The Struggles of Working Retail

I have been working retail for a year and five months, and it has been a bit of a struggle. People talk down to you, as if they are better. It drives me insane. Just because I am the one standing behind the jewelry counter pulling out ring after ring for people to try on their fat fingers somehow gives them the right to be as inconsiderate and rude as possible. There is a store policy that I can only pull out 2 items at a time, and customers get mad at ME for that policy. I don't make the rules. I simply obey them to keep my minimum wage part time job (sounds dreadful doesn't it?)

"Can you show me this?" "Ma'am! Can you show me this?" "I want to see this" "I saw something in this case, take it out for me to see." Notice anything about those statements? I do. Not one single "please." I am treated like a machine, not a human. Now this may seem a tad dramatic, but a year and five months has brought me to dramatize things. My time working in retail has also brought me to have a greater respect for others working retail. When I shop I say please, I say thank you, and I don't try to inconvenience the workers.

Working the fitting room is probably the worst. Yesterday I had 3 girls walk in with 10 items each (the limit.) I hear them messing around in the fitting room talking about how ugly the clothing was, they were simply choosing the ugliest items they could, trying them on, then giving them all back to me to put away. Now I understand its kind of a fun thing to do, once. They did it TWICE. Who does that? Who thinks that's ok? It isn't ok. It's rude and inconsiderate, and I did not appreciate it.

Working the cash register is just as bad. People come in with all these crazy returns. They won't have receipts or tags. They pretty much just make things as difficult as possible. People will return every item on their receipt which causes me to wonder why they even bought it in the first place. Its a big pain in the but. People will come up and say "This shoe has a little mark on the bottom." (The part that no one sees.) And then expect us to give them a discount.

If it weren't for college being so expensive and my desperate need for cash, I would have been out of there long ago. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way. We need to work for things, and pay our dues. CEO's didn't just gain their position out of luck, they worked for it. So here I am, paying my dues to the retail world.