I worked at a fancy clothing chain for a few years, I absolutely loved it and sobbed when I had to leave. I recently moved cross country, so I had to pick up a new retail job with some new shiny managerial experience under my belt. My rent is dirt cheap, so I didn't have a problem taking a part-time job this time around.

Since I live on my own and I'm not in school (I'm a 19 year old) I have fully open availability but I'm traditionally a closer and prefer closing by a long shot, I'm great at it and prefer working in the afternoons. I'm a massive chatterbox, and a humungous type-A, extrovert, social butterfly, you name it. I feel drained when I'm alone, I love talking to people and I'm good at doing it, so I've always worked customer facing jobs... like the retail job I just applied to. I got along with the hiring manager so well she applied me on the spot.

The job I applied for described exclusively floor work and customer assistance, and I got hired for that position, however, when I met with the manager I was immediately scheduled for an EARLY morning opening... sorting newly delivered inventory in the back. On my tour of the store, the manager told me she'd wanted me to work in stock. I pulled her aside and asked what that entailed, she told me since I have full availability she wanted to take advantage of that and have me in early to work in the backstock sorting product. When I told her I'm incredibly not interested, she asked if I'd be fine only doing that half of the time.

Kvetching aside, why do stores think that having full availability also means you'll just do whatever they want? Because I have full availability, which is convenient to you, now I'm doing a job I didn't apply for? How does that work?

And FWIW, I did make it abundantly clear I'm absolutely not okay with this being my job. I'll have another conversation about it tomorrow.

I want to start off by saying that I realize that I have more leniency that the average person in this sub because it's a volunteer job and my managers hate working the front so I'm not at the risk of being fired. I haven't been in the usa for a year yet I'm an immigrant from a country where customers were my equal and I could argue back and it was the norm. I STRUGGLE with American retail because my whole adult life when I worked retail back home my poc countrymen were my equals as customers yet in America I have to defer and manage the emotions of mostly white ppl and have to see them as above me in some capitalist hierachy and I cannot understand it.

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I'm at my volunteer thrift store job. An old white woman walks up demanding store credit for a purchase before I can even finish greeting her.

There is a big sign behind me that says No Returns No Exchanges because it is a thrift shop. I stare at her because in my mind I was like "You cannot seriously be asking me to break policy." and I didn't not want that thought to slip out of my mouth.

She then goes in the most condescending voice "Oh I can just tell you're new."

I am not new I've been volunteering at this shop for months and I have 300 hours.

She starts again about store credit and I tell her "No Returns No Exchanges" and point to the sign behind me.

Her: "But the cashier yesterday said..."

Me: *walking away* My manager will handle you......

I go find my manager and my manager tells her the same thing.

Why do older mostly white customers feel like they can just walk up and tell you whatever they want? None of the poc customers regardless of age group at my shop act like that.

She signed up to volunteer at the shop so it shall be interesting.

I had asked a customer who was buying an applesauce squeeze pouch, how they taste as I was curious; rather than say she didn’t know, she got upset, said it was for her nephew, then said why don’t I have one and try it, her tone was not polite.

I will admit when I am at fault and apologize for making an assumption, and was fully prepared to when she came back a few hours later, that was until she decided to make a joke of it, for additional context, she spoke in her first language, one I am not fluent in, she did so as she knew this and thought I would not understand; the problem with that is context clues: my being at the till, her buying more of the pouches, nodding “subtly” at them when speaking, and the way people laughed at what she said, I am not stupid nor unaware of when I am made the butt of a joke.

People who do this are sad and sorry, they seek any kind of excitement and enjoyment at the direct benefit of others, next time she comes in, I will go on my fifteen minute break, if she does not like that, she can complain, fucking cunt.

Why do people think this is appropriate to ask a service worker when they clearly aren't?

I think maybe I’m just gonna start walking away from people who start a conversation like this.

There’a no longer a place in the world for you if you walk into a busy retail business expecting someone to spend all day convincing you to buy something when you’re already here at the place to buy it.

Most people get this anyway. It’s always the old people who get offended that you don’t act like you won the lottery when they start pestering you with unnecessary bullshit.

It‘s not fucking Disneyland you moron. Buy the thing or don’t, and get the fuck out.

idk if anyone will agree/relate but it’s so irritating to me when i ask a customer if they found everything okay or how their day is going and they give me a “NO actually” or “NOT GOOD” i know i “asked” but dude omg its not a real question. its one of those silence filling polite things where you just say yes/good etc and keep the conversation moving and most people understand that. i used to ask them what they couldn’t find but i don’t care anymore and i just say “okay” bc you’re not about to get me off script to complain to me about something i more than likely can’t do anything about omg just pay and leave. id love to not say anything at all but that wont fly at my job so idk😭

I have worked retail off and on for 20 years and never have I been beaten down by a bad company as much as I have at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet. From terrible management to a corporate that seems to have no understanding of what a store is, employees that are all ‘rehabilitated drug users’, mid tier managers that don’t shower or wash their clothes. The customers are beyond monsters, one threw a basket of product at me last night. We have to sign them up for Ollie’s Army Cards, which is just a program that they get a 15% off coupon once a month with, and corporate cares more about that than us cleaning or organizing the store. The Ollie’s Cards is all they care about. And guess who doesn’t want to give all their information to a company…our customers. People who live off the government but don’t trust the government. A man recently pissed in the corner of the store, proceeded to shop, and was just allowed to carry on with his day as tho it was normal. I work alone almost every day because everyone calls out constantly. My soul has been burned.

I work at a carousel in a mall.
We charge by the rider, without getting into the pricing in depth adults are only free if they’re watching a kid under 42” tall or a special needs kid.
Otherwise, 1 ticket, one person, one ride.
Tickets are required regardless of age.

So many people will try to just walk on without paying, or lie about how many people are riding, or try to pass kids over the fence when I’m not looking.
When I call them out on it/ catch them they act like they’re not doing anything wrong. When I explain that receiving a service and not paying for it is theft people loose their minds. Apparently because it’s not a physical item they’re talking it’s not theft.
By their logic, if I went into the aquarium without tickets they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it because “ I didn’t take anything, I’m just going in”

Do people not understand that services also cost money? And there’s pre set prices. And if you disagree with them you don’t get to have the service anyway without paying for it.
A lot of people think if there’s kids involved rules don’t apply to them, because their kid wants and they can’t say no, or even tell them to wait.

Maybe I should start getting the cops involved next time I have a grown adult fight with me over this. It’s getting ridiculous. No you don’t get to “ decide “ that certain things/ people are free. I don’t care that you’re kid is two they need a ticket. It’s not the kid that’s the problem, it’s you telling them that it’s free and the whole family is going on with no tickets because “ well they’re two so they’re free, and we’re watching them so we’re free, and their siblings want to go too so they’re free. Because it wouldn’t be fair. So yeah we’re all free, because they’re two”

What the hell is wrong with people.

I work at a carousel in a mall food court
There’s two types of games I’ll cover in this post, what we call camping the gate and the no English game ( it sounds awful without context)

Camping the gates:
We have an entrance and exit gate, they are clearly labeled and the exit gate has a divider to mark it as the exit.
The way this game works is people will have their child/children ( and sometimes an adult) wait either in front of the exit gate or right next to it. Sometimes they’ll tell their kid “ we’re getting on now “ to rile them up. When I go to let people off I’ll say “ this is the exit, esta salida, you get tickets over there “ and I point to the ticket counter.
They’ll back up a foot or two, or otherwise move just a little and I’ll unlock the gate but not open it. The second the gate is unlocked and unlatched they’ll try to rush on, sometimes trying to shove me out of the way. Or, they’ll wait until I open the gate for someone and try to run on then. When I stop them they’ll argue “ they’re just a kid they don’t know!!” Or “ no I told them we’re going/ we were gonna buy tickets “ or “ no, the gate is open, don’t open it if you don’t want people getting on!” As if people don’t need to get off the ride. A lot of people will do this for multiple ride cycles, while watching people buy tickets, go up to the correct gate and get on.

The no English game:
We have a lot of people who don’t speak English, normally they’re fine if a bit frustrating to deal with when they won’t use google translate or read the signs that are in Spanish ( it’s in smaller text but still) the people who play this game speak English, and will speak it to other people in their group, or to me. But once it’s time to pay, or they don’t agree with our pricing they suddenly don’t speak English ( we charge by the rider, and parents aren’t usually free. If they are it’s one parent only) I speak a bit of Spanish, and I can tell when they actually are speaking it. Half the time they’re just making Spanish sounding noises or saying “ SÍ sí, siiii” or something stupid like that.
Related to this are the people that won’t read the Spanish section of the signs, it’s right there.
And the people who actually don’t speak English, but won’t use google translate, and when I do try to talk with them ( my Spanish isn’t very good) they’ll speak quicker than they were before after I ask “ hablamos con mas espacio por favor “ or “ habla mas llenamete, no entiedo” Sometimes they’ll just keep on speaking Spanish while getting more upset, as if ill suddenly understand it if they say it louder.
Now I know why people hate Americans abroad, because we do stupid shit like this.

Why do people play stupid games like this, they never get what they want out of it but they’ll do it anyway, repeatedly. It’s like they think if they do it enough I’ll just give up.
Anyone has similar experiences?
Especially the no English game.

Everytime the door is opened it rings like an alarm or a school bell. It took a long time for me to tune it out but today the door has been getting stuck open. It's a pretty small gas station so it's only a couple of feet to walk over and adjust the door before running back to the register but to do that...after every single customer...interacting with 200+ people a day. The doorbell isn't as irritating as the customer complaints about it. I tried calling an anonymous HR tip line but the number doesn't work? I should just quit. We've been understaffed since I started here and it's clear that this place is falling apart and no one cares. I just need to take the plunge and quit but I hate inconveniencing people. I'm not trying to lose my hearing though.

I feel like I’m trapped here! I got this job because I need work while in school and now the job market is so bad that I can’t find work. I’m constantly at this stupid store, I feel like I never leave. I don’t want to work here for the rest of my life, but I need to pay the bills. Every day that I come in I feel like my opportunities are dwindling. The customers have become more and more grating. Even regulars that I previously didn’t mind have become irritating to me. It feels like purgatory

For some quick context: We had a customer who got VERY aggressive with two members of staff and another customer. They became confrontational with the supervisor, and then when the manager didn’t immediately side with them they became aggressive with them too. Then, when another customer quietly offered verbal support to the supervisor in question, the first customer decided to become aggressive, stepping into the first customer’s space and telling them to f*ck off and shut up multiple times. At one stage we believed this first customer was going to hit the second customer so we called security. Once security had been called, the customer and their group departed the store. Thankfully the second customer was not hurt and completed their shopping without issue.

Fast forward a couple of days and the first customer has left a review claiming they experienced ‘rude, dismissive, and discriminatory’ treatment in our store. Our reviews aren’t the best so normally we would dismiss it and move on. However, this customer decided to display my colleagues full legal name in the review (Which is super illegal in my country and completely violates our privacy rights)

So there’s a part of me that wonders since this person seems to have no problem with lying and doxing my colleague then what’s to stop me from finding their LinkedIn and telling their employer that they employ someone aggressive and dangerous. I wouldn’t be lying and it feels so tempting. At this stage I just need an excuse not to do it.

Update:
Thank you all for your replies. Admittedly, I had already found their LinkedIn and their employers email when making this post but greatful I had reached out here rather than go through with my plan.

My ultimate goal was never to get them fired, just maybe a write up or a strongly worded email from their employer, just enough to make them panic they same way my colleagues have been since the review.

Sadly, the person in question wasn’t wearing a uniform or company identifying clothing so I cannot, justifiably, reach out to their employer and call them out for being a cunt. On the plus side, they live in a city on the other side of my country so we shouldn’t be seeing them again. Worst case scenario, we now have his picture and can ban him.

I hope people who open up merchandise in stores burn in hottest pits of hell. Like are people that fucking low iq or what? I watched a guy in a suit while I as walking through my aisles open up a mattress box and jump up quickly when he realized I saw him smile and walk away with the box open. Do people not realize they're making our jobs harder? There literally a whole fricking picture and extra details on the back like come on. It's common that it's ridiculous now I have to take time out of what I'm pushing to the floor to take off the shelf to defect. I'm another aisle near grocery there where many opened zip lock bags I just can't with people. It comes to a point where I just walk past the items. I'm already pissed enough because the store I'm in is big and busy so things get tossed around and we have to constantly fix things and here you come to further ruin my day after opening that clearly not mean to be opened!!! You inconsiderate cunts.

ok so one thing i keep seeing over and over again, is parents allowing their kids to hang off the front of the shopping cart, when 1. their is a sign in the lobby of my store saying DO NOT HANG YOUR KID OFF THE FRONT OF THE SHOPPING CART. like im not mad at the kids, they are just doing their typical stuff, but the parents, how fucking dumb are you? with the fact that our crosswalk is a well known speedzone and the fact that some drivers don't stop their cars at the stopsigns, it scares me seeing kids hanging off these shopping carts and i don't think im allowed to say anything according to my front end management, it just scares the fuck outta me, and of course i don't wanna see anyone get hurt or worse, but if these kids do manage to get hurt, the parents are hopefully gonna blame their stupidity on themselves and not try to sue the store or some shit. it's like what the hell, there's signs for a reason.

This happened to me in 2004 but I still think of it often.

I was working the cash register at a Rite Aid type store. Like a lot of places, we had a weekly leaflet of coupons and ads for markdowns and discounts. Any coupons in the leaflet were pictures of the product and the discount inside a white square, outlined in black dotted lines, to suggest where to cut them out. They each had a barcode for us to scan at the registers. Anything else in that leaflet was just ads, with lowered prices in giant colorful block letters. Okay, you all know what I’m talking about — any grocery store or drugstore has them. Anyway.

A regular customer who I can only describe as “aggressively elderly” (like, she had a vengeance, I’ll call her Ellie) came through my line with four large packs of briefs (incontinence products). She had four coupons that she’d cut out of the leaflet, one for each pack. Except they were not coupons, they were photos of the product with a caption advertising the discount: 25% off. $19.99 marked down to $14.99. I rang each pack in, and they automatically came up at the discounted price (because they are preset by managers / corporate). Total came to $59.96. Ellie shoves her little cut-outs at me and yells “YOU DIDN’T SCAN MY COUPONS!” I say gently, Ma’am, these are not coupons, they are simply advertising the discount, which you received. See? (I point at the little total screen) I only charged you 14.99 for each one. Usually they’re 20. “BUT YOU DIDN’T SCAN THEM! I HAVE COUPONS! I WANT THE DEAL!” and I’m like You got the deal! We gave you five bucks off each one! By this time, a short line had formed. I preprinted a receipt and tried to show her that the discount was the same and she kept saying “HOW DO I KNOW I’M GETTING THE DEAL WHEN YOU DON’T SCAN MY COUPONS?” So I called Jacob, the manager that day, over to my register. Jacob was awesome with difficult customers. He had this way of kindly, sweetly speaking to them so that they felt like they were winning the situation, while the rest of us could tell he would be joking about this later. Jacob comes over and plays the “Oh no, what seems to be the trouble?” role and before I can explain Ellie yells “SHE WON’T SCAN MY COUPONS AND I WANT THE DEAL!” Jacob takes a look at the screen, the pre-receipt, and then me and smiles. He asks to see her coupons, and she proudly hands them over to him, smirking at me.

He takes one of them, waves it over the red scanning plate and says “Boop!” while making eye contact with her. Then he does it again the three more times. “Boop! …Boop! …Boop!” and hands them to me and I put them in my register playing along like “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, I’m so glad my manager was close by” and she happily takes her four bags of adult diapers and gives me the smuggest smile ever. “See, I TOLD you.”