Tell us some of your nightmare stories in retail

I was just reading Lute's thread about her first day at waitressing, and though it might be fun to hear people's stories, or should I say nightmare experiences in retail, food service, or whatever.

Here goes:

There is a guy who comes into BB&B all the time to return stuff (there are a few that are chronic returners). He looks like he isn't the sharpest crayon in the box, but is very pleasant. He came in the other day to return 2 things. A set of drapes and a SKANKY @$$ bath brush that had an inch of soap scum on it. The bristles had soap stuck to them and were so worn they were unidentifiable. He claimed he bought it at our store, but didn't have a receipt (he did have the receipt for the drapes, however). I confirmed it with my manager that we don't sell those types of bath brushes. I was SO schieved that I went and washed my hands once he left.

Anyone else got any stories they'd like to share??

Ewwwww I'd wash my hands too. I haven't worked with customers much. I avoid that kind of work. One lady that brings her dog to be boarded each month always says we don't give it enough water and accuses us of feeding it treats that it isn't supposed to have. She knows she's lying though so she doesn't take it far.

I work retail (and have for going on 7 years now) and absolutely HATE IT :mad:

I worked in the Jr's department at a department store, 3 years ago, where you have many of your spoiled teenage girls go shop. Well we had many tasks to do in that department and one thing to do was to check the dressing rooms and clean them out. One day I did my rounds in checking the dressing rooms. Well I passed one.. It was clean, I passed another it was clean, and another it was clean... Or did I notice something? I took a step back to take a double take and there it was in the middle of the dressing room... "It"... Just sitting there disgustingly... I saw it and thought to myself, "That can not be, what i think it looks like." So I walked towards the item and yes it was... Some one was on their time of the month and yes.. Decided to make their personal dressing room a bathroom and left their digusting bloody tampon there. :eek: I mean who in their right mind could do such a disgusting thing!! OMG!! No shame... People like that make me sick. Want to know the worst part? The lady's restrooms were literally 5 "steps" away from the dressing room... Just 5 steps...

I'm working on my 7th year in retail and by God I think I'm going to kill someone if I don't get out soon. I can not stand retail and unfortunately this is the only type of job I can get in the city I live in with my school schedule. I hate retail, the customers treat us like servants and we should cater to their every whim. "I'm sorry *%&$#*$&, but I can't give you that bed for 50% off" :mad: /rant

Believe it or not, I like my job at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It's fun. There are some real doozies that do come into the store. But for the most part, the customers are pretty nice, with the exception of a few.

Oh boy was I mad last week..........
I work at a dog kennel, and a maltese mix and a golden come in to bored. You should have seen this little dog. The dog was in the worst condition I have ever seen. She had a severe yeast infection that made her whole skin lumpy. She had one of the worst spells I have ever spelled. And worst of all the lady blamed the dogs condition on the groomer because she had so many cuts. This dog was crawling in fleas and was so severely infected. You could tell this dog had to be breeded at least 10 times. We had a vet come in and told us it was the worst case she has ever seen. As my job I had to give the dog a bath and her skin was so bad I had to spread antibiotics all over her body. We reported her. When the lady came to pick the two dogs up, my boss had a stern conversation with her. Basically the lady's excuse was that she had cancer and she couldn't afford her dogs bill. But hmm the lady could afford a trip to Hawaii and a $200 boarding fee. :mad:

Well, I'm not old enough to have a job, but I do know something that happened to my cousin.
She used to work in retail at Proffitts, and there was this lady who used to go into the dressing room and POOP in the floor! Her excuse was she had some sort of IBS (irrital bowel syndrome) but my mom (a nurse) said she would have had runny poop, and my cousin said it wasn't runny it was solid.
Just EW!

Background:
I work at Chick-fil-A. We sell breakfast from 6:30-10:30.

A lady comes in around 2:00 and with a box of Chick-N-Minis (breakfast item, ONLY sold during breakfast hours) She opens it up and all that is there are the Mini rolls. She says that HOURS ago there were never chicken nuggets in the minis. She goes to Mrs. Pat, and older lady I work with. Mrs. Pat asks for my help in the ordeal.

I KNOW it was complete bullshit for several reasons.

1. There were chicken nugget breading crumbs inside of the rolls and in the box.

2. I had my BEST boards person on during breakfast. There's NO way in heck she would have forgotten to put nuggets in the box.



Company policy makes it where I have to refund if the lady requests, and I did exactly that. :(

Yes, I worked at a walgreens for a month, every SECOND was complete HELL and I'm not kidding you. First off, the dress code was rediculous for a store where people come in 1/2 dressed, literally. One day this lady came in wearing a pretty shear white shirt and no bra. ew. and we have to wear dress pants or a skirt and a nice shirt and no sandals and we can't eat a lolipop while we stick stickers on boxes and all that bu11$/-/!t.

ugh...i used to work at a taco bell and this guy came thru for the second time, and said his soft taco had onions when it wasn't supposed to. i DISTINCTLY remember making his food myself, becuase he had been the only one that was in the store at the particular time he came in. i was flustered when he told me and of course, as has been kfamr had mentioned, i told him we would gladly remake it. and this guy! he straight up says to me, "no you are going to remake it, AND give me my money back" i went back to being flustered and told him as politely as i could that i could not do any such thing. and he says to me, "then get me a manager, you stupid brainless little @#$%!" that was it. i replied to him (still as politely as i could, but with teeth gritted together and my face flushed), that a manager COULDN'T do it either, it was just not something we could do, but i told him for the 6th time that i'd remake it.
he CONTINUED to argue with me, and then before i knew what was going on, he had unwrapped his soft taco, hocked a giant snotty loogie into it, leaned forward and smashed it into my face, grinding it in. i rememebr the taco distinctly falling off of my face and making a huge SPLAT! as it hit the ground, and i broke out into tears. i went to the back where the manager was and she YELLED AT ME! which then resulted me running outside, and going into a massive panic attack, and then the manager fired me for the panic attack. the end.
dionne
PS...AND on top of everything else, i noticed when it was being ground into my face, that the soft taco had NO onions in it.

I can't begin to imagine working any food service because you really get a cross section of peeps you really don't want to be around.
However I've worked retail for 25 years from high end dept stores to really high end specialty stores and I can assure everyone that just cause they got money don't mean they have manners!!
First few years at Macy's I had the poop in the dressing room. I had the HUGE woman returnin a small bathing suit after five years saying it fell apart! :rolleyes: I had the crazy ass women RUNNING into a "one day sale" back when they weren't an every day occurance, RIPPING everything including the wigs off maniquines. People switching tags on designer jeans reading 14.99 like I wouldn't notice.
Then I "moved up in the world" to a super exclusive store as a buyer/executive and had women buying sets of six soaps at $25 and wanting them wrapped individually, which we couldn't/wouldn't do to avoid embarresment on reciepient, givers and our behalf when the reciepient tried to return one sixth of an item after xmas! Crazy people appearing at the gift wrap desk in Dec, three minutes after making their purchase (time is stamped on the reciept) wondering why their 15 gifts aren't ready to go! People appearing in the stock room wanting to "look around"!
I have a good friend who is a comedian and one of his jokes is, "I worked in retail for 2 days and had a revelation...the american public SUCK!" LOL
Harsh as a generalization. Unfortunately the bad ones stick with you more than the good. :( I always make an effort to compliment anyone who isn't on their cellphone talking to their girlfriends instead of taking my money at the register!
Kitten

I work at the local library and we get some winners in there too-believe me. Especially the smelly ones that come out of the 100 degree heat. Our library is more like a community center/homeless shelter.

However, after reading these stories, I'm standing up and cheering all of you for doing these jobs that I could never do. You're a very special group to endure such torture. dionne: I hate to say what I would have done to that guy--holy cow!! Some people are truly in need of some serious help :(

I spent 3 horrifying years as a department manager at a local Wal-Mart!! Wal-mart itself is great, Its the customers that suck!!! It was during the holiday season and had gone to th sporting goods dept to lend a hand at the register. A woman came over with her stuff placed it on the counte and began to check out. I was ringing up her items and there was a container of Pringles potato chips on the counter, all I did was ask if they were hers. She went nuts, saying that if they were hers she would have said so, that i needed to pay more attention ect...... all i did was say okay, sorry for asking. She once again goes nuts and is now telling me she will be throwing me into the plate glass display if i said one more thing to her!!! I couldnt believe it!! All i did was ask her if the chips were hers, and now she is threatening my life!!!!! upper management came over and escorted the woman out of the store, they came back and said I needed to go home, but they would have someone drive me because she had made numerous threats on my life, while being escorted out of the store! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??????

Kfamr,

You know the old saying about the customer always being right. Sucks sometimes.

I'm lucky in that BB&B has a "Pass The Buck" policy. Anytime, no matter what the issue is, there is a problem with a customer or whatever, we are encouraged to pass the buck to management. Makes my job a whole lot easier.

Dionne,

As far as the taco in the face goes, I would've called the cops and pressed charged. No one, and I mean NO ONE has the right to put their hands on you, let alone do what they did. That is considered assault and is punishable by law.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by critter crazy

I spent 3 horrifying years as a department manager at a local Wal-Mart!! Wal-mart itself is great, Its the customers that suck!!! It was during the holiday season and had gone to th sporting goods dept to lend a hand at the register. A woman came over with her stuff placed it on the counte and began to check out. I was ringing up her items and there was a container of Pringles potato chips on the counter, all I did was ask if they were hers. She went nuts, saying that if they were hers she would have said so, that i needed to pay more attention ect...... all i did was say okay, sorry for asking. She once again goes nuts and is now telling me she will be throwing me into the plate glass display if i said one more thing to her!!! I couldnt believe it!! All i did was ask her if the chips were hers, and now she is threatening my life!!!!! upper management came over and escorted the woman out of the store, they came back and said I needed to go home, but they would have someone drive me because she had made numerous threats on my life, while being escorted out of the store! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??????

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:eek:

i think what is wrong with most people is that they are angry at the world....i'd get into bad childhoods, etc. but that'd be more better off for my psych class, lol. no what i think it is, is most people are angry and they feel better if they take it out on someone they DON'T know, i.e. fast food people/retail. then i guess they can go on with their day, and pretend it never happened, yet feel yet a little bit better because they think they succeeded in making someone, however impossible that would be, more miserable than themselves. i would have to say the instance at taco bell with me, the guy defintely succeeded in doing so :( .....i guess they just think that if they're in a big enough city, HA! like they'll ever see the same person again. but then again, i guess now i have more patience with fast food people, if they mess up on my oder. i would defintely never DREAM of being as rude to someone as that guy was to me. :cool:

I used to work at a bookstore in a fairly large stripmall. We had a children's section and often parents would leave their child there while they browsed in other sections of the store :mad: OR other stores in the mall :mad: :mad:

Once, as we were closing at 6 on Sunday, there was a child left in that section after most of the other customers had left. He didn't know where his mom was and she wasn't in the store. It got to be well after 6 and we called the cops thinking he had been abandoned. Mom comes back around 7:30 demanding to know why we had called the cops and why we were closing early. :mad: :mad: :mad:

I don't know what happened after that from a legal standpoint, but I was told the office made a report.

I don't know what is wrong with some parents these days. They think that retails stores are comparable to day care. Maresche, I'm glad you called the cops. I would've done the same thing.

Retail is bad enough but make it a gift shop in a national park . Boy have I got stories to tell .

Corinna,

DO TELL!!! That's what this thread is all about!

I used to work the night shift (11 pm to 7 am) at a coffee shop. You know how they say "they only come out at night" It's true lol

We had this one guy who was probably in his 50's. his head was shaved except for a little patch at the back that was long and he wore it in a ponytail lol.

He HATED everyone that worked there.... except me. Lucky me. He told one girl he would skin her alive :O (as there are only two of us on the night shift we didn't start a scene. he really is harmless, just a little..... out there) He told another guy that he was too fat and that if he was in the army he would be killed because he would be too slow. he should lose 20 lbs. LOL BTW Mike did not need to lose any pounds lol. His father was the king of Sweden. He was married to a famous ballet dancer but she died years ago.

He told me one time that he was homeless because he built every house in the city and then people moved into them and now they refuse to let him into the houses he built. BTW, he was not homeless. he lived in a little apartment across the street. He says he owns every business in the city and told my boss that her car belonged to him and if she didn't have all the money she owed on it by the next day that he was going to repossess it. lol

He told me that he wanted me to MARRY him so I could have all the wonderful things he has. Then proceeded to hand me an american Penny and tell me that was a picture of him on the back. lol

There are so many more stories about him but I think this is a good start :D