Customers’ behaviour has made colleagues leave

[Hmlp]

This year had:
. Colleague A left because he was grabbed by the wrist and told to FO
. Colleague B said to me that she will work another Christmas and retire after that. She mentioned this in Jan. Three months later she left
. Colleague C has worked for company for 45 years - first 5 years at a different store. She handed in her retirement notice as she is getting fed up with customers’ behaviour. She came home on Thursday in tears - the first time in 45 years. She is not retiring until next month.
. Colleague D had two weeks off sick and handed in her notice as customers have upsetted her.

These colleagues will not be replaced as according to head office we are 320 hours over a month!

We are stressed. We can’t cope as it is. No idea how HQ say we are 320 hours over when it feels 320 hours under!

Customers need to understand that shouting at retail and hospitality workers is bullying and totally unacceptable. What happened to treat others as you wanted to be treated yourself? Ie don’t talk down to retail workers like they are piece of dog shit on your shoe.

We can’t say to customers that we are 320 hours over. They will go ballistic.

Any ideas on how to stop customers being rude and bullying

parents and pupils in schools are service users, much like patients are in an nhs setting.

@Hmlp

What is the issue with going in between 10.30 and 12 on Wednesdays?

I am guessing one of the supermarkets is Waitrose. They would fawn over all customers and people would be banned and then Head Office would let them back in. Some twat used to come in at 1900 kicking off about his newspaper not being available and he often got a £10 voucher.

The elderly coming in on Saturday I never really understood. It’s stressful for them as it’s really busy and they get panicky but still keep coming. Guess it’s habit.

My money is on Sainsbury's. No staff on tills until 10am in my local store.

Yes I'm for real I was just concerned your post was quite identifying if you hadn't changed the day and then you wrote "TESCO SUCKS". Which my employer would sack me for if they found out it was me

Yeah it's sounding VERY familiar

Couldn't retail stores have a zero tolerance campaign? Any abusive behaviour to staff like swearing or shouting and they are banned?

@nobeans
Does your employer pay you £700 a month?
If so, they suck, they are literally scraping their own moral arse-end and maybe they also display hate for economically and socially disadvantaged women (which is the Tescos main employee base).

Don't you worry about me getting the sack - on the very low probability that it might happen, I'd take it head on and appreciate the publicity it might give to the issue.
After all, I'm not creating porn in Tesco uniform, I'm not drunk and disorderly at work and I'm not dissing our customers online.
Tesco sucks as an employer because they're legally abusing the system and are paying below minimum wage to their employees. There's not enough shouting about this, even though it costs tens of millions out of social budgets to rectify.

P. S.
Are junior doctors or train drivers on a strike also bringing their company into disrepute? Or is it only the retail workers that have to keep mute?

I don't know what contract did they sign?

People are a lot less happy than they used to be due to the state of this country.

They have forgotten how to behave with basic manners and politeness. The people in charge of our country over the last 10 years or so have been rude , entitled nasty pieces of work and that seems to have given the green light for everyone else to behave appallingly

This. You see it in schools, with appalling behaviour from students. They leave school and treat other adults in the same way.

Time retail was rid of the myth..the customer is always right.
Many customers are complete fuckwits.
Many haven't realised in any other situation if you threatened me you would find yourself in a different predicament.

I also wondered this . 🤔

I used to work on reception for the local authority in housing, it was bloody awful. Thankfully we had security screens that we could lower if they reached over to try and assault you, I suggested placing razor blades on the bottom of them.

It was truly awful, absolute vile creatures. The worst bit was I lived locally and sometimes on my days off I would see some of these cretins in my town, the abuse then was scary as I had no screen protection.

I worked there for two years and left at my husband’s insistence, he was horrified at how upset I’d become dealing with vile behaviour.

Thanks for that. I sometimes thanks staff for being helpful but after reading this post I will make a point of doing it more often. I can't remember any supermarket staff member who did not deserve my thanks as they all seem helpful and caring. (I am 77 years old and I get fed up with the dottery old people in supermarkets but that is not the staff’s fault)

They're asking for a better contract than the ones made available to them. Pretty simple to understand.

And before "but no one forces anyone to sign" comes out... Yes, they do. The socio-economically disadvantaged rungs in our society operate within a different environment to the professional jobs market. Retail, all customer service industry, care work, warehouse work - proliferate with 0 hour/ low hour contracts. Proliferate with shift work, weekend work and non-social hours. In the end, you have to sign SOMETHING. Anything with a chance to earn. In fact, you might get penalised by the government for not taking any available work and you might lose your benefits. So you do get forced to sign less than optimal work contract that gives you no security of earnings, forces to work every single weekend&bank holidays and not see your children, offers no sick pay at all or the equivalent of 11h of work a week (doomed if you're unwell), no career progression, no working from home in a pandemic or ever...

Most of my colleagues would love a steady role of 30 - 40h a week with a minimum wage at the end of the month. It's not a lot to wish for.
Every employer denying that for their workers, deserves to be shamed. So shame on Tesco!
The governments allowing this deserve to be shamed.

The food shops in particular are a boiling pot where the expectations of the 21st Century meet subjugated and underpaid workers and the general public who are trying to keep afloat themselves. We don't have dirty, ragged 5 year olds flogging turnips but there's a lot of underlying economical similarities to Victorian markets.

I always ask them how they are, having worked in customer service roles all my life, and am never ever rude to them. I stick up for them if they are abused.

My local chemist is horrendous currently, the company Peak Pharmacy has changed the system where the script now goes to a central hub, is picked by AI, checked by a pharmacist to then be sent to the corresponding pharmacy. This then has to be checked again by the in store pharmacist. A script that used to have a 48-72 hour turnaround is now taking 10 days plus, the staff are so stressed out and are constantly being abused.

Unfortunately I’ve had to change my supplier after being with them for nearly 10 years. I will though buy a M&S tin of biscuits and drop them off for them to enjoy, I feel so, so sorry for them, it really isn’t fair on them 😔

It seems to have gotten worse. I was a retail assistant in a popular department store in the early 2000s. I remember one rude customer. Back then there was lots of staff on and it was easy to learn the role with lots of experience working around me.

I’m sorry to hear how you and your colleagues have been treated.

I left retail a couple of years ago, joined the prison service

Prisoners are much nicer than customers!

I agree. Ex mother in law recalled in upsetting wait staff or retail workers. Vile woman, it was because she was miserable and had no one else to take it out on.

Revelled *

YANBU
I have been spat at, threatened, misogynistic comments, grabbed. I've had to treat bite wounds because another customer bit another. I've called the police because of fights in the store - they arrived 15 minutes after they left. Cleaned up blood, poo, vomit.
I've grown quite a tough skin and managed to cope through all of that but it was one "gentleman" who spoke down to me in such a way, I broke in tears. I felt like absolute garbage. I'm quite embarrassed about it tbh. My colleagues are pretty awesome though, and I get flexible time to work around my children.

I work in MH and we have just been told we over performing and will have to see less people - in reality meaning staff cuts or at least natural attrition with no replacements. Staffing is always the major cost in businesses and is the easiest place to cut. If you dont give a shit about your staff, customers or reputation.

The Spar have started redundancies, my best friend is one of the employees that are being let go. They're already massively understaffed but it's profit profit profit! They've even got rid of assistant managers

Costa did the same just after lockdown, but turned the assistants into supervisors but expected them to continue working the job of assistants. It's all wrong

Oh it’s you again.
Yet another complaint about “old people” shopping on a Saturday?
It’s kinda like 💩 troll, but more niche.

If you replaced "customers" with "patients" you could be talking about my nursing job. The general public these days is just rude and entitled, and management doesn't care how low staff morale is as long as things (barely) keep ticking over.