"Everyone should have to work retail."

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I also worked in a grocery store for a very short period of time. Awful experience. I'll never do it again.

Where I worked it was more of a typical retail environment, and it catered much more towards women. People can be very rude and demanding.

We also had plenty of shoplifters. Some were quite bold, and very belligerent if confronted.

High volume retail environments bring out the worst in people. Especially when it's busy.

I find the opening statement pretty demeaning considering I usually work 40+ hours weekly on public projects strictly as subtext for my technical consulting. In lieu of retail I've worked strictly with technology & frequently sold devices to fund research as I go.

The reality of it is that both skilled trades & retail/service work are just about equally marginalized.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I used to want to work in retail, but I had some experience in retail and found it wasn't really for me. I found some customers intimidating, and toddlers screaming from their pushchairs really distracting. Sometimes I got really socially phobic and had panic attacks because I couldn't face all the people. I was happiest being in the back room sorting out the stock, out of the prying eyes of the public. Interacting with colleagues I was fine with and enjoyed, but working out on the shop floor was very daunting.

But whenever I look for retail work all they want is someone to be able to do all duties, including interacting with customers, not just being in the stock room/warehouse. Companies that are more understanding of a person's needs are rather rare to come across, and finding jobs is hard as it is.

People say I can't be picky, but someone with my condition has to be picky. This is what makes my life challenging at times. Anxiety is not just something you can ignore.

I used to post on customerssuck.com and that site was an absolute godsend. I honestly don't know how people can make a career out on retail. Sure, I met some really nice people in my retail time but it was E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-N-G! I used to come home and literally collapse on the floor. Between the idiotic management, clueless coworkers and rude customers it's a real wake up call. I always treat anyone in the service industry with extra respect.

Worked at Wal-Mart, but I worked in the back moving boxes.

Now, working at McDonald's......that blew. You get the dumbest, rudest customers in the drive-thru. I now avoid customer service jobs like the plague. I don't have the patience for stupid, entitled jerkwad customers.

I did work in retail, for four hellish years, and I think I do understand why they are made to do certain things, be a certain way, the pressure etc --- BUT IT'S STILL no excuse for some of the stuff I don't like as a customer now.

I recently posted about a store clerk being in so much of a hurry that he gave me a bad shock when just ONE second of polite getting of my attention would have made no difference to what he was hurrying for, but would have made a big difference to the heart attack he nearly gave me and my subsequent impression of how little respect I feel I get in that store. (They have other types of bad customer service also).

It's BECAUSE I've worked retail that I reserve a right to be pissed off at the way some store staff treat me and others at times.

I was held to a very high standard which I bent over backward to meet, under difficult circumstances and my own not very good abilities to cope.

I was never EVER rude to a customer, nor even just indifferent -- I stuffed my feelings down, behaved patiently and kindly to ever customer, was yelled at and bullied by the bad customers, kept it all inside and melted down later at home. I know what's involved in working retail and as a customer I'm aware of it. Yet I get these shoddy treatments even though I'm a polite customer who also bends over backward to be an easy to deal with customer.

Retail sucks but just because I've been through it myself, doesn't mean I give a free pass to people who suck at their job's most basic requirement to treat everyone like they at least matter. People say if you judge retail workers it's because you don't know how hard it is -- not it's not. It's because I know how hard it is that I'm not prepared to put up with bad service when I see it.

Surely the truth is that nobody should have to work in retail?