(nffcnnr)
Ever wonder why you get the stink-eye from that girl at The Gap? Or why that dude at American Eagle groans when he sees you approaching a table of clothes? There’s a good chance it has something to do with your lack of table manners.
Over at TheGloss.com, they present a list of 5 Reasons You’re a Sucky Shopper, and right at the top is this:
An immaculately folded pile of graphic tees should remain immaculately folded. Do you know how long it takes to fold those shirts? A long fucking time. Do you know why? Because there are certain standards we have to adhere to while folding (with a really fun folding board might I add) so the pile can be immaculate enough to lure you to it. You mess it up, you make it worse not only for the people working there who have to stay until 1:30 in the morning cleaning up your mess (yea, happened last night … feel bad about it), but also for your fellow shopping peers. No one wants to try something on or even look at an item that comes from a pig sty. You ruined another shopper’s opportunity to admire a really great and comfortable striped shirt. You’re a mean person, that’s what you are. So here’s what you do. When going through the immaculately folded piles of clothing to find your size, you gracefully search for the tags that are sewn to it by the collar. When you find what you’re looking for, carefully remove the shirts on top of it, keeping them folded, take your selection and then return the folded shirts to its pile. You’ll annoy me less.
5 Reasons You’re a Sucky Shopper [TheGloss.com]
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Once I get past the snark and angry tone of a lot of these rants, I do see something valuable. There really is a lot of inconsiderate behavior on the part of restaurant patrons, retail shoppers, etc that makes life less pleasant for both employees and fellow consumers.
Is it really such a bad thing to read something from the “other side” and end up reflecting a bit on what you might be doing that isn’t fair to other people?
In this case, being a “good shopper” doesn’t mean magically finding your proper size, thereby leaving the whole pile undisturbed. It means not pulling the whole thing apart to find one item, and then not even attempting to fix up what you’ve done.
Snark and anger aside, I don’t see what’s so bad about someone saying, “hey, you’re making my job unnecessarily harder, and perhaps you didn’t realize it until I spoke up about it.”
You, my friend, just hit the nail on the head.
Eh T-shirts are somewhat easily handled. It’s more of the fitting room and register where you get the worst. People will buy sets, try to swap sizes (e.g. Small top, Large bottom) and then have the guts to get mad at me when I tell them they can’t do that. You can normally tell when a person does this, they bring 9 different pj sets with them into the fitting room, and half of them come to the register on the hangers. I’m not dumb, and I won’t sell them to you like that. If you’re two different sizes top and bottom? Get separates, because no one appreciates buying a mismatched set.
I generally don’t mind customers looking through the piles, you can browse all you want. However, you start picking up stuff and engaging in a panty war with your friend is not acceptable. Especially when you say in another language WHICH I CAN UNDERSTAND, that you’re making the mess/fight to confuse the sales associate so you can steal a bunch underwear and a bra is NOT OKAY.
My struggles with the stupidity and lack of courtesy from customers led me to create a blog dedicated to these people that have tormented my life for over a decade.
It’s called Retail Ramblings. I don’t want people to think I’m just a spammer so I won’t post the link here. If you want to read more stories about the absolutely crazy things customers do, just go to google and search Retail Ramblings. It’s the first page that comes up.
And in response to most of the people here who’ve said things like, “Shut up, it’s your job,” I’m going to post one of my entries from that blog.
First and foremost, let me say that we, the employees of the customer service field, are human beings just like the rest of you. We have families, friends, lives, and bills. We have good times and bad, great accomplishments and horrible tragedies. Just like you, we do have emotions, and just like you, sometimes our emotions can get the best of us.
I’ve heard it said by many people that if you work in the service industry, you should be prepared to always put on a happy face and give each customer the most pleasant and wonderful shopping experience they’ve ever received. Typically, those same people say that if you aren’t prepared to perform that way, then the service industry isn’t for you. This, oh arrogant customer, is a crock.
There are very few people who work at Walmart because their dream was to spend their career stocking shelves at Walmart. It’s quite unlikely that the guy who makes your burger at Burger King does it because it was the greatest aspiration he had for his life. Sure, there are people out there like that, but the number is likely to be something like one out of every thousand.
The majority of service workers are doing the job for two reasons: They needed a job, and (insert company name here) hired them. Plain and simple.
The common notion out there seems to be that if we don’t like working customer service jobs, we should get out of that field. Right, because it’s just THAT simple. Not everyone has a degree to get a job in their preferred field. Not everyone has the money to GET a degree in their preferred field. And while a degree isn’t necessary to get a job, the majority of the most easily accessible jobs out there involve customer service in one form or another.
For that matter, many don’t even HAVE a preferred field because they haven’t yet discovered something that they really enjoy doing. It took me four years after high school to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. In the meantime, when you’re a teenager with no work experience under your belt, who is going to hire you? The answer, of course, is the customer service industry. Sure, there are others here and there that might want to take a chance on an inexperienced teenager, but the majority of job opportunities come from the service field.
And that’s what most customers don’t seem to understand. We are just working our way through college. We’re working a second job to pay bills. We’re trying to buy cars, pay off student loans, pay auto insurance, etc. We’re not trying to sell you a pack of paperclips at Staples because we have some kind of absurd passion for office supply products, we’re doing it because it was the job we were offered, and it pays the bills – or some of them, anyway. You can’t expect us to be all happy-go-lucky about leading you to the toilet paper aisle or super-sizing your french fries. It’s not exactly a very fulfilling lifestyle, but for most of us, it’s a temporary necessity. If you told an unhappy retail employee to get another job if they didn’t like customer service, they’d likely respond with, “I’d love to. Who’s hiring?”
Then there is the human factor that no one ever seems to take into account. As I said, we are people with lives just as much as you are, and we experience emotions too. I remember a day when I worked at CompUSA where I almost got in trouble because some over-sensitive customer got all worked up over something that wasn’t even about her. We had three long lines at all the registers and we were trying to get people out as fast as we could. One of our salesmen brought up a cart full of stuff – a computer, monitor, printer, etc – for me to ring up. Then he decides he forgot something and runs off, telling us to wait a minute. I started to get pretty annoyed because we had a lot of people waiting and the salesman had stopped my line dead. Well, this customer saw me shaking my head in disgust, and when the salesman returned, she demanded that he summon the manager because I was “huffing and puffing” over having to ring up their sale.
I didn’t have a problem with her before that, but you can be sure that AFTER she jumped to that absurd conclusion, I was pretty ticked off at her.
If an employee is taking a personal call at the cash register, most customers get annoyed. What if it is an emergency? What if they’re getting an update on a sick relative? What if the babysitter just called to tell them the electricity had been shut off? Customers have no idea what’s going on in these people’s lives, yet they whine and complain if they aren’t helped in less than thirty seconds. And should something happen that offends them, nothing less than the unemployment line for the offending employee will satisfy. That’s right, if someone loses their cool and tells you to “Shut the hell up,” you respond by demanding that person’s job. Should the employee have said that to you? No, of course not. Should he lose the ability to pay his bills and feed his family for it? Absolutely not. We are human beings. We have emotions, and we make mistakes. Get your heads out of your rear-ends and move on with life.
And while we’re on the subject of pay, let’s talk about the money issue. Many customer service employees work two jobs. Sometimes three. Why? Because we get paid next to nothing while the world is expected of us. Take my cashier job at CompUSA, for example (the old CompUSA, not the current one owned by TigerDirect). For $7 an hour, we were expected to sell Product Replacement Plans, Training Classes, Tech Services, Unmatched (Another phone/training service), CompUSA Credit Cards, Add-on products, and AOL. The phrase “Ask Every Customer” was pounded into our heads multiple times daily. Our numbers were closely monitored, and we were ripped in half when we didn’t reach our goals. And don’t be so foolish as to think that we were given commissions or spiffs for those things. For a short time, commissions were a part of the CompUSA pay structure, but they were so small it was laughable (we’re talking $10 for meeting your goals for a week), and they didn’t apply to cashiers anyway. So, given all of that, how enthusiastic and happy can you really expect an employee to be?
Staples was the same way. Their company is trying to position their “Easy Tech” department to be a contender with Best Buy’s Geek Squad. Yet the only “technicians” they hired while I worked there were recent high school graduates who were not certified. Why no certification? So they could pay them $8.00 per hour, of course. Honestly – what kind of quality tech work can you expect from that kind of employee?
Then we have to face the ramifications of all that. We ask every customer to buy every service we offer because our bosses demand that we do it. So, of course, every customer gets angry that we’re badgering them to spend more money. You see us as money hungry employees trying to squeeze every last penny. In reality, we’re just trying to keep our jobs. And when our inexperienced “technician” screws up your computer because the company wouldn’t put out the money for a real tech, the customer service reps have to take the heat from the customer for it. And we’re getting paid like crap, too.
Customers don’t seem to grasp any of this. The phrase “The customer is always right” seems to have brainwashed people into thinking that they should get their way no matter how absurd their demands are. And as I’m sure you’ve seen from the stories I’ve posted here, they can get QUITE absurd. I read a story on http://www.consumerist.com about a woman who got angry because a Costco employee tried to stop her from cutting ahead of the line of people waiting to have their receipts checked. Now, I’ll be the first to say that the employee had no right to act the way that they did, but at the same time, this lady really thought she was justified in cutting ahead of everyone else who had been waiting because she only had one item and was, as she put it, “in a hurry.” How does that make you more important that everyone else? Then there was the story of the customer who tried to use a taser on a Wendy’s employee who got their order wrong. How about the woman who called TheTechGuy! radio show to get help stealing her neighbor’s Wi-Fi connection? People just don’t understand how ridiculous their behavior can be or the hassle we go through in dealing with them, yet they expect us as service people to always be happy and enthusiastic.
You want good service? Here’s the one and only tip you’ll need.
You know how you expect us to treat you when you walk into our store or call our company?
Treat us the same way.
I promise you’ll have more good experiences than bad that way. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of lazy and uncaring employees out there who don’t give a damn whether you’re polite or not. But for the most part, you’ll get a far more pleasant experience with an understanding and friendly attitude than you ever will with anger and threats. Just keep in mind that sometimes, no matter what you do, you won’t be getting your way.
Because the truth is that the customer is not always right.
I used to work at “Structure” 15 years ago, and I loved folding. Seriously, it changed the way my closet would look the rest of my life. My favorite thing about it was that I could avoid customers that way.
its been said before but i shall say it again
F*** YOU.
You fold shirts and other BS for minimum wage. You don’t like your job? Then find something else to do.
Of course, because folding T-shirts is clearly the only thing this person does. And, since non-customer oriented jobs are clearly a dime a dozen, finding another job quickly enough to keep up with the bills should be a piece of cake.
Seriously, no one is asking you to do their jobs for them. They’re just asking that you not add unnecessary stress on top of an already stressful job. A job that pays FAR too little. Read my post above. Regardless of whether you like what you read, the stuff I wrote is true.
I don’t see why it’s so hard to clean up after yourself. I’ve had employees come and thank me because after I looked at an item, I folded it back up, as well as the couple other shirts that were messed up in that pile. Why? I avoid disaster zones. You can find great deals in those folded clothes piles, but if its a mess it easily overwhelms me (I hate shopping + difficult to find styles/sizes that fit = shopping crappy experience in first place). You’re being a douche to me, as a fellow customer, and the employees. Just clean up after yourself.
If you still think you shouldn’t have to because it’s the employee’s job, imagine if I called your place of business over and over looking for a competitor’s number, or asking about what all your buisness can do, over and over and over. It’s your f***ing job to assist me. Sure, I can find it on the internet, but it’s your job.
If no one ever messed up the shirts, then you would not have a job…think of it as “job security” for the unskilled labor force…now get back to work!
I have NEVER understood why stores insist on displaying clothing in piles. I’ve worked retail, and clothing stacks are a thorn not only in the employees’ sides, but the customers’ sides as well. It is annoying to have to dig through a pile of shirts or jeans to find your size & then try to pull it out without toppling the whole stack, and its doubly annoying for the employees to have to tidy up the stack after it gets destroyed.
That said- people who tear up the piles and don’t at least ATTEMPT to put it back the way it was, or- even worse- the ASSHOLES that nonchalantly walk away saying “it’s their job to fix it!” really need to, well… die. Seriously, you’re a fucking snobby, elitist asshole with no manners, civility, or consideration for other people.
One thing that I highly disagree with on that list though is her rant about people needing to not come in 20 minutes before closing. I can understand hating people that stay PAST closing, but come on- if your hours say 10am – 9pm, I should be able to shop till 8:59pm.
I worked at Old Navy while I was in college, and used to spend hours folding tables of t-shirts. It took an incredibly long time to get them all the exact same size (no flippy plastic things back then) and equally distributed on the table. After all the work I did, it was disheartening to see customers tear up the tables to find their size, but it was part of the job. What I couldn’t stand, however, was when people destroyed the shirts just out of pure assholery. Like the guy who was waiting for his wife who plopped his toddler down in the middle of my perfect table of 500 folded t-shirts, and let her rip it to shreds. A two year old was literally rolling around my table, throwing t-shirts as she went. At that moment I truly felt capable of homicide. But a table that gets messed up during the normal shopping process comes with the job and should be re-folded without complaint.
Add up all the time required to needlessly refold T-shirts. Now if everyone was nice and kept them folded so staff don’t have to refold them, then the employer would need that much less hours of employees working. An employer is not going to pay to have someone sitting around not doing anything.
So yes, we as shoppers should be careful handling the shirts, so the employer has less overhead to sell the item to us and passes some of that savings back to us in lower prices, not because a precious snowflake is bitching about having to work.
Hand one; Its your job. You work at a clothing store, this is exactly what you’re expected to do.
Hand two; I’ve seen some complete assholes pilfer entire tables of clothes trying to find something they want, only to walk away empty-handed and act like it was completely acceptable behavior.
I’ve worked retail a lot longer than I’d like to, so I have a certain amount of respect for employees when I go shopping. Like the whiny guy suggested in the article, I just flip through the tags to find my size and remove that one…if I don’t want it, I neatly fold it and put it back. You’d be surprised how many people just snatch a shirt from the center of a pile, look at it, and toss it back ontop in rolled-up lump. I know they know how to fold, especially when I see a mother doing it. Like she’s excused from it because she’s already folder her quota of clothes after laundry day or some shit.
I live in western NY, and we have a major problem with Canadian shoppers who leave clothing displays looking like s**t. They also buy clothing and shoes, and change into the new duds before leaving the store – you go to a stall in a mall or store restroom, and shove the old clothes out of the way before you can relieve yourself.
What’s with the entitlement bullshit I keep seeing on here from retail and service workers?
What’s with the “I have a right to be a lazy, sloppy, inconsiderate ass” attitude I keep seeing from shoppers?
READ some of these posts. We’re not saying you have to fold everything up just perfect before you leave the display. We’re simply asking that you not DESTROY the entire thing simply because you know you don’t have to clean it up.
I’m with the majority here. Your job as a store is to sell me items. If you want to make the pile pretty and uniform, go right ahead, but don’t give me the stink-eye if the color/size/style that I want is at the bottom of your pile.
Here’s an idea – stop piling merchandise on tables altogether and just hang them instead. There now, was that so hard?
Cram it, OP. If we weren’t such slobs, you would not have a job paying you to clean up after us.
Also, stop making piles with clothing of different sizes if you don’t want us to paw through them. The one that fits is always in the middle.
Also y s ths n cnsmrst?
My clothes at home aren’t even folded neatly and really the only thing I fold is shorts and towels. So what makes one think I will fold the clothes in a store that neat? When I am looking at folded items in a store, I do try my best to fold them back and lay them nicely on top. Besides, most stores have that plastic folding apparatus that used to be advertised on QVC/HSN: the “Flip Fold”. I think I saw them in Kohl’s or somewhere once, so it can’t be that hard.
If every consumer were to fold that shit back up, just as neat as you did in the first place, what would you be doing with your time? fact is, your getting paid shit, we both know this, there will always be another reason for you to hate your job and or your customers. I personally dont go out of my way to fuck your bowl of oatmeal, hearing how “annoyed” you are that I am even there browsing makes me want to.
I dont shop to make you happy you have a job. get over yourself.