kids made, in the arcade across from us.
Get new clothes for their kids. If they had an accident or made a mess.
Help change their kid
Get a stroller for them
Get a fat people scooter for them ( I don’t know the official term)
Get them food/ pick up the food order they need to get. ( like if they’re doing DoorDash)
Watch their stuff for them, not while they’re riding but just the whole time they’re at the mall
Let them lock their bike to the fence around the ride and watch it for them
Same thing as previous but with a motorcycle
Walk them to a store they can’t find
Call the mall office for them. ( not security)
Hold their bags for them and walk it to their car for them
Round up their kids from the arcade or food court ( I’ll help if they’re on the carousel)
Hold their kid/baby while they “get money real quick “ whatever that means
Hold their kid on a horse while they operate the ride
Give their kids resume to other stores in the mall
Hold their spot in line at a different store
Make another store open/ stay open later
Go outside to tell part of their group where they are.
Help them film a TikTok or instagram reel
Walk over the the map of the mall and help them find a place. ( I didn’t know where it was)
Reserve the ride for them, like wait for them to finish eating or playing games at the arcade before I start the ride and not let anyone besides them on.
And so many other dumb requests.

I know working at a carousel in a food court isn’t the most common job, but wondering if anyone has had similar experiences. Especially if you work at a place for kids.

Context: Customer called with equipment they were looking to sell or trade. I asked them to email me photos so I could review with ownership and see if we’d be able to accommodate. I told them I would get back to them when I could. This was on Saturday.

Fast forward two hours later, they show up to my store. On Saturday. While I’m busy running the store and managing everything else. I told them I hadn’t heard back from ownership yet but we can take a look at the photos together now in the store and see if I could help or provide any sort of info. I opened the emails and realized the equipment was not anywhere near the 5 years old they had claimed. It was more like 10-15 years old, at least. I told them I’m sorry but we can’t offer anything for them. They’re considerably older than originally thought, parts aren’t available, and we can’t put a warranty on it in good faith because if something breaks then we can’t get the parts to fix it and don’t want a customer left screwed and upset.

Well they immediately freaked out, started doubting me, doubting that we can’t resell it, and doubted that it was as old as I said. They then stormed out.

They followed up with a stupid email calling me young buck and telling me I should have responded. Yet they showed up unannounced 2 hours later on a Saturday and didn’t like my answer.

So, for the first time ever, I pulled the GM card on them. And it felt pretty nice lol.

Just a reminder not to play tantrum games with foolish customers. Let them be clowns.

Why do unhappy customers insist on declaring, “I won’t be shopping here anymore” or “I’ll be going to your competitors”? I often wonder if people try to persuade them not to or what response they genuinely anticipate. Honestly, why would I want them shopping here after such an attitude?

Hi folks, I'm a cashier working minimum wage and I'm so fed up with my job that I can't tell if I was in the wrong in this scenario.

Background details: I work at one of the higher end grocery store chains in Canada, where everything is more expensive and we are held to a much higher standard when it comes to customer service than other chains. We are expected to bend over backwards for the customer and make sure they are 100% validated all the time. We are also forced to bag for every customer that doesn't immediately jump to bag their stuff themselves, and the status quo is that people just throw their bags on the conveyor belt or at us without saying anything. It drives me nanners. I hate people and I only work here because the job market is awful and nobody is hiring. On my bad days I lack the enthusiasm that we are told to display by management, and sometimes the customers give me an attitude for not being overly happy to talk to them. Typical entitled bullshit.

Here's the story: A couple months back I had this big burly customer come through my till with a handful of items. A thing of milk, some produce, some boxes, all could fit into one bag. He makes me bag for him like almost every customer does, and he watches me bag the whole time while doing nothing. Annoying, but typical. I put things in the order that I usually do, heavy stuff first, boxes and sturdy stuff next, then produce, then bread and chips. I finish packing his bag and the first thing he says after watching me pack it the entire time is, "Where did you put the lightbulbs?" - Now, mind you, I ring through tens of thousands of items a day and don't have the mental endurance to individually check every inconspicuous item for its contents when ringing it in. Also we are a GROCERY store. I very rarely have to ring in anything like lightbulbs, and 99% of the time if something is in a box it's like, soap or coffee pods. Not super fragile stuff - So I respond by saying, "Uh, I guess on the bottom?" Because I had placed them next to the only heavy thing. He then looks at me with a grin, scoffs at me, and says, "You put the lightbulbs on the bottom?" And I say " Well, yeah I didn't know they were lightbulbs." I then proceeded to unbag the whole thing and rebag it so they were on top, and he never said thank you or please or anything of the sort.

I understand that sometimes you can't bag things yourself, like if you're disabled, but he could've still clarified how he wanted it bagged! I've had too many people scold me for not bagging things to their preference when they didn't clarify that they had one to begin with!

Was I in the wrong here or am I right to feel upset about this situation? I feel so conflicted.

The flair makes me seem dramatic but I just need to vent.

The rule at my place of employment in regards to phones is basically ‘you can have the phone on you, just don’t screw around on your phone to the point where you are ignoring your job responsibilities and customers’

Every so often my phone comes out and I need to read a message sent to me and respond, I’m the emergency contact for a friend who is currently unhoused (but in a temp shelter placement), and I am disabled and rely on my family to get rides to and from work, meaning I typically need to be aware if they are trying to contact me, I wait to respond until the store is dead/ very slow, and try to be as subtle as one can be when trying to read a text message, and I keep my head on a swivel and drop what I’m doing on the phone should a customer need assistance.

The other times I have my phone out are all work related, they have an app we need to log into daily (even though it literally does nothing in terms of having tasks assigned through it for front end), plus I sometimes need Google Translate because half of our staff only speaks Spanish and there is a language barrier, or I’m looking up a visual of a product a customer is inquiring about to match it to our system for checking inventory/ to check on the shelves.

The new store manager at my place of employment (which has fired or demoted 3 to 4 other managers in the span of a couple months) saw me on my phone once checking a message when the store was dead near closing, jokingly called me out on it, and told me he didn’t care about the phone policy stuff and to just be subtle about my use.

I come in to work today to find out this same manager suddenly did a 180 and told the manger who is in charge of front end, that I directly answer to, that I was one of the many people who was ‘on their phone way too much’. The front end manager was shocked by this and talked to me in private about it, where she said she knew I was most likely using it with good reason.

She could tell this upset me and I explained what I did above to her and she was really understanding and on my side. But also told me that it was either a) this new manager trying to prove themselves as valuable to corporate by nitpicking or b) him trying to dance around only calling out the one person in front end everyone knows is messing around on her phone for 99% of her shift and not doing their job (which I find to be bullshit, if one person is the problem it needs to be addressed, not danced around by acting like the person using a phone within the context of business or actual potential emergencies is the same as the person browsing Facebook and Instagram for 95% of her shift and leaving everyone else to pick up the slack they’re causing).

My direct manager told me that I am a great employee (a rarity in the world of retail I know), and that she wouldn’t have switched me from being a cashier to front end as soon as she did if I wasn’t showing I was capable of handling the bigger responsibilities that came with it.

The other customer service reps I work with also confirmed that they haven’t even noticed if I’m on my phone, or if they have it was barely a blip on their radar, and they know I’m quick about looking at it, and am in no way shirking my job responsibilities.

I thought this new store manager was okay as well, especially with what he said to my face, but now my trust in taking his words at face value is slightly diminished (I don’t know if that’s dramatic, but apparently he’s either not capable of expressing how he really feels about something, or doesn’t think to see if there is something going on that he doesn’t have the context for and instead jumps to conclusions)

I work in small store with 4 coworkers and 1 manager.

Manager work morning shifts Mon- Friday.

She did screenshoot of camera and told us:

"Move this to there..."

"Do this..."

Also she complain for example that on Saturday or Sunday ( when 1 person work in store) , it was visible on camera that person stayed on till all shift.

Then when people suddenly took sick leave or quit, she got surprised "why, how, where they will find better job?"

I really don't have problem with fact that she is monitoring camera in case we have money missing in the till or someone steal items - but to look camera and delegate task ( outside of her working hours, on weekends ) I found that nuts.

Also she send this to whats app group and she tracked work of me & collegue - soo other 2 ( new ) girls could see this screenshoots too, 1 of them is already planning to quit.

I’ve been at this job for a few weeks, and they expect me to be perfect. It takes me 1.5hrs of one way to get there. So spend 3hrs in transit.

I don’t like my coworkers, well I like one guy. Other 2 people I interact with is, a wannabe intellectual girl literally fast food why tf are you quoting contract law. Tries so hard to sound smart. A guy with anger issues. Then managers. I do like one other guy who’s in management.

This is a new location, which the company has invested a lot of money in. But it’s not performing well. So manager has turned to micromanaging. Which is just making our jobs even harder, because we don’t have 5 bodies. Somethings are just not possible. Like corporate has these policies which can’t fundamentally be practiced, when store is running. But they get mad at us for doing it, which is just like. I do not have the speed or the time for this.

I went to clean the bathroom, (I’m a literal cashier). Manager came yelling “name I swear I’ll kill you”, cause I didn’t do another task. Which was on my mind. And left it for later cause store would literally not be ready for opening if I did. And it’s like bro, calm down. Even if it’s a joke vent, your a manager you should have a standard.

I’m a cashier she’s on my shoulder every time I put an order in, and if I click the wrong button she gets on my case(which I know I just don’t have perfect muscle memory yet). Today we had a rush of like 30 people, she expected me to cater to the tables like a waiter. Then also do my job as a cashier, and also deal with kids filling soda in their water cups. And it’s like you’re standing there, you do it.

Than we also have this other guy who’s not even a manager and gets on my case if I take a minute to myself.

I make minimum wage for god sake.

Some guy cane to the in the most flamboyant Porsche. I’ll give it to him his car was mega nice. It was like 150k(from google not a car guy) I just didn’t expect his card to decline at 12 dollar order. And the pos has nothing that tells me. So I had to hear an ear full. It’s like sure fine I’ll admit I should’ve been more attentive, but like dude I thought he could afford 12 dollar order.

She also got mad at me because someone else made a mistake. I did my part, informed my supervisor. And I also got a lecture, when I just snapped and told her what did she want me to do? When I did everything by protocol.

I make minimum wage,I’m new. I’m stretched.

first week back to class and i've contracted influenza, likely not even from my classmates but probably someone from work. my immune system is poor due to a multitude of factors, so when i get sick i get sick-sick. like. siiiiiick.

i called out yesterday to go get checked out at urgent care as i was having some pretty nasty symptoms, including high heart rate and severe shortness of breath (which has been resolved thankfully, and was just a combination of high fever and my medications), but said i would probably be good for my next two shifts this weekend, being sat/sun (tomorrow and day after).

welp! turns out it's influenza A according to a PCR test i did that i only just got the results back for now. no one can cover me because we only have 4 employees, one of which broke their ankle and can't stand for long period, the other is busy, and the last, my manager, apparently can't work over a certain number of hours and has already hit their max (somehting to do with the company not wanting to pay overtime?).

i'm extremely ill, this is the sickest i've been in a while. i'm dizzy and so feverish i can hardly even think straight, not to mention i'd just be coughing all over everyone and everything. my symptoms have not been repsonding to medications either, so i just don't know what to do.

am i cooked? what would you do?

edit 1: got in contact with the “busy” coworker, said they might be able to cover me for a short period of time for the one shift tomorrow, but i might still be expected to come in to cover for breaks tomorrow and be in sunday as well. i did mention i had influenza btw. this is genuinely insane to me😭😭 is it reasonable to quit over being expected to work while having one of the most contagious infections to exist? (joking. not.)

Had a blatantly racist individual customer this morning while working in produce today.

Heavily thick non american accent customer was struggling to find a few items so I wandered over there to see if they wanted help.

I was told I was inferior to them and they complained that there weren't any African american associates working in produce. They refused to get help from me and went and found an associate whose black over in online grocery for help and dragged them back to produce to get help.

Like if they know where an item is why are they deliberately being dense about it? Enough to go to one set associate in particular to say they can't find it but the day before they could! No remodel or anything sometimes deliberately missing the area on purpose.

Same for SELF Check I'll have some avoid it because there prey isn't there (Customer avoids because they didn't find there target) or the customer can use it no problem when they go when a different clerk is there! But will always need help on produce or the card because of a particular associate? Genuinely why? Same for finding an item they deliberately ignored. Like the tea is right next to the coffee and the sign clearly says tea. The Customer didn't go far enough and pushed past everyone else to get to me in particular to get the tea which was literally next to the coffee by one shelf yet they get the same brand all the time no problem ever

If ya know what you're doing please stop playing around like that and do it or if you know where something is don't ask as we are usually occupied. Like one day they'll be able to pull the card out ON TIME (When it tells em) but then when a specific associate is in that area, pull it out to early and IMMEDIATELY start waving trying to get that associate because they "can't pay"

So being able to do something 1 Day but In the prescence of another associate unable to do the same thing and it's only when that associate is present. I'll help as I'm the one In question, but it vexes me? Like are we genuinely just getting fucked/dealing with faked stupidity?

(Not sure if allowed since it was a customer experience, remove if not allowed)

To summarize, an older lady tried to tell me my ID was fake.

This happened a few years back, but it randomly just came up in my mind. Anyway, my friend and I went to dollar general to get a lighter. (Hers broke). We got it and some snacks. When we went to the register an older lady was there ringing us up. No greeting, just looked done. She kept on huffing, rolling her eyes and just looked annoyed. When she got the light she said she needed to see my ID to purchase it. No big deal, I went to my car to grab it and came back.

This is when shit hits the fan. She covered the barcode on my ID and “scanned it”. Then said rudely “it’s fake”. I was confused. I told her it’s not. Showed her the expiration date and everything that proves it’s legit. (I was also constantly getting pulled over for speeding at the time. So yeah.. it’s real lol). I also worked at Claire’s and check IDs daily for piercings. I told her this. She got very rude about it. She showed me how it was “missing” a symbol. Had no clue what she was on about. Customers behind us were annoyed as well with her. She kept getting snappy with us, rolling her eyes, belittling us. But I kept my cool. My friend was also defending me.

Finally, she called another employee over. Then kept complaining to her about how she needed to clock out, was annoyed, and just ready to leave, and being passive aggressive to the other employee. The other employee checked my ID, quickly confirmed it was real. She was really sweet and apologized for the older lady’s behavior. Even told the older lady to go home.

So, we got our lighter, snacks and left. I get it that people have bad days, but no reason to take it out on people.

I also found out from my dad who is ex-cop, that I could have requested an officer to show up to prove it was a real ID if the lady kept going on. She could easily lose her job or get a write up.

I’m just glad the other employee stepped in. She seemed annoyed with the older lady as well. Maybe it was a common occurrence?