Customers’ rudeness and impatience is causing retail workers to leave

[Auburngal]

I have worked for a supermarket for 16 years. The rudeness, impatience and aggression from certain customers is making retail workers leave retail.

Just under 4 years ago customers were ok in queuing outside for 30-40 minutes to enter the store. Now they tut and sigh if they need to queue for 30 seconds.

I have changed departments from customer service to shop floor due to panic attacks as one problem is that customers think we are only open for 16 hours a week when my store is open for 100. It’s the elderly who think they have to shop between 10am-12pm. Only about 5% of them travel by bus. The other 95% are not helping themselves or us on insisting shopping then. Stubbornness is a sign of weakness.

We are so short staffed that at least once a week i have to go on the kiosk and hate it as get moan moan moan. How would these moaning Minnies like it if we moaned to them for 5-8 hours a day?

No wonder half of us are on antidepressants.

There needs to be something done to tell people that their rudeness towards retail workers is making the workers leave. Have seen two colleagues having mental breakdowns over the constant abuse, rang in sick then hand in their notice in ten weeks.

There’s no positive gain from being rude n nasty towards retail workers. Those who are rude and nasty towards shop workers have never worked in retail and wouldn’t last a minute.

Like with other retailers, staff leave and not being replaced fully. We get it in the neck from customers. They don’t contact HQ about their complaints. That way they are recorded on a system. Whereas moaning to us does nothing apart from getting headaches etc.

Perhaps if the billionaire company owners paid their staff better wages and provided actual staff instead of self checkouts for elderly people who are not tech savvy, everybody would be much happier.
you can’t remove humanity from a service and then expect everyone to treat each other like humans.

to be honest I think the general population just is a much shorter fuse in general everyone is so sick of everything it’s a lot.

Your problem is the lack of staff. Unfortunately profits are more important than the health and welfare of human beings.

I’m over 60 and shop when I bloody like! I do expect tills to be open if I have a trolley of goods and not to be pushed through self-service.
My custom and demand for service may protect your job. It is not rude to ask for better service when spending my money in store.
Join a Union and work to improve conditions for staff and customers and watch how you refer to older people.

I visit a larger store and see elderly customers using smart shop on their phones. Yet 7 miles down the road, the elderly are technophobics.

I had a panic attack last week. Stems from losing my Nanan the week before. A rude lady said “where do you think you are going?” A colleague said I lost my grandmother. RL said that’s not good enough. My colleague said her comment was unsympathetic. We haven’t seen her since.

It must be awful having to deal with such rudeness- totally unnecessary. Supermarket workers are humans, not robots and they have limited input on how the shop is being run.
Rude twats will always be rude twats. Probably exacerbated by how expensive everything is ( so going to the supermarket may well be stressful to start with) plus staffing levels have been dwindling considerably since the pandemic and shelves are not so well stocked up like they used to be. All in all, supermarket shopping can be a very unpleasant experience nowadays.
Still no excuse for customers to be rude.

The problem lies with the supermarket owners: they do not care about their staff and they certainly do not care about their customers. Waitrose and M&S are marginally better.

the elderly who think they have to shop between 10am-12pm. Only about 5% of them travel by bus. The other 95% are not helping themselves or us on insisting shopping then

As long as they aren't rude to the staff then people should be able to shop whenever the hell they like. This is discriminatory based on age.

I worked in retail for many years.

I completely disagree. The rudeness and lack of customer service is diabolical. I expected to be greeted with a hello not a grump and your miserable ass face because I’ve disturbed you from chatting to your mate on the next till.

I’m so sorry you have to deal with this, it shouldn’t happen. I do think it’s very interesting how the bad behaviour of the general public seems to be a problem in so many areas according to threads on here - teaching, the NHS. What has happened? I do think the covid years combined with the cost of living crisis and public services being the state they’re in has caused something to break in public behaviour.

I’m sorry to hear this, OP. I agree with PP that staff cuts don’t help, and I always avoid self-service tills where possible as I want staff to keep their jobs. But snapping at staff doesn’t help anyone.

Covid-19 does seem to have changed society in some unexpected ways.

Sending you and your colleagues a hug. I’m always as helpful as possible to people in service jobs. I often did that work myself when younger.

Often, when out shopping, feel like a nuisance to retail staff, especially supermarkets. I'm always courteous to shop staff, and I expect the same courtesy back.

You sound unhappy in your job.

It's been nearly 30 years since I worked in retail and it really does make you hate the general public. I hate bad customer service but tend to cut supermarket workers a bit more slack. That said, the dobbers in my local ASDA are really testing my patience these days.

I don’t understand, you think the elderly shouldn’t shop between 10am and 12pm? And they should travel by bus?

I agree wholeheartedly with you OP. I see so much rudeness and aggression from customers towards retail staff - and the majority of the time, I see the retail staff responding with dignity, respect and professionalism which the shouting customer does not deserve!

I honestly don’t understand why so many people’s immediate response to anything not going their way is to be rude. I’m sure this isn’t solely a problem in retail, however that’s where I see the bulk of it and I do sympathise with you and your colleagues.

YANBU retail is incredibly tough these days because you have an increasing number of people thinking they can get what they want if they kick off even if that thing is literally impossible.

Staff are being squeezed from both sides. The companies are reducing hours and forcing staff to perform more roles than ever and the customers are frustrated at this but they can’t yell at the CEO so they yell at Margaret on self scan.

A lot of people have forgotten you catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar and a bit of respect and politeness goes a long way.

Just quit 🤷🏼‍♀️
I quit a similar shit industry during COVID and now WFH. No money on earth could get me back working with the general public.

Working in retail is crap.I did it for 2 decades. Urrgh.
In my hometown many retailers have closed/gone bust (the same as pretty much every town) and everyone is always like "this town is dying....we need shops".
However a major retailer is opening in the town next week and it's a big branch.
But they are still recruiting for staff. A WEEK before they are due to open they still need to recruit and train staff.
People just don't want to work in retail.

You are being equally rude by suggesting older people should shop when convenient for you...

Frankly big supermarkets should pay people a decent wage, hire enough staff and provide them with proper training.

It is not the customers' fault that your bosses are greedy and exploit their workforce.

Most of the customers I see in our town's shop are polite and just want to get things done with the minimum of fuss.

I agree with this. It’s unacceptable on both sides, HOWEVER I notice a huge difference in retail staff manners these days-continuing conversations with each other over my head while I’m at their checkout etc…I’m a bit old school, and have worked in retail, and if we’d done this kind of thing, we’d have (rightly) been handed out arse.

DIY checkouts seems to bring out the worst in some staff too-my local Sainsburys will have 1 staff member overseeing about 8 tills and chasing their tails, whereas my local Tesco staff seem to see it as an opportunity to have a staff huddle and see customers asking for help as an inconvenience

I hate the self service. I did complain to the Head Office

I am never rude to staff but I can understand why people get fed up with queuing

Old people insisting on shopping between 10am and noon: I can explain that, OP, being old myself. I could (seriously) not believe how suddenly my energy levels plunged in my 60s. Morning is now the best time for me to do anything that involves much effort!

I used to work in a bank as a cashier just as the bosses decided to reduce tils and get staff out front to help people use self service kiosks.
It was absolutely demeaning and I would dread going into work because of the amount of shit I knew I was going to get. I found if you agree with people ‘yes yes terrible isn’t it! No one listens to the staff though’ it knocks the wind out of people’s sails and they actually look a bit disappointed that they don’t get to have an argument about it. Managers don’t like it but honestly it saved my sanity some days.

I agree with PPs that it is the fault of the higher ups that people are pissed off but there’s no need to be rude or aggressive to someone who has had absolutely no say in how many staff are hired or how many tills are open!

There's definitely a bit of an 'off' feeling in society at the moment, I think people have shorter tempers and are more irritable all round than a few years ago.

Sorry you have to be on the receiving end of it all. Retail is a pretty tough gig at the best of times.

I think the government need to step in on abuse of staff. Because it will only get worse.

Retail
Nhs
Schools
GP’s
Hospitality.

Rude people should just be escorted out by a big bodyguard. No arguments.

Having said that. I’m 60 and will shop at whatever time l want.

I don't follow the point about only 5% of older people taking the bus.

People have been getting more aggressive for years.

I worked for the DWP and Social Services over 20 years ago, and getting sworn at and abused was a daily ritual.

Until managers start banning rude/abusive people, and I don’t mean those with a valid complaint, it will continue.🙁