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AIBU?

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Original poster

To be fed up with everyone moaning at us shop assistants!!

140 replies

Dartfordmummy · 03/01/2012 19:29

I've been reading a lot threads recently and there are so many of you out there moaning about Sales Assistants/Advisors...We are only human and do sometimes make mistakes!!

That's it....rant over.

OP posts:
BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 03/01/2012 22:53

"Oh just fuck off and grow up. Spoiling for a fight are we."

Whooooooooooooooooooooo! Hark at her!

Be less patronising.

That is all.

ZXEightyMum · 03/01/2012 22:56

There really is something about powerless people who target shop-assistants for their irate bollocks.

Cunts, most of them. Failures and / or people in jobs or marriages where they have no power yet they yearn for it and end up acting like assholes to people who have to deal with the public all the time and have skills they could never even dream of having.

Older men (like my Dad I'm ashamed to say) are especially fond of picking on young women who are doing Saturday jobs because they are there. Perhaps they might know that they are on their way to bigger and better things. But it doesn't matter because they hate that even more.

Sales staff - I salute you!

A1980 · 03/01/2012 22:57

Lets not forget the ones who come in trying to quote the Sale of Goods Act

I loved those customers. Especailly the ones who said they were lawyers. I was a law student when I worked in shops and I used to correct them on that point of law. Fuck I loved it when I saw their faces as they knew I was right.

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 03/01/2012 22:57

"phoneshop is dead funny though."

Oh, I have howled at that. Truly howled. Especially at Elite Selling Krew (with Razz Prince)

toodaloo · 03/01/2012 22:59

Baubles I have just texted my work friends telling them that we are calling the customers "cuntsomers" from now on and I have just had one on the phone crying laughing.

A1980 · 03/01/2012 23:01

Be less patronising.

I'm not patronising to staff. Fuck last weekend I had a bra fitting and put them all back on the hangers after and offered to put them back, becasue they had a rack full of them already to deal with. I bloody got them off them off the racks, I'm happy to put them back where I got them.....

We're not all bad ya know Wink

But this thread it a bit harsh. Surely they're not all bad....

A1980 · 03/01/2012 23:02

Toodaloo just be careful you don't come out with it to a cuntsomers face and be nice to ones that are nice to you Grin

PaintedToenails · 03/01/2012 23:09

Hey Baubles.....
Are you currently in the business of 'Making Life fabulous'??
That Sale Item Refund Policy looks awfully familiar......

slognitivetherapy · 03/01/2012 23:11

I was a shop assistant whilst I was at school and at uni, I remember coming home from work at the weekends in an absolutely foul mood because I had spent all day wearing my 'cheery mask'. It only slipped once when I was working at a national museum- I was all on my own at an isolated till and a posh old woman called me stupid because her card wouldn't work. As she walked away I just started to shake and cry.

Don't get me started on the exploitation of under 18s in service industries; 10 years ago I was earning £2.20 an hour- even now the min wage for 16/17 year olds is just £3.68! Angry

Oh and having to work New Year's day for no extra money, because it was written into my contract that I would work weekends whenever they fell.

toodaloo · 03/01/2012 23:11

haha A1980 I'll be very careful don't you worry! To be fair, most of the regulars are lovely, we have had a cake, several chocolate bars and a box of chocolates bought for us this Christmas which was very much appreciated. It is just a shame the minority spoil it. Working in a Bookies, I cannot walk around the local shops where I work without seeing somebody I know and stopping to chat, it is like a little community. Most of the regulars live on a nearby estate where I park and they keep an eye out for my car.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/01/2012 23:14

A1980 - your first comment came over as an unpleasant generalisation about shop assistants never cracking a smile, chatting amongst themselves and ignoring you. You didn't say in so many words that it was all shop assistants, but your comment but that, to me at least, was the very clear tone of your post.

Only later on did you say that the 'girls' in your local department store 'are fantastic and would bend over backwards to help' - which is not the same as saying most sales assistants are helpful and polite and is rather tarring all the rest with the same brush.

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 03/01/2012 23:15

Customers that are nice get a lovely service from me. Really. I don't even swear at them. I spent two hours with a really nice lady last month. She had a spine disorder and couldn't find dresses that fit her properly. I took her about fifty six frocks until we found one that she liked. Then I even went and found her matching jewellery and pashmina and bag. She was so lovely. She sent her husband in the next day with a bouquet of flowers for me which was really nice. :)

Can't say she'd have got the same service if she came in the next week wanting a refund with no receipt Grin

floweryblue · 03/01/2012 23:15

Does anyone know what CCTC stands for? I have asked an alleged customer, at a store we do not have, if he can explain.

toodaloo · 03/01/2012 23:17

Where I work, they did away with o/t a few years back so now we work all Sundays, Bank Holidays inc. Easter Sunday etc... for no extra pay.

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 03/01/2012 23:17

Are you currently in the business of 'Making Life fabulous'??

Well, I'm supposed to be but rarely do. Wink

TheCraicDealer · 03/01/2012 23:18

After last Christmas I swore I would never work in retail again. But redundancy in October backed me into a corner....I honestly admire anyone who does that as a career. The sheer amount of work that goes into something as seemingly simple as a footwear sale is enormous. Not to mention giving up evenings, weekends, bank holidays, Christmas Eve night (for sale prep), Boxing Day, New Years Day, etc. for a measly £6.08 an hour. That's 11k a year, pre tax! It's not an excuse for poor customer service, but people should really understand that it's a bloody hard, tiring job for very little reward.

I wish I'd had more managers like yours Baubles- mine have all been, generally speaking, cocks of the highest order. A few months ago there was a OP on AIBU about how irritating it was being approached several times in one store asking if they needed any help. Yes, I can see why that might be mildly annoying. What is more annoying is being shouted at by your manager because you aren't asking enough people if they require assistance, even though you know people get pissed off at this when they have just walked in the fucking door where you are now deployed. You know this because they have told you. They also have a tendency to talk to you as if you are idiot and/or have some sort of hearing impairment.

GAH!!!

slognitivetherapy · 03/01/2012 23:19

Escape toodaloo- reclaim your weekends and national holidays!

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 03/01/2012 23:21

The pay/terms for people employed after a certain time shite.

Luckily for me, because I worked for the company as a student and kept a 4 hour position on even when in a grad-job (fucking student loan) I have pretty good pay (£7.98 an hour) and good terms (no working christmas/new year and if they fall on my working day, I get double time and a day in lieu) Some of our saturday/evening girls get shite pay though :(

toodaloo · 03/01/2012 23:26

slognitivetherapy I am trying, I wish though I could take my colleagues with me, they are some of the most lovely people I have worked with (and I include my manager).

It is very nice to chat to people who understand working evenings, weekends and bank holidays, as much as I love my friends, I do sometimes get fed up when they write on the Facebook that it's vodka Friday and no more work for 2 days and I'm thinking ummmm I'm in all weekend. Still, I like having days off in the week and as a consequence rarely work more than 3 or 4 days in a row without a day off. (I need it after a 13 hour shift)

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/01/2012 23:27

Arrgh - that first paragraph is a bit nonsensical - it should be:

You didn't say in so many words that it was all shop assistants, but that, to me at least, was the very clear tone of your post.

EduStudent · 03/01/2012 23:40

I also used to love customers complaining about the lack of staff, especially if they wanted to try on shoes, which involved leaving the shop floor and climbing two flights of stairs, which I couldn't do if I was alone on the shop floor, so would phone upstairs for the manager to bring them down.

This was just after Woolworths went and shops were going under at an alarming rate. Strangely enough, I agreed that there should be more staff, yes it was fucking ridiculous, but that was the way things were and it certainly wasn't my decision, as lowly part-time girl.

I seem to be getting into this ranting lark Blush

slognitivetherapy · 03/01/2012 23:43

Good luck toodaloo! I'm starting to think that everyone should work in a service industry at least once in their life- preferably incorporating a bank holiday at no extra pay, to help reduce the volume of cuntstomers around!

YonderRevoltingPeasantWhoIsHe · 03/01/2012 23:44

Wasn't there some famous epidemiological study done that showed that the highest stress levels are amongst people who have comparatively little control over their activities and the ways they're allowed to respond?

I think that's the issue - not the people being horrible to you, but that often you can't do anything back. I've worked in two bakeries, a department store, two restaurants and a bar during my student days and some of the things people said and did were past belief.

Highlights included a woman who came into the restaurant at 10.30pm on a Saturday hitting me in the face with a menu because we had run out of a particular wine - a man sticking his hand directly between my legs when I was carrying a hot plate with both hands and so couldn't resist - and a man completely out of nowhere screaming at me that he wouldn't let his daughter out of the house dressed like I was Hmm

Oh, and the bar regular who came in every single Friday and said, 'I'll have a large chenin [pron. CHEN-on] blanc - or "chennin" as I'm sure you'd say'. Angry Eventually a co-worker who was doing a degree in French just refused to speak to her in any other language but she kept doing it to everyone else.....

Lueji · 03/01/2012 23:45

I have worked as a shoe shop assistant, so I find it mildly amusing when I go in a shoe shop and someone tries to flog some cleaning product or shoe tree or something like that.

So, I think I'm entitled to complain about shop assistants (and customers) who think it's ok to address you as "love" or something like that (unless they are at least 70 and it's done in a nice way), don't even look at you when you are paying for the goods, are too busy talking to each other to help you.

ZXEightyMum · 03/01/2012 23:54

Speaking of exploitation I once worked an a kidz club soft-play in a shopping centre for £2 an hour. There was a bomb scare and we evacuated everyone. My boss decided that me and another young lady should go back to look for bombs in our bit of the shopping centre Hmm

Me: Oh - oh, okay... if I must... part of my duties...

Hayley: WTF? For two pound an hour? YOU FUCKING GO AND LOOK FOR BOMBS!

Grin

I got sacked that day because I "clearly didn't enjoy the work"