Behind the Register - Retail Employee Stories

[Emiroo]

I worked at Blockbuster the 4 years I was in college and I lost count of the number of times I got called a Mother F-er over a $2 late fee. We had our fair share of busted shoplifters as well as the weekly drunk frat guys looking for porn (which we didn't have). There are several other amusing anticdotes I could relate, but insead I offer this advice:

 

Trust me on this one thing: Never, ever, ever work somewhere with a children's play area that has a ball pit. That is of course unless you like using bleach to clean $hit (literally) off hundreds of plastic balls at least once or twice a week. I was never happier than the day our store got rid of that thing.

[paintballer]

Blockbuster with a Ball Pit?!? Cool!

 

 

I work at a local Quick mart Gas station. I just stock shit and clean, only been robbed twice

[spaceace12]

I work at a grocery store adn the state of Indiana has electronic food stamp cards instead of actual paper stamps (does anyone still use those?). For some reason teh state of Indiana went cheap on the cards and they don't work (half of them) and have to enter them in manually.

 

One thing I hate is when someone has a cart and pushes it to the end of the parking lot because they are walking.

[ParkTrips]

Trust me on this one thing: Never, ever, ever work somewhere with a children's play area that has a ball pit. That is of course unless you like using bleach to clean $hit (literally) off hundreds of plastic balls at least once or twice a week. I was never happier than the day our store got rid of that thing.

True that. I worked at an FEC that had one, gotta love when a kid has "an accident".

 

One thing I hate is when someone has a cart and pushes it to the end of the parking lot because they are walking.

hahahaha thats awesome, in a really stupid, lazy way

[paintballer]

I work at a grocery store adn the state of Indiana has electronic food stamp cards instead of actual paper stamps (does anyone still use those?). For some reason teh state of Indiana went cheap on the cards and they don't work (half of them) and have to enter them in manually.

 

One thing I hate is when someone has a cart and pushes it to the end of the parking lot because they are walking.

 

I always wondered, Do you mind if the carts aren't in the corral thing? Like in the garden or curb or something?

[RCFreak]

I'm pretty sure I got the link from here, but (The Customer is) Not Always right!

[Homeboy23]

^ Thanks for posting that site. I loved this one:

 

Customer: “There is a big va**** on the screen and I can’t get it off.”

 

[ebl]

^^ Ditto. A lot of laughs await there. Diana works in retail and has come home with some funny stories. It's unbelievable how dumb the public can be.

 

Eric

[Chris Benvenuto]

^ Thanks for posting that site. I loved this one:

 

Customer: “There is a big va**** on the screen and I can’t get it off.”

 

 

Hilarious! OMG! I can only imagine how the rest of that call went.

[spaceace12]

I work at a grocery store adn the state of Indiana has electronic food stamp cards instead of actual paper stamps (does anyone still use those?). For some reason teh state of Indiana went cheap on the cards and they don't work (half of them) and have to enter them in manually.

 

One thing I hate is when someone has a cart and pushes it to the end of the parking lot because they are walking.

 

I always wondered, Do you mind if the carts aren't in the corral thing? Like in the garden or curb or something?

 

From the four years working there, somewhat. Depends on the weather, if it is nice, I don't mind walking anywhere to get a cart. I am working and not inside. If the weather is bad, yes. More often than not, if it is close, I don't mind.

[dandaman]

If we're counting fast food here... I worked at A&W for the past two years, and I can still recall:

 

- An old man accusing me one January eve of continually shutting off and turning on the heat, despite his sitting directly next to the front door.

 

- MANY customers whom I must have gotten at least a secondhand high off of upon their pulling up to the window.

 

- One of those customers ordering, and I quote, "Uh... six burgers... and... and three burgers... and some Fritos."

 

- A regular customer who was very old and mentally handicapped who would park his minivan on the far side of the drive-thru, get out of his car and walk up to the window as if it were the old drive-in days. (Thankfully he always ordered the same thing, so we had his order out the window before he could affect other cars.)

 

- A horde of 40 people coming in 5 minutes before closing on a Sunday night, with 2 people in the kitchen and 1 server (guess who?). I served 'em all with a smile despite the craziness and I made $12 in tips and even a mention on our local radio since apparently, one of the 40 was a host of the morning show. Good karma, I suppose.

[astroworldfan1]

While working at my dad's restaurant, I had a customer demand that I put her food in a paper bag instead of a plastic bag. Why? She claims the food cooks longer in a paper bag.

 

I've also had customers phone in their order and say, "Can you have it on my table when I get there?"

[AllenA07]

Ok well I've got a story from when I worked at SFMM, not retail but it fits here:

 

The most common problem I would encounter was from people needing directions. I generally didn't mind helping out and directing people where to go however sometimes people were really not paying much attention:

 

This exchange took place directly across from Goliath, we're talking 20 feet from the entrance:

 

Guest: Hey could you help me find where I'm going.

Me: Sure

Guest: Where is the Goliath.

Me: Umm right there (I point to the giant letters directly next to us.)

Guest: Noooo The Goliath!

Me: Again sir, I think it's right there.

Guest: Noooooo damn it, I'm looking for the Goliath, the big one!!!

Me: Sir that is it, I promise you that is it.

Guest: I want the Goliath, I saw it from the parking lot. The white one, why are you playing games with me?

 

At this point I just give up and direct the guy to Colossus. What gets me is why would he assume we'd name two of the coasters Goliath?

 

Lets see, among other things that went down while I worked there came during cheer comps. A guy gave failed to que up the music correctly and then told me to take blame for it. I didn't because this was a competition.

 

I think though my favorite moments were when I would have people flirt with me. Not sure what it was, but when I was working the Fright Fest cooking show, I scored more phone numbers from all the weirdest (and generally) grossest girls you could ever imagine. One girl went as far as inviting me back to spend the night at her place after work. Fun times.

[JEAPUgrad]

Not working in retail but working as a Front Desk Agent for a hotel, the best story I have was from the morning after a wedding.

 

An older woman, had to be about 80 years old, came to the FD and complained about noise from the room next to hers.

 

Turns out the room next to her was the Presidential Suite where the Bride and Groom "slept".

 

She started out by going into explicit detail word for word repeating what the Bride was screaming....

 

"Oh Derrick, stop, stop, stop, I'm not that flexible."

 

She continued with Derrick's quotes "Yea you're a dirty girl, suck my *bleep* (penis). You're going to take it all and you're going to like it."

 

By this point I was laughing my ass off, literally, on the floor, struggling to breath because she was so frank about the dirty talk.

 

She would go on to say "F~ even in my heyday, I couldn't f~ like that. They went at it all night long. They weren't making babies, they were f-ing like the world was about to end."

[bdstrom]

I used to work at the helpdesk and you won't believe how idiotic callers are. Makes you want to crawl through the phone line and strangle them! I will never forget this lady who yelled on top of her lung, preaching us that VPN does not require Internet access. *sighs* We hung up on her and fortunately, it was an interior helpdesk, which means we report her behavior to her own manager.

 

Also I really hate chatty cashiers. I have a story about this chatty one at Target that I really want to slap but I think this thread is about person who has experience with working with customers...

[monsterfan99]

While not retail, working in a library is the same thing without the cash. I worked in one for 3 years during college and ever semester it was the same. Someone would come in on Wednesday the week before finals and this would follow:

 

Me: Hello, can I help you

Them: Yes, can you use the books here(referring to the entire library)?

Me: Yes, most can.

Them: Ok then, I need a book.

Me:ummm... is there a specific book you need?

Them: You know, a book.

 

Once we found them a book after 30 minutes of confusion, they would say something along the lines of "Wow, I never knew this library had books we could use."

[spaceace12]

How many store workers been outside when you notice someone has emptied their smoke butts from the ash tray in the parking lot? It doesn't happen as much at the store I work at as we have a much nicer clientale.

[ParkTrips]

nah, around here its the tobacco from the swisher they just bought... as the song goes, "gut it, stuff it, light it, puff it"...