I'll never understand getting so pissed at retail workers...

hellohkb · October 2014

That you need to constantly post youtube rants about it. Especially if it was an honest mistake. The original video is from 2012 so it's ancient in youtube time, but this channel did a comedy sketch in response to it. Jezebel posted it yesterday and I saw it this morning.

Basically, this girl who's crazy about candles obsessively calls 6 different Bath and Body Works wanting to know if a certain scent is available. The clerk made a mistake and she flipped her shit and made a video. Judging from her youtube page, she gets rant-y about stores all the time. I can see why she would be disappointed but this woman is coocoo for coco puffs.

And now I've been contemplating how people can be such douche canoes to retail workers.

http://jezebel.com/heres-a-reenactment-of-the-best-bath-body-works-rant-1646298770/all

lurkergirl · October 2014

I wonder if she asks for extra ranch dressing at Red Lobster...

hellohkb · October 2014

She has to. She's that kind of girl that just would. And constantly ask to see the manager.

penguin44 · October 2014

After working retail, this really doesn't surprise me.

I had a customer similar to this where I worked. She would make us call stores within a 40 mile radius to find shorts she wanted. But she doesn't drive on highways. And she doesn't like certain colors. She wanted all of the employees to come watch her try on clothes and tell her which ones to buy. Actually kind of pleasant compared to some people. But oh so annoying!

hellohkb · October 2014

penguin44 said:
After working retail, this really doesn't surprise me.

I had a customer similar to this where I worked. She would make us call stores within a 40 mile radius to find shorts she wanted. But she doesn't drive on highways. And she doesn't like certain colors. She wanted all of the employees to come watch her try on clothes and tell her which ones to buy. Actually kind of pleasant compared to some people. But oh so annoying!

She sounds incredibly needy!

hellohkb · October 2014

Also, relevant

chibiyui · October 2014

I wonder if she asks for extra ranch dressing at Red Lobster...

God damn that lady was crazy. Seriously. All the people who get pissy like that are not mentally stable. I had a lady go ballistic on me the other day. All because I insinuated the cheapest TV Stand on the floor was cheap. After threatening to "get me fired" demanding a letter of apology and talking down to me. She pulls the "Oh. women are supposed to help each other cause life is hard. I put myself through college and I'm an Ivy League grad" Bitch. If you're an Ivy League grad, you did shit with that education if you're going to get upset that the sales person tells you a 100 dollar TV stand is cheap and you get what you pay for.

[Deleted User] · October 2014

WinstonsGirl · October 2014

I used to work at a huge bookstore and got yelled at cos the publisher pushed back the release date. Yes, I knew this guy was coming in, so I obviously called up the publisher and told them to push back the date just to piss him off.

HaileyDancingbear · October 2014

Honestly being shitty to minimum wage workers is a massive pet peeve of mine. You know what, if you order your coffee at Dunkin Donuts and the lady goes "I don't wanna make coffee, fuck you!" then fine, get pissy. But these people are working insanely shitty jobs (I have plenty of friends who have worked there, and haven't heard a single nice thing about the place) for pretty much slave wages, and have absolutely NO say in how the business is run. If they run out of fucking bagels, that is not the cashier's fault, she doesn't fucking order them. If your meal is taking too long, keep in mind the person at the register isn't the one fucking cooking it, and that the cook may be overloaded with orders, and they can't help it if 10 people all ordered food within 2 minutes of each other. So yelling is just a dick move because nothing productive comes out of it (But you may get your two fucking dollars back in exchange for ruining someone's day.)

And people REALLY need to shut the fuck up with that rationale that they can be shitty to these people, because working at dunkin donuts (Or any other minimum wage job) clearly means they're lazy and don't want a REAL job, so you having a real job makes you better and therefore justified in yelling about a fucking bagel. Know what, many of the friends I mentioned above have gone to college and have degrees. A couple have TWO. Nobody CHOOSES to work these jobs, it's what they get stuck with when they put all that effort in, get stuck with a massive amount of debt, only to realize there are STILL no jobs available to them above minimum wage retail. It's not their fault, they don't control the economy.

I'm always nice as shit to people who work retail. I don't pity them, because that would be condescending, but I do feel they need some niceness thrown their way to balance out the general shittiness they get from customers. And frankly it doesn't matter how pissed I am at the company, I will never raise my voice at the cashier or tech support etc. because I know they're not the ones personally responsible for whatever my fucking problem is.

wrigleyville · October 2014

I wish they'd make a rule that for every time you yell at someone in customer service or retail, you have to work their job for one month. During a holiday. And weekends.

kaitlynmichelle · October 2014

I work in a retail type store and got yelled at today. Someone tried to get me in shit with a supervisor too, she's come in before and always gets the manager to complain about whoever helps her.

I hate it when people are rude to me. People seriously need to not treat retail workers like shit when they are upset. It solves nothing, and you ruin the worker's day.

mego2708 · October 2014

I worked a large department store in college. In the first hour of my first Black Friday shift, some guy screamed at me that he waited too long in line, and we were out of the GPS he wanted, so he had to get another one. I apologized and offered to look up the GPS to see if one of the other area stores had it they could hold for him. He got even more angry and refused my offer to look it up. When it came time to pay and I gave him back his change, he said I gave him back the incorrect amount of change and threw the remaining coins at me, along with one of the "impulse items" from the counter. (I think it was a Lady Gaga singing toothbrush, but I can't remember).

I currently work at Starbucks while I'm in grad school. We also have a our fair share of really shitty customers. We also have our fantastic regulars, but somehow it's really hard to forget about the people who are incredibly rude to you "just because they can."

larrygaga · October 2014

Some people have a really low sense of self-worth, and instead of doing something to fix themselves, they put other people down to make themselves feel better. Just like little kids who bully.

Retail is a safe place to put people down, because retail workers have no power. If they speak up against it, they get in trouble or even fired. They aren't allowed to kick the bullies out, because retail is all about taking everyone's business all the time. They have to suck it up and grovel. Lots of losers take advantage of that.

I worked at McDonald's for 6 years. The only little rebellion I could personally do was forget napkins or sauce, and further piss the customer off. I love needling people, and I have enough confidence to pull off having people scream at me and be emotionally sound. One of the most satisfying things ever was to needle an asshole customer enough that they yell and throw a fit and make a huge fool of themselves. It always helped that I never let the yelling and insults visibly affect me, and I would keep smiling all the way through. That makes them even madder.

mego2708 · October 2014

At starbucks we've been known to "decaf" customers who are especially rude/mean. It's incredibly petty, and the customer never knows, but it makes us feel a little better.

larrygaga · October 2014

hellohkb said:

Also, relevant

Why is that so true???

KatWAG · October 2014

I am a firm believer that everyone should ahve to work a few months as a waiter/ waitress and in retail at some point in their life. I will NEVER leave a dressing room a mess or sass someone over a refill again.

I was working at Express one summer. A woman called ahead to see if we had a specific pair of jeans. She was told that we did. When she got to the store, she walked up to me and asked perfectly nicely where she could find the jeans. I took her to where the jeans were hanging. Turns out there was a miscommnication and we didnt have the exact pair. The pair had the wrong type of patch work. She started to scream at me about how stupid I was that I couldnt find a pair of jeans. And who was going to pay of her gas and time. I almost cried. I also had a woman pee her pants while trying on white jeans. That wasnt awesome. She just handed them back to me like nothing happened.

I worked at the cheesecake factory and I have so many horror stories that I cant pick just one. Well maybe I can try. When you have a table of more than 6 people, you can choose to add gratuity or not. If you add it, you and guaranteed 15%. If you dont add it sometimes you luck out and get more and sometimes you get less.

I had a table on a Saturday night thats total bill was almost exactly $1,000. It was my only table pretty much all night. I risked it and didnt add gratuity because they seemed so nice. They should ahve tipped me somewhere between $150-$200. They left me $20. TWENTY DOLLARS. Afters tipping out the bus boy and bartenders it cost me money to go to work that night.

[Deleted User] · October 2014

thisismynickname2 · October 2014

mego2708 said:

At starbucks we've been known to "decaf" customers who are especially rude/mean. It's incredibly petty, and the customer never knows, but it makes us feel a little better.

I'm laughing because that's delightfully evil, however, I get even more cranky without caffeine. Decaffing a mean person's only going to make them meaner, I think.

I worked customer service in a call center for a publisher. I still remember this one woman who was so freaking mean to me for absolutely no reason, but then left me a nice voicemail to help her out with further orders. Maybe because I was the only one who nicely handled her bullshit? Wonders never cease.

mego2708 · October 2014

@thisismynickname it probably does make them meaner. 99.9% of the time the worst customers are in the drive-thru though, so we don't really have to worry about them. Although, I suppose it's really the poor people the rude people are going to interact with next that we should feel bad for/apologize to.

princessofgenovia · October 2014

Apparently I'm living my life all kinds of wrong because I just cannot get worked up over candles.

ShellD13 · October 2014

My stepson watched his mom ream a CSR at a big box store because she forgot her receipt and couldn't return an item that cost $5. He told his dad and I clearly thinking it was a funny story - while I don't like to bash mom. I quickly and I mean quickly told him that was NOT OKAY! That poor woman does not get paid to be yelled at by anyone let alone when it wasn't even her fault - store policy no receipt no return. She could have gotten in trouble with her boss for doing what your mom wanted her to do.

futuremrsr2015 · October 2014

I was yelled at for close to 15 minutes straight while serving other customers crying to make sure they didn't have to wait. What did I do to get yelled at for so long? I asked "will that be all today?" at the end of a customers order. Apparently when you ask that it means the person doesn't know what they want and you're implying they have Alzheimers.

princessofgenovia · October 2014

I sort of looked up her videos on youtube. This woman is obsessed with candles. All candles. From everywhere. I've never known someone to care so deeply about candles. And I've got at least 20 unburned scented candles. I like candles. I just don't like them this much.

levioosa · October 2014

I've really only lost my shit once at a retail employee and they deserved it. I've also worked in foodservice and it's frustrating how often people treat you as a "lower class citizen" because you are serving.

For the Starbucks employees, kudos to you, because there is something terrifying in dealing with people who haven't had their caffeine yet.

hellohkb · October 2014

Thanks for sharing all the stories. @KatWAG‌ I cringed so much at the shitty cheesecake factory tippers.

@princessofgenovia‌ One should never be that passionate of.. Most things. She seems very, very angry. She has an entire playlist of rants about different store experiences.

My cat legitimately gets frightened when I played her rant videos. I guess she can hear the anger in her voice. That's pretty bad when you're so angry over candles you make a cat get scared.

JennyColada · October 2014

Meh, you get used to it.

And if you don't, I take solace in the fact that they either have a tiny penis or a man with a tiny penis.

jnrsgirl · October 2014

I despise people who are shitty to retail or low wage workers. During college I worked at an Olive Garden to try to put a dent in student loans. As a server or bartender, we had to pay in 5% of our gross sales for the day to pay the bussers and whatnot. And on top of that we only got paid $2.17 an hour. We paid taxes on the money we were forced to pay for tipout as tipout was labeled as wages we chose to donate. They are also very bad about following through on offers for promotions. After two years of working that hellacious job, they offered me a position in management. They required that I move to a location 900+ miles away and complete their two month training program. I accepted the offer, movedto a place where I knew no one, and completed the training only to have the store manager there tell me that I was going to be kept on as a server only so he could promote some new girl who had no experience and had not done any of the training. He then proceeded to inform me that since I would not be receiving the promotion I had veen offered that they would not pay a penny of my travel expenses to attend their stupid training program for two months. I was furious and promptly quit.

I refuse to ever go to any Darden restaurant again. They are super shitty to their workers!

I am so thankful that I started a new job earlier this year!

artbyallie · October 2014

lurkergirl said:

I wonder if she asks for extra ranch dressing at Red Lobster...

Must. Resist. Urge.

I so want to post her name. It summons her as surely as Beetlegeuse and then we'll have her posting in this thread in her ******ALL CAPS****** style.

Must be good. Must not summon.

beethery · October 2014

artbyallie said:

lurkergirl said:

I wonder if she asks for extra ranch dressing at Red Lobster...

Must. Resist. Urge.

I so want to post her name. It summons her as surely as Beetlegeuse and then we'll have her posting in this thread in her ******ALL CAPS****** style.

Must be good. Must not summon.

We will be fighting if you summon that loon. I'm not even going to mention her favorite subject because I am not down for her shit today.

Though if she starts calling people names and shit again we could potentially be rid of her forever, which I'm ok with.

hellosweetie1015 · October 2014

So the reason I lost my retail job was a customer getting pissed, and I still to this day can't figure out what I did to piss her off.

I worked in a big box office store in the copy shop. I was in the middle of finishing up a job for a customer who was in the store - 20 copies, stapled. Easy enough - except the stapler didn't staple for some reason, so I just quickly stapled them using our automatic stapler. This particular copy shop was set up where my back was to the counter if I was using either copier (or the automatic stapler attached to the B&W copier). I turned back to the counter, and a lady was standing there looking miffed. I immediately apologized and she flung her papers at me and barked out what she wanted done. So I do it, it's easy, like, 10 copies. Under $2.00. She pays, and I go back to working on the job I was finishing. No big whoop.

Thirty minutes later, a coworker comes up and asks me what I did to make the lady cry. I had no idea what I'd done, and no manager ever came to me to ask what had happened or anything. So after my shift is over (late, making me late to my other job), I find the manager and ask her what had happened and what I'd done wrong.

Apparently the lady told my manager that I'd been discriminatory toward her and that "it felt like she was back in the 60s when it was okay to treat blacks like that". I hadn't said anything other than "I'm so sorry, how can I help you?", didn't do anything out of my normal customer routine. So when my manager told me that, it pissed me off, and I said something sarcastic like "Great." Probably not the best choice, but I was frustrated and late, so I left.

The next day, my manager calls me into the office at the end of my (again late-running) shift and tells me that I've been moved out of the copy shop. Which would be GREAT because I hate the copy shop. Until she tells me that I can't work with customers at all any more. I have to work the "ad" shift, 4 hours a week. I was working 30 hours regularly, and couldn't afford to lose any hours, much less practically all of them. I asked how long, and she said it was going to be and indefinite amount of time but likely permanent.

I'll never understand getting so pissed at retail workers...

Re: I'll never understand getting so pissed at retail workers...

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