Retail/Fast Food Pet Peeves

[asexualien]

If you worked in retail or fast food, what are some of your pet peeves? It can be something that your coworkers do or even the customers themselves. 
 

I worked in both. My first ever job was at Dairy Queen (years ago), and I remember my manager telling me that I couldn’t have my industrial in. I had to change it to be 2 separate bars. I always thought that made no sense. We had a manager at one point with stretched lobes, and yet my industrial was a problem. I don’t get jobs that dictate what piercings a person has. It’s not like I was a cashier. I was making the ice cream and smoothies and stuff like that. You wouldn’t see me like 90% of the time. 
 

This post’s topic came to me because of something that happened yesterday. I work in retail as of the present. Why don’t customers read? Yesterday, a couple was buying some stuff, and the item they were planning to buy had cost $19.99. They were like “there’s a sign over there that says $8.99”. The sign doesn’t say that. It says “Starting at $8.99”. I know I told them that at least 3 times, and they’re still repeating that the sign says “$8.99”. I could feel my patience disappearing 😂This was an older couple. I know it’s not all older people, but I feel like it’s mostly them that does stuff like this. Luckily, this couple wasn’t the type to get aggressive about it. If they were then I wouldn’t know what to do. 
 

The last thing is that I hate when I’m the one that has to train people. They know how I am, and yet they still decide to have newbies follow me around and showing them what to do. Shouldn’t training be something the managers do especially during a time like now? It makes me wonder what they even really do tbh. They complain about there being so much freight, but I don’t see them grabbing a cart and helping. 
 

but yeah, what about y’all? 
 

edit: I forgot about some things. I hate it when people don’t put stuff back where it goes. It’s one thing to not put something back when you’re on the opposite side of the store, but there’s no reason for these customers to not be able to put toothpaste back where it goes when they’re on the toothpaste isle. At that point, they’re just being lazy. Also, I can’t stand people who steal and open stuff without buying. These customers been stealing (at this new location) since the day the store opened. It makes no sense. I constantly find open bags of chips and/or drinks on the shelves. Why can’t people just pay for things? If you broke then you need to be at home job searching. If you or your children are hungry then eat before coming into the store. It’s crazy how normalized this type of behavior is for a lot of people. It’s sad. 

[Lord Jade Cross]

*inhales deeply*

 

1)Customers that cant read

Go back to school, because clearly you cant read words or numbers

 

2) Customers that cant math

Im not asking you to solve calculus II problems, but theres no way in hell you should be allowed to have money, much less spend it, if you have to pull out your phone to add 5 + 7 and/or stare blankly at me, waiting to give you the answer

 

3) Entitlement

I dont give a damn about "the customer is always right" I dont get paid to be insulted every time you feel youre not getting your way

 

4) Incompetent supervisors

Serilously, is this a requirement? Do you sit for an interview, say "I dont understand my job but I will berate those under me for doing their job right" and get told "great! Youre hired"?

 

5) Lazy coworkers

Im not expecting you to be hauling ass 8 hours a day, but dont tell me that you couldnt do something in an hour, that took me 10 minutes to complete

 

6) Company incompetence

If there was an shipment that was supposed to be out by a certain hour and you didnt relay that information to the team on time, dont blame us for your short comings and expect it to be done yesterday

 

 

[a little annihilation]

i worked in jcpenney and the kohls. as lord jade cross said, istg the customer is NEVER right. they are basically always wrong. 

 

my biggest pet peeve which is partly the customer's fault for not being able to read but equally the company's fault for KNOWING the customers only skim read and taking advantage of it. this is a big thing at jcpenney and i'm sure other places too; they will have a table with products of varying prices and have all the prices listed in small numbers, but in BIG OBVIOUS NUMBERS say the lowest price in that range and then in smaller letters next to that say "starting at". obviously, customers would only pay attention to the big number, grab a bunch of items, and then throw a fit when not everything they chose is that lower price. the logic of the company is that the people will grab all the stuff and then when they have the items rung up go "oh well, it's a higher price but i still want it" and buy it anyways. of course, people being people, that is practically never what happens. what happens is that they go THAT'S THE WRONG PRICE as if i just insulted their entire family line and cursed their mother's grave. i being myself would usually try to explain it to them because i knew exactly what the problem was. one time a supervisor caught me explaining it and got mad at me. she said to always go check the price at the table first if they say there's a price discrepancy, which really annoyed me because i had been dealing with the issue with this specific set of products all week and there's no point in wasting time "checking" when i already know.  

[Gloomy]

My social anxiety and very possible autism makes pretty much everything about those jobs a lot harder than most full time office jobs I’ve had that required my bachelor’s degree in business/finance. I can handle spreadsheets, I can handle financial reports, I can’t handle a chaotic store/restaurant environment where I have to interact with and please a bunch of customers while everyone yells at me to work faster. Which is why I highly disagree with people who say those jobs are entry level, low skill, and easy. I’ve had a job where I was literally just entering numbers into Excel all day, THAT’S an easy and low skill job if you ask me.

[fuzzipueo]

I don't work retail per se, but I work in a Court Reporting Office, so we do offer and sell transcripts to attorneys. Most of the time these days, they're emailed out in electronic format, though we still get folks who want hard copy transcripts. Any way, the ones who get to me are the paralegals/secretaries who call for transcripts "they never received" even though those things went out weeks/months ago ... They get upset with me for not having their email address on the email*, often forgetting that I was never given their email in the first place. It's 2024 - shouldn't they know better by now? Like, instead of having the attorney give out their own email, they should be giving out their paralegal/secretary's email (to be fair, there are attorneys who do do this).

 

I do try to keep a list, but it's not as easy as some folks seem to think to keep it all straight. I've written it out by hand and made one that's typed out, only to have to write in new information by hand again. Also, checking old email to make sure I remember if someone else got a particular transcript.

 

_____________________

[ETA] * This isn't always true though, since some attorneys really aren't good with email stuff. Or just flat forget to forward the email to their people. It can lead to interesting phone conversations. LOL

Edited March 12 by fuzzipueo

[nutterwithasolderingiron]

when i worked retail. the shopping mall i worked in had a playlist of 8 songs that lasted 30 mins and would repeat indefinitely. i was working 8-6 every weekday and would hear the same songs around 20 times a day every day for 2 years. i'm at the point where i have a violent reaction if i hear shape of you - ed sheeran. also. the shops weren't allowed to put on their own music because it was against mall policy and it often meant the shop would get fined.