25 Words That Have A Totally Different Meaning When You’re A Retail Worker
1. Holidays
What it usually means: A time to relax and enjoy time off with your loved ones.
What it means for retail workers: The most horrific, exhausting time of the year, and the only place to hide is the stock room.
2. Sensors
What it usually means: Items that prevent theft and help protect merchandise.
What it means for retail workers: Subtle reminders that people are stealing and ripping holes in everything your store has to offer.
3. Teens
What it usually means: Young people experiencing the best years of their lives.
What it means for retail workers: Vicious monsters that will ransack every pile, every shelf of merchandise they set their beady eyes on. Thank god you were never seventeen.
4. Standards
What it usually means: A high level to set your sets on for consistent success.
What it means for retail workers: Having brief existential crises over cleaning things that are already clean.
5. Shrink
What it usually means: A reduction in inventory due to shoplifting and employee theft.
What it means for retail workers: Protecting your store’s merchandise until someone threatens to punch, stab, or shoot you.
6. Returns
What it usually means: A chance to return goods you’re unsatisfied with.
What it means for retail workers: A chance to get yelled at by customers when you tell them that you cannot return or exchange the merchandise they destroyed.
7. Dressing Rooms
Are you fcking kidding me. Like seriously, this is not okay. #retailprobs
What it usually means: The private space where customers can try on anything your heart desires.
What it means for retail workers: The frightening hellhole where any amount of filth, dirt, and if you’re lucky, urine will be left at your expense.
8. Customers
What it usually means: A person who purchases goods or services from someone.
What it means for retail workers: The worst people on earth. As soon as you clock in, they assume you’re a robot without feelings and thoughts of your own.
9. Meals
What it usually means: An intimate occasion between you and the most majestic thing in the world — food.
What it means for retail workers: Fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, usually stuffed into your facehole between driving to and from work.
10. Displays
What it usually means: Fixtures that showcase how wonderful a store’s product will look in your home.
What it means for retail workers: Repeatedly telling customers that they are not for sale, and telling them you’ll lose your job if you sell it to them.
11. Taglines
What it usually means: Cool catchphrases that increase sales for a company.
What it means for retail workers: A highly efficient way to embarrass yourself and get ignored by a customer.
12. Sales
What it usually means: A discount on normal priced items.
What it means for retail workers: Explaining to customers the math behind 50% of $100.
13. Hangers
What it usually means: A shaped object with a hook at the top. They hang clothes and keep ‘em wrinkle free.
What it means for retail workers: Annoying, frustrating pieces of crap you’re forced to finger space.
14. Black Friday
What it usually means: The only day where you can get discounts on LCD TVs and pay $5 for overpriced DVDs.
What it means for retail workers: You dread this moment all year round.
15. Salary
What it usually means: A regular paycheck, typically paid on a monthly or biweekly basis.
What it means for retail workers: Having just enough money for gas, maybe rent, and some gorditas at Taco Bell.
16. Shipment
What it usually means: Sending goods through the mail so another party can enjoy them.
What it means for retail workers: Moving, scanning, cutting, emptying, and folding endless boxes of merchandise until you’ve completely lost track of how many hours you’ve lost.
17. Marketing
What it usually means: Presenting, communicating, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers.
What it means for retail workers: You have the exciting opportunity to read these signs to customers because they cannot do so themselves.
18. Downtime
What it usually means: A time to relax and collect yourself.
What it means for retail workers: Something terrible will happen soon, whether you’re ready for it or not.
19. Rushes
What it usually means: To move quickly and with urgency.
What it means for retail workers: The time where customers flood your store and put the “fast-paced environment” in retail.
20. Complaints
What it usually means: A way to express your disinterest or concerns with a company.
What it means for retail workers: Hearing every terrible decision your company has made that you have absolutely zero control over.
21. Prices
What it usually means: The amount of money expected, required, and used for payment.
What it means for retail workers: Being scolded because you do not have the power to lower them.
22. Employee discounts
What it usually means: An agreement where employees can purchase their employer’s products for a fraction of the cost.
What it means for retail workers: Spending more money than you actually make at your job.
23. Walkie-talkies
What it usually means: A portable two-way radio used to communicate suspicions of theft, as well as general comments and concerns between coworkers.
What it means for retail workers: Another chance to vent by talking shit to coworkers about customers.
24. Going out
What it usually means: Spending quality time with your family and friends, relieving stress with or without some alcohol.
What it means for retail workers: Drinking before, during, or for a brief period after work.
25. Closing
What it usually means: It’s time to for customers and workers to go the hell home.
What it means for retail workers: If the doors aren’t locked and sealed, customers will continue to shop in the store until you’re forced to kick them out.
Sourced from buzzfeed.com
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