Workplace Retail Hell - Stories of current and former retail employees

blah956

blah956

Member
Aug 16, 2009
6,339
5
#1
so i thought it'd be nice for those who currently work retail or have to share their horror stories or maybe even the best!

When I was 15, I worked for Foleys (before it became Macys). One day I was working in women's when a co-worker approached me and told me that a customer had just left a brown surprise in the fitting room O_O
She left immediately and management left it between all of us to figure out who would clean it.

I being the youngest was volunteered by everyone. My shift ended at 6pm. I was shoved the gloves and trash bag and was told to do it before I left. Disgusted, I called my mom and told her to pick me up as close to 6 and left without cleaning.

I was off the next 2 days so when I came back, everyone had "forgotten" about it but I never found out who did it. Probably morning maintenance.

There are more. Worked at a dept store last year, one lady would always come in and would never change her diaper. My friend didn't have a sensitive nose so he would put up with the smell and would help her.
 
#6
Gosh I have so many...an ongoing crazy event is this INSANE woman that comes in all the time! She goes through periods where she comes in every single day for like weeks. The crazy part is that she either puts shoes on hold and calls for like four days asking to extend the hold, then she never comes in. Or she buys shoes (and never signs up for our coupon rewards program even though she is always in there) and then she returns them the next day. She NEVER keeps the shoes she buys. Sometimes she even calls and asks what our return policy is, even though she must know if by now! When she puts stuff on hold she always says things like "I like to try them on in the afternoon because your feet swell" or "I need to check with my husband to see if I can buy them." Then she acts like she doesn't know any of the employees even though we always see her.
 
#7
Way back in college I cashiered in the summer at a large dept store. One summer I worked in the ladies dept and someone had left a huge pile of clothes in one of the dressing rooms and had peed all over them. WTF?? This was a long time ago so we didn't have dressing rooms that had to be unlocked like so many stores now.

Yeesh!
 
#8
this is more of an annoyance. i worked in the shoe dept..

a lady returned shoes when i started working. they were calvin kelin shoes, which we didnt' sell. so they never got sent onto the floor. well 6 months later, she returned wanting to buy the shoes again. um....wtf?

they were marked down and put on the clearance racks 4 months before! she literally wanted everyone in the stock room to search for her shoes. even after we told her we had a huge sale, even after we told her we mark down shoes we don't carry, even after we told her that we couldn't find them. she insisted everyone go to the back to find them.. um no.
 
#9
I once had a local STL "celebrity" yell at me because he confused me and my co-worker. I'm in my 20s with long red hair and my co-worker is in her 40s with short dark hair. He was screaming and accusing us of not hemming his pants. We used an original hem. But even if you couldn't "tell" that they were hemmed, um... if they were 4" too long before and then fit perfectly, then guess what... they've obviously been hemmed.

Another "celebrity" famous for her book being featured on Oprah, was also another piece of work. We already made an exception for her and agreed to return pants that she already worn to exchange for a smaller size because she didn't take the advice from the sales staff in the first place. We didn't have the smaller size and so we had to transfer it in even from another store. The SA helping her originally said it would by at least Friday. She came in FIRST thing Friday morning and was 1. rude that we asked her who she was 2. if she had already received a courtesy call that the item was physically in store. Then she started yelling that the pants needed to be here because it's FRIDAY. We firmly told her that we JUST opened and that UPS did not make its Friday delivery yet (very true). So the pants DID come that day, we gave her a courtesy call and the pants stayed on hold for like five days before she came to pick them up. Very rude.

On the positive stories, just yesterday I had a really effin' cute professional trumpet player come in, we chatted about music and he offered me free tickets to the symphony whenever I want to go. I get a lot of offers for free tickets/open bar parties so it's a pretty good work perk!
 
#10
I have several retail horror stories of some crazies. lol

First story:
A man came into my store and went straight to a certain area in the store. He had a plastic bag and started messing with it. He was also watching over his back. Very odd, and he did looked a bit off. But naturally, out of concern for him stealing something, and out of policy for greeting every customer no matter what, I went up to him and asked him if he needed any help. Then then yelled at me, and shouted something like "No I don't need any help!! Why are you asking me?!" and then said something crazy like "There are no angries in the box!!!" Yeah.....after that he stormed out and my coworkers and I were dumbfounded.


Second story:
Same store. Except this time this was the first customer that REALLY pissed me off. This customer came in with another man, they were both Asian (it's relevant, I'll explain later) and they even seemed to browse the store together never being more than 2 feet away from each other. They also came up to the register together, and the girl started asking questions about a certain promotion going on. The man interrupted her and started talking to her. But he was one of those guys who had a large tongue so he couldn't really annunciate properly. During this time my boss was also talking to the girl simultaneously. And the girl replied, "I don't understand what you're saying." I thought she was talking to my boss because she was facing my boss when she said that, so I asked her in Mandarin if she spoke Mandarin because then I could help her (I'm Chinese myself). The girl then replies to me in English and says that I'm rude and that it was stupid of me to assume that she did. My boss was surprised, because he too like me thought she was saying to HIM that she didn't understand what he was saying. He thought it was out of line for her to say that to me.

The story doesn't end there. The girl kept telling us that her friend was coming in to join in on the promotion. Another girl walks in, goes straight to my register and asks about the promotion. I explain to her, and the original girl says that they're going to do the promotion together. And the first thought that popped into my head was why would a complete stranger join in on a promotion with you. But before I could ask, the girl turns to her "friend" (yeah the new girl is her friend whom she didn't even say "hi" to when she came into the store so neither my boss nor I knew they were friends) and tells her to ignore me because "She's 'off'". I was FUMING at this point, so I stormed out into the back room.

Wow that was long. But yeah, she was HIGHLY disrespectful to me and to make things ironic, everyone who was working at the time thought SHE was the "off" one. I had never been so blatantly insulted by a customer when all I did was try to be as helpful as possible.


Third Story:
It wasn't my store, but my old boss's store. A little boy and his father walked in. The little boy needed to go pee -really badly. The father asked my former boss if they had a bathroom they could use. My former boss said no, but that there's one next door in Chipotle that's for the public. The father says f*ck that and tells the boy to pee IN THE STORE. The boy starts to pull down his pants when my former boss SHOUTS at the two to get out, and never come back.


There are some CRAZY people out there!!!
 
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#11
This happened about two years ago when I worked in retail. We had a lot of regular customers that I recognized. One man who came in frequently always smelled very strongly of pot. I'm pretty sure he was a dealer. Whenever he came in, he would always buy jeans. For the most part, he wasn't a difficult customer. However, one time he came up to my register wearing the pants that he wanted to purchase. He had tried them on in the fitting room and apparently, he didn't take them off after trying them on. I wouldn't have minded ringing him up for the purchase by just scanning the tag but this pair of jeans had a sensor on them so I needed to remove it for him. I politely told him that he would have to go back to the fitting room to change back into the pants that he came in with because he could not walk out of the store unless I removed the sensor for him. He was being difficult and my request put him in a bad mood and he asked me why he had to do that. I explained to him that if he did not have the sensor removed, the alarm would sound off at every store he walked into. So he stared me down and said nothing. I was nervous because I thought he wanted to hit me or something. But then suddenly, he took his shoes and pants off in front of the entire line of customers and everyone in the store and he tossed the pants at me without saying a word. So he stood there in his underwear while I rang up his purchase and removed the sensor. Then I gave him back the jeans and he put them back on in front of everyone, paid for his purchase, and walked out of the store in his new jeans with his old jeans slung over his shoulder. The strangest thing was that nobody said anything about what just happened after he left. The only remark I heard was from my manager and she just said, "What was that?" I'm so glad I don't have to work retail anymore. I have way more stories but that one sticks out the most in my memory.
 
#12
OMG!! This is a GREAT thread!! :lol:

These stories are unreal! I would have never thought these CRAZY things actually happened!! I cannot believe people could be that crude! YUCK! POOP and PEE... Geez!!

I'm glad I'm not in retail... Wow!
 
#14
pee. omg..

i was a customer in Victoria's Secret. I was shopping near the fitting room. A lady who was in line for the fitting room had her son with her who told her he needed to go to the bathroom. She told him to wait!! He said he HAD to go and the mother ignored him!

So the boy (10 at most) proceeded to pee IN LINE for the fitting room!! and the mother did nothing! she was upset and said that he was going to stay like that while she tried stuff on; as if he purposely pee'd to get her out of line. WTF it wasn't even busy.

I am now horrified and am shocked whenever I see people walk around a store barefoot.
 
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