confessions Archives - Page 6 of 8 - I Hate Working In Retail

Jan
31

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The Evil Monsters Who Make Working Customer Service A Nightmare

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1. The person who insists the back-room is the size of Texas.Dude, it’s probably a 30 square foot room with like 6-10 boxes, two of which are full of clothes hangers. So no, believe it or not we don’t have a medium sized, pewter colored version of that shirt lying around in the back. However, we have no qualms with wasting five minutes playing on our phones while we halfheartedly“double-check” for you. Come to think of it, this person is as much a blessing as they are an annoyance, because sometimes you needan impromptu break, and their adamant request that you search for a non-existent product provides one.

2. Epic mess makers. It’s unclear how some people do this, but if unfolding and carelessly throwing clothes were an Olympic sport, there would be some top prospects in every retail store across the globe. Their rejected items are often found in sloppy piles of unfolded shirts, discarded pants, hangers and boxes carelessly tossed aside. I know customers aren’t obligated with tidiness, but the only people who chaotically discard stuff are lazy jerks and folks who’ve never experienced working retail.

3. Thieves. This isn’t my store or my personal belongings but c’mon. Realistically I’d never even considering intervening directly, but if you’re creeping around or blatantly stuffing Blu-rays into your backpack, I feel obligated to inform security or whatever, and it’s just trouble that most employees don’t feel like enduring. We know that we’re supposed to care, it’s just hard to sometimes.

4. The person who doesn’t seem to know where they’re shopping.Why don’t we sell marble flooring? Well, mainly because this is a grocery store… I’ll never understand why people are shocked to find that a particular place doesn’t carry all of their random needs. You can’t expect Blockbuster Video to have a wide array of vacuums, or H&M to have Taco Shells and detergent. It’s frustrating when people get irritated at you, for working in a place that obviously can’t fulfill their absurd requests.

5. The people who know it’s your job to ask if they’re “finding everything alright,” but still get rude about it. It’s common courtesy and basic customer service. If employees could, many would let the customers approach them for help, and only offer assistance to those who visibly need it. It’s just not that big of a big deal. Yes, we know multiple staff members asking the same question over a short period of time can have the feel of pesky Internet popups, but that’s part of how these people earn a living, which brings me to the next nightmare…

6. The customer who treats you crappy because they know you’re WORKING, thus, forced to take their disrespect and nonsense. One time, while working retail I actually had this exchange with a customer:

Customer: Where are those humidifiers you guys have on clearance?
Me: Oh, they were actually right in this very spot, but they sold out yesterday.
Customer: Well what aisle are your time machines on.
Me: Excuse me?
Customer: Do you have a time machine so I can go back to yesterday, or are you giving me useless information about a product you no longer have?

Is this dry humor? Perhaps that would explain why he wants to moisten the air with a humidifier. I laughed uneasily, thinkingmaybe this dude was joking. He wasn’t. He wore a smug look and while I wanted to smack him in the face, then direct him to the extensive Band-Aid assortment on aisle 4, I bit my tongue and apologized for being out of humidifiers. All because bills and responsibilities made retaining that job a necessity.

7. Cheap schemers. No, I don’t have the authority to give you a 90% discount because the box has a crease on it. No, this pack of batteries that you found isolated and blatantly misplaced in the candy section aren’t 50 cents. Employees know the difference between confused folks and shysters trying to take advantage of that customer’s-always-right mumbo-jumbo.

8. The people who think the place you work at is your entire life.They expect you to know every sale item listed in the ad, or have photographic memory of the entire inventory. Statements like, I’m looking for a universal remote you guys advertised a few weeks or months or years ago. I don’t remember the brand or model or price, but it was black and had buttons.” are the absolute worst.

9. The DJ. Okay, so there isn’t an actual DJ, but stores often have music playing on a loop, and boy can it get annoying. The 298,059th time you hear Hey There Delilah your sanity plummets – that’s a fact – the scientist said so. Yes, the same scientist from The Scientist by Coldplay, which also proves that even a beloved song by a cherished band isn’t exempt from the negative effects of constant repetition. At the grocery store I worked at during high school, Possession by Sarah McLachlan violated my ears an inappropriate number of times. To this day, hearing that song immediately prompts me to put things in plastic bags while wearing a fake smile.

10. The inventor(s) of Black Friday. Consumers are the real inventors of Black Friday, so curse them. Curse them and their willingness to trample one another to death for a $200 flat screen. If ever caught in an apocalyptic warzone of sorts, I will refer back to my days working Black Friday at Target to survive.

11. Last minute shoppers. The time a store closes is NEVER the time that the employees are able to go home, so by shopping 2 minutes before the doors are shut, you’re prolonging their stay even further. Technically you’re not doing anything wrong by choosing to enter when the store is still open, but there’s a common courtesy/unwritten rule that hopes most people would be considerate of such violations. Imagine I went to you right before bedtime and injected Red Bull and coffee directly into your veins? You’d be awake for hours. Yes, partly because a crazy guy stabbed you with a syringe full of caffeinated beverages, but also the caffeine’s lasting effects! When you go in a place at 9:59, that’s scheduled to close at 10:00, you’re jamming a needle into the life of all those employees.

 

Sourced from thoughtcatalog.com

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Jan
8

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Clopening at Starbucks: A Baristas Most Dreaded Shift

Category: confessions, Life as a Barista, Retail Stories, Starbucks Tags: , , , Leave a Comment

Coping with Clopening: Retail Worker’s Most Dreaded Shift
by Liberté Locke

I drag my broken jittery body home through the maze of late night construction New York City subways. I finally reach my quiet apartment where the only ones up are our three cats screaming for food and persistently walking just where I’m trying to walk. Tonight I manage to not step on them but usually, in this state, I can’t help it. I apologize with head-pettings and catnip. I feed the cats and then remember that I spent my entire lunch break at work chain smoking away that last extremely rude customer I had before clocking for my break instead of eating the ramen noodles that I brought. I open the fridge and realize that every meal possible would take way more work than I have in me so I close the door.

I go to the bathroom and while peeing set my alarm on my phone. This is a ritual. I’ve learned in the past that it is completely possible after a closing shift that I may just fall asleep in the bathroom. And if not the bathroom, maybe while sitting up trying to eat a late meal or laying on the couch watching tv. So setting my alarm as soon as I get home is crucial. Being late to work when I’m targeted by management (because of being a union organizer) is not an option, ever.

I’m awake enough from all the caffeine I consumed at my job, Starbucks, that I don’t fall asleep in the bathroom but I do spend ten minutes fumbling brainlessly through the clean laundry I didn’t have time to put up. I’m looking for something loose to sleep in – it takes so long because twice I forget entirely why I’m digging through the bag and I start putting laundry up thinking that is what I what I meant to be doing. I then suddenly stop, thinking to myself, “it’s too late for this, I’m exhausted. Go to bed. Go to bed.” I finally change and go into the living room to watch tv. I already know that going straight to bed, no matter how tired I am, won’t work. I have to turn off my brain first. Without some distraction my brain will just fill will endless To-Do lists. My responsibilities pile up. All the things I need to get done combine with what I’d like to get done. I’m filled with regret for what I was unable to get done with my day because of having work and then being too exhausted to do anything else. I’m so tired that petty concerns really consume me. I think and re-think about Facebook status updates to reflect my exhaustion and busyness just praying that all the crucial folks will see it and realize why I haven’t returned their phone calls, emails, or finished my deadlines for different projects. These lists go on and on but I’m too tired to even hold a pen to write the lists down. I stare at the tv, my eyes blurring and I recite in my head, before the characters even say it, the various lines for that episode of the Simpsons. In my years of sleepless nights, I’m certain I’ve memorized the majority of the series. I still haven’t learned Spanish but I can recite an entire animated TV show. This is what this job does to me. I’m awake but unable to be productive. My time is not my own. I’m clocked out, at home, supposedly on my own time but I’m just in and out of consciousness. In between making lists and reciting the Simpsons I’m dwelling on fucked up interactions with customers. I’m wondering if that coworker was right about the company changing the amount of green tea powder we put into Green Tea Lattes. I’m concerned that when I left the store I forgot to restock the straws at the handoff plane. After about an hour of this I go on Facebook on my phone, which I’m holding with my hand resting on the bed because I can’t bare to lift it. I scroll through, beating myself up because I only have the energy to hit “like” but not really comment on my friends’pages even when people are really considerate and write on mine often. Then I think I’m too hard on myself but dismiss that and feel bad again. The caffeine from work, the adrenaline from the fast-paced job, the exhaustion of my body and mind, with the lack of good nutrition – I’m spent. I look at the time and realize I have 3 hours before I have to get up, look presentable, get on the train and head to another shift of the same rush, rush, rush of the day before. I have what retail workers dread the most – a clopening. I just closed the store and have to return to work to open the store tomorrow. This is very common in the retail world. Where computers jumble workers like numbers and generate schedules without a concern for the humans involved. This is where bosses see us as machines. Plug us into whatever shift they’d like without the slightest consideration. I realize that if I don’t pass out this minute then I’ll be missing even more sleep. I need to sleep immediately but years ago I knew that sleeping pills would not be useful. You need to “dedicate a full night of sleep” claims the label and I have 3 hours. I reach for many a baristas’ sleep aid – a pipe loaded with weed. Weed’s supposed to be recreational but in this context it’s truly medicinal. I smoke and pass out. I wake up dehydrated, probably from smoking and so much coffee. I press snooze up until I know I have to haul ass to get out the door. I run to the train, cram into it, stand for a hour of transit and just when my knees feel like they will give out – ding, and the train doors open at my stop for work. I stumble out, stepping on some poor woman’s foot and my attempt to apologize comes out almost a whisper, raspy and inaudible. I look at the doors to my job and curse myself for not getting up early enough to have coffee before starting my shift.

I think is this for real? Is this my life? I’ve been a barista for nearly six years and have known hundreds of baristas. My story is extremely common and unites many of us. We know that we are paid from the time we clock in till the time we clock out. Wage theft, in the traditional sense, is not usually a problem at this large public company. Generally we’re paid for the time we clock, however I can’t help but feel like my traveling to work, the time and money it takes to acquire my uniform and keep it clean, the money I spend on weed just to bring me down from the caffeine I ingest to be alert in a job where burns, slips, and falls are common – that money should be reimbursed. I feel like I can’t be productive. All I got done in the evening, on my own time, was feeding my cats and I had considered skipping it out of effort. I can’t help but know that my time is not my own. These are the hours I work unpaid. My waking, productive hours are owned and controlled by the bosses that in return give me my paycheck while I’ve helped create a huge profit for my employer. My exhausted, useless, painful hours surrounding my shifts are on the house, for free, and that’s the time I feel costs me the most.

We are not machines. Treating us like machines only makes us break down. Sleep deprivation is widespread in my field. Lack of restful sleep contributes to depression and bad health. When we take a job we’re aware of certain sacrifices of time and swallowing our pride time and again in the face of rude customers and demanding management. What few focus on is all the other sacrifices we make when sacrificing our time. I want so desperately to have control over my own labor. These are my skills, I’ve honed them. This is my body, I’m responsible for it. Given those two things I can’t understand why the large profits go to bosses living in luxury and the pain, effort, and sacrifice is coming from those in poverty that already have to do everything else for themselves on top of going to work.

Yes, Howard Schultz – the CEO of Starbucks – must be a pretty busy person. However, I doubt he’s a have to work till 2am, rush home to haul laundry to a public 24-hr Laundromat in order to have clean apron for the next morning shift, feed animals, feed children, clean house, run errands, cook your own food, help out your neighbor, work two underpaid jobs, and then truly not know the next time you’ll be able to get a full night’s sleep kind of busy person. Wealthy people hire working people to do all their errands. They hire us to make their money and hire us to keep them comfortable while we’re making them their money. Yet when I speak openly about needing weed to sleep so I can return to work after closing it conjures thoughts of laziness. “Those poor people always using drugs.” I use my union more than I use drugs. I don’t know how worse off I’d be if I never learned to fight back at work. Clopenings are common place for many people but because of my organizing a clopening is rare. Bosses know we hate and resent being scheduled for one. They try to appease me from time to time but because it’s not about me but about all workers, I get just as riled up when I learn my coworkers must clopen. A couple days after a coworker works a clopen I’ll call them and say, “you know, we were never meant to live this way.

Sourced from recomposition.com

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Jan
5

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THE WEIRDEST ORDERS WAITERS HAVE EVER GOTTEN, ACCORDING TO REDDIT

Category: confessions, Life as a Server, Retail Stories Tags: , , Leave a Comment

SHUTTERSTOCK (EDITED)

Your gross friend who orders General Tso’s with brown rice isn’t the only weirdo who frequents restaurants. There’s a whole population of inscrutable eaters out there, and servers from all over recently took to Reddit to out those freaks. While the entire “Waiters of Reddit, what’s the most ridiculous order someone’s placed…?” thread is unbelievable, these were eight of our favorites. May you never encounter the heathen who requested microwaved root beer.

8. No-pepperoni pepperoni pizza

“A lady calls and orders a ‘small pepperoni pizza with no pepperoni’ I clarify and ask her ‘So just a small cheese?’ To which the woman, clearly annoyed by my lack of understanding , says ‘NO. A small pepperoni with no pepperoni.’ I again clarify and ask ‘You want a pizza with sauce and cheese only?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Ok so a cheese pizza.’ ‘NO I WANT A SMALL PEPPERONI WITH NO PEPPERONI.’

We made her a cheese pizza. She didn’t call and complain. Still not sure what the f*** she thought she was ordering.”

7. A “regular” filet mignon

“Had a lady order our filet mignon, when it was brought out to her she said with disgust that she had ordered the filet, not a steak. She proceeded to argue that a filet mignon was a type of baked potato rather than a steak.

EDIT: Damn this blew up, and when asked how she wanted it cooked she looked puzzled and said ‘regular’ which I took as meaning medium.”

6. The “Doughnut Explosion”

“At the Italian restaurant I worked at as a server/bartender/manager for 5 years, we had a lot of regular customers come in and had some strange requests. Most were nothing too special, but one guy would come in 4-5 days a week, and he would never order anything on the menu unless it was a busy night and we wouldn’t have time to ‘get crazy’. On the slower nights though, he would order things with sauces we didnt normally make, or special dessert concoctions (even though we prepared desserts daily, and did not make them to order).

The craziest thing he ever ordered though, was a Doughnut Explosion. To be clear, we did not nor know how to make doughnuts. However, there was a Dunkin Donuts next to our location, and he sent one of his favorite servers next door to pick up a dozen random doughnuts. When he came back, the customer told me which ones he wanted on his dessert, and I proceeded to go back into the kitchen and whip up his dessert to his specification. It consisted of 2 doughnuts, topped with vanilla ice cream, layered between the brownie cake that was our house specialty, and topped with Chambord and a port wine fig sauce that we put on pork chops. This was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen in a restaurant, but he let me try a bite and it was f***ing amazing!”

5. Ice cream sundae, extra Heinz

“Used to be a waiter. Had a family come in and eat. Little boy eventually orders dessert. Vanilla ice cream and ketchup.

Yes, he put the ketchup on the ice cream. No, I didn’t stick around to watch. I would’ve thrown up.”

4. Egg-less omelet

“Over the summer, I had a customer who came in for Sunday brunch and ordered a spinach and feta cheese omelet. She then adds that she would like it made without eggs. I clarified that she wanted an omelet WITHOUT eggs, not made with egg whites which is quite normal.

We made her a spinach feta salad and the customer was happy.”

3. Warm root beer

“I had someone order a warm root beer. As in, stuck in the microwave and heated up. I definitely made a face but I did it. Really sucks to work somewhere that has bottomless pop and be sticking one in the microwave every 15 minutes.”

2. The spaghetti appetizer

“I once had a guy place his order, and then say ‘And give me one of those spaghetti appetizers.’

I had been working there for a couple months, and we had no pasta dishes whatsoever on the menu. I politely tried to clarify this, but he wasn’t having it. He just kept getting more irate. He insisted that he eats here all the time, and he always gets the spaghetti appetizer.

Eventually, he gets up from his table, storms over to another one, and points at what he wants on another diner’s table. He was pointing at their cole slaw. And yes, as far as he was concerned, I was still the asshole for not knowing what he was talking about.

Edit 1: Our slaw was a southern style slaw, where the cabbage is shredded. So, the cabbage is in strings, but you would still have to be some sort of weirdo to confuse it with noodles. And a few people have mentioned a Dane Cook bit. I’m not familiar with that joke, but after doing some googlin’, it appears that is a joke about messing with staff at a restaurant. This happened in 1994, and the customer was an older, well dressed guy out to dinner with his wife. I’m positive he wasn’t f***ing with me, he was just an obnoxious a-hole that expected me to know what his confused mind was talking about.”

1. The dolphin sideshow

“As a waiter at a coastal restaurant, we occasionally had dolphins come in the harbor right to where people would eat. These two old ladies came in and before they placed their orders, demanded I release the dolphins for their amusement. It took a good 10 seconds of silence before I realized they were serious. I passed this request onto my manager and then continued to eat free jumbo shrimp.”

Sourced from thrillist.com

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