fuckyeahretailrobin:

We’ve been finding Chick Tracts hidden on the shelves in amongst the purses and cheap jewelry in my store. If you don’t know what those are, they’re those little comics that churches hand out about finding Jesus. Google them sometime, some of them are hilarious. Someone’s been going around hiding them like they’re going to surprise convert someone, when really all it does is leave more crap for us to clean up.

They don’t even make decent toilet paper.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “Let the boys lift the furniture!”

Bottom Text: “Where are all the boys when you need them?”]

I don’t know why the image is small, sorry about that.

I work at a store that sells furniture, decor, food and wine. As you can expect, we get a decent amount of furniture orders. The managers at work always ask the males to lift things. It’s only when the guys aren’t at work or if they are busy(sometimes if they are at the register, they ask someone to cover them), when they do it themselves. It always annoys me because they keep asking the men to lift and move the boxes, not thinking that we can do it ourselves.

We have a guy who works there who is a frail artist type and he’s picked before any of the girls to lift things. 

And then of course when the guys aren’t there, we’re scrambling around trying to lift heavy furniture. They have gotten better at letting the other women get furniture by themselves but how do you expect us to be able to lift heavy things if we don’t try? The only reason the guys can lift better than us is because they’ve had more opportunities to build muscle because you keep picking them to lift and move the heavy boxes.

Customers also say this sometimes. I can move this bench for you no problem, it’s just bulky. Stop insulting me when you ask “Where are all the men when you need them?”.

My God, this could be the story of most of my goddamn time in “fine home furnishings retail.”

Usually, when I’d get an asshole that would whine (you know, rather than just helping offering to help, which none of these sexist shitbrains ever did) I needed a man to help me lift that because I was a woman (they’d say “girl”), I’d make a point of lifting it with no (visible) effort.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

I’ll try to make this quick…

As an Army Veteran with a tour in Iraq under my belt I’m diagnosed with a mild case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Basically I’m extremely paranoid on the road and when people make quick movements within close proximity to my personal space a flinch/twitch. Or in this special case when a customer tried to ‘help’ adjust the collar of my work shirt, I caught her by the wrist…

Why would you be offended that I made physical contact with you, when you were about to do the same to me?! Why would you even attempt to physically adjust anything on a stranger’s person in the first place!?

Just…hands to yourselves! Rule #1 since kindergarten #amiright?

Hope this doesn’t spark any political debates, just another annoyance at the job. Tags for violence and trigger just to be safe.

Who the hell would think it was appropriate to “fix” the collar of a stranger like that? HELLO, CLASSISM.

“You’re a service industry drone beneath my respect for humans, so I shall handle you as I please.”

Exact right thing in grabbing her wrist and I hope to Gods the OP told her the that s/he is an army vet with PTSD. And I hope the woman felt like utter shit and will now not fucking grab at retail/service folk (or anyone else, for that matter) like they’re display mannequins.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “Looking for a book.”

Bottom Text: “It was blue and I read it 20 years ago.”]

Former book retail robin here. This was one of my classic customers, they came up to me “I am looking for a book and it was blue and I read it 20 years ago.” When I asked for title, author or even subject, they said “It was about God and it was blue”

REALLY!?!?!?

Having worked various fields of retail, I got variations on this question for each branch, it seems.

My favorite is when you suggest something and get

“I don’t know what it is but I know it isn’t that one.”

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: Guest yells at you and demands to see a manager

Bottom Text: You are the manager

This happens to me at least once a week if not more. And then they get PISSED when I tell them that I am the manager. Being young and in charge of a store has its pros and cons.

This happened to me frequently, but I don’t think it was so much that I was relatively young (I didn’t look my age necessarily) as I apparently didn’t appear to be “the sort of person” who was a manager, despite my professional attire, manner, and knowledge about the products and company.

Once, when someone was trying to shake a discount out of a perfectly acceptable item, she demanded to speak to the manager.

I politely informed her that I was the manager.

”YOU!?”

Pro-tip: When you’re trying to get someone to treat you favorably (bend the rules and mark down a piece of merchandise that otherwise would be sold at full price), insulting them is probably not the best way to go. I mean, I probably couldn’t have marked it down anyway, but I knew it’d go out of the store full price after that.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “CUSTOMER BERATES YOU, THEN COMES BACK TO APOLOGIZE”

Bottom Text: “END UP CRYING UP CRYING BECAUSE OF APOLOGY”]

Bit of a story to this one. I was having a really crummy day at work, and I had a lady rail me up one side and down the other for asking for her ID. Evidently, she had gone through my line a few times in the past, and I couldn’t remember her and asked for her ID each time she bought a bottle of wine. I was already holding back tears at this point, and then she came back, tapped me on the shoulder and apologize, saying I was just doing my job.

After she left, I had to pretend to tie my shoe while I mopped up and stopped the waterworks. This is the first time I’ve had someone come back and apologize for yelling at me, so it kinda hit me hard.

The power of civility, people.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

This might sound cruel but I can’t help but be so happy when rude and obnoxious customers don’t get their way. So often I am belittled at my job so when I call the manager up to the front and he takes my side, I am thrilled. 

I don’t think it sounds cruel at all. On behalf of customers such as myself that stay polite (as a retail vet, I kinda can’t… not), there is nothing more frustrating (save for being the associate on the other end of that tantrum) than seeing shitty behavior rewarded. It’s one thing to have a complaint (a LEGITIMATE complaint, not shit like you want to complain to the regional manager because the store doesn’t have carts— AND NO STORES IN THE CORPORATE CHAIN HAVE CARTS— yes, this was an actual complaint) and to voice said complaint reasonably (as in, not “Guess what you assholes fucked up now.”— another actual complaint!). It’s a horse of different color to throw a damn tantrum, particularly when you’re doing it on purpose to get the store to bend the rules for you. Fuck that mess and fuck anyone that abuses the fact it’s a service industry to feed their petty bullshit (welcome to retail 101).

fuckyeahretailrobin:

This happened to my friend while she was working. We both worked in a thrift store.

Long story short a man’s check was denied. When checks and credit cards get denied, the system our store uses does not tell the cashier why, it just simply says “denied”. When she told him his check was denied, he started screaming “We are not white trash! We have money! We are not white trash!” The he refused to leave the line and kept screaming at her as if she was the one who hacked their bank account and stole their money. She also never once said or implied he was white trash. He was the one who just started screaming it! (Sounds like suppressed memories to me.)

My friend ended up walking away from her register crying and my manager had to take over because he would not get out of her face. This man still shops there regularly.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “STOP DOING SHIPMENT AND HELP THOSE CUSTOMERS!!”

Bottom Text: “YOU BETTER MAKE SURE THIS SHIPMENT GETS DONE BEFORE YOU LEAVE TODAY!!”]

Now, I don’t mind dropping what I am doing to assist customers. Selling is my primary job. I realize that. But whenever we have shipment or markdowns, our upper management decides to come out of their offices and snap at us like dogs as if we’re doing something we are not supposed to. 

This happened last Saturday, so myself and my coworker agreed to ignore the entire shipment, since every time we started putting something away we were told to go help someone who either we had already greeted, or was one of our regular browsers who never really buys anything (Not to mention Saturday mornings are extremely slow. No one in the area gets out of bed to go shopping until at least one in the afternoon.).
But, half way through the day, while it was actually busy and the store was filled with customers, the same managers that were snapping at us before, came up to me and my coworker and informed us that the shipment had better be done before we went home, so that “we can actually sell the product”.

REALLY? Because that’s not at all what I was trying to accomplish before.  Ugh, I can honestly say, I loathe upper management!

Ah, the old “truck day versus regular day” bullshit. How I especially hated this. Why “today’s-designated-sales-floor-associates-handle-sales” and “today’s-designated-shipment-associates-handle-shipment” was so fucking beyond people… ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “I am not”

Bottom Text: “your “sweetheart”.”]

Nothing bothers me more than a complete stranger calling me cutesy nicknames on the job. It’s creepy.It honestly skeeves me out so bad, it ruins my entire day. I’ve even had a co-worker call me “sweetheart” once!

The worst part is, it’s not just the men, either. Every time a middle aged man or old black woman that calls me “hon” or “sweetheart” I just want to scream “STOP!”

Bolding mine.
I hated this as well, but mainly from the men, it was a matter of sexual harassment/belittling/keeping a female worker “in her place.”

With women, it was largely used condescending/sarcastically also for the purposes of keeping the worker in her place (which would make it classism, not sexism).

But can I ask what the fuck “old black women” have to do with it? Specifically the Black part? Older women I’ve seen do it as part of the condescension angle (because you’re young, that makes you even more pathetic, you low-life retail worker!) but white women do it just as often as Black women or women of color in general. 

Sure, it’s worse on the angle that women (particularly women of color) generally know from experience what it’s like to be belittled, condescended to, and not taken seriously as a professional, so WHY ON EARTH would they choose to do that to another women (internalized misogyny?). But again, implying that it’s something only Black women (and old Black women at that) do is not only racist, it’s inaccurate.