The Customer is Always Surly

Okay maybe ALWAYS is an overstatement. Maybe.."a lot of the time" would've been more accurate. Oh well.

As somebody who's worked in retail for about 2 years, I've enjoyed and loathed many parts of the experience! I have a lot to say about all of the positives and negatives regarding this line of work, so I'm going to focus on my current annoyance. This annoyance is those customers who come in to a store and take out their bad day on somebody who's already unhappy (they work in RETAIL!). There are some people who have to blame somebody for the poor day/life they've had, so why not blame some kid because a shirt they really like is out of stock? Sure it's annoying, but do you have to go out of their way to make them feel bad for something that is completely out of their control?

I work in the areas of my store that place orders for people, and that's impossible to always get right. The warehouse/lab where these orders come from can screw up, the delivery company can screw up, and in the end, I am the lucky person who gets to call these customers and report the news that their merchandise is delayed or out of stock! I understand that it's annoying and you have to express that, but there are some people who just take it too far.

Example: A lady came into my department looking for a pair of glasses, and since she paid for express she expected it to be there. The express service we have takes an estimated 2-3 business days, but the associate had told her "2" and so they HAD to be there. Of course the associate who had told her it would only take two days wasn't there that day, and so my other co-worker got to break the news that they hadn't arrived and there's honestly nothing we can do to fix that. We just get yelled at and accused my making excuses for saying "it really is a 2-3 business day service, I'm sorry you were mis-quoted.." I really do understand this womans frustration, she has a right to be upset with her glasses not coming in, but did she have to attack our integrity and make us feel bad for something we have zero control over? So most likely this woman will demand money back, even though the glasses did come the third business day. We're expected to take this attack with a smile, and to cut off our arm and give it to them. What else can you do, really? This is a very MILD example. I've been around when customers make people cry, and do everything in their power to get people fired. I don't feel like getting REALLY angry right now, so I'll just stick with bitter.

IT BOTHERS ME that any person can walk into a retail store and demean another person just because they work there. If you do everything in your power to do things the right way and it's not enough, they'll call a manager to give them a gift card for making their life so horrible, and if they DON'T they're going to tell everybody what horrible service they received! Maybe they'll write a blog about it?! Well here's my blog to customers who are JERKS and overly demanding just because they can be. Grow up, and treat people with respect! We're there to help you, we're not your slaves. I understand we should do our best to fulfill your needs because we wouldn't have a store without customers, but you're not royalty...sorry to break it to you. If you were royalty, you'd be shopping somewhere else.