Working Retail: Stories of the Underpaid - General

[QUOTE=chuck14;33254190]im sorry but they look like two penises[/QUOTE] Yeah I can almost DVDA all by myself [QUOTE=Ven Kaeo;33258601]I don't know what to say to this. "What the fuck" comes to mind but that sounds awfully insensitive. [/QUOTE] I just said you like to look at fetish porn. You should come up with the most insensitive thing you can think of. This is the internet and theres no reason anyone should ever have their feelings hurt ever here. [QUOTE=Hana-San;33257287]Had some guy complaining about the line he had to wait in this morning. Then he bought 2 loaves of bread for $2 gave me $2 and said "Keep the change." I felt insulted. Also I have [url]http://www.facepunch.com/threads/1090776?highlight=[/url] And in Australia I wouldn't need to work if I didn't have any feet. Heavily subsidized medical expenses and pension would look after me.[/QUOTE] I guess that sucks, but I've never heard of it for it supposedly being "common." As for how it goes in Australia, You would think something like that exists in America (with welfare and social security with disablities and all) but that doesn't apparently apply to me. Or maybe it does but I've never bothered to look into it because I'd rather be a functioning human being that a fat lazy fuck sloth who mooches on other taxpayers because they sprained their ankle one time in the 70s and play it up so they never have to work again. Seriously, not looking for pity here but I KNOW I have it worse than a lot of people who take advantage of our system. I don't even care to get a handicap parking permit. And to tie it all back into retail, I love it when I have to start limping around at work because of how god awful the pain can get, and customers ask me if I hurt my leg. I'm always tempted to make them feel akward by explaining my legs but I usually just say "something like that." It's also funny when they run into me with buggies and apologize thinking they hurt me. True story: shortly after I was hired at one of my jobs (and nobody there knew I wore fake legs) I was going to grab a vacuum cleaner from some girl in another department after we closed and I was about 3 feet away when one of my feet broke off one of my prosthetics. I just stood there and the girl looked at me puzzled wondering why I stopped suddenly. I was like "okay what I'm about to say isn't as bad as it sounds, but I just broke one of my feet." She looked scared and I told her it was a fake leg. She got the manager and he wheeled me out to my car where I put on an older pair of legs I keep in my trunk as a spare (because my legs have broken before, have broken since, and I'm sure will break again) and went back into work to finish closing. Fun times all around.

That has to produce some fun awkward moments, are the legs not padded or anything like that? And out of curiosity have you ever had those C-shaped spring ones? And for retail shit. Those people that think you are another store, like thinking home depot is home hardware. Had at least five or six people ask me for stuff that they have or if we are them.

[QUOTE=hobblinharry;33260126]Yeah I can almost DVDA all by myself I just said you like to look at fetish porn. You should come up with the most insensitive thing you can think of. This is the internet and theres no reason anyone should ever have their feelings hurt ever here. I guess that sucks, but I've never heard of it for it supposedly being "common." As for how it goes in Australia, You would think something like that exists in America (with welfare and social security with disablities and all) but that doesn't apparently apply to me. Or maybe it does but I've never bothered to look into it because I'd rather be a functioning human being that a fat lazy fuck sloth who mooches on other taxpayers because they sprained their ankle one time in the 70s and play it up so they never have to work again. Seriously, not looking for pity here but I KNOW I have it worse than a lot of people who take advantage of our system. I don't even care to get a handicap parking permit. And to tie it all back into retail, I love it when I have to start limping around at work because of how god awful the pain can get, and customers ask me if I hurt my leg. I'm always tempted to make them feel akward by explaining my legs but I usually just say "something like that." It's also funny when they run into me with buggies and apologize thinking they hurt me. True story: shortly after I was hired at one of my jobs (and nobody there knew I wore fake legs) I was going to grab a vacuum cleaner from some girl in another department after we closed and I was about 3 feet away when one of my feet broke off one of my prosthetics. I just stood there and the girl looked at me puzzled wondering why I stopped suddenly. I was like "okay what I'm about to say isn't as bad as it sounds, but I just broke one of my feet." She looked scared and I told her it was a fake leg. She got the manager and he wheeled me out to my car where I put on an older pair of legs I keep in my trunk as a spare (because my legs have broken before, have broken since, and I'm sure will break again) and went back into work to finish closing. Fun times all around.[/QUOTE] I'm sure someone out there got aroused by looking at your stumps bro, what with their rather phallic shape, but I wasn't one of them

[QUOTE=Ven Kaeo;33261917]I'm sure someone out there got aroused by looking at your stumps bro, what with their rather phallic shape, but I wasn't one of them[/QUOTE] You called someone on a bluff and they went the distance to prove you were wrong. Chill out.

I haven't had a proper job in retail but i did witness some things in a small co-op on trident work experience. First off, there was a relatively large chest freezer on the second floor of this co-op, and well, it was so disgusting i couldn't go in there without a painters mask (now that's a fucking hazard, above the shop floor and all) anyway, fuck knows how long this freezer had been there but opening it, my god, opening it was like opening the depths of hell in terms of smell, i actually gagged in the mask and had to put my t-shirt and get my jumper just to cover the smell and possibly block out all the mold spore buildup because this thing was not suitable for anything, hell i wouldn't even store a dead body in there because the body could probably smell better than this. Second was the time of 3:00PM, because it was close to a large school and a couple of smaller schools you'd get people just shoveling through things which you'd just neatly put on the shelf to look at in an attractive manner. all in all, the time i spent there i gained a large amount of respect for anyone in retail and still i find people just putting shit in wrong places and even in wrong department pisses me off. I also had a bottle of coke explode on me, it was quite funny but i had to walk around covered and smelling of coke the entire day, and being the curious person i am i was designated with marking down out of date items, i wondered if there was a cut off limit on how low it would go, so i priced up a 30bag full of mini sausage rolls at 5P just to see, and it did, never told anyone. So from what i learned from the work experience was, respect the retail employees because they work making sure the shop doesn't become a mess and hardly anyone in the public notices it.

I work at Hugo Boss, and we run into our fair share of assholes. Friday, a couple came in during the late afternoon and was asking questions about suit sizes and whatnot, basic stuff that we deal with every day. However, we're short on stock at the moment while we wait for the black friday shipments to come in (we get a huge shipment a few days before black friday every year that lasts us through the winter) and not every size is available for every style of suit. The guy grabs a jacket and asks me if we have it in his size. I tell him everything we have is out on the floor, if you can't find it then we don't have it. Then he asks if we would have it in any other stores. It's a rare but popular style, and we just so happen to have the last few that exist in the company. We get asked about it every once in a while so I didn't need to check the computers, I knew it was the last one off the top of my head, so I told him that. I guess he thought I was telling him it was the last one in the company just to get him to shut up or whatever, because he started ranting to his wife about how I must not want the sale and he won't ever want to do business with the store ever again yadda yadda yadda. Generally just being a huge asshole about it. I offered to show him similar styles but he was being a crybaby and refused any further help. I absolutely hate how some customers think we're fucking genies and can pull shit out of thin air. We tell them it's the last one available, yet they still go "hurr can you check?" As if we haven't been working at the store multiple days a week for years. After a while, you don't need to check the computers any more.

So two or three nights ago, some guy came into the store and tried (at first) stealing multiple copies of multiple games. After being "contacted" by multiple employees he put all the games away (figureing we knew what he was doing) except one. He tried to steal a copy of a $30 of a Pre-owned game. Police were called, man arrested, nbd.

[QUOTE=Ionicknight;33259569]There was a huge winter storm that knocked out power for a week, so many towns just cancelled Halloween outright, ignoring the poor children.[/QUOTE] And we said fuck the city we trick or treatin

Oh, and my first job was a cashier at Target. A fistfight broke out over the last Wii on Black Friday. In my checkout lane. I got punched ;_;

I find it sometimes annoying how we have a sign of Ticket's service point at our door and people allways walk in and ask: Do you have Ticket's service. Yes we do, it's on our for a reason.

[QUOTE=silverhawk79;33268299]Oh, and my first job was a cashier at Target. A fistfight broke out over the last Wii on Black Friday. In my checkout lane. I got punched ;_;[/QUOTE] What's this Black Friday thing?

[QUOTE=Hana-San;33270077]What's this Black Friday thing?[/QUOTE] Apparently the day that American shoppers collectively lose about 90 IQ points.

Black Friday just represents the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. It is the day after Thanksgiving. Most stores offer some sort of discount on certain items, mostly electronics. Its not uncommon for people to literally wait half a day just to get a discount on a TV. I work at Wal-mart, which is usually has the most people. It is absolute hell to try to move pallets of merchandise (some of which are 2000+ pounds) around with people sitting in aisles and laying down everywhere.

[QUOTE=Ven Kaeo;33191482]Yeah no tvs have retail modes that have predefined colour settings. The cheaper tvs look worse because they're cheaper. [editline]8th November 2011[/editline] I'm getting tired of customers who come in and crack a joke about me "working hard" when they see me get up from the desk in the back room. Fuck you buddy there are other aspects to my job than listening to you bitch about how the battery you want costs too much. Paperwork to file notices to read sales reports to look over. And maybe I just want to take a fucking break after having been on my feet all day you inconsiderate twat.[/QUOTE] Actually, they do change the settings. I was checking them out at Best Buy recently. [editline]14th November 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Hana-San;33270077]What's this Black Friday thing?[/QUOTE] A day when a bunch of stuff is real cheap. My old teacher said she got tired of the rude assholes at stores whenever it comes around, so she just has her husband grab stuff and take it to the register while she is checking everything out, and seriously the way people behave over this shit is just absurd.

Have to start off describing my job. I currently work as the only salesman in the shop at brewery/restaurant De Molen, which is a Dutch brewery. Most notably, it's #5 of the world. We're so well known that during our yearly beer festival people come over from literally all over the world [b]just[/b] for our beers and those of the breweries we invite. Additionally we're the #1 ranked Brewpub in the world. I've been working here for more than 5 years in every position bar main brewer and head chef - I've been here longer than anybody else including the current owner. This means that I'll occasionally get called in to help on positions other than the one I'm currently hired for, and that I'm allowed to independently make some pretty large decisions. As you can imagine, I've had my share of "situations" in those 5 years. 'Twas a busy as FUCK friday night, 85 people á la carte (max capacity: 90 people - small restaurant but high quality). Normally we'd have 5 people working as waiters along with 3-4 in the kitchen. Due to a combination of shitty luck and outside interference we had 3 people waiting and 2 people in the kitchen. Luckily all the "old" crew i.e. the most experienced people so we could get by. Barely, but we managed. Amongst the guests was a group of 20 men, stag night or some such shit. Lots of beer etc so they got loud and rude to the point where a few other guests complained. As I was about to go talk to them to tone it down a bit one of my colleagues (staff is 90% female, 17-22 age range) came up to me and complained about some seriously rude/sexist remarks they made about her. This leads me to warn them to tone down the volume and stop the remarks to the staff or they would be removed from the restaurant. About half an hour later the same colleague comes walking back into the kitchen where I was helping the cooks prepare a meal, crying heavily. This is a girl who's grown up with 4 brothers and their friends, she's used to quite a bit. Suspecting what happened, I ask her just in case. As expected, the cunts from the stag night didn't stop despite my warning so I got their tab, went up to their table, told them to pay up and leave. In response they got [b]really[/b] loud, several shouting - and I quote - "the treacherous bitch practically served herself to us and now complains when we make our move on that?". Now, I'm a level-headed guy who's credited everywhere as being excessively polite and able to deal with some very tough customers. I'm often the one asked to deal with said customers as I simply shrug it off. But you do [b]not[/b] fucking harass my colleagues and then try and blame them when called out on it. Admittedly, my response was... less than optimal. I literally told them to pay up and get the fuck out right now to which they responded by demanding to see my boss. I first went by the other tables, explained we had a bit of a situation and as such there would be a delay on their orders for which we'd compensate by having their next drink on the house. After that I took my colleague to our boss, quickly explained and then followed him to their table. Once we got there, he simply said "Get the fuck out of my restaurant. NOBODY harasses my staff and gets away with it.". They came by again the next day, all apologised to her 1 by 1 and all gave a serious tip to us. My boss applauded my handling of the situation and gave me an expensive bottle of beer for it (I'm crazy for good beer). I've had people come in and try and bluff me down by talking shit about how much they knew about beer, then act insulted when I told them they're wrong. Even going so far as to demand I be fired for not knowing my stuff and "being rude". Definitely the strangest situation I've ever been in was when I was the last one there with the last few customers, closing down. As the last couple came to pay their tab, they looked at me and said "Say, you're a good looking lad. Fancy a threesome with me and my wife?". I just stood there completely dumbfounded.

Man yesterday i learned that practically half of my co-workers are leaving/left. yeah i know people leave all the time from their work place but theyre all leaving at the same time and these are all of my friends. the only people whos going to be left is me and the new people working for seasonal positions. Anyone else have this happen to them? where you have close co-workers and they all just up and quit?

[QUOTE=PN_Redux;33272507]Man yesterday i learned that practically half of my co-workers are leaving/left. yeah i know people leave all the time from their work place but theyre all leaving at the same time and these are all of my friends. the only people whos going to be left is me and the new people working for seasonal positions. Anyone else have this happen to them? where you have close co-workers and they all just up and quit?[/QUOTE] Had that happen a couple of weeks after I was promoted, I was still learning how we did everything when all but one left, the other one only working a few shifts and whatnot. They STILL haven't found people to replace everyone that left and it's been a few months since then.

[QUOTE=usaokay;33268607]Did you sue the assailant?[/QUOTE]Nah, I didn't care enough at the time...totally could have though. [editline]14th November 2011[/editline] I keep remembering past failures at various jobs...like how I managed to get into a car accident while being a delivery guy for Pizza Hut. That lasted a whole month before I quit, because all of my tips went to gas money.

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;33272149]Definitely the strangest situation I've ever been in was when I was the last one there with the last few customers, closing down. As the last couple came to pay their tab, they looked at me and said "Say, you're a good looking lad. Fancy a threesome with me and my wife?". I just stood there completely dumbfounded.[/QUOTE] You should have taken up on that offer.

[QUOTE=Smoot;33263570]You called someone on a bluff and they went the distance to prove you were wrong. Chill out.[/QUOTE] Are you stupid? Can you not read? When he posted them he accused me of having a stump fetish, when I replied and was trying to not be offensive he fucking told me to be, so I made a comment on it. Christ. [editline]14th November 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Jetblack357;33270792]Actually, they do change the settings. I was checking them out at Best Buy recently. [/QUOTE] Yeah we change it to 'Retail' mode.

I work with a bunch of Chinese people. I don't understand them.

[QUOTE=Ven Kaeo;33274570]Are you stupid? Can you not read? When he posted them he accused me of having a stump fetish, when I replied and was trying to not be offensive he fucking told me to be, so I made a comment on it. Christ. [editline]14th November 2011[/editline] Yeah we change it to 'Retail' mode.[/QUOTE] Damn, bro, just drop it already. It's some other guy on the internet. No need to freak out.

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;33272149]Have to start off describing my job. I currently work as the only salesman in the shop at brewery/restaurant De Molen, which is a Dutch brewery. Most notably, it's #5 of the world. We're so well known that during our yearly beer festival people come over from literally all over the world [b]just[/b] for our beers and those of the breweries we invite. Additionally we're the #1 ranked Brewpub in the world.[/QUOTE]Out of interest, do you guys ship to Canada? British Columbia in particular?

[QUOTE=Protocol7;33275667]Damn, bro, just drop it already. It's some other guy on the internet. No need to freak out.[/QUOTE] Smoot didn't comprehend the post and said something that was completely unecessary. I don't think hes freaking out. Why should illiteracy be acceptable?

Well fuck, I have to work 9am to 9pm thanksgiving day. No delicious food and spending time with my family for me.

I work at a Chick fil a and I can't tell you how many times people have asked me for a "chicken fil a mcnugget happy meal"

[QUOTE=Wolfmatyr;33278899]Out of interest, do you guys ship to Canada? British Columbia in particular?[/QUOTE] The shop doesn't, we only sell stuff at the shop itself. The brewery exports to several countries, not sure if they do canada too (but keep in mind this is bulk order :v:).

Me and friends regularly stop at a McDonald's on our way back from seeing concerts in Detroit. Last year after an Iron Maiden show we walked in and there was this guy (probably drunk or just a fucking idiot) who asked for an extra sauce packet. Cashier: "That will be an extra 20 cents, sir" Man: "20 cents!! What the fuck!! How much is your salt? Do you charge for salt?" Cashier: "Salt is free, sir" Man: "20 FUCKING CENTS! LOOK WHAT OBAMA IS DOING TO THIS COUNTRY!" *man goes near napkins* Man: "DO YOUR NAPKINS COST 20 CENTS? HUH? *goes towards the door which is locked since it's after 11* Man: "I WANT TO COME OUT THE WAY I CAME IN" *keeps pushing on the door but it won't move. the other guy in line just goes and unlocks the door* Man: "GOD BLESS AMERICA" *leaves*

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;33283622]The brewery exports to several countries, not sure if they do canada too (but keep in mind this is bulk order :v:).[/QUOTE]I was just wondering because I have some say in what the liquor store I work for orders in the way of beer.

Here's a story from my childhood. Backstory: So there was this Mcdonals we used to go to occasionally back before I moved out in the country. At the time, the N64 was a very popular console, and Mcdonalds had these arcade machines that allowed you to play some of the classics (such as Madden, Mario 64 etc). Story: So this older kid (of 10-12 years) came up to the Madden machine and starting plotting things out for his team. Then a nearby todder (maybe 5-6 years old?) walked up and tried to take over the controls, at which the older kid simply switched to mario 64, but with an angry expression on his face. Then the baby saw the mario 64 machine and tried to play that, making the older mid even mroe angry and switching back to madden. The toddler then for whatever reason wants to play madden again, and the older kid just turns to face the toddler and just starts hitting the todder on his head. as hard as he could. The toddler screams and runs back to his mommy (understandably) while my father calls me back to my table to make sure I don't get mistaken as someone involved in the conflict. After a few seconds the older kid just starts screaming obscenities because he lost a game in madden. One of the cashiers comes up to him and tries to peel the older kid away, making the kid's parents come up to the cashier. The parents go "Why are you making him stop playing". The cashier goes "Well he was hitting someone and that's clearly against our playplace rules, go eat somewhere else if your kid is going to cause a disturbance." The parents go "No, he's grown up, he can do whatever he wants." The cashier goes "No, he has to follow the rules, he breaks them, he leaves." The parents say "No he can stay because we say he can stay." The cashier balls her fist up and raises it - and suddenly the parents grab their kid and dash the resturaunt. Afterwards I overhear the cashier back at her post saying "No, I wasn't going to actually hit them, I was showing them what their spoiled brat was doing." I'm still not sure what happened to the cashier 10 years later because I don't live in that area anymore, but I hope she got a raise or a promotion.