What were you thinking?! - A retail employee's rant

Man, you just don’t get it do you? [/quote]

He never does. But his rants are occasionally funny.[/quote]

They are? When? So far every rant of his I’ve seen has been “ARRRGH! YOU FUCKS ARE POSTING SOMETHING IN ‘EVERYTHING ELSE’ THAT I DON’T FIND SUITABLY INTERESTING/AMUSING! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU REJECTS! JESUS, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE, SOMEWHERE WHERE I WON’T BE FORCED AT GUNPOINT TO KEEP READING AND READING AND READING THESE THREADS THAT I’M NOT INTERESTED IN!”

Amusing, slightly, but not in any way he’d intend, I don’t think…

I’ve worked retail and I had to deal with dumb customers…
but really, dealing with dumb or rude retail people is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, worse.

I spent ten years in retail, and while I have encountered some world class moron customers, I’ve had to work with a good amount of complete nutbars, too.

The best stories I have generally revolve around a manager I had at a video store who believed he was an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to aid the Antichrist in his ascent to power in the US Senate.

It goes both ways.
I can understand the frustration of retail worker. My girlfriends one. I could never do it - I’d be fired too quickly. I ‘never’ get tired of the tales of stupid customers that go into supermarkets. (“Can you help me find the special type of bread " … “sure, here it is, on this shelf right in front of you with clear markings.” … “Can you pop it my trolly dear?” …” certainly Ma’am" …" NO NOT THERE YOU FUCKING IDIOT YOU SQUASH MY POTATOES! - GOD DAMN ARE YOU RETARDED?" )

But on the otehr hand - I know the bane of dumb arse Customer Service employess ( looking at you Harvey Norman Superstore! )

The guys/gals there are trained to do this.

• if the store is busy.
  “Be with you in a minute si…” walk off never come back.

-otherwise ‘execute crowding technique’
“hello sir how can I help yo…”
“hello sir is there something I can help yo…”
“Can I help you with something sir?”
“hello sir…” explode (ok, they don’t eplode - just having a SS2 flashback)

It works both ways - probably worse on the ‘Employee’ side of the fence.

A ratio of 467:1 ?

Gord fucking sucks and so does this genre. Here’s a great blast from the past where Gord showed up on the old boards, and practically came all over us as he incompetently defended his decision to beat small children and conclusively proved that all of his stories were the make believe fantasies of someone who appears to think that hitting small children (or, as Gord qualified it, “slapped punks”) makes you some sort of macho He-Man superstar. But speaking of superstars, Chet is amazing in that thread. Here’s his classic response to someone arguing that a video rental not being returned should be handled the same way as reposessions:

I was in retail for over ten years before I finally got my night-school degree and escaped. Maybe in the type of business the Captain is in it is the employees getting victimized, but it really does cut both ways. Here’s some examples:

-A store buys a crappy product. The employees immediately know it is a crappy product and decide to have a contest to see how many units of said crappy product they can each shovel out the door, because it will screw up the customers. Because they hate the customers.

-Commissioned salespeople who would sell you the glass display stands if a manager wasn’t watching will sell you all kinds of crap you don’t really want, and even throw in some crap you didn’t ask for if they think you won’t notice or will be too lazy to return it later.

-If you return the crap you didn’t ask for from the example above you are labeled an asshole for lowering the size of the salesman’s commission check for that period.

-Salespeople who deliberately (and perversely) look for browsers that have made it plain that they don’t want assistance to assist. They deliberately smother the customer with unwanted attention to drive them out of their department.

-If the above customer turns out to be unpleasant, the employee becomes super-nice, very pleasantly agreeing with any statement the customer makes that makes the customer look like an ass. This is a good technique, since the employee’s words are never rude, even in context, but the meaning is unmistakable to the customer. “I don’t mean to be an ass,” "Yes sir you don’t mean to, “But this day is driving me to it,” “Yes sir, today. I understand.” Not, “No, you aren’t being an ass,” but “Yes, at least today, you are an ass.” Hey, the customer is always right!

-Deliberately taking advantage of the legions of doofuses that ask for assistance. The smart ones just grab what they want, and are barely noticed, so it always seems like the salesperson’s world is solely populated by the bumblehead brigrade. Evil clerks will take advantage of the doofus to deliberately misunderstand them. Sending someone looking for a hamster wheel home with an air pump for an aquarium, or a cufflink-seeking gift-giver home with a tie tack, for instance. Note: commissioned salespeople never play this game. They don’t want the returns.

There’s a lot more, but retail workers ain’t saints. Most of the older ones are retailers precisely because they ain’t saints. You have to watch the old guys. They’ll fleece you raw if you aren’t paying attention, though a bunch of them are really just old and stale. But most retail workers are clock-punchers. They just want to do the very least amount of work necessary to remain employed. Customers and their questions are an inconvenience and an annoyance. And if things go south where they are, they’ll seek another retailer. Institutional memory at most retailers only lasts as long as the current store manager.

Again, it works both ways. I have a decade of awful customer stories, so I understand the captain. A lot of people in this world take every advantage of any perceived opportunity to act superior. A service-industry person can get a lot of this. We used to call it getting “Marcosed,” after Imelda “She of the gozilion pairs of shoes” Marcos. I see it every time I go to the grocer near where I work, the local yenta wannabees refusing to even look at the checkout person, holding their credit card out by the very tips of their fingers as though afraid they may catch cooties if actually touched by “the help.” They COULD just swipe the card on the pad right in front of them, but it’s much more demeaning to do what they do, so they stick to it.

Moral? People suck. I think everyone ought to have to work at least 5 years of retail just to learn what it’s like to have to endure the nasty, bullying side of humanity for a while. It really puts everything else in perspective. Tech support? No problem. I’d rather have a dumb customer than a mean one. And a mean tech support customer is a much rarer bird than a mean retail customer. At least the tech-support caller really needs you, and has to provide a certain level of professional respect. Not the retail customer.

Hang in their captain. It all changes after the degree.

Yeah, Gord fucking sucks, dude! Whatever.

He does a good job of defending himself in that thread, and I support most of his actions on that board, even if they are the feverish wet dreams of a game store clerk who wants revenge. He dealt with slime, and treated them accordingly. I don’t see how the slime being 14 makes it any less slime, unless you adhere to that ridiculous belief that “All the children are sacred.” Bullshit. Many children are little demons.

Your post was dangerously close to negative criticism, which Captain Tenneal expressly forbid in this thread. Please try to respect the thread rules next time.

He does a good job of defending himself in that thread, and I support most of his actions on that board, even if they are the feverish wet dreams of a game store clerk who wants revenge. He dealt with slime, and treated them accordingly. I don’t see how the slime being 14 makes it any less slime, unless you adhere to that ridiculous belief that “All the children are sacred.” Bullshit. Many children are little demons.

…so they should be violently beaten by a complete stranger twice their size? Gimme a break. Why is it that this subject always brings out the sick side in otherwise normal people? How would you have liked it if a 400 pound man slammed you violently into a dumpster or slapped you and called you a “little bitch” merely because you didn’t have the allowance money to pay the $2 late fee on a game when you were a kid? Gord actually has anecdotes about that. Or is that how you deal with such “scum”? Kids aren’t sacred, but you don’t fucking beat them up for loitering outside of your store and occasionally mouthing off - that’s part of what being a kid is all about.

Come on. Everyone acted up as a kid and most of us straightened out fine without being physically assaulted by 40 year old men still in dead-end retail for delusional notions of the “respect” due to them. The people who harbor such fantasies about assaulting children are the ones who need to grow up, not the kids, who are exactly acting their age. Although I guess the point is moot, since even you seem to be admitting that Gord is just lying.

Really? I’ve read most of the page, and I have yet to run across a story such as you describe.

Come on. Everyone acted up as a kid and most of us straightened out fine without being physically assaulted by 40 year old men still in dead-end retail for delusional notions of the “respect” due to them.
I never acted up like the little shits that he describes. Nor did any of my friends. I’m not even particularly strong on “law and order” crap, but he gave the appropriate responses. Except for the dumpster episode… that was the only time when I thought he went overboard.

Although I guess the point is moot, since even you seem to be admitting that Gord is just lying.

Are you challenged or something? I’m not admitting anything. I have no idea if he’s telling the truth. And the point doesn’t become moot even if he is lying. Jesus Christ. Bad logic on parade.

Ah yes, Acts of Gord, one of the funniest sites around. I’ve not visited it in a while, thanks for reminding me of it.[/quote]

Heh… it is pretty funny.

“If I were to sell you a mod chip I would lose you as a customer. Now, if I were going to lose you as a customer I’d rather do it on a high note, like by setting you on fire.”

Having worked in retail in the past, I sympathize. But I also find that my efforts to remain civil towards customers during my retail days has made me less tolerant of crappy service now that I’m just a customer. I swore off shopping at Gamespot after buying my PS2, for instance. I originally traded in my used Gamecube for a used PS2, but when I got the PS2 home the display was screwed up–sized slightly smaller than the TV display and tilted half an inch to the right, like a monitor that needs to be calibrated. It was really annoying, so I took it back. Several people here suggested that older PS2 models sometimes have problems on certain types of televisions, so I looked up the model number of my used system on Sony’s site, and sure enough, it’s second from the bottom of the list of all the models they have released since launch. So I decide to exchange it for a new system, just to be safe.

So I take it back to the store, and the salesperson is grumpy right out of the gate. She obviously thinks I’m trying to pull something over on her, despite the fact that I just bought the used console–from her–a few hours ago, and despite the fact that I am now trading it for a new system that costs even more. I explain about the display problem, and she makes it painfully obvious that she doesn’t believe me (why would I lie about something like that? Because I really want to spend an extra $50 on my PS2?). I also explain that it may not be a defect in the console, per se; it’s just an older model and it may just have some weird compatibility issue with my TV. Or it might actually be defective–who knows?–and she should probably test it to make sure before she puts it back on the shelf. Now she actually tells me that she doesn’t believe me, and says that it’s not an older model (despite the fact that, according to Sony, it is).

At that point I said “screw it.” I paid for my new PS2 and left the store. I suspect that she just threw the used PS2 back on the shelf without testing it, though I never went back to check.

[/quote]

You know, maybe you’re taking this a little too seriously.

[/quote]

You know, maybe you’re taking this a little too seriously.[/quote]
Yeah. Major thread hijack in progress.

I’d like to add a “ditto” on the “people on both sides suck” bandwagon.

This was a common occurrance at my last “in-between-real-jobs” job at Blockbuster Video. Every other day we’d get a call from someone who had just bought a new DVD player and wanted to know either how to connect the device to their television, or how to play DVDs in the player once it was hooked up.

Mind you, we didn’t sell them the player, we had only rented them a DVD. Fortunately, previous jobs in telephone tech support made it easier to deal with, though it would sometimes be frustrating when they’d call on a very busy friday night when there’s a line in the store full of people furious that you’re wasting a half-hour on the telephone instead of helping them find the latest Colin Farrell movie.

Damn, I must have missed all the good tech support center jobs, because I got the “mean retail customer” attitude all the time, and would often get calls that lacked any degree of professional respect, having been called every name in the book all because the end-user had done something incredibly clueless.

But yes, it cuts both ways.

The weirdest thing in retail for me now is the odd fact that anytime I walk through a store to buy something, no matter what I’m wearing, more times than not I’ll get someone asking me “do you work here?”. Usually I try to point them in the direction of whatever it is they’re looking for, but I’ve been tempted more than once to scew with them when I get asked that question multiple times in a row.

Probably because Origin woulda been a long distance call? Poor kids.

I’ve been asked more than once “do you know anything about these things” when looking a PDAs or network cards or other hardware. Did someone write “friendly computer geek” on my forehead in ink that shows up under flourescent light only or something?

Oh, come now. They’re only "posted mainly to vent steam, so don’t post negative critisism, I’m only looking to cool off. "

Honestly, the only time i start getting hammy is when someone prefaces a completely useless topic with some dipshit excuse amounting to an admission that what they’re about to post has nothing to do with wanting to start an actual discussion. This isn’t even a “share your experiences” deal like Meister’s topic, this is unabashed bitching that could have been equally satisfied by telling it to a wall.

I’ve worked shitty low-end retail, and christ, get some professionalism. I worked at a convienence store by campus here and had to refuse roughly one trillion alcohol sales, which invariably would cause all manner of abuse and threats.

The reason why the customer can be an idiot/asshole/whatever is because they aren’t getting paid to be there. I hate customers, each and every one of them.

On the third hand, you steal, you deserve what you get. So many of Gord’s things are pretty pathetic “Oh, that’s what I wish I could do” fantasties(the one where he goes El Ravager on 2 attempted thieves is pathetic), but I have no sympathy for a shoplifter being slapped around a bit.

The retail industry is just fucked overall - both customers and stores. It’s symptomatic of our greedy society who are all trying to screw each other for the lowest cost and highest margins.

Equal blame falls on advertising and marketing idiots who try and make us buy goods that are totally unnecessary for our every day lives.

Look at all the pointless things we buy these days - mobile phones, super-sized televisions, cable, PDA’s, etc. etc. No wonder no one has any savings anymore and we’re all living on credit.