Retail Workers Union

I wouldn't know anything about that. All I know is that where I work, we work hard to keep prices down, but they can change for a range of different reasons. I also know that we have worked with our suppliers to minimise the impact of the carbon tax on products sold at our stores.

So, here i go on to hit the ol' dusty trail again. After a very crappy week of sales, I'm going to be put on "correction" because i was unable to trick my customers into buying $200 worth of merchandise per sale. Like, they literally told me that is what I need to do in order to keep sales up, and if I don't, I'm in trouble. Again, they don't realize people don't want to spend that much money in a store they've never visited before. not only have they never visited, but they do not want to/can't open up a store credit card, which is my fault. [/sarcasm]

So, here I go off to have a meeting with my manager within the next hour or so, to hear him tell me how wonderful he is and how badly I'm doing, and then treating me like I'm a complete idiot throughout the whole process of it all.

That beauty store still hasn't contacted with me. :c
WISH ME LUCK.

Are they legit saying they are going to fire you if you cant make people spend $200? Are they crazy? Do they not understand how retail works and that you cant force people to buy things, especially if they arent interested. Your boss sounds like a real big idiot and I really hope you can get out of there soon!

GOODLUCK ON THE BEAUTY JOB!! I think at least there you wont feel so bad and actually enjoy yourself.

I currently have no interesting stories to share besides shutting shop early to go surfing which was awesome. Anyone else have the power to shut early if they have somewhere else to go?

Yeah, good luck on that beauty store job indeed - you really need to get out of there. The sooner the better.

If you get fired though, surely you could sue them for wrongful termination. There has to be a part of that law that caters for 'unreasonable demands' or something like that.

I'm new, but damn am I joining this club.

I work at a head shop (or a hemp shop for non-canadians. or generally just a store that sell "tobacco" paraphernalia). Most of my customers are nice people who are having normal days and understand how to interact with people. I guess everyone has most of those people as customers...

Being a non-smoker myself though, I rage pretty hard at stoners who come in and are too fried to describe what they want or have a coherent conversation that doesn't take them 5 minutes to string together a coherent sentence...
Then there are the hippies that think I want to hear about my aura or this cool new crystal that enhances their "quantum mechanics". I swear, I had a hippie try to explain to me what quantum mechanics are and get it completely ****ed. Lots of pretentious mumbo jumbo happens here, anyway. Oh and people who think I give at all about their drug use at any point in time.

Hey botanicas, welcome!

You certainly have a... unique problem haha. I've been into shops before that sell amethysts and other kinds of crystals that are meant to enhance your life in different ways, and I've had the staff there try to explain to me how they affect your aura and how they change your aura to draw different things to you as if by magnetic force, but I've never actually been accosted out of the blue lol.

I've perfected the 'smile and nod' technique at work where if somebody keeps prattling on for too long, I just pretend to be intensely interested in what they're saying while beckoning the next customer to me and slowly turning my attention to them so they have no choice but to shut the hell up and leave :P

The most annoying group of girls have been coming into my shop basically daily and just annoying me so much. They come in make loud noises touch everything act like idiots and just be pest. I swear theyve even scared of customers ugh.

How should I deal with them? I just give them a blank stare and a monotone voice to say "Please leave as fast as possible." Good idea?

I work at a Sainsbury's and when I get shoved on checkouts I'm determined to chat to every single customer I serve - last week I had a grumpy middle-aged lady whose shopping consisted mostly of carrots, and the only thing I could think of to say was "So, are you a fan of carrots?"

Straight afterwards I was like oh wow, I actually just said that aloud to another human being... but she just sort of shrugged and moved on! Figured this was a decent place to share that story :P

ewwwwwwwwwwwww Sainsbury's... CO op is better... :P

That reminds me of last week. They had me on tills and this regular customer noticed my name was dan. So when she goes "oh your names dan" I replied. "Yep and yours is (name removed) I stalk people" after I was like... oh god I hope she took that as a joke... Thankfully she did or I was in serious trouble haha

I work at Sainsbury's, too. Working on self-serve >>>>> working on tills. I just hate talking to random people. Also, I just like being able to walk around rather than being stuck in a little cage for hours :P I feel like I can be more helpful to customers since I can find products/offers myself, rather than calling supervisors because we aren't allowed off tills.

I've had those odd people who seriously bulk-stock up on the most random things. I've had one guy spend about £30 only on Galaxy Ripples, someone buying 10 bottles of 2L Coca Cola, 20 packets of Sainsbury's basics noodles (mostly by students...), a couple buying 50 single bottles of beer, someone buying soley 20 loaves of bread, an amusing groups of students who bought £100 worth of alcohol. The people that scare me though are the posh old people that spend about £200/£300 on purely wine, bread rolls and burgers. It's obvious they're having a party and are well-off, but seriously. Seriously.

I would love to join, as I share your pain in retail as well. Infact I had to work today. I work at a grocery store, as a checker so yes I deal with bad customers. Sometimes they can be back to back, other times I won't have a bad one, etc. Today I had a horribly rude woman. I always say "Hi how are you today?" I hope to get a response, well a good one at least. When they say "Okay" I don't like it. Honestly, I would love for them to ask how i'm doing. So I thought whatever, and I checked her out. She only had 2 items a 20 case of beer and creme horns. So I scanned the beer and the creme horns and told her the total. She pays, and then as I give her the receipt I said "Here you go" which is what I normally do. I wait for the customer to either say "thank you, have a nice day" or just "thank you" but no, this b*tch yanks the reciept from my hands and just moved the cart away. Now the woman before her had left her cart, but she moved it so I could scan her beer. That cart she moved was in my way and of course she just left it there when she left. So I didn't tell her "Have a nice day" because she didn't deserve it. >.< On a positive note, last Thursday a regular customer who's usually really crabby towards me apologized for how he treated me and even said "You seem like a nice person, and I hated how I treated you. I'm sorry, i'm going through a divorce right now." I felt sorry for the guy and I was shocked to see that a customer actually apologized for being rude. It finally made me realize that not all people suck. :D

Yay, welcome Ravenfreak!

Retail (and probably waitressing) are definitely where you'd lose most of your faith in humanity, so it always makes me hapy when people show they're not always horrible like that man in your story :P

Jorah said:

a couple buying 50 single bottles of beer

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OK as a liquor store worker this just makes me angry. Do people not understand that that is the most expensive way you can buy it?! They put beer in sixpacks and cartons so that it becomes cheaper as you buy more! Idiots!

Unless of course it was fifty different types of beer and they were buying taste testers for all of them. In which case that's kind of cool :P

Thank you for the warm welcome! :D Anyway, I won't be working at Shop N Save anymore, since they weren't giving me enough hours. :\ But i'll be working at Walmart in the dairy department so I don't have to deal with people that much anymore. :V Now I get to see the people of Walmart in real life. xD

Oh how I would love to experience some of the things you're going to see at Walmart. I am positive you'll see at least 1 funny thing happen and youll just watch it and be like... wtf is going on?

In other news I had a crazy gypsy lady come into work at the start of the week and she got two coffees and talked to me for an hour about things I didnt want to know about like her trip to bali and her husband and the couple she knew which apparently one of them got beheaded in bali for a gold necklace. It was all way to intense and crazy for me to even care about but she wouldn't leave! How was I suppose to deal with that!?

That's awesome Ravenfreak! You'll have to see if you can get some sneaky pictures for us :P

And uh, CWP... her trip to barely? XD

Leave me alone Andy I clearly wrote Bali >.>

Have you had any drunks want to have an hour long conversation with you or do you kick them out if they try talking to you like a big meany?

OH MY GOD RACHEL I'M SO SORRY I TOTALLY MISSED YOUR POST! WELCOME TO THE CLUB!

CarefulWetPaint said:

Have you had any drunks want to have an hour long conversation with you or do you kick them out if they try talking to you like a big meany?

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I'm very nice to my customers I'll have you know; they love me to pieces. I've never had any drunk ones that wanted to talk to me however. Usually when they're drunk they just want to get drunker :P

And Impo, I think the cutest part of your story was when she called you gorgeous :P. I get that sometimes and I'm just like "d'awwww you are so sweet to notice".