Why I hate working retail during the holidays...

[Jughead P. Jones]

Originally Posted by CoasterMatt

"Do you work here?"

"No, but I look good in this uniform, how may I help you?"

"Never mind, I need somebody who knows what they're doing"

I always said that my uniform was the hottest new fashion trend for 2007.

[innerSpaceman]

Whew, I worked in retail for more years than I'd care to count ... and, despite some nimrod customers, never had a real problem.

I feel like I dodged a bullet.

[Alex]

Librarianship is the closest I've come to working retail. And at least there deep down the customer knows (except in academic librarianship but then the customer knows you're going to save their ass) you're smarter than them so if you play it right you can usually work the interaction around to where you need it to go.

[Not Afraid]

I'm in the service industry but my customers either bark, meow, chirp, squak or just drool. Sometimes, they do pee on the floor, however.

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

I'm in the service industry but my customers either bark, meow, chirp, squak or just drool. Sometimes, they do pee on the floor, however.

My last retail job we had a customers do all of the above. And they were human. Add pooping to that list.

[MouseWife]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Sometimes, they do pee on the floor, however.

Aw,a little boy pee'd on the floor at the register behind mine once. I really felt badly for the kid. His dad had bought him popcorn, saw he pee'd and said 'No popcorn for you!!' Come on. It isn't the kids fault if you don't take him to the bathroom!!!! The mom was in line and the dad could very well have taken him.

So, what did you do to make the lady 'happy' cry?

[CoasterMatt]

Do I need to go into detail about the "Indiana Jones and the Improvised Urinal" story?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

We get our share of jerks at the library. I feel for anyone working retail at this time of year.

My response is to bump up my game and be as nice as humanly possible to them. If they see that you're put out by them, the terrorists win.

Just remember - "ma'am" and "sir" mean "bitch" and "jackass".

[CoasterMatt]

I had a guest cry in front of me today, and she didn't even hear what I said about her ugly mutant kids...

(It was a "happy" cry, she was having a very bad morning, and I did something nice for her and the family - no matter how annoying her kids were)

[Mousey Girl]

Whenever I take an order I let my customer know that we close at 5:30. This was especially true of yesterday, since we are closed until the day after Christmas. This chick comes in at 5:25 to pick up some chairs. she is dragging a guy with her, who immediatly heads to the bathroom.

This should have been an easy one, since I already processed the payment. All we had to do was print out the contract and send her around to have the chairs loaded.

Nope. She then decides that she wants linens for 2 tables. Not just any linens, but specialty linen overlays. These 2 tables would have cost her $80 to cover. However, we only had enough linens for 1 table. She said to forget it, and was pretty bitchy about it.

She knew we were now closed. Her pet idiot was still in the bathroom, where he was talking on his cell phone (one of the guys in the warehouse had heard him).

I handed her the contract and told her she needed to pull around to the side to have the chairs loaded. She said she had to wait for her friend. I told her again that we were closed and we needed to get the chairs loaded and she really needed to pull around to the side. She flat out refused to leave. I told her that I would tell her friend where she was, but that it was now 5:40 and we had been closed for 10 minutes and it was time for her to either get her chairs or load them herself.

She glared at me and went and pounded on the men's room dooor yealling that we were kicking them out.

By the time I clocked out it was 5:45.

Normally the owner, who was listening to this entire thing, would have been ticked with me for rushing a customer. He didn't say a word. I was totally professional and curteous about it. What I really wanted to say was, "Look Bitch, I told you we closed at 5:30. If you want he damn chairs then drive around. If not I will cancel your order. We don't need your $30 bad enough to cater to your Hummer driving attitude."