A netizen shared how she is quitting her retail job after 12 years because of how her and the team are being treated by customers.
Here is the story
I’m quitting my job in retail after 12 years because of the way the general public treat me and my team.
I can’t do it anymore. I’ve been a retail manager of cosmetics stores for 12 years. I went into this job because I love people, but now I just feel so utterly demoralised about the state of the human race.
I’ve lost count of the amount of times a customer has made someone on my team cry. They don’t get paid enough to deal with this. My team are a bunch of amazing human beings who go out of their way to be kind and helpful to every person who walks in the door, then a nasty customer will come in and crush their spirit and ruin their day.
If people are wondering why the customer service industries are so short staffed at the moment, it’s because of the way they get treated by customers day in day out, along with the fact that they don’t get paid much for what they have to deal with.
Customers seem to forget we are human. Recently due to Covid, we were so short staffed we had to close the shop for an hour to take a lunch break. We put a sign up on the window and everything. When we re-opened we had a queue of people to come in. We apologised to everyone and explained the situation. Some were nice about it but most were not. One woman in particular was incredibly angry. I said, “I’m sorry, are you actually suggesting we don’t take a lunch break?”
I’ve had people shout at me over things like lipsticks and eyeliners being out of stock. Another incident that comes to mind is when a woman was not happy with having to queue and reacted by throwing every single product in her basket at me.
Sometimes it’s just the little things. Like I’ll ask how someone’s day is going and smile at them and they’ll just say “Have you got x in stock.” If we don’t they’ll roll their eyes and walk off. Like is that how people talk to people outside of retail or is it because I work in retail that I’m not considered a human?
I’ll never forget having to go to work the day after my dog died and dealing with a mean customer. That was hard. We always get told in training “don’t take rude customers to heart, you never know what they might be dealing with.” Well same applies to us. Customers don’t know what we might be dealing with either.
I just wish everyone would treat others with kindness and respect.
Anyway, this is my last Saturday working in retail ever and I’m feeling really reflective. Can’t believe I made it 12 years. Onwards and upwards.