Is there a more thankless job than working in retail?
In the past week I have seen someone berate the canteen staff for running out of brown bread and the next day at Tesco I was stuck behind someone who was making a scheme because the cashier refused to accept expired vouchers.
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I did it for a while during my uni holidays and most customers are delightful but the few difficult ones tend to be absolutely awful. Back in the days when you used the old finger crushing credit card machines after filling in the slip by hand you'd have to phone the card company for authorisation if the customer was spending more than a certain amount and I had a few people get really offended about it because they thought it meant they were on some special list of uncreditworthy people.
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I manned the mulled wine and mince pies stand at a school Christmas fete. From 1 to 1.30.
At 12.50, they ran out of mulled wine and there was no more. Effectively, it became the Mince Pies Stand. The amount of shit I copped from auntbags as if it was somehow my fault was incredible.
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I worked in retail from age 15 to 21 on a part time basis
can confirm people generally are aunts to shop assistants.
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The best thing about it was the old fashioned credit card / cheque embossing machine. So satisfying with the little carbon slips
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voucher expiry is a heinous con trick tbf
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Linda you liked those machines? I was always terrified of losing a couple of fingers.
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tbf, most people have come to an angry acceptance that retail now means "person who takes your money, but has no interest in the business of selling nor basic understanding of the products being sold". So the passive aggression is massive. I worked retail all thru uni. By basically knowing a minimal amount about what you're selling - you could turn most dickheads into satisfied customers.
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Sails when I was tiny my ambition in life was to be the person (this job no longer exists) who weighed your fruit and veg in the supermarket and sealed the bag. The credit card machine reminded me of that.
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Jelly I knew LOADS about the products I sold. But the posh old ladies of Salisbury were formidable about their conqueror paper.
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Yes I used to work in deli but we never had one of those machines where you could slot the neck of a plastic bag into it and have it put the bit tape round to seal the bag. Butcher I go to down in Sussex still has one of those machines.
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