Things you shouldnt say to a retail worker

Things you shouldn’t say to a retail worker

With Christmas upon us, it’s important to remember to be charitable and to think about those less fortunate.  I’m speaking of course about retail workers.  As a retail worker myself, I can describe first-hand the swath of destruction that shoppers can leave in their wake.  I can tell you of the wreckage that can only be found in the stalls of a dressing room after closing on a busy December night.  I can testify to the chaos left behind on the toy shelves in a mall store after business on a Saturday ‘coupon’ day.
Many people have seen this carnage but few recognize the workers trying to rebuild after the barrage of customers have ravaged the store.  With a look of desperation and a forced smile just barely hanging to their faces as they try to remember their training and corporate mission statement.  It’s tragic.  Sure we clean the store but what we really want to do is run through the store screaming ‘Clean up after yourselves!!!!’  So this year, please be kind to retail workers by remembering that there are some things you should never say to a retail worker.  Really you shouldn’t say anything, I mean we all want to pet the panda bears in the zoo but we also want to keep both of our hands too.  Hear are more typical phrases to avoid specifically though.

1. ‘You’re really good at your job!’  What you’re saying might be very nice but what we’re hearing is ‘You will be in retail forever and ever and ever and ever.  There is no escape.’
2. ‘Have a nice day.’  There are no nice days in retail in December.  Only moderately less crappy ones
3. ‘Are you sure you don’t have any of those?’  Pandas look so nice eating their bamboo stalks.  Why would you want to take the bamboo away and poke them with it?  99% of the time, when a clerk says that they’re out of something, it’s because they’ve been asked a dozen times already and the 1% remainder is us being too lazy to look.  You pleading about little Timmy not getting his super cool toy won’t change that.  In fact, it will make us start to hope little Timmy never gets it and eats so many candy canes on Christmas morning that he vomits on his sister.
4. ‘Why can’t I use this coupon with this one?’  If you ask this question enough times to the same cashier and look closely at his/her eyes, you can see a tiny flicker.  This is a little pinprick window into hell as it tries to escape through the portal that only exists inside retail workers.
5. ‘You don’t carry those?  You used to carry those!’  We did?  Well you’re in luck because we do sell time machines so you can go back to when we DID carry those!
6. ‘Merry Christmas!’  If you’re being sincere in wishing that our Christmas is a joyous one, fine but if this is your way of declaring your side in the ‘War on Christmas’ then we really don’t want to hear it.  We don’t care if our corporation has a policy of saying ‘Happy Holidays’, we just want to earn our $8 an hour and take our shoes off of our throbbing feet.
7. ‘Smile!’  Go to hell.