...to wonder why some people treat sales assistants badly?

[98percentchocolate]

I've worked in retail for about 10 years off and on (through uni) and now work a couple of hours a week whilst I'm a SAHM.

I'm always polite and friendly, and most people are lovely, but occasionally I have some...memorable... Moments.

This week somebody threw something at my face because they tried to queue jump and I wouldn't serve them first. I was very nice about it and very apologetic but still had something thrown at me.

I've also been called "stupid" and "thick" (I'm really not), have had people refuse to speak to me AT ALL (happens very often actually), snatching, snapping...

I'm not alone either, it happens very often. I've seen people physically assault my colleagues before over the smallest things.

So really, I'm just wondering what sparks it? I'm sure nobody will actually admit to being somebody that would throw something at a sales assistant, but I'm just really interested in the psychology behind it.

One place i worked my manager told me that before she was a manager she had a customer constantly clicking his fingers at her for her attention and service.

She kept ignoring him and when she finally served him he complained that she had been ignoring him, she replied (seductively) "oh it wasent that sir, it just takes more than 2 fingers to make me come"

The same manager had a customer complaining to her and he used the line "I pay your wages" she replied "oh great, I've been meaning to ask you about a payrise"

How she ever got promoted to manager

I worked in retail years ago, and then in HR for a retailer, and have witnessed endless amounts of arseholery from the general public. I came to the conclusion that most of said arseholes were actually coming in looking for an argument as they were having a bad day and needed to let off steam -nothing to do with the store. A lot also got off on shouting down people they deemed below them (I presume thinking other shoppers thought they looked amazing and powerful). Twats.
Best example for me wasn't actually when I was at work, but when I was supermarket shopping with my Dad. My Dad looks like a cross between Phil Mitchell and Jason Statham -he's a big bloke with a skinhead, but lovely. Man in front of us at the checkout was an arrogant pompous cock - the young girl behind the till must have been no more than 16 and he was hideous to her. Her computer had an issue, not her fault, and she was trying her very hardest to stay cool and get it sorted while he shouted and swore at her, called her names and made her cry. My dad tapped him on the shoulder and asked him what his problem was and this bloke visibly withered -he went bright red, stuttered and looked at the ground. He didn't know what to say when confronted by someone bigger than him and male, he was clearly only comfortable berating teenagers who couldn't stick up for themselves. It was great watching him shuffle his feet awkwardly and politely thank the girl while looking embarrassed and frankly a bit scared! Some people are just horrible.

MrsHathaway
I used to work in Woolworths - it was mostly great but Christmas Eve was like a huge bun fight because of people panicking, I'm pretty certain that many people didn't even know what they had put in their trolleys until they wrapped the presents that night!

jessy, I understand how irritating it is (I hate it too on the other side), but trust me - the sales assistant hates it more.
My current target isn't too bad - trying to get 1 in 3 customers to sign up for our points card. I previously worked for one national chain though where the target was over 50%. We had monthly review meetings and if your number fell below this on month 1 you were given extra training. Month 2 was an informal warning. Month 3 was a formal warning. Month 4 was dismissal.
Most of the people I work with have to work there for some reason or another (whether to pay the bills and feed their family, pay for education, and so on), so when its a choice between asking a customer if they want something or losing their job - they will always ask the customer.
Even though we feel awkward asking and are berated & abused for doing so, with your manager in the wings with a scorecard, you have to do it. I've come home with a sore throat from asking so often and crying because I know I didn't meet my target that week before.
But if you say to management that you didn't sell enough because the customer didn't want it then you are told "you obviously weren't convincing enough, try harder". It is awful and demoralising.
The worst bit though is sitting in the staff room comforting the crying colleague who has just lost her job (and so her tax credits, housing benefit, and everything else) because her score was 45% 4 months running. All the time wondering if it'll be you next.
Next time you abuse someone on the shop floor for offering you something you don't want, please just try to imagine what it is they are being told by higher up, and write to head office instead.

I remember when Ireland broughtin certain trading hours for alcohol.Oh what fun we had.

We used to get people at 11 at night trying to buy alcohol (it was 10 O clock stop selling drink)Telling us to just money in till and scan it tomorrow. They got really arsey as well.

Anybody would think that the date of Christmas was a closely guarded secret, revealed only a couple of days in advance

MrsH

DH talks about people banging on doors demanding to be let in.

I was chatting to an assistant on the first day of the January sale in a very posh shop. I'd had my beady eye on two pairs of shoes so got there quite early - I didn't camp, or anything mad like that.

He said that a very rich woman had come in at about 5pm on New Year's Eve and kept them there until gone 8pm when she went out to dinner. She spent thousands and got a substantial discount as a high-spending customer even though the sale hadn't started.

But it was no good to him or any of the other sales people because they weren't on commission.

She was just rich and bored and enjoyed making them stay. The owner of the shop indulged her because he was pocketing the money, not his staff.

One Christmas my friend was speaking to an older gentleman at her work (not retail but still customer facing) about christmas shopping and how busy it was. He was moaning about what a nightmare the shops were at this time of year and she agreed and said "and it can't be much fun for all the shop assistants either". He then said " well that serves them right for not sticking in at school at getting better jobs"

FFS! Just so rude. I work 2 days a week in a corporate environment but have 3 children , so have taken a Saturday job in a shop as it means a day of work but with no childcare as DH can look after the children. My Saturday boss is very nice and it is actually very well paid but people just look down on you so much for working in 'just a shop'.
The shop I work in is in quite an affluent area and is quite high end and I would agree with others that Middle class woman of a certain age are sadly the worst culprits. Teenagers are a lot more polite to me that older people. I have also noticed that people don't want to go to the effort of looking around a small shop to find what they want nowadays.
They walk in the door, come straight up to the till -whether I am already serving customers and have a queue or not and then demand that they need x y or z! I am happy to help customers or show them where something in a shop is but it would be nice if they could have a wee walk around the shop first to look for what they are after or at least wait in the queue to ask or maybe even say please?

jess i can tell you my friends and i never got paid for upselling, selling extra items or pushing cards!
It was part of the job, if you didn't do it you got the sack!
We don't bloody like it either! Dont enjoy the abuse or the sarcastic comments however management deem it necessary!

Oh yes the managment that tell you no matter what stick to policy and then come down and give the customer whatever they want, making you look like a twat.
Or a different manager just says that they'll keep giving the customer what they want even if its against policy, but if you do it you'll be in trouble

DH has a shop in the area in which we live. When he first opened he was nervous about eating out in local restaurants saying some people wouldn't like to see us making money, you know, out of a business that he put more hours into than they probably did with their own jobs.

I thought he was being paranoid but he was right.

Some people definitely feel that choosing to patronise a shop is a charitable act and that shopkeepers and shopworkers should know their place.

I was in argos picking something up that dh had reserved whilst I was out. Whilst I was waiting I was on the phone chatting to dh. my item arrived and the number came up so I went to collect it. I was still on the phone but as I got to the collection point I smiled at the assistant and said to dh that I would ring him back soon. The assistant was shocked that I'd put the phone down and said that he doesn't think anyone has done that before when he has been serving them and that it was a nice thing to do. I was shocked as I think it's flipping rude to be on the phone when you're being served in a shop and it was no bother to me to just put the phone down. I was happy I'd made someone's day a bit brighter!

This thread has given me a right good giggle. Worked in retail from leaving school through university in mainly high street fashion chains.

The worst customers I had were parents trying to return clothes their children had 'ruined', by ruined I mean they had gone past the return date, decided they didn't like them after all, so had cut the seams/ cut buttons off/ cut the soles away from the shoe to get an exchange as it was a manufacturer fault. What I never understood was that you could just return an item after the last refund date for an exchange if it was in resaleable condition, so why they didn't do that was beyond me.

I also did a stint in a electricals store. We had a poster in the staff room warning us about Wig Man. Basically Wig Man had stolen thousands of pounds worth of stock by dressing up in different wigs and targeting stores up and down the country. There were a few cctv stills of him on this poster and the wigs were like cheap fancy dress one. Definitely tickled me.

That happens all the time Scorpio. It's rude but don't think it's particularly to do with being in a shop though. I'd guess that lots of people would answer their phone when talking to a police officer who'd just pulled them over for speeding or perhaps in the dock while pleading for their licence.

It's Pavlovian.

The only thing that would make me be a bit 'off' with a shop assistant is if s/he is rude first - ie., looking elsewhere, shouting to another member of staff, not saying 'please' or 'thank you'. And when I say 'a bit off', I just mean I'd take my change and go, I'd never say anything (and they wouldn't notice!).

I do think managements should take heed of threads like this, though. I don't think many people enjoy or find useful:
'did you find everything you needed today' when it's pretty meaningless once you're at the till.
'are you just out doing a bit of shopping?'
'are you alright with the sizes there?'
or persistent and aggressive up-selling.

And I think most people do appreciate 'I'm sorry about your wait' when you've been queuing ages. (better than 'thanks for waiting' - did I have a choice?).

DH had someone return a cashmere jumper a week after buying it. He claimed it had been damaged by moths in DH's shop.

I'm no entomologist or forensic expert but the enormous hole looked exactly like the sort of damage that would be caused by someone grabbing this wanker by the shoulder and pushing his thumb through in a Friday night altercation.

DH refunded him and asked him never to darken the door again.

At sale time he displayed the jumper in the window inviting people to speculate on how the damage had happened.

This was a £400 sweater reduced to £10.

We had some very funny comments which were all displayed.

Someone bought it and then posted us a selfie of him wearing it with the damage covered up by an enormous name badge, thumbs aloft and a big grin.

Many moons ago I worked in a toy shop. Around Christmas it could be a nightmare. We had customers demanding we reduce stock to the local Argos price (Argos were OOS I add) and pretty miffed when we wouldn't. People ordering the biggest toy in store and demanding we put it to one side until 6pm Christmas Eve despite the fact there wasn't the space and we closed at 3pm that day.
Shoplifters were rife. I threw one out once by the scruff of his neck as he tried to steal 'scrabble' of all things.

By far the worst was when I got in one morning and my manager showed me some CCTV from the day before. It showed a family of 4, 2 adults, 2 children who were 4 and 6. The kids were wearing backpacks. As the parents walked around the store they were filling the kids rucksacks with toys. They took just shy of £200 worth of stock unnoticed. Unfortunately for them as soon as I saw the CCTV I recognised the eldest as being in my DD's class at school. Parents were both arrested and charged.

DH and his staff faced foul abuse - and I mean foul - when the shop opened on the day of Princess Diana's funeral.

Not his decision or theirs. The company wanted to open it.

People are mad.

I used to get the odd complete tit when I worked in bars. One of them used to slam his money on the counter and point at the Bass. I wasn't allowed to be rude back to him but my god he was a twat. He's a bloody governor at the school I work in now. Still a twat.

Oh God, working in bars.

I used to take a bit of pride in pouring out lager from the tap with no head and brimming without overflowing.

I had someone complain angrily that there was no head on it and it was flat.

I don't drink lager but most people in London don't like heads on lager. I thought about ducking under the bar with a straw and blowing in it.

I hated people who told me I wouldn't be able to carry a large order in my head so fed it to me piecemeal. Strangely, if someone said: 'Three pints of Fosters, a pint of Guinness, half a lager top, a gin and tonic a vodka and tonic and two packets of plain crisps' my tiny mind could cope.

I also hated people who left the pint of Guinness until last.

Most hated of all was the girl who offered me the correct change just after I'd rung up her bill which was £X and 5p - it was long before the days of touch-screen tills.

I said: 'Thanks. But I've rung it now' because I was quick like that and it was a manic Friday night so far too busy to cancel it.

She said: 'Look Dummy. I wanted to give you the right money because I don't want all that change in my purse.'

This dummy told all my friends not to serve her. After a fruitless hour at the bar holding out her tenner she left.

This does seem a modern thing. I worked retail and pubs 25/30 years ago, and the worst I ever encountered was a woman who was connected to the Royal Family. I was manager of a joke/theatrical shop and she arrived just as we were shutting one night, complete with bodyguard. She begged nicely to be allowed in (and I didn't recognise her at first) so I sent the staff home and waited behind myself. She spent half an hour buggering about with the stock, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake, and eventually spent less than a tenner. Took me another half hour to tidy up after her. (She hadn't caused any actual damage, just moved a lot of stuff around)

Otoh, some years later I worked pt in a local pub, known as one of the roughest in town. The regulars were lovely to me, one insisted on saying "bucking" because he wouldn't swear in fron of a lady!

Although I have just remembered one wanker in a different pub. He came in for a pint, the place was quiet, so we got chatting. He told me he was an old friend of the manager, they were ever so close etc, and there was the slightest hint of "So you'd better be nice to me" about it - not heavy or threatening, but an undertone, iykwim?

This amused me greatly, as said manager and I had just got engaged...

Customer had the grace to look embarassed when DF arrived, and we were formally introduced. He was very complimentary about the ring.

Why do they do it?... Because they are complete fuckwits who think they're better than others or have some form of power over others even though they're actually complete twats. No other reason.

notalwaysright.com/
This website is hilarious, it's all stories from poor shop workers.
Some of them are unbelievable!
(I can't figure out how to make it a link on my phone! Sorry...)

Ooh! I did it! I have no idea how...

Why can't people wrap their heads around the fact upselling and offering add ons is part of the job. It is literally in the job description, what you are reviewed on and determines whether you keep your job or not.

"After I politely decline and they ignore me" - no love they're not ignoring you, they're just not allowed to take first refusal because it looks like they're not trying hard enough so they have to give several attempts to convince you before stopping. My old work had a three refusal rule. Quite frankly IDGAF about whether you're pissed off or not as long as I keep my job, ta.

Sales assistants job isn't to simply stand at the till and scan things in - the clue is in the name! They have to sell you things! How so many people can't see this I don't know.

It's annoying isn't it. Do they really think shop assistants want to piss everyone off by continually offering crap that nobody wants. Nope, it's because they don't have a choice! It might be irritating, but I am never rude to cashiers who do it, because I used to be the poor bugger getting grief for It.

We used to get a bollocking if we hadn't sold enough insurance policies. So we had to ask and ask again, and a third time. Did any of us want to, of course not.