I have worked in retail since I was 18 and there are definitely pros and cons of working in retail. The pros are without a doubt the employee discounts (if you work at a store where you like the merchandise) and the cons are definitely having customers yell at you. After years of working in retail if there is one thing that I have learned it's that no matter how much someone spends in the store they feel entitled to be rude when they do not get their way Well let me tell you something; that is not true.
My job description is not "punching bag" or "person for you to yell at". My job description is "Sales Associate" meaning I sell the items and I ring you up. That does not mean that you yell at me whenever I do not take back your used items because I am just doing my job.
No sales associate should have to grab their manager because their customer was being extremely rude to them to a point where they were about to cry. I have been on both sides where I was the sales associate that needed her manager and I was the manager that the sales associate had to grab. Most of the sales associates that work in retail are college students and we do not enjoy being yelled at just because you did not get your way.
We are college students. We go from class to work or vice versa and having you yell at us just because you did not get your way does not make anything better on both ends. We have certain policies that we as a store have to uphold and working in customer service we will do whatever we can to help you BUT if you do not get the answer that you want it is not fair for you to be rude to us.
I personally love my job. I go to work all happy and I get excited to make customers happy but the moment a customer starts being rude and say "I spend a lot of money in this store" I immediately start hating my job and hate people (which is bad because I love people). I am sorry but if you spend "a lot" of money in our store than you should know our policy and should not be upset when we tell you that we cannot return or exchange your item if it is outside the policy.
As a person who loves shopping, I try my best to not be mean towards other sales associates because I do not want anyone to be mean to be but here is a motto that I read in an article once and everyone should live by it. It cost $0 to be nice to a sales associate. So instead of yelling at them, you should try talking to them in a calm tone because 99.9% of the time they are just trying to do their job and could be having a bad day. Yelling at them won't help you with anything and it won't make their day better either.
