We work endless, backbreaking hours for you. We have endless demeaning chores that we need to do daily despite what you may think our innocent job titles entail. We force a smile and a cheery “Hi, How can help you?” though the majority of us are having a rough go of things. Many of us are well educated and highly intelligent and just stuck working retail out of circumstance. We struggle to pay our bills, feed ourselves, our families and just plainly struggling to get by.
So when you walk into a store, a restaurant, a whatever-retail environment and don’t make eye contact when asking for something, don’t say “Hi, please, thanks, no thanks”, are rude, offensive, and treat as sub-human lackies just there to get your double-double just right and make sure the lettuce in your salad is cut up just right size, just remember that we are working hard for YOU. It’s our job. We don’t expect a song and dance, even just a smile will suffice to make a brutal eight hour shift just a little more worthwhile. We go home at night having made endless shit, served endless shit, taken endless shit and cleaned up disgusting shit (even YOUR shit).
Just remember that when you decide to ignore us, yell at us, swear at us, not tip us and demand the impossible of us, you are just making our lives worse than they probably already are.
Enjoy your day, your coffee made to perfection and remember to smile, it’s free! —Retail Workers Everywhere
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2012.
Who cares? You applied for the dead-end job for whatever reason fate dealt you and now you want to be acknowledged? Geezuz, will it never end 😉
i know it can be hellacious dealing with the unwashed masses, but remember, its not you, it’s them. hopefully, upon occasion, you get some grinnin empaths
I only know one place that has ‘smiles …. free’ on the menu.
Today in obvious news: retail sucks and people are fucking stupid.
instead of clicking thumbs, i’m going to use a checkmark, just to be clear ✔
OB, you lost me at “demeaning chores.” Fuck right off.
Pk, I feel for you. I think if you get another degree, you won’t have to work retail anymore. 😉
OB, shop online. Retail workers are just drones with zero initiative to become anything more. Now get back behind that counter bitch.
yep o.p., that you are, and as such, people should try to be nicer to you all. there are those that are real fucks to work with and for, but majority are decent folks, i have found. just trying to make an honest living.
you don’t work for me. you work for a paycheck. either learn to rise above it or find a job where you don’t have to engage with the public.
and, by the way, every job has it’s share of shit and lot’s of people have a rough go of things and put on a smile and go out to face the day. if you’re well educated and still working in retail, perhaps you should examine why that is instead of throwing yourself a pity party. some of us had demeaning chores since the time we were seven; they’re a part of life. boo hoo.
I think you’re reading too much into some people’s actions OB. People are wrapped up in their busy lives and aren’t “engaged” so much at times. That may be the reason for the monosyllabic replies you get and not that they think less of you.
I know retail sucks, because I myself worked retail for years while I was in University. Seriously, though, all jobs have their pitfalls, and whining about it isn’t going to make it any better. I would wager that the majority of people dislike their jobs at least some of the time. If you don’t like it, you are the only one with the power ot change your circumstances.
if it were ‘just that easy’… we’d all be working in our dream jobs.
duh…
it’s not.
it blows… it blows hating your job and not having prospects to move to…
or to even know where you want to go with your career… or a new career.
Stop telling people, “just change it”. it’s never that easy you douche.
perhaps, either accept your shitty position, work to change it, or END it.
End it all…
I agree with zed. People make it seem sooooooo easy to find a dream job. “Go back to school!”… yeah, that doesn’t guarantee anything.
Some people work some jobs because that’s all they can do at the moment. At least they’re working and not sitting on their asses on social assistance.
There’s no shame in working a retail job, and anyone who would treat these people like shit for the sake of treating a stranger like shit. Most people I’ve encountered in retail are lovely (especially the clothing stores I frequent). Yesterday I stopped by SS to get some tights at two women’s clothing stores and they were attentive, cheery and generally lovely at both.
I don’t remember being asked, let alone asked nicely, to stand in the bottom of a ditch for a ‘brutal’ 12 hours. Or to sit outside in a hurricane piling rocks for a paycheck. And when the day was done, there wasn’t a thank you, no smiles, just a gruff ‘I want you back in that ditch before sunrise tomorrow!’.
Retail is an easy job compared to some, and not having every single customer beaming with smiles is nothing to complain about. Be happy the dangers of your job don’t include broken ankles and hands and superficial burns, only grumpy people and monotonous tasks.
So If I fail to smile at you when my day is done, don’t take it personally. I’m digging that ditch for YOU!
And hay GV: I don’t work retail and never have! YAY!
I clearly shop at the wrong places, because in the last 10 years, I have not met more than 5 retail employees who even acknowledged customers until there was money to be taken…