retail sucks

[silentrunner]

Just reopened (but not for long) and think that people think retail workers are literally the shit on their shoe. Had nothing but Cuntomers since we opened,
AIBU to think some people would be compassionate towards our situation.

@SheeshazAZ09 maybe have a think about that!? I’ll tell you.... our throats are fucking SORE from being in masks for 9 hours a day and having to move heavy stock around wearing them etc etc!!

So you saying speak up? Nah

MrsShelton I believe you and sympathise, as I hate wearing the damn things. I am listening with interest to those experts who are saying mask wearing and social distancing are useless to protect against the virus, which aerosolises and thus goes through and around the edges of masks and easily travels way beyond 2 metres.

My daughter works in retail and has done through lockdown. She says that customers have all been lovely but that her managers have been total arseholes to her and the other staff throughout the whole thing.

Customers live telling us how they hate wearing masks....Like we enjoy wearing them for an 8 hour shift....

I noticed during the first lockdown our customers were actually on the whole really nice and we had a great atmosphere in the store. This time it’s been fucking vile, every single thing wrong in the world is our fault and since Wednesday it’s been even worse! One customer queuing before we opened today was shouting through the window at us telling us to hurry up and open. We weren’t due to open for another 40 minutes, these little things called Sunday trading laws are kind of out of our hands.

I’ve had three of my team in tears today from the abuse they’ve received. I understand people are fraught and fed up and that they won’t be at their best. Christmas is always worse for it without the added stressed people are under and I don’t expect people to be falling over themselves to be polite and nice I just expect them to treat others like a fellow human rather than something that they’ve stepped in.

I worked in retail part time as a student. Hated it then - rude, entitled customers, managers who thought they ruled the world. It was shitty then so must be even worse now with cv19 in the mix.

I used to love shopping but stay away from the shops now. It's a stressful experience.

I think a lot of the rudeness is down to people who believe the customer is always right. I have actually had more than one customer say this and it's frustrating as hell when you know they are not right.
Luckily on the occasions it's happened there have been managers around so I just direct the customer to them. They get paid more than me.

I went into a couple of shops today for the first time, I really appreciated seeing what I was buying, I appreciated all the one way systems and sanitised baskets. I hope our shops, what's left of them, can survive

"Accept some customers are being rude but I must admit I (as a customer) get pretty frazzled when shop staff don’t speak up behind their masks and screens. I have perfect hearing but all I hear is “mmmmph”. I have given up asking them to speak up as they don’t seem to get it, and I just tell them sorry can’t hear you and walk away. I am sure they think I am rude but FFS why can’t people project their voices better?"

I'm a locum pharmacist and was working in many supermarket pharmacies when the first lockdown happened. I have never been treated so vilely by my customers in 15 years. We were doing our best, we had a month's worth of scripts in a week, we didn't have alcohol gel/paracetamol/thermometers for ourselves, we were not hoarding them. The language was atrocious, the threats were physical and the pressure was enormous. There was only one shop I enjoyed working in, where the store manager really had our back. But a store manager should not have had to patrol the checkout area to intervene when customers swore at 17y/o till operators, he should not have to ask them to apologise for their behaviour and he should not have to escorts them from the store (without their shopping and with a ban until they decide to apologise) in order to keep his staff safe. It has made me very cynical about customers in general, and my customer service has definitely deteriorated, you didn't care enough about me to keep your distance/not scream in my face, so why should I spend an hour phoning round other pharmacies trying to find someone with your medication in stock? I'll serve you politely but after that you're on your own

@NuniaBeeswax

"Accept some customers are being rude but I must admit I (as a customer) get pretty frazzled when shop staff don’t speak up behind their masks and screens. I have perfect hearing but all I hear is “mmmmph”. I have given up asking them to speak up as they don’t seem to get it, and I just tell them sorry can’t hear you and walk away. I am sure they think I am rude but FFS why can’t people project their voices better?"

Yes,that comment from a previous poster said it all really....if you can't hear the sales assistant, guess what,she can't hear you X 8 hours a day

It was @SheeshazAZ09 who made that comment. Maybe they will have a change of attitude

Hopefully. I don't understand how people never consider the staff as actual human beings though. Last week I asked a customer at the till to stand on the social distancing markets, she huffed and said I think I'm 2 meters away from HIM, pointing at the other customer....I said tes but you're right next to ME...
She didn't even look embarrassed.

Markers not markets

Try being a volunteer in a charity shop! People appear to be doubly nasty to you.

I'm not surprised there's been more incidents of staff shouting at customers. They've had enough, it's a shit job with shit pay and you get treated like shit and these are particularly shit times. Suck it up, it's what they've had to do for far too long.

This, in spades

There's this belief that customer service overrides everything, health and safety, the law, even what's actually possible physically. People do it because they get away with it, and you know what, retail and hospitality staff have been pushed and pushed and now they're starting to push back. There's signs in so many places now warning people not to abuse the staff - just think about that - so many incidents that companies feel the need to point out it's not on to abuse their employees?! Wtf?! A major retailer has put camera's on their employees because of this (according to a thread here a while ago) there was a segment on BBC news not so long ago with CEOs speaking about this problem, and footage of customers abusing staff. I now work in mental health and can honestly say have experienced less abuse than in retail.
I left retail after being hauled across the till by my collar (pre covid) when head office apologised for my behaviour and gave them a voucher, and I got a bollocking. I refused to serve them after being physically assaulted and I got punished while they got rewarded. I wasn't hurt apparently so it was all fine.
The reason I got hauled across the till by my collar?
The cuntsomers card was declined twice and I wouldn't let her take the stuff and 'come back later' I did offer to keep it all behind the till for her to go and get the cash/another card and come back. Not our machine because I tried two different ones and they worked for every other customer.

That wasn't the first time a customer had got physical, and it was a rare day indeed when you didn't hear/see or experience a customer shouting at, getting arsey with or generally demeaning a member of staff.

People turn into bullies when they know they can get away with it, rewarding them just reinforces the behaviour and so on it goes.

I've worked in retail for most of my working life, including 10+ years as a business owner, and it didn't take a pandemic to make people act like cunts.

With retail, IME, you have 3 grades of customers, friendly; functional; fuckers

There is little the friendly or functional customers can do to erase the interaction with the fuckers from your daily life but for me the secret was learning to appreciate the good ones more.

If you reach a stage where all you can remember from the day are the one or two (or three or four!) who make your life hard then retail has defeated you and it's time for a break, it's a very hard mentality to come back from

I also take particular joy in taking money from dickheads who think they hold the balance of power, despite the fact I'm the one profiting from the interaction, it's a pretty way to think but really customer if you're as great as you think you are then why are you giving me your money

Also if your work allows it the occasional eruption at a particularly dickheady dickhead can provide some relief, but I suppose that's a benefit of being a business owner

as a manager in retail i feel so responsible for our staff, more so the younger ones, many of whom are working overtime to cover the shortfall at home due to parents losing jobs. These 16/17/18 year olds have had college either suspended or go online, but they have all coped so well

they do not deserve to be bullied, and thats what it is, bullying. i always always step in. till staff always call me over on tannoy by name to deal with it as they enjoy the procedure of putting said customer back in their box!! i do it as professionally as i can,dont actually say fuck off to them!

i worry for the mental health of our staff though and have taken some advice from the retail trust to get us through this shitshow. 9 months of daily bashing at this elevated level is not healthy!

Also if your work allows it the occasional eruption at a particularly dickheady dickhead can provide some relief, but I suppose that's a benefit of being a business owner

I think retail and hospitality etc should have a purge day, where the staff get to be how they want to complete arseholes for the day with no comeback. Only it's a secret and no one knows until it happens........

I worked in a few different food outlets, pubs and shops when I was a student and they were all horrible places to work. The worst one was Greggs, almost every customer looked at you like you were a piece of shit and spoke to you like that too. I lasted about 10 months before I walked out one day and never returned, I just couldn’t do it to myself anymore. One guy used to come in every single Sunday and ask us to chop his (very hot and very tiny) sausages in half, I would stand cursing him under my breath as I burnt my hands chopping his already tiny sausages in half. No idea why he wanted that but I hated him so much. I quite often would turn around to make hot drinks and swear a lot about the rude customers under my breath.

It is shit, some people just have absolutely no respect for people in retail and hospitality. I genuinely think it’s because they think they’re superior.

I’ve worked as airline cabin crew and had passengers been really rude to me.

I worked as a nurse in a walk in centre and had a chair thrown at me and lots of verbal abuse.

I now work in a office based job away from the public. Thankfully working from home as some of my colleagues (military) are pretty rude.

It is shit, some people just have absolutely no respect for people in retail and hospitality. I genuinely think it’s because they think they’re superior.

There's an element of that in shop staff as well though, that they think they're too good to be doing this job, and for most people now retail isn't a career, it's not something many people want to progress in but it's rather a stop gap before you take your "proper" job

I think the decline in the retail experience, in particular in large chain stores, has been a bit of a 2 way street

[quote MrsShelton]@SheeshazAZ09 maybe have a think about that!? I’ll tell you.... our throats are fucking SORE from being in masks for 9 hours a day and having to move heavy stock around wearing them etc etc!!

So you saying speak up? Nah[/quote]
Agree with this. I've had sinus pain for the whole of the time masks for shop workers have been mandatory. Never had it before. By the time I'm a couple of hours into an 8 hour shift I've got a nice headache to go with it. I don't raise my voice over my mask and Perspex wall at the till because I physically can't....I'm hurting too much.

It doesn't help that businesses see reducing staff numbers as a way of saving money. They then expect staff to give exceptional customer service while having an even bigger workload. Not to mention that from a patient safety point of view, this is so very very bad in pharmacy right now :(