Something about shopping can make a person feel good. Clothes, shoes, and accessories are the ultimate holy grail unless you're the person who is working the cash register. If I have learned one thing from working in retail, it's that retail means serious business. If you have ever worked in retail, you know the positives and negatives that come with it. One major negative is how bipolar our days get due to the different customers who we deal with.
Angry Customers
There is always that one person or two who are already in a bad mood before they even walk into the store. We all know that taking anger out on a complete stranger for no reason is rude, but we hold a special exception for these customers who think that they own the store. If you don't have the right size, get ready for a fully fledged attitude. "The customer is always right," couldn't be any more wrong. The only thing that we can do is face the wrath with a positive attitude or hide in great shame. Pick your poison, but remember that it's their world and we're just living in it.
The "I didn't know closing was at 9:00" Customer
These people seriously get on my nerves. It's 8:57 p.m. and you start cleaning and closing down registers. You think "Three minutes and I'm off," but you thought wrong. There is at least one customer every night who walks in right before closing and says that they didn't know when closing was. I mean, there is a reason why we put a daily hours sign on the front of the building. If you're that customer, please don't be that customer any longer. We want to go home just as much as you do.
The Coupon Customer
I'll admit that coupons are pretty great. If you have the coupon, why not use it? However, we don't carry coupons in the store. No, I can't do more than one coupon on one transaction. The thing that puzzles me the most is why people get upset when the price doesn't go as low as they would like and then blame it on us retail workers. It's not our fault that you don't want to pay the actual price. Give us a break!
The Indecisive Customer
Last, but not least, we have the customer who will try everything in the store and leave without buying anything. Being a retail worker means that you must wait on the customer and help them find their desired item regardless of how long it takes. If a customer took forever to find something, but then buys something in the end, that was the best. If a customer took forever and tried a ton of stuff on without buying anything, I was irritated for the whole day. I used to work in a shoe store and whenever a person asked for five different pairs of shoes to try, that meant get ready for the sweats, tall ladder climbing, and the running back and forth. This routine gets tiresome and it brings so much anger when, after all of that time, no one bought anything. Can you understand our pain now?
Now, I don't expect shoppers to completely understand what we go through, but you should at least be patient when we're too busy with other customers to pay attention to you and don't be too upset when we don't have what you want in the store. Just like you, we're only doing our job.
I hope that you enjoyed this!
Thank you.
