Horror Stories From the Retail Department

Years back, I worked in a bookshop. We were having a sale in the centre of the mall and I was on duty to watch the tables and punch up any sales.

It was a quiet afternoon when an attractive girl walked into the jumble of tables and started looking around. I made some brief eye contact with her while she browsed. She smiled at me, I smiled back. A few minutes later she walked over, still with her coy smile and handed me a book. She asked me, "Have you read this? Can you recommend it?". She never took her eyes off me.

I took a glance at the book and said, "I'm sorry no, I haven't read this one."

Her face kinda fell and her whole tone changed. She left the book on the table, muttered a rather half-hearted thank you, and left. I was a little puzzled, then took a closer look at the title of the book: The Art of Seduction

Yeah, I kinda screwed that up.

daaaaaaaang.

After 11 years in retail, I've got plenty of stories to tell, but one of my favorites is from when I worked as the manager of the shoe dept for Kohl's. One Sunday I had an elderly lady come up to ask me about a particular pair of shoes. I told her that I didn't think that the store carried that particular shoe as it didn't sound familiar. She told me that she had just seen it that morning in the Sunday flier. I told her it was possible that not all stores got the same stock in, or that we simply hadn't received it yet. She got really belligerent with me, telling me it was false advertising, a scam, blah blah blah. I told her I was really sorry, there was nothing I could do for her, having just set the ad that morning, I knew what stock we had in the store and the particular shoe she was looking for was not there. She said something along the line of, "Young man, I have a copy of your ad right here, and unless you tell me where this shoe is at, I'll call your corporate office and report you," or something to that effect. She handed me the ad, I took a look at it, and politely told her she could go up the street to Mervyn's, whose ad it was, and ask them there if they had the shoe in stock that they were advertising, smiled and walked away from her.

...that's awesomesauce right there.

I only work in retail a few months out of the year as a second job... and it's the gift shop at Jones Beach, so I don't have TOO many horror stories. (Well, none that I wasn't already familiar with - 300lb ladies in thongs, old men in Speedos, people who don't speak English getting angry at me for not speaking/understanding THEIR language, etc.) I was the unfortunate witness to a mother coming in with her three little (eight and under) kids, telling them to grab a bunch of toys, and then walking out without even looking at the register. My coworker, a very petite high school girl, went out there to stop her, and the woman started hollaring and cursing - I thought she was going to take a swing at the poor girl, so I went out there. I asked what the problem was, she spit a few curses at me - I politely asked to see her receipt. More curses. "If you can't produce a receipt then I'm sorry but you'll have to return everything to the store." She started going through the roof, screaming and cursing - now I've got the attention of one of the park managers, who I used to work for directly. That would have been enough, but even more fun - two of the Park Police officers that I knew came walking up at the exact right moment. Without pointing out the situation at hand, I said hello to the officers and they were all "Hey, good to see you back again!" They walked away, I smiled back at the woman. "Now... can you show me your receipt, ma'am?"

Not another word from her - she told the kids to go put the stuff back, and they did. She got a polite (and somewhat smug) "Have a great day!" as she left.

My MAIN job is in the delightful field of Eminent Domain (aka "We need to build a road so we're taking your house, here's a big check, GTFO and have a nice day")... you can imagine I have a ton of horror stories there, but none are really interesting.

Originally posted by Dark Law Okay guys. Lets try not to scare this girl off. As it is now the few we had seem either scarred for life or are as bad as most of you (sorry DMK).

I had a few retail jobs in high school and college. The last one I had was at CompUSA. I worked there the summer after my freshman year and we had a guy that would come in every few weeks and return his computer and buy a new one. The guy was a total cheapskate and figured that this way, he could always have the latest and greatest system. It worked too because while he abused the hell out of the store's return policy, there was nothing we could really do about it.

"So-whor-ity" girls...that's priceless.

I did my time in call center hell. It was almost all bad. "How do you sleep at night?" "Go to hell!" Etc, etc.

A website I just ran into - Not Always Right - is quite entertaining.

D'oh!

"Hey, COME BACK!! I mean I haven't read it because I don't NEED to!"

I spent over an hour calling Walmarts in 2 states looking for a different color Power Wheels car for a customer. Apparently they really wanted the red one, even though we had a black one. RACISTS.

The story I tell is not for the faint of heart. If you are at all squeemish, DON'T READ THIS POST!!!!
You have been warned.

I have worked in the Restaurant/ Gas business for a while now, and have a ton of stories. Here is a gem for you all.

One day last year I had to open the gas station, 6AM, and work till 9. I then had to come back and run the Restaurant from 11-8, then close the gas station at 9.

At 10:20 AM I got a call from the gal who replaced me at the station. She sounded really frustrated. She told me to get back there right away. She wouldn't tell me why. I was worried that we were robbed. I run out to my car and drive to the station as fast as I could.

When I get there I still see the building was still standing. That was good. I get inside and the place looked fine. I asked her what was going on. She told me. I regretted knowing.

There is this man who is morbidly obese. Every year he comes and harasses us for money for a walk-a-thon. How he can do it is beyond me, because he is easily 500 lbs. Well when he came in to beg for money he had to go to the bathroom, really, really badly. He didn't quite make it to the toilet. After he was done in there he came out, with his pants all messy, and then begged for money. Then he left for a while.

I went into the bathroom and it looked like a bomb went off in there. It was all over the toilet, floor,and walls. The stench could kill a horse. It was my "fun job" to clean up this mess. It took me a half hour to do so, because I had to leave often to go outside to get air. As I stated to clean it up, he came back in. He then asked me if I had ever used slim-fast. I know I am a little chunky, but within my weight guidelines for my height. I said no. He then blamed what happened on slim fast. I just tried to ignore him and start cleaning up the disaster. While this was going on my business partner came in , and he was begging him for money, in his dirty pants. My business partner kicked him out of the store and banned him from coming back, because he wasn't a customer. He never bought ANYTHING from us. He sat on the bench outside (which we disinfected later) for a while, then left.

Oh and in the explosion I could still see undigested apple peals.