u/Distinct_Ruin2998

Feel free to share your own personal stories, but here's a few out of MILLIONS that I experienced:

*Doordash/Instacart drivers and even a few customers putting water in their carts and asking if they have to take them out for us to scan them. We have the handheld scanners but they can't reach that far unless we stretch our body over the register. Gets annoyed at us when we tell them to put one on the register so we can scan them.

**Customers arguing with us over coupons that aren't being applied at checkout. Explaining how certain coupons work don't even help sometimes, and most of the time they ask you to take the item(s) off or void the whole transaction.

***Not as much of a common problem for me, but customers trying to refund gift cards despite the receipt saying all gift card and prepaid purchases are final.

This may be a post that some people can relate to, or none at all.

For a bit of context, I worked at Dollar Tree as an associate for around 4-5 years, and then moved to Family Dollar as an ASM for 3-4 years.

Just going to outright say it now. Working at these stores ruined my mental health. While some may see that as me being a baby about working retail, I feel less willing to perform proper customer service than I have when I first started working.

Many of you will say "what? But that's part of your job!" I won't deny that. You are absolutely right. However, after a while it has gotten more exhausting having to put up with some customers. Granted, not every customer is like this, but in my area, there's a good portion of them.

Being the nicest person around doesn't protect you from being screamed at and essentially bullied. All while you try your best to do your job with what little power this company gives you.

The workload was something I got used to after a while. I'm not going to complain about that, but some may agree that hard work is not always appreciated.

It can be demoralizing to not only have your work go unnoticed, but also having to inevitably deal with the worse of customers. I remember a year where our store did pretty well in comparison to the previous year and the most we (including our SM) received was a piece of paper acknowledging our efforts.

Contradicts what I said earlier, okay. But after that it was back to business as usual, as if it never happened.

Nowadays I feel less willing to talk to people, I'm often more paranoid about customers, and my anxiety has gotten worse compared to when I first started working here. Managing retail as a whole in is hard, but I know some people may see that as cope.

To give this post some positivity, I want to thank the co-workers I have worked with before who I still keep in contact to this day. I also want to thank my former SM who I still talk to as well, and the customers who genuinely cared about the store and its workers.

Customers, remember that Dollar Stores (or any store, should I say) will not always have what you need. A store's inventory can also change over time depending on whether items get discontinued.

Speaking of which, every dollar store can have a different inventory. What you may find at one store you may not find at another. It's usually recommended to check the app and have the correct store selected to gauge what could be in the store (Note this isn't always accurate)

And a common question I would get is "when will you get more of this or that?" The store cannot always control what they receive, even if they maintain a good inventory count. Stores often get sent whatever corporate feels like sending.

Seasonal items, especially, rotate out every year. Back to school stuff will actually be on the shelves within the next month or so and summer stuff will be gone around September or October.

And remember, its not the workers' fault when the app says there's something in the store but you don't see it on the shelves. Most stores struggle with payroll as it is and cannot get the people nor the hours to pack out everything they receive from truck. Plus, I reiterate my point about the app not always being accurate.

I've worked both stores, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree, and currently under the Dollar General brand until I move on to something better. Yet regardless of which dollar store I'm under I often hear questions about the store's inventory. Even had a few customers berate me cuz we didn't have this or that despite the app claiming we do. But that's besides the point.

Hopefully that clears up any potential confusion.

The Family Dollar and Dollar Tree stores near me only ever have 2 or sometimes 3 employees at most working the same shift. Sometimes their shifts may overlap, or you may see 4 people instead of 3, but usually they are packing out.

When it gets busy the store can easily get bad and employees will quickly become overwhelmed. Even customers in my area have exclaimed how bad it can be with how few people they put in those stores.

I've also heard of many stores in the district that are poorly maintained. Unorganized shelves, floors not properly cleaned, and management overall not being that great.

Customers can also become pretty rowdy, but I blame that more on the communities those stores are located in.

I used to be an employee at both Family Dollar and Dollar Tree and I simply want to hear how its like in other parts of the map. I can't go into too much detail about my experience, but let's just say I have seen a lot, especially in Family Dollar.