r/retailhell

Coworker smells like literal unfiltered ass and shit, the most unimaginable smell you can imagine, and all he does on every break is play Nintendo Switch.

I wish it wasn't real trust me, almost died when they put me working next to him.

I cracked. I got pissed off after 15 minutes of her following my every movement around the counter.

For the record, we only take orders at weekends now. It's been a system for months. This lady is a regular and I personally have told her 4 times at least. We also have two closed signs that were both up. I spent 2 minutes standing directly behind one of them.

So anyway, 15 minutes in I crack because I my body reacts to being watched like I'm being held at gunpoint and I was sick of my hands shaking so much I couldn't do my job. I said "is there something you're waiting for?"

She goes, "yeah I want a spicy-"

I cut her off with "yeah we're closed. We have two signs right here that say we're closed."

She didn't even respond. Just walked away like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Anyway this exact occurrence happens at least 5 times a week and I hate customers

I’ve been out of retail for maybe 6 months now and I still cant stand other people at all anymore. They all annoy and scare me. I got bullied and harassed by my manager and other coworkers during my entire time at the store no matter how nice and cooperative I was. It’s like me being nice and trying to do a good job caused them to become crueler. As well as dealing with horrible customers. I’ve struggled with social anxiety since I was a teen coming from an abusive household and after moving out I tried to work on that and over the years made progress. But after working in retail all those years of progress have gone down the toilet and now I am worse than I was before. Anyone else have this experience?

Old Lady demanded a refund for a filthy product she had bought over a month ago. When we explained the store policy and why we couldn’t do her return, she was power tripping and asking for the owner/manager’s personal number as they were not in. When we said no AGAIN bc of policy, she said she never would have bought it if she had known that the product had the word magic on it bc that’s sorcery and unacceptable in a “Christian country MADE by Christians.” The biggest word on the item was “MAGIC” btw. She argued we should make a sorcery section so Christians wouldn’t mistakenly buy products with magic or black magic anywhere on the packaging. I tried to tell her it was just a word the brand decided to use and they had no affiliation with sorcery, but she didnt care. I ended up arguing that people are free to practice any religion in America and that was the whole reason it was founded. She wouldn’t see reason and argued with me and said it wasn’t true. She then patronizingly told me to look up the definition of magic in the dictionary and that I should learn it since I came to this Christian country even though I already said that I was born here…She stormed out saying she was gonna file a complaint. I still cant believe this happened

Customer approaches. She is not elderly. She doesn't look like Karen...but looks are deceptive. Drops the book on my counter. It's a discount book because this is a discount store. The cost is about $4.99. The literature you find here, like everything else at this location, isn't top of the line obviously. The second you walk in you should know where you are. She wants more off. Why? "The page here is a little bent." Excuse me? "The page is bent." Ok. You want dollars off an already cheap book by an author nobody ever heard of because....one of the pages was slightly bent at the corner? You miserable fuck. First of all, paper bends, you idiot. Second, that's not a damage or defect. Go to Barnes and Noble if you don't believe me. And third, how the hell do I know you didn't bend it yourself while you were taking a walk past the $2 tube socks? I try to explain. She won't hear it. Then she says it's a gift, so...Oh, a gift you say? Funny, you didn't ask for a gift receipt or wrapping. You only mentioned it when I pushed back. But of course, she gets what she wants. Everyone does.

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that in the last 6 months or so people have become even ruder and more unhinged if that is even possible??

The shoplifting has also significantly increased

So I work at a mall store. It’s back to school season, so we’re pretty busy, and a lot of people buy multiple bags worth of stuff. So this lady has been walking around the store for about 45 minutes at this point. She has been giving us little piles of stuff to hold for her. Her pile behind the counter was pretty big. When she came to checkout, she said her husband and 6 kids would come to the store in just a minute to help her take bags out. We talked. She was super nice.

At the end of her checkout, she told me that they were running late and asked if I could help her carry things to her car. Unfortunately, the mall I work at is ginormous, and we are not allowed to leave the store, at all while clocked in, unless its an emergency or we are on break. I told her this, to which she said “oh, well no problem, you can just start your break”. I explained that no, I would not go on my break to walk across the huge mall with you and find your car in the parking garage. She got MAD.

My mall offers a service, for free, where somebody can meet you at any store with essentially a big shopping cart and take it to a locker for you to get on your way out, and they usually help take it to your car, however, they are known to be pretty slow. They usually take about 10 minutes, and I told her there was probably a queue, because of how many people were at the mall. I told her I could call them to come, hold her bags behind the counter until they come, and she could go shop around, and I would get her info for them. She REFUSED. Holding up the line, and I asked where her family was to help, to which she said “They are in the Nike store, they need to buy shoes. My youngest just changed sizes” 😐. I told her no. She would not leave.

So I asked her to step out of the line until they came, and we would hold the bags for her. She refused. Insisted on waiting right in the lane so she didn’t have to wait once they got to the store. At this point, the line is out the door. One of the registers ran out of $1s, so I had to go to the back and get more. I got back, and the girls family was there and she started cussing me out for not being there when they came. Her husband took a bunch of bags and apologized for her. On their way out, she put a bag down and flipped me off. Her husband just started yelling at her and left. And yeah! zero out of ten.

It was right before closing time. I’m taking out the trash, doing the closing duties. A customer decides to ‘ask me a question’, then complain why the prices online are $4.50/gal instead of $4.59/gal. I said to him that someone has to manually update it, but there’s another possibility that he’s got another location confused (there are 2 locations on the same road, different intersections). After about a minute or two of explaining, he wanted to pay cash for his gasoline. Cool, I go in and he puts his number in. I said he has 10 cents off per gallon. He then complains more because he has “a lot of fuel points”, and wants to redeem $1.00 off per gallon. I restart the transaction in case he put the wrong phone number in (it happens). Nope, he yas the correct one. I tell him to show me the points on the app, since the phone number may not be linked to the app. Turns out it was, and it shows he has 148 points. I had to tell him that every $100 spent earns him 10 cents off per gallon (1 point every 1 dollar spent). He then shows me a “$1.00 off on your next purchase” reward, and claimed it was a $1.00 off per gallon reward, then claimed it can be used at the fuel station. I had to tell him that he is showing me a “$1.00 off your next purchase”, but he didn’t see that part, and he refused to see it. I also said the previously mentioned reward cannot be used to buy gasoline, and that every $100 spent earns you 10 cents off per gallon, and a $1.00 off per gallon reward requires spending $1,000. He wanted me to figure out a way to redeem it. I told him what I said again. Finally, after 10 minutes, he paid, pumped gas, and left.

The Dad was just ignoring his very bright, positive and verbal daughter the whole shopping experience. I work in the suit department of a large chain department store.

I took it upon myself to let her take the lead in the shopping experience. I worked as a nanny and lead sales at a toy store. So I know children can often be blunt and transparent while shopping. I thought it would make the obviously boring boring daddy/daughter time a little more positive for her.

I let her scan items and asked her what she thought looked best on her dad. Teaching her what colors go well together and what matched.

From the start to the finish of our time together the daughter talked about how they were Christian. How he daddy was very active in the church. And how she loved God and her time at church. As an atheist who grew up in a staunchly Christian house... I thought it was very sweet that she was happy in her faith. I never was as a kid.

When it came time to buy a belt that matched the man's shoes the girl became very vocal about how she doesn't want me to buy him a belt. How "this belt is like the one he spanks me with" and "this one looks like it would hurt a lot".

This made me extremely uncomfortable. The father heard all this and just ignored it. Maybe it was normal for him? I know spanking is controversial. Some parents use it, some see it as criminal. I'm in the camp of 'dont lay your hands on a child'.

At first I thought she was kidding when she turned to me and said "this one looks like it hurts'" but kids don't joke about that kind of thing.

I couldn't just say anything. I don't know these people. I wish I could call cps but I don't have these people's names or addresses. What do I do in this situation as a retail worker? In my 10+ years of working with kids I've never experienced anything like this.

Am I bad for letting this slide?

Are you too exhausted to hit the gym like you did with that reception job? Is standing, bending and lifting 8 hours a day, often 7 days on a row, turning you into someone you barely recognize? Are you tired of interacting with the general population because the performance you give every day is burning you out? You probably work retail, and you're probably mutating into an alien creature that bears little to no resemblance to the person you were before. When did you start identifying potential troublemakers at a glance? When did you start lumping people into collective stereotypes rather than enduring them individually? When did you start seeing other people as the enemy? This job steals more than your energy and more than your time. It drains you in a way nothing else could. It burns through your optimism like a laser, leaving nothing but a shadow behind, a shadow that collapses onto a chair after the day is done, arguing with yourself about what time, if any, you can do the laundry that's been sitting there for weeks. This is your life now. This is how you pay bills and stay alive, but it's not living. Thank God for your cat.

I had to choose flair but there wasn't anything for random thoughts so I picked gross, just because I feel gross today.

Honestly I dont hate on people who are “dumb.” Everyone has their days, but dont assume I am or be rude while being wrong. I literally tell people go down the aisle and it’s to the left. They barely take three steps, look to the RIGHT, and angrily snap at me that it isn’t there. People are so lazy and are addicted to instant gratification. Then people dont know what they’re even looking for and get mad at ME for not reading their mind and not knowing what they want. Like there are probably 50 different red boxes in the store how am i magically supposed to guess what you use.

I’m genuinely so stressed over something that should have been incredibly simple.

I work retail, and sometimes I’m scheduled completely alone. A few days ago I needed to take my lunch break, so I locked the store, put up the appropriate sign, and went next door to grab food. My boyfriend happened to meet me outside while I was leaving.

As I was locking the door, a customer walked up and immediately started complaining about me going on break and the store being closed. My boyfriend was outside with me at the time because we were about to walk next door and get food together.

Later, another location called me because that customer had contacted them to complain. I explained exactly what happened: I was working alone, I had gone on my lunch break, and the person the customer saw with me was my boyfriend, NOT another employee.

I thought that cleared everything up.

Instead, I found out today that the situation had been escalated to upper management with the claim that I had locked my boyfriend INSIDE the store with me during business hours while I took my break.

That literally never happened.

He was outside with me while I locked the door, and then we walked next door to get food. He was never inside the locked store with me.

What really bothers me is that the other location actually spoke directly to me and never once asked whether my boyfriend had been inside the store. I never told them he was. The customer never clarified that he was. That detail seems to have been assumed somewhere along the way and then treated like it was something that actually happened.

My manager had to talk to me about it this morning, and I was genuinely stunned because I had no idea that was even the version of events being passed around. Now I’m expecting to have to explain the entire thing to someone above my manager.

I know it’s easily explainable, but I’m still incredibly anxious because once something gets escalated to upper management, it suddenly feels ten times more serious than what actually happened.

I went on my lunch break. My boyfriend met me outside. We walked next door and got food.

How did that somehow turn into me having to defend myself against an accusation that I locked my boyfriend inside the store with me? 😭

That’s honestly the part stressing me out the most. I know what happened, and I know I didn’t do what’s being described, but now I still have to explain myself because someone else filled in a pretty major detail that was never true. I haven’t heard anything from the DM yet and I’m basically just anxiously waiting to straighten out an obvious misunderstanding.