#retail stories

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

once when I worked at a grocery story, this woman came in and bought thirty four squash. so while im scanning all her fucking squash, she starts up a conversation. she asks if I'm in college despite the fact I was fifteen at the time and very much looked it. when i said no she nodded and said that was good because too many women were going to college these days. she told me her son was in law school and paused for a solid thirty seconds after, just staring at me, waiting for me to be impressed. again, I was fifteen. I wasn't impressed by anything but in ground pools and people who don't cough on a gravity bong. after I let out the world's most monotone "wow" (I'm mostly focused on counting these squash), she shows me a picture of her Fully Grown Adult son and asks me if I think he's cute. for the next minute, while I finish scanning all her fucking squash, she tries to set me up with her son. she left when I told her I couldn't date her son because I was an undercover CIA agent working in the store to catch the mafia ring that had taken over the town. my manager thought it was funny and gave me a free vitamin water.

#retail #retail stories #retail hell #customer service

[jlbriere]

A sketch comic from a few years back of Amira and her adopted daughter Maggie as a toddler. It's based off of an experience I had a long time ago working at a craft store trying to help a very defeated mom and her kid with a hamburger patty.

#original character #oc #anthro art #fantasy #fantasy art #retail stories #retail #just mom things #sketch comic #comic

[priscilla9993]

One customer, who comes daily, complains when he comes to our store for Fritos Original flavor. We only get 3 bags if we’re lucky per week. We CAN’T choose what assortment comes because it’s based off popularity and sales number to the main chips distributor. My store won’t get more to cater to one person.

Here’s some lines I hear often from this entitled NPC:

“I don’t know why you guys don’t just order more. Everyone knows Fritos Original are the most popular flavored chips!”

“You don’t even have the 2nd best, chili cheese!” (Before I hand him one of our ten bags of such)

“Kids these days don’t understand quality.”

(Doesn’t let me tell him his total but won’t hand me money until I say it before he interjects with “No!” 3-4 times)

#man would be crying in the crowd #surrounded by ppl enjoying spicy chips and popular snacks #he decided to come to ours in the middle of the night instead of a grocery store #retail stories #pris speaks

[oh-three]

This week at work, one of the fire sprinklers in our breakroom started leaking. Today, a couple of plumbers came in and got to work on it. 

I went in for my last break, and sat down across from one of the cashiers. She told me to move over a seat because that’s what the plumbers had told her. See, they were about to pull down a line and drain it into a large gray trash can. So, naturally, I moved over.

When they pulled the line down, it sprayed everywhere. Like a fucking hose. It got a couple of the walls, the tops and fronts of the lockers, both the tables, all the chairs, the floor- the cashier and I jumped out of our seats and moved about six feet away.

This water, there was all kinds of dirt and shit in it. It reeked.

The plumbers went out to their truck to get some rags to clean up the mess. The cashier went back out to work, and I followed her to tell the current front end manager that I was going to clean the break room (this was like three minutes into my break). The cashier explained the situation, and I returned to the breakroom to wait for the guys to return.

Once they did, they began wiping everything down, tables first. I helped move the furniture out of the way to make the floor more accessible, then grabbed the store’s kaivac machine (sprays and vacuums water) and got to work. It took twenty minutes to clean the floor, even with that thing. The more talkative of the two plumbers kept thanking me, got a call from one of his bosses and told him that a “badass employee” was helping them clean up after he explained the situation.

We get it cleaned, put the chairs and tables back. I head outside to bring in more carts because I was certainly overdue for it. Forty-five minutes to an hour later, the plumbers are setting out to leave, and the talkative one seeks me out while I’m roping carts together. He thanks me again and tells me that if there was anything he could do, he’d do it. Heck, he even offered to buy me dinner. I told him that he didn’t have to, and he accepted that answer. Mentioned that he’d told the front end manager how helpful I was. She told the store director, and my break got compensated. And I got a couple of coupons.

“You saved the day,” the talkative plumber had told me.

No one told me to help them. No one even asked.

This is just one example of how doing kind acts can not only make others’ day, but your own. Goodness spreads. Be good, do good, and just maybe someone will return that good to you. ❤

#personal #wholesome #integrity #retail stories #retail

[danielaegan]

Check out this investigative piece I wrote for The Serving Times about some good people coming together to raise money for a great cause!

#storytelling #writing community #retail #retail stories #latest news #feel good

[blue-spruce-bruce]

Today a customer wanted to buy a bottle opener with their six pack of corona, so I gave them one of the free ones we got as promo material for Cinco de Mayo. They told me they were a little hungover in the initial hi-how-are-ya exchange but immediately bloomed when I gave them this tiny little bottle opener that just says Corona on it. They just held it for a second and said "dog this just tickles me pink" in the most touched sincere tone I've heard since working retail. You tickled me pink you silly party animal, have one on me.

#retail stories

[cyberpilate]

True Stories from Comics Retail!

The year is... somewhere in the 2010s, I'm guessing. The place? Metro Entertainment, Santa Barbara's No. #1 Comics and Games store and here I am, working the register.

Now, please understand: the one thing I love more than anything in the world is recommending comics to people and, f I can allow myself a little sliver of pride, I think I'm pretty good at it. No complaints, yanno? There is literally nothing like showing a new fan or a new reader a comic book they never considered before and then BOOM - next week they're in for another one! I've made lifelong friends this way and it really warms up the soul.

So when this gorgeous woman, elegantly dressed and erudite, comes in and tells me that she just finished a class at UC Santa Barbara on comics and wanted to read more, I nearly vaulted over the counter to get her to our trade paperback shelves. She tells me she's read Sandman and my mind starts whirring with possibilities. We're looking for something with a high art quality, storytelling and myth, something dark and dreamy perhaps. I show her The Wicked + The Divine by Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillian and she shakes her head and says:

"No, I only read books by gay men."

This floors me. Wow! What a specific request! For the 2010s, mind you; it's not like I knew the personal love life of comic book authors at this time. Wracking my brain, I start to take her towards autobiographical comics, the only place I know where writers and artists had "come out of the closet", so to speak and she again says no.

"Books like Sandman!," she reinforces. So now I've practically blue screened thinking about who is a gay man in comics that writes dark fantasy?? I can't let her go with out a recommendation! She's so fancy! And she took a really rad course at UCSB and she wants to read them I can't gatekeep this young woman because *I* don't know enough about comics to know which gay men write dark fantasy-

-WAIT. Phil Jimenez! He was gay! And he was highly influential on Wonder Woman! (I just checked and no, the Omnibus hadn't come out by that time...) I think I have it!! Glowing with relief and pride, I take her over to the DC books and start explaining the mythological connections in Wonder Woman...

She interrupts me again. "No, books by <i>gay men</i>," she emphasizes.

That kinda puts me on the spot so I start to explain, "Well, Phil Jimenez is-"

"Like Sandman and the Graveyard Book, that author."

It hits me like a ton of bricks.

(Shout out to everyone who figured this out during the story - I am impressed by how incredibly smarter you are than like, 30 year old me)

"NEIL GUY-MAN," I say, totally pronouncing the man's name wrong to try and explain where I went wrong in this whole conversation. She does not agree with my pronunciation but I take her over to Murder Mysteries (when it was still in stock at Diamond, one of my most favorite short stories ever), the Sandman TPs, anything I can get my hands on. She does look them over, but doesn't want to buy anything and leaves me in my shame.

I guess I'm telling this story in hopes that Dark Horse puts Murder Mysteries back into print so I can sell the book to Good Omens fans and that maybe, just maybe, @neil-gaiman will forgive me for the butchering of his last name.

We can dream.

#murder mysteries #comic book shop #retail stories #neil gaiman #phil jimenez #wonder woman #the wicked + the divine

[n3ptunegaming]

Ladies and gentlemen meet the newest member of the pickup family, Stevert! This child has been making intermittent appearances throughout the store the past couple days before being put in the garbage today by my supervisor (that's how I found him this morning). He was then hidden in our cabinet by the front end manager, then the door to our department by my manager, then the both taped him to the assistant store manager office!

#small youtuber #small streamer #funny #retail #retail stories

[manettheeternalelir]

I work at an undisclosed Midwestern lumberyard chain, and by god I wish I didn't.

It's the hell of working retail with the added stress of people making 15 minute decisions on 6 figure projects. Last night a couple asked me whether we could do a door a specific way, I said yes but we don't carry it in stock, and ofc they asked 3 more times if we have that door in stock, with the inevitable conclusion of them telling at me for wasting their time for not informing them that the door they want isn't in stock.

But every so often,

Once in a blue moon,

I have the privilege of telling somebody to fuck off.

There's a guy, we'll call him Chris, who comes in about 3 times a week. He has a Donald Trump level fake blonde toupee, the intelligence of a concussed squirrel, and he almost never buys anything. But he grabs the neatest employee and spends the next 45 minutes (timed) (average) (once it hit 133) asking questions that a 5 year old homeschooled evangelical child could answer.

When Chris enters the store a call goes out over the radio to let the managers know, and they scatter like rabbits. Whatever unlucky schmuck gets stuck with him is to be pitied, but never assisted lest ye become ensnared in the mire of idiocy that Chris projects.

The other day I wasn't wearing a radio, because of the autism, and so I was caught off guard as Chris came up to me. Knowing that my chances of escaping him were negligible, I launched straight into Unhelpful Mode. For those of you who haven't worked retail, or have repressed your time there, Unhelpful Mode (perhaps more accurately described as Overly Helpful Mode) is when you are perfectly capable of helping a customer, but deliver that help in such a manner that it dissuades them from asking follow up questions. An example is going into excessive detail about the chemical treatment of green lumber, or the myriad ways that you can customize a door to achieve the same dimensional effect. The customers eyes glaze over and lose their spark, and they proceed to go away to think about the excessive information you've dropped into their poor little minds.

Much to my chagrin, I quickly learned that Chris was immune to Unhelpful Mode, probably because he is too vacant to absorb the most surface level information, let alone the wealth of details I unleashed upon him. Due to this miscalculation, I was forced to spend about an hour (56 minutes) (error of about 5 minutes due to my coworkers disappearing until they were sure he was dealt with) with Chris.

After telling him everything he asked about, and more, I made my exit. The crucial question he asked me, over and over, was if we could install a door for him. I told him that no, Per Policy, [Company Name] does not do installation, but that I could provide him with the information of a few local contractors. He asked this probably 7 times, the last time making my exit.

Chris then demonstrated a guile unbeknownst to me. After waiting until I was out of his sight he approached our rookie employee, all of 3 days from hire. He knew that if he could pressure the new kid into stating that [Company Name] would install his door, that he could come back later and get a discount due to being assured of installation (stupid rule).

Thankfully on this hallowed day, I was observing from cover (behind another desk), and figured out what he was doing. I came up and asked what was going on? He lied, the rookie told me what was up, and I politely asked Chris to leave.

Chris took this very personally, and started to raise his voice. Which I matched. At this point everybody in the vicinity was watching us, necks craning and conversations ceasing. Things escalated further, and eventually his profanity laden denunciation prompted my own thunderous "Fuck Off". He bolted for the General Manager, lied his ass off, and begged for my firing.

I told a *relatively* true account of the interaction, reminded the GM of who we were dealing with, and got off scott free.

All in all not worth it, applied to 2 other jobs the next day.

#fyi I'm allowed to mock homeschooled evangelical children because I was one #retail stories

[void-inked-pen]

Playing more maple story and talking shit about my retail job

#streaming #retail #retail stories #vtuber #pngtuber

[daridumbs]

Omg omg pls spill the tea about shitty retail customers, i LIVE for retail stories

OH BOY WOULD I

So I have a different subset of retail stories, you might say. For context I work at a chain pet store in both customer service and pet care departments, with lots of cashier experience. Let's call it uhhhhhh PetSnart.

An older lady came in to ask about fish, and she wanted to buy two koi fish to put in a 3 gallon tank she already had at home. I had to explain to her that I could not sell her the koi fish bc koi grow to be absolutely massive and are only suited for 100+ gallon ponds. She pouted about it like a child. Side note: whoever the fuck came up with the lie "fish only grow to fit however big their tank is," go to hell. When I die I'll find you and kick your ass myself.

One time a lady came in to return shampoo, I rang her up for her return and she insisted that she paid more for it that what her return price was, argued with me about it like I was braindead until she asked for my manager to ring her up instead. He came up with the same return price and she said "Oh, that's the same number she [referring to me] said." And my manager told me after she left that it took all his power not to say to her face "Yeah, because she [me] did it right the first time."

A father wearing an outfit that looked straight out of a 1970s sex offender suspect lineup with a very young daughter yelled at me because he wanted to buy his daughter a frog but he had to sign paperwork to do so. Whenever we sell any animal that is not a fish we have to have the pet parent (that's what he have to call customers) sign their name/address/email/phone number on a sales form as legal coverage for ourselves in case they somehow harm the animal, it's not our fault basically. He was CONVINCED that we were gonna sell him junk mail to his address (which is a totally acceptable reason to yell at a retail associate /s) and refused to fill out the sales form because he just wanted "a fucking frog" but I legally could not sell him that animal if he won't sign the papers. He did so begrudgingly and I hope his daughter grows up to despise him. Months after this, I ran into him again and he did apologize to me for doing that, which I appreciated. He was still a dick tho.

Every so often some fish will get a disease called ich (pronounced "ick," short for the scientific name of a parasite) which shows up as white dots all over the fish's body. It's fatal if left untreated but is easily treatable with medicated water. I noticed some goldfish in our fish tanks had ich, so I put them in a container to take them to the back room where we have a quarantine tank just for situations like this. As I was doing this a family was looking at the fish and they asked me for help, and I said "absolutely just give me one second :)" bc I was still mid-transporting sick goldfish but the dad quipped back with "actually :) we've been waiting here for a long time :) so could we get help now actually? :)" I added those smileys in is speech bc he had the most shit eating grin the entire time he was speaking to me. Never in my life have I despised someone in such a short amount of time (like SPEEDRUN i hate you now) and wanted to eat them alive in front of their entire family more than this moment. Also I was in their vicinity the entire time and they were "waiting" (re: standing around looking at things) for like 5 minutes TOPS. They did not ask me for help until I was in the middle of pulling goldfish. I helped them just so they would fuck off sooner. I put the goldfish in the quarantine tank after and they got better soon after treatment.

A lady got snippy with me because she thought I didn't give her enough crickets (at PetSnart we have bins of live crickets that the associate has to catch themselves with a scoop to put them in a small transparent plastic bag to give to the customer) even though I caught WAY more than what she asked for (15) because I was doing everything wrong apparently. Then before I even tied the bag closed she snatched it out of my hand and said something like "No no I want them to be able to breathe" as she walked away.

A lady argued with me about keeping betta fish in cups as if I specifically was the sole reason why the fish are being abused and kept in tiny prisons and she's friends with peta so she's gonna call them to shut us down. I dislike that we keep bettas in cups too. I was agreeing with her on everything (except peta because FUCK peta). But it's been a few years and my store is still standing so.

That's probably enough lol. This post is already way too long. Hope these are juicy enough

#long post #dare answers #general ask #anonymous #retail tea #retail stories #sa mention #violence mention

[janedoeremi]

Tales from Retail

My coworker and I were talking about the fnaf movie and how we were excited about the actors and what we hoped might happen in the movie. But they then said couldn't remember what the lore was and wanted me to explain it.

Big mistake.

I tried my best but i then realized how many retcons and book related plot points that contradict the game lore there were and I only had like 5 minutes left on my lunch that I gave up and said:

"Look all you need to know is that William Afton aka purple fucker is an immortal furry and Scott Cawthon came up with an in canon scientific explanation for the supernatural, the lore is bullshit."

#retail stories #Tales from Retail #fnaf #five nights at freddy's

[maelstromgrymm]

An interaction I just had with a regular Karen at my store. And the reminder that my manager is a saint.

Customer comes up to the register with drinks and asks for gas. I run the transaction, but because I don't make eye contact with her very much, she taps her long nail on the counter to get my attention.

Karen: Are you paying attention to me?

Me, forcing direct eye contact, which makes me horribly uncomfortable: Yes, I have your items rung up and your gas ready, was there anything else I could get for you?

Karen: No, that's it, I just thought since you aren't looking at me, you didn't know I was here. You should work on your eye contact.

Me: Ah, sorry, it's always an issue for me to-

Karen: Yeah, I'm done, just ring this up and I'll go.

Me: *finishes up her transaction and waits for her to pay*

Manager: Ma'am, I don't need you belittling my employees like this. We'll handle this for you, but if you bring in that attitude again, we won't serve you.

Karen: Excuse me? I just wasn't sure he was listening to me, because he never made eye contact-

Manager: Ma'am, to be completely honest, do you need eye contact to hear someone?

Karen: Well, it's just polite etiquette, maybe you need to train them better.

Manager: Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to not bring your business back here. You can get your gas and go, but we will no longer serve you. Beyond today, you're banned from this location.

Karen: *goes on the usual tangent about calling higher ups, taking this to the state, the store losing business, blah blah blah*

Manager: *"kindly" showing her the door and making sure she didn't come back in*

Me: *near tears* I'm sorry, it's just hard for me to look people in the eye sometimes...

Manager: Nah, fuck her, you did what you had to. I'm not letting anyone disrespect any of my employees. She's not gonna bug us anymore, I'll be sure of it.

#retail stories #I love my manager #she deals with so much #Karen #neuro divergent #autism

[beccabonezz27]

Happened to a co worker… what a day we had at the store that day.

#lgbtq #art #female artists #small artist #spotify #artists on tumblr #oc #original character #drawing #drawing practice #true retail stories #true retail comics #true comics #retail stories #retail workers deserve a lot more than minimum wage #i am a retail worker sharing my experience #retail workers #retail #retail nightmares #Jesus Christ please stop treating retail workers like shit

[stewpidstrawberry]

I work at a movie theater and earlier two guys come up to buy tickets and I ask 1st guy where he wanted to sit and he answers me with "somewhere we can make out" so I go and give him a seat in the back and he cuts me off with "I want everyone to see" so I moved him to the middle of the theatre. I then ask if he'd like something to snack on and he points to 2nd guy and answers "him". At that point I'm trying real hard not to laugh. I give 2nd the seat next to 1st guy and he says "What makes you think we wanted to kiss each other? We should sit next to another couple, join in. On top of that, the ones in front of the line had popcorn!" and I don't think I'll ever have a funnier interaction ever

#Gay pride #I think? #No matter what their relationship is i support it #They went to see The Creator btw #Retail stories

[blkgrlangst]

i saw this awhile ago but it’s so true and is one of the main reasons why i hated working retail and hope to never go back. i was always on top of my shit and kept the section i was in charge of clean but there was one time when there was a pretty long lull and i had just tidied things up so there was nothing for me to do i was just slightly leaning on the folding table staring off into space because i left my phone in my locker (+ we weren’t allowed to be on our phones anyway) my manager peaked in and told me to make sure the clothes hanging on racks were lined up evenly/pretend to do something even if there’s nothing to do. 🙄😂 do you know how less drained i would’ve been during a shift if i could just be on my phone, read a book, or JUST SIT when i’ve completed my tasks and the customers don’t need help?! this would make my shift go by so much faster! the gag is there weren’t many customers that needed more help than just being pointed to a certain section or getting an item from the back, a lot of them ignored me or just wanted to browse (i’m the same). trust me when i say i wouldn’t give two shits if retail workers are sitting when i walk into a store…

#not to mention i had a lot more back problems and shin splints when working this job which i didn’t get paid enough for #retail #retail stories #fuck capitalism #rant post #shitpost