Five Reasons Why I Hate Working in Retail

Five things I hate about retail

Managers: they are directly influencing if you hate your job. If you have any fun at work. Many people at corporate say work isn’t supposed to be fun. Fun is possible. I’ve done it before. I can be a hard worker but have fun at the same time. When I’m having fun, a lot gets done, the customers are happy because they see you’re happy, and a better work place environment for everybody. A positive manager can change the entire atmosphere of a store. I would hate the manager that would give us busy work. Then another manager comes up and says, that busy work I’m doing, I shouldn’t have done that. Then I say the other useless manager told me to set the tvs like that. And what the hell. They would yell at us for existing. They would nitpick anything they could say. I get if I’m not supposed to talk if there is customers around, but if there are no customers around, then what is wrong with that? You don’t need to helicopter around the departments to make sure people aren’t talking. I have things to do, I don’t need stupid busy work.

#2 is customers who are barely below managers. The customers can make or break my day. Managers are number 1 because it’s guarenteed that they will be there again whereas the customers are random bag. There are really cool customers that understands what my job is, that I’m a human being and treats me as such.. They treat me with respect, they care about my opinion. A terrible customer will come in and act like everything I said is a lie. Why don’t the customer google it before coming in before that’s how you’re going to treat me. Depending where you work depends on the frequency, and at Circuit City and the gas station, this was moderate. There is constantly rude people coming in the store, not believing what I say, not beliving things are out of stock, things you show on a computer and ask for a manager, they’re looking to get me into trouble, they’re cussing me out. They’re going to make my day miserable. That’s why customers are near the top of the things I hate for retail. Customers look down on you, even if the customer is unemployed. It screws with my mentality and flushes self esteem down the toliet.

Third, when a customer gets close to an associate like me I’m supposed to acknowledge them. This is like a NPC in Elder Scrolls V or Final Fantasy. “How are you?” “How can I help you?” Its a corporate direction, but its the wrong corporate direction. Corporate always seem like they’re non-humans like they’re out of touch! They think certain types of marketing will work, when they don’t? Circuit City went bankrupt in 2008. They think acknowledge people will make them buy stuff like calling them guests make them feel more welcome to which is kinda creepy. Corporate is a weird overlord that you never really see. Its text on a page 9 times out of 10, and I need to follow it blindly or suffer severe consciences. They could tell you a lot of crazy stuff that you’re not supposed to be doing during Covid 19.

Scheduling. Most people who are temporate workers don’t get guaranteed days off. When I get days off, they’re not together. I never get that relaxation period where I fully decompress. It’s like Sunday. I can’t stay up late. I have to worry about the next day. I can’t really relax during the day. Saturday is great. I can go outside on Saturday. I can do whatever I want. I can stay up late. Friday is a close second. I can stay up late on Friday. I’ll never fully relax unless I have Saturday and Sunday off. If I was part time, I don’t know the hours every week at Circuit City. It takes a lot of time and effort to get a full time job at Circuit City. They cut it close to forty hours a week so they don’t have to give me benefits. Corporate does a lot of stuff so I don’t get benefits. There are a lot fo people in retail over 26 that need health insurance benefits, because they’re not on their parents insurance anymore. There are a lot of elderly who work at Circuit City who work there due to health care.

Number 5 is the dread that I’m never going to get out of retail. The likelihood that this job will be my job forever. I would go home, drained, not wanting to do anything, just die on the couch and play videogames! Ignoring my voices that this could be my job forever. This is when at Circuit City, I was surrounded my middle age employees and elderly working there for 15+ years. If I have any of those 20 year pins, I’m screwed. I lost the game theory of life and there is no do-over. If you’re in retail for 20 years, I feel for you. I have a college degree. Without a college degree in the 2000s, I could still feel the dread of staying in retail forever.