Alt text: a text post that reads: Work in retail long enough, and you’ll eventually realize the rules for dealing with Customers are exactly the same as dealing with the Fae:
- Avoid eye contact.
- Never reveal your full name.
- Accept nothing They offer you.
- Never verbally agree or disagree with anything They might happen to say.
- To apologize is to acknowledge a debt owed.
- Under no circumstances are you ever to thank Them.
- Remember that They are incapable of reading signs in human languages.
Trouble with the last one is that most of them can, so you can have a full month of getting used to people obeying signage only to suddenly deal with a dozen different customers who will not only ignore a sign placed at eye level saying “We Are Closed” but will pry open the door (if possible) and scale a full barricade to get in, and when you track them down and tell them what the damn sign said they insist that you should have put the sign somewhere obvious and that it’s actually your fault that they didn’t know they were breaking and entering.
My first job was in a grocery store deli, and let me tell you that is the worst job to have if your mental health sucks. My last few months there were spent hoping to get hit by a bus so I didn’t have to go to work. My last two weeks were the worst two weeks of my life. The customers I dealt with were some of the meanest people I’ve ever interacted with, all over a $7 bag of gross fried chicken and pasta salad.
This was a several years ago, I have since gotten a job in IT that doesn’t make me want to die, but this reminded me of one of few funny stories from my time in the deli:
Remember that They are incapable of reading signs in human languages.
We had a Lemon Capellini salad available. Capellini. Big sign in front of it, can’t miss it. Pronounced exactly how it looks. Capellini.
More than half of the people who ordered it could not say that word. A lot of people would stumble through the first two syllables and give up. Some people would throw in some extra letters and create a new word on the spot. Most people avoided saying the word entirely (“lemon salad”). At least one person asked for “lemon speghetti,” and I think I had two or three people ask me how it’s pronounced.
Capellini.
Oh, I know this fun.
Creme cakes are generally part of my duties once every day or two. I have been asked what they are in so many ways.
“What’s a ‘cram’ cake?”
“Crem-me”
“Crime”
“Cree-me”
Sometimes it feels like they go out of their way to get their weird pronunciation out. We make our banana bread loaves using the same mix. The price label, the signage, the advertisements in the local paper all call it “banana bread”. It looks like a loaf of fucking banana bread.
I have been asked about “Dem 'nana crem cake things” so many times. What’s worse is, there’s an actual listing in our books for a banana creme cake. It’s not currently something we make, but it was at some point. Sometimes I don’t know if they’re just confused, or asking for a product we haven’t made in almost 20 years, because they’ll sometimes do that, too!
I would have to struggle not to pronounce the creme like they do in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. “Crrrem.” Which is ridiculous.
Are you me? Same story here, grocery store deli turned IT. Rotisserie chicken grease is a smell I will never forget. That and the people who ask for chipped meat, they can all fuck off and just buy a block of meat and a cheese grater.
Wasted 3 awful years of my life doing that shit.
that is the worst job to have if your mental health sucks
Retail is terrible even if your mental health doesn’t suck. I worked in fast food for 20 years and several times a week I’d tell my wife “I hate that fucking restaurant”. I was often stressed and burned out, was driven to therapy twice… I work in an office now and it is so much more relaxing.
… I don’t work with customers and that’s exactly how I deal with by coworkers.
And people I randomly meet throughout the day (including eg employees at a store).
For me these are just rules on how to deal with humans.
Now if I see a cat that’s a completely different story:
- I’ll maintain eye contact (and blink slowly),
- give them my full name and address for purposes of visiting,
- will accept headbutts,
- will actively agree with their meows & acknowledge just how right they are,
- will apologise when I eventually have to leave,
- will thank them for their time (with some more pats),
- will live in the knowledge we fully understood each other in our little talk.
Additionally I will vow to visit again.
eternally grateful to live in a place where people are more likely to help retail workers do their job
Me too. God bless the Appalachian mountains.
I’ve probably met more mouth breathing, lead paint eating morons (myself included. As a matter of fact, at one time I was a t-1000 Liquid Metal mercury from 50 thermometers in my hand moron) than most people will ever encounter in 10 lifetimes. I can count on one hand just how many of those people were truly bad people.
If I have a visibly heavy load at work, it can be annoying how many people wander up and say, “hey ‘ere buddy. Yew gawn need inny hep wittat? I’ze just checkin’.”
Open the hood of your car and you can summon an entire neighborhood. For real, need directions in the Appalachians, just stop somewhere with houses, open your hood and spend a few minutes staring at your engine.
Open the hood of your car and you can summon an entire neighborhood. For real, need directions in the Appalachians, just stop somewhere with houses, open your hood and spend a few minutes staring at your engine.
It’s important to note that “the Appalachian mountains” span thousands of miles / kilometers across the United States and Canada and there aren’t many generalizations that hold up for folks across that entire span. That may not be clear to a lot of folks, especially those not familiar with the eastern USA.
Of the parts I’m familiar with, mostly the southern parts, I would say that advice probably works best if you already fit in enough that you might appear to be “one of them” versus if you are visibly a minority, particularly if you stop some place outside the more liberal towns and cities. I can tell you for sure that many peoples’ demeanor changes for the worse if/once they find out or assume you are gay and there are parts where you will find yard and road signs that specifically are anti-lgbt.
Granted, I’m not trying to paint the whole population of that 2,000+ mile swath of land as all being rabid bigots and racists either, just that for people reading that advice, I would say “your mileage my vary.”
I’ve been that guy at a computer store. Had already found what I needed on my own since I was quite familiar with the store and was browsing a different isle to look at the shinies. Overheard a customer ask a salesperson what the difference between product x and y was, which were marked very similarly on the box but one was something like 30-50% more.
I noticed the salesperson become quite unsure of what this specific technical difference was, so I added the quick TLDR paragraph of what the generalized difference was and what words the manufacturers use to differentiate them (since there were several product pairs that matched both classes elsewhere on the isle).
Customer says “oh ok that makes sense”. I forget which one he decided on (I think it might have been the more expensive one kek), but the salesperson put his commission tracking sticker on the selected box and the customer wandered away, hopefully happy. Salesperson turns to me sheepishly “Um… I guess you probably don’t need help?” I responded “No, I’m just browsing, but do you want to put your sticker on this gizmo I found in the bargain bin over there?” He seemed happy with this arrangement, adds the commission sticker, and we part ways.
…did I inadvertently make a pact with a different type of fae?
chaotic good fae, bound by their nature to help anyone they reasonably can
great idea for a paladin honestly:
No patron, just their inherent nature that compels them to do good and they level up from doing good. Bonus points if they’re slightly reluctant about it, but like it is their nature so they still like doing it but every time they see someone struggling with something they and their party sighs because they have to spend 10 minutes helping out unless they can come up with a good excuse not to.
I do this.
I used to work in grocery, and I know how to do the job quite well, even after being out of the industry for a long time. When I come up to a shelf that I know the workers have recently done up to look proper, I will take what I need, then fix the shelf so it looks the same when I leave.
If I spot a box of product behind the box I just took the last product out of, I’ll toss the empty in behind and bring the full one forward, because I’m not a neanderthal.
Grocery workers aren’t paid enough as is and they have enough work without me adding to their workload. I loathe anyone who picks up products, then leaves them elsewhere in the store, especially if it’s something perishable like meat, dairy, or frozen goods. Fuck those people. Is it really so hard to either take it back to where you found it, or at least find an employee and ask them to return it so it doesn’t spoil? Don’t be a lazy fuck. You have to go talk to the cashier when you check out, so give it to them. If they let it spoil, that’s not your fault nor your problem, just try. FFS.
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Time flows strangely around them: You’ll get trapped in a conversation for 30 minutes, but when you look at the clock only 5 minutes have passed.
You could swear they only arrived 2 minutes ago, but they have been “waiting for an hour!” -
Do not shake their hand lest they trap you in their embrace. (From experience)
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In order to banish them you must deny them 3 times (at least)
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They have an obsession with the power of names. “Do you know who I am?” Or “I know (owner’s name)” will be used as if the words have power on their own.
