Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

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:

Feminine · 04/01/2012 00:03

Someone further up thread said that retail was an easy job.

I don't agree, its not an easy job and done badly it really shows.

More training needs to be given to help shop workers truly learn what makes a good sale, and a happy experience for a customer.

It is not a job just anyone can do.

I am also shocked at some customers that look through shop staff as if they were invisible, sometimes continuing a cell phone chat while being helped. That is not on at all.

I always make an effort with the person serving me, I am very rarely let down...and I look forward to chatting with humans in the regular places I shop at.

Fecklessdizzy · 04/01/2012 00:03

I work in a museum shop and have obvious tatoos and an air of barely controlled madness so people tend to be reasonably civil ( although dull beyond belief, sometimes ) apart from the breed of haughty doily-voiced old bags who blame me for the loss of their youthful dreams / the end of The Empire / the fact their husbands can't read a map / that the entrance isn't where it was 30 years ago and Woods Of Windsor going bust so they can't have anymore horrible English Rose room spray ( the first blast fries your nasel nerves and you never smell anything ever again so gawd alone knows why they need a refill ... )

P.S YANBU!

TheCraicDealer · 04/01/2012 00:03

ZX, I think bomb searching would be a bit beyond your pay scale there. When I was at school I worked in a large department store. One day a random man walked into the delivery/staff entrance, dropped his suit(!) trousers and just did a shit in the middle of the floor. Cue tanoy looking for cleaner. Said cleaner rolled up, took one look at the steaming pile of poo and refused to touch it. Eventually the store manager (head honcho) had to come down with some marigolds and some bleach to deal with it.

I personally think it was a disgruntled ex-employee.

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 04/01/2012 00:15

"I am also shocked at some customers that look through shop staff as if they were invisible, sometimes continuing a cell phone chat while being helped. That is not on at all."

I deal with this in one of two ways:

Don't engage with them at ALL so they have to engage with you to ask how much etc.

Talk loudly to them. "THAT IS FIFTY SEVEN POUNDS PLEASE THANK YOU" "POP YOUR CARD INTO THE PIN MACHINE PLEASE MADAM" "DO YOU WANT A BAG?" "THANK YOU MADAM HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY" Pisses them off no end.

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 04/01/2012 00:16

"One day a random man walked into the delivery/staff entrance, dropped his suit(!) trousers and just did a shit in the middle of the floor"

You what?

A1980 · 04/01/2012 00:25

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.

You're right actually, I didn't type that very well. That wasn't the way it was meant to come across and certainly not my view that all of them are crap. However the OP's tone is that all of us are cunts and there is no such thing as a nice customer. Soemthing I got a bit offended by as i'm always nice to them so I got a bit hot headed and fired off a cheeky response. I'm knackered though after my first day back at work after Christmas, harldy slept last night 8 hours at the office, 3 hours on public transport.

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 04/01/2012 00:26

"3 hours on public transport."

What the fuck are you commuting on? A horse and trap?

theincredibequeenofwands · 04/01/2012 00:30

I'm amazed at you being asked to search for bombs!!

I work in a nursing home and we're told that 'if there's a fire alarm you call the fire brigade and go off in pairs to search for the fire.'

The reason that two of you go is in case one of you is engulfed by flames.

They'll get a shock if it happens. I won't be endangering my life for £6.80 an hour. Have a family at home who need me!!

Surely that's why we have emergency services??

A1980 · 04/01/2012 00:32

What the fuck are you commuting on? A horse and trap?

Haha! It feels like it sometimes.

A bus, then a train then a tube. it takes 90 minutes + each way. So a 3 hour+ round trip.

TheCraicDealer · 04/01/2012 00:33

He shit on the floor of the staff entrance. It was at the back of a big shopping centre in town, you could just walk in off the street at the back of the building. Considering this is Belfast, you could say security was a tad lacking.

He did what I could only dream of at the end of every shift

BaublesandCuntingCarolSingers · 04/01/2012 00:39

Oh sorry. That was my dad. :(

ZXEightyMum · 04/01/2012 00:42

No that was my father!

Prepare to die!

Feminine · 04/01/2012 00:46

baubles very clever ideas.

If I go back to retail, I must remember those

nativitywreck · 04/01/2012 11:24

Aw, I kind of miss working in retail. (Masochistic I know)

Baubles, the Elite selling Krew was genius but I think the one that made me laugh the most was when Jerwayne becomes The Sleepyman.

Shit. I am supposed to be working but I think I may have to go and watch that now, to cheer myself up like.

BupcakesandCunting · 04/01/2012 11:34

Sleepyman was brilliant!

rainbow2000 · 04/01/2012 12:26

God this brings me back i used to work on the tills in a supermarket,i found the worst for abuse were old men/women or post women.Its like we are all beneath them.
Ive been screamed at and told i was gonna be got.I just got security,the faces of people when they realise they can be held accountable for their actions is shock.
One of the best though was this fella giving it loads bout having to pay for the plastic bag,but i had a lovely fella behind him who gave out stink to him for being aggresive to me,he didnt open his mouth after that.

Curtainmyself · 04/01/2012 12:39

I've lived all over the world and must admit, unfortunately, that the UK has the worst service I've encountered. I get such a boost when I come across a lovely shop assistant - and there are lots of them - however, we always remember the rude, bad ones, and for me the UK wins hands down.

Makes me sad.

neshnosher · 04/01/2012 12:47

I've got a lot of time for the vast majority of shop workers they take loads of shit from awkward entitled customers.
YANBU OP.

Curtainmyself · 04/01/2012 12:53

Nesh - there also seems to be a lot of awkward entitled shop assistants in the UK.

Just a suggestion, but when I go in to a shop, if ONLY the shop assistant would look up at me and acknowledge me, I would feel a lot better, rather than being Mrs Invisible.

neshnosher · 04/01/2012 12:58

You must shop somewhere that I don't Curtainmyself.
SOME shop assistants are awkward.
But shop assistants meet more customers than customers meet shop assistants so they are exposed to rudeness more.

BupcakesandCunting · 04/01/2012 13:04

Curtains, you do realise that shop assistants don't have eyes in the top of their heads?

If they have their head down doing something, they probably just haven't realised that you're there, rather than deliberately ignoring you. You could try saying "Hello, could you help me with this please?" instead standing silently fuming like my arseing mother does

cubbie · 04/01/2012 13:41

don't have time to read the whole thread, sorry, but I'm sorry that people are being/have been rude to you. I am ALWAYS very very polite, chatty, friendly etc.

I have worked in a shop and for a few years in a food court. Manners cost nothing and it's nice to be friendly, I think.

(however, if an assistant was rude/cheeky/unhelpful, I wouldn't hesitate to give them a dose right back. It has happened to me a couple of times, for no reason, and yes, I understand that they might be at the end of their tether etc, but it doesn't excuse being rude to an innocent bystander, as it were.)

LunaLunatic · 04/01/2012 15:19

Oh OP I know your pain! I used to work in a shop PT and some of the customers (the minority I must say) were awful!

I remember one snotty cow who came marching in dragging her son by the hand, and immediately began shouting at me demanding a refund in her poshest accent, using as many legal phrases and "big words" as she could muster lol. I have quite a posh accent for Oop North (mother drilled it into me, thought it would be better for me but resulted in years of bullying!) and she was floored when I opened my mouth and gave her a most polite and well reasoned response.

I think that memory stuck with me because the sheer number of people who treat shop staff as though they're thick is astounding. Even nice customers would sometimes speak to me as though I were a slow 5 year old!

wahwahwah · 04/01/2012 15:47

My local M&S ladies are lovely. They always ask how I am, where the little un is, what he's doing at school, etc. They usually are in M&S though, aren't they - especially in the cafes.

I do hate it when you are served by someone who obviously doesnt want to be there, hates their job and would actually wish you dead. I know that everyone has a bad day, but if I spoke to a client or supplier in a less than polite (sometimes even fawning way) I would be canned.

I try to be nice to people (well most people, not just people in shops) and only kick off if they start it. Like the woman in the camera shop who wouldnt replace my new camera (of one week) which had a faulty lens. Then I had to get all Hyacinth Bucket on her.

OrmIrian · 04/01/2012 15:54

I could not do retail. I just couldn't. I think of myself as a polite and reasonable person. Which I am to normal human beings. Some customers are not normal human beings - they beleive that handing over money ensures that no standard rules of human behaviour apply, ie 'I'm paying good money for X, I don't need to be nice as well'.

Having said that I was quite sniffy to a customer in a pub once (in the brief period I was a barmaid) because they had the temerity to complain about a dirty glass. It was dirty. But I reckoned they shouldn't have been polite enough to just drink up anyway. As I say, I couldn't do retail.....

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6