Retail Hell Underground

Shopping Cart Ghost

BOO! Have a Happy Halloween Slaves!

Retail Hell Haggy Bitch Scare

From Sisu:

I think once I'm done with retail, I'll be an anthropologist. It's not like I'll notice the lack of pay and dealing with shitty conditions.

I have to share this story about a brain dead bitch of a customer.

She started out a sweet yet somewhat high strung old lady.

That should have been a warning sign.

Well, she needed a coaxial cable. Not a problem, we have about a million, so I showed her our stock and helped her pick one out. Then she needed a connector. We have two types, the feed-thru and the twist on.

She picks up the twist on type and starts to walk away. I figure she's done and out of my hair when she stops me. WHY?

"I need the kind of connector where you thread it through."

 

I held up the feed-thru connector. "That would be the feed-thru kind."

 

"NO! THAT IS NOT IT!" she yelled at me. "It has to connect the coax cables."

 

"That's the point of this CONNECTOR," I told her.

 

"No, no, you aren't listening to me! It has to feed thru it and connect it. GOD, why can't you get it right?"

 

WTF?

 

"Ma'am, this is a FEED-THRU CONNECTOR. You FEED it THROUGH to CONNECT coaxial cables. This is what you are looking for!" I said, trying very hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

 

She rolled her eyes at me. "Fuck you, you don't just don't know what I'm talking about. Isn't there anyone who knows anything?"

 

I rolled my eyes back at her. "Ma'am, this is exactly what you need based on what you are telling me. If you can't explain it to me, I cannot help you."

 

She walked away muttering about me "just not getting it".

 

-sisu

Marc Jacobs Halloween Mannequins

Masked day-glow mannequins and bull mannequins in sheets. I'm scared.

Marc Jacobs store in West Hollywood, CA.

Halt! Ghostly bull crossing.

Customer Douche of the Week

This hellacious tale was left in the comments of the Piggy Fright post.

Atombomb1945 encountered a huge douchy custy:

They know when you are at peace with the store. That is when they seek you out and strike.

The worst I had was selling a Cell Phone to a customer.

In the middle of the pitch (in the store mind you) he pulls out a pack of smokes and lights up.

WTF???

I smoke, but I couldn't do it in the store. I asked him to take it outside.

What does he do?

He throws it on the carpet and snuffs it out.

Then he left with out buying anything.

He knew I was having a good day.

Guess who was asked if they were smoking in the store when the boss came in?

What Really Scares Retail Slaves on Halloween

The Piggy Shopper Hell Spawn mess!!!

 

 

 

But what makes a Retail Slave SCREAM...is...after cleaning this mess up...they turn around and face this...CLICK HERE

Piggy Shopper Fright

Dear Retail Hell Underground

I have to vent.  Enjoy the story.  

I have just had a customer – mother with toddler – come in and sit down on the seat to have his feet measured. 

As she waits for me to get my measuring guide, she proceeds to dust herself off of thousands of crumbs, onto our floor. 

Both her and the child are absolutely covered. 

She apologized and said ‘We’ve just had a scone’ (it was more an explanation than an apology though). 

Would you not shake yourself clean in the carpark? (we are not in a mall, the cars are parked right outside). 

There was an actual inch square chunk of scone along with small and medium sized crumbs all over our floor. 

I had to go and get the brush and shovel before her child could try anything on as it would have been mashed in and tracked everywhere. 

At least she bought the damn shoes I tried on him, and she didn’t hang around. 

That is a small mercy. 

I was swearing so much at her out the back I was afraid she might have heard me (my colleague said you couldn’t hear me out the front, phew.  I was really letting her have it). 

Unbelievable. 

I just can't think how this could ever be considered an acceptable way to behave, but then I'm just a civilized human being, what would I know.  

I always get someone like this just after my day off when I’m all zen just to bring me back to the reality of being a shopgirl.  

Keep up the good work at Retail Hell Underground!  

Susan

Retail Death Webcomic: On Hell

Excerpt from Retail Death: I’m not a religious man by any means, and don’t necessarily believe in a magical land of eternal torment that traditional Judeo-Christian theology calls “Hell.”  I do, of course, believe in torture, darkness, and evil; I work in retail.  If indeed the religious folk are right, and upon our deaths we are all judged and sentenced to forever in the clouds or in the fire, certain allowances will be made.  If there is a devil, a legion of imps and hellspawn behind him at the ready with medieval torture devices, champing at the bit to get at the immortal souls of the damned, any who served as a retail wage slave in life simply could not be terrified by their evil.  No demonic thaumaturgy can frighten us.  We have already seen far too much....to read the rest of the post CLICK HERE

Jit Faces Off with a Discount Rat from Hell

I. Am seriously. Going. To kill someone.

Before this retail season's over.

And guess what? IT HASN'T EVEN STARTED YET!!!

A couple days ago, I was ringing up this lady with a huge order. She had about eighty things.

At the end of her order, she had picture frames that were on clearance apparently ringing up for more than the additional percent off. The conversation is as follows.

"Wait a second, those are supposed to be an additional 30% off."

"...but they're already 70% off."

"No, no, there was a sign that said that these were an additional 30% off."

"...So they're an additional 30% off of the 70% off."

"Right."

"I don't think so."

She then proceeds to chew me out about not being "courteous and subservient" and all that bull.

What the fuck ever.

So being a good little retail droid, I call back and ask politely over the phone what the woman wants me to ask. The person on the other line is getting a kick out of this. She's standing 20 feet away and we're making eye contact, laughing silently.

Then the lady holds up the line of four people waiting for me to finish ringing her up to show the woman the "signs she saw which clearly stated that there is an additional 30% off."

Okay.

So now I'm waiting for this idiot to come back with four pairs of angry eyes on my throat.

This is a good situation to be in, please note.

-Drips with sarcasm-

Anyway. Then the customer and the employee come back. The employee tells me that the price it's ringing up at is correct. She walks away. I ask the woman if she wants the picture frame.

"Yeah, for the additional 30% off."

"I am not authorized to do so. Do you want it for -insert price here- or do you want me to put it back?"

"I want it for the additional 30% off."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, bu that's not an option."

"I'LL TELL YOU WHAT MY GODDAMN OPTIONS ARE!"

"You might not want to damn God."

"Don't get smart with me!"

"Did you want the picture frame?"

"YES! FOR THE FUCKING ADDITIONAL 30% OFF THAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FOR!"
 
At this point, a manager from a different department walks over and tells the customer, without even attempting to understand the situation, to leave without her stuff or to pay for her remaining things and leave. 
 
So what does she do? She pays for her things... and leaves them at the store.
 
They still have not been retrieved. It was over $300 worth of merchandise. Oh, well.
 
Jit

Paycheck Hell with a Dumbass Store Manager

Arcade Anarchist recounts a horror story about his paycheck:

This story comes from deep within my retail history.

About 4 or 5 jobs back I was working at a grocery store deli. Cutting cheese and the like. I was supposed to be paid biweekly, and was working 25ish hour weeks. The store was going threw lots of remodeling and was getting ready for a "grand reopening" kinda thing. How you can have a grand reopening without actually closing I'm not sure.

Now I know that some jobs hold first paychecks for whatever bullshit reasonings (luckily enough I have yet to have a job do this), so I wasn't too surprised when I didn't receive one the first payday. So I went about my work as per usual.

Two weeks later during my lunch break I decided to grab my paycheck and have the customer service cash it out for me. Once again they didn't have it. This was kind of ridiculous, it has now been a month. So I ask them for an advance much lower than I should have gotten but enough to pay for the stuff I needed like LUNCH.

Two weeks later, no check!

I'm off duty at this point and there was no one else around. So I ask if they can look threw the entire pile of checks, unlike the first two times where they only looked threw the deli-worker section.

I was very surprised to discover the store had another employee who shared my last name. This is because it's a very uncommon one. I have never met anyone with the same last name as me that I didn't know to be family.

But that was beside the point, still no paycheck so I had to get a small cash paid out.

I was at this job for about 3 months, 1 month after the grand reclamation of souls.

The last day I was on the job also happened to be a payday, and as before no paycheck. I was just furious, and ended up having a long conversation with the store manager. He gave me a cashout and was going to try and figure out what happened.

Before when I complained it ended up forever on the bottom of his to-do list. So he told me to come back when my last payday should be and hopefully we would settle it by then.

When I came in those two weeks later there was a paycheck there with my name on it, for not very much at all.

BUT, they refused to give it to me because I had taken so many cash pay outs.

Once again I had to talk with the manager who laid me off, about the money they weren't giving me, for the work I did on the time I coulda been doing something more productive and less stressful... like take up shark wrestling.

He explained to me what the problem was. When I was being put into the system by him he had gotten my name, gender, and department wrong.

Okay so I am a 6'5" male, my first and last name together are only 8 letters long. This manager d-bag ass-hole placed me in the computer as a 5' female named Rachael working in a department the store didn't even have. I don't know why the computers even needed my height, but it was wrong. Too many things wrong with this situation.

It took me months after that to get it all cleared up and get what they owed me. Then about another 2 months later, I received a letter in the mail from them.

On the front it had something explaining that it was a check for what they had still owed me. I was still unemployed and looking for work at the time, so I thought it was great to be getting a little more money.

A whole 37 cents worth on the check.

Arcade Anarchist

p.s.

Oh, and to anyone who remembers my last post about my current boss, he went to the hearing at the licensing board, and the arcade gets to remain in business, so I get to keep my current employment.

Halloween Customer Reject

Not going to be year of the witch.

Retail Slaves Gagging Before Halloween

"It's Obvious You've Never Worked in Retail When..."

 

Random Person: Oh! Look The Chritsmas Trees are up! Isn't that Exciting!?"

Me: *mental gag* "Uh, yeah I guess..."

RP: "Don't you just love the holidays?!?!"

Me: "No, not really."

RP: *agast* "What!?! How can you not love the holidays!?!"

Me: "I work in retail."

RP: ...*glazed look* "What does that mean?"

Me: "I don't like the holidays cause I work in retail."

RP: "...but...I don't get it..."

Me: *blink-blink* "You've never worked in retail before have you?"

RP: "No, Why?"

Me: 'nuff said *walks away*

 

Message To Halloween Store Piggy Shoppers

From Lisa:

I work at a popular Halloween Store chain.

It's the last week before Halloween to get your shopping done! And as a Halloween Store Slave, there are so many things wrong with the way customers treat our stores. As such, I would like to provide some information for future customers of Halloween stores- either you're rushing to get your Halloween chores done now, or for future reference. 

1) Our store is not a playground. Do I need to repeat myself? I will. Our store is not a playground. Yes, we do have the fake weapons, the cool decorations, and many costumes and accessories galore. That doesn't mean you can pick up the clubs, swords, or guns and start smacking other people around. If we see you or your kids break anything, we will charge you for it. Don't blame us if your kids get hurt, either. It's not our fault your kids were running amok while you stood around, drank coffee, and chatted with other parents about the kindergarten honor society.

2) Concurrently, with number 1. Parents, don't yell at me when I tell your kids to stop roughhousing. If you won't do it, I will. 95% of the time, my managers back me up on this. We're tired of cleaning up after your child has knocked down a whole display, probably breaking a few items in the process.

3) Do not get indignant if I tell you I have to see the costumes before you try them on. It's usually the folks like you that are using the fitting rooms to steal. We have to make sure everything is in the bags for the costumes, and we need to make sure you return everything you tried on to us. Unless you like getting carted around in a police car, then be my guest.

4) All sales are final. This is a Halloween store, for god's sake. That means try on the costumes before you buy - you can't return or exchange. We don't want to sell things then have a plethora of customers coming in and returning the costumes on November 1st. I tell every person I'm ringing up to make sure you want everything because you cannot return. So do my managers and coworkers. It's posted around the store. Don't get angry when you learn this fact.

5) We get a lot of teenagers coming to our store after school has ended for the day. We reserve the right to kick you out if it's blatantly obvious you do not plan on buying anything. Technically, according to store policy, if you are under 18 you need to have a parent or guardian with you because of some of the raunchy items we sell. And yes, I see you throwing that milkshake cup in a hat. I will bring it up to you and ask with a smile on my face, "Did you forget this?" 

6) Our store is not a playground.

7) Have a safe Halloween! :)

-Halloween Store Slave.

Scary Mannequin Hand

No doubt the work of Hannibella Lechter.

From a Nail Salon window in Beverly Hills.

Shopping Cart Foreplay

...before your skull and other body parts get crushed.

Restaurant-Scamming Customer Gets Told

When we can let loose our Retail Balls and stand up to a Nasty Ass Thief, it's a beautiful, retailicious thing.

Jeni sends a story of how she put an end to a Nasty trying to pull a fast one at her restaurant:

This happened to me a few years ago in a small town, locally owned restaurant.

I was working the night shift with a cook and another waitress. We don't have a supervisor or manager on duty at night because it's such a small place and there are usually no complaints or issues. The restaurant is dead and we are closing up for the night when a woman strolls in and orders a hamburger. Easy, the other waitress working that night serves her and goes back to dish duty.

Halfway through the burger, the customer stops the waitress and complains that she ordered a cheese burger not a regular and there is a hair in her food. (cheese burgers are 50 cents extra) the waitress apologized, sincerely thinking she got the order wrong.

The customer then pulls the bun off and sitting neatly on top of her half burger patty is one long, blonde hair. The waitress is black and has short hair, our cook is bald, and I am a red head.

The customer demands that she get a free cheese burger and demand that she doesn't have to pay for this one either. I quickly call the owner and fill him in on the situation and he agrees to let her have the free meal.

I worked with the same two people the next night, when the same blonde woman comes in and again, orders a hamburger and tries her little scam out on us thinking we've got amnesia.

As soon as she insists that she ordered one with cheese and that there's a hair in it, I quickly rush over and act, knowing that if she gets away with it tonight as well, my coworkers and I will be docked another collective $10 for two burgers we had to give away from our already tiny paychecks.

I walk up to the counter and ask the woman what the issue is and she imediately starts screaming that we're poisoning her by putting our "bodily parts" in her food.

She shows me the long blonde hair and claims she also asked for cheese.

I informed her that no one who is working has hair like that in her burger. She insists and throws a fit, expecting us to give in just as easily as last night.

I call the cook out and she sees that no one working that night has long, blonde hair.

She comes back with,"You must not clean well, this hair is from people on the morning shift and is in my food!"

I lose it, slam my fists on the counter top, get real close to her and whisper, "Listen to me, you cheap bitch, you came in here last night and pulled the same shit. It costs me money to give your ass free food. I'm not stupid."

She gasps and tells me that she knows the owner and won't stand to be cursed at by the likes of me.

Not wanting to call the owner and confirm, I was pretty confident that she didn't in fact know the owner and was playing me for a chump.

I shot back with a hasty, "Oh really, we've met? Because I don't seem to recall you!"

She shut her mouth and searched for something to say while I got closer to her and told her "Get the fuck out of my restaurant. If you ever come back, I'll have you arrested for theft."

She grabbed her purse, dug for her wallet and slammed a fist full of cash on the counter.

As she walked out the door, she turned around and gave me a look.

While I screamed, "OUT!" at the top of my lungs.

The wad of cash contained $56.

We rung up the amount of her bill and split the change, counting it as a well deserved tip.

AWESOME RETAIL BALLS JENI! And how fantastic to receive a tip on top of it.

If you've exposed your Retail Balls to a douchy customer or co-worker, tell us about it! submit@retailhellunderground.

New Halloween Store

Octomom Scaring the Shit Out of Retail Slaves

OctoMom's Pregnant Sister Act.

I hope she didn't just come from Target. This scares me to death.

The Burger Flu

My brain really can’t function with all of the retards around me.

First off, the new girl went home “sick” in her first week.

Judging by her eyes, she went home sick with the munchies.

Fantastic, one more person’s ass who I’m going to have to cover whenever they call in sick.

 

My manager has “The flu”.

It’s funny how her voice is hoarse when she speaks to customers, but perfectly fine when she’s bitching at us.

Oh, and she’s still giving her boyfriend a 100% discount whenever he comes in.

Two of my supervisors have reported her, but nothing has been done.

My manager also scheduled me for Tuesday night, which she knows that I can’t work because I have Karate every Tuesday night.

I told her about it and she said “She’d see what she could do.”

So, she added the simple three hours onto my already six hour shift on Thursday.

I also work a nine hour shift on Wednesday.

Oh, and did I mention that we only get one break during a nine hour shift.

Illegal? Why yes, yes it is.

And you know how many nine hour shifts the managers/supervisors get?

Maybe one ever few months.

I have two back to back.

Sweet.

The smokers get to sit down and have a smoke break for ten minutes every hour though.

-Eyeroll-

 

And now, something that’s been hella getting on my nerves.

When we’re busy, we shout the orders so whoever had it can come over so we can garnish their order.

And nine times out of ten, nobody comes over.

Great, we shout it again, then someone will go
“Is that the number three?”

Alright, so, you don’t actually know what you’re going to be eating, just the number?

 

So I can put a pile of shit on a plate, tell you it’s the number two (No pun intended) and you’ll eat it?

Another thing, pointing at the bowls instead of saying the names.

We have the counter in front of us and unfortunately, CANNOT SEE THROUGH METAL.

It’s very uncomfortable to garnish an order whilst bending over.

And, the excitement that happened!

Some older man, about fifty, came in during our dinner rush and demanded to speak with the cook.

So, our cook came out and BOOM.

THE GUY JUST TRIED TO BEAT THE FUCKING SHIT OUT OF HIM.

I got to call the cops, but I was the only one who found it funny. >>

Why?

The guy tried to beat our cook because he had sex with his daughter xDDD

I know, I’m awful.

But you’d laugh too.

 

Anywhom, guise.

Have a good Strangers-Giving-You-Candy Day!

I want to be Spock or MJ.
But the MJ outfits I found were HEEEEEUUUUUGE.

And the Spock outfits were ridiculous.

IDK.

I might go as your mom.

;D

Or my manager.

That’ll scare anyone.

 

Tell me what you guys are going as?
c:

Shopping Cart Wins

Poor Jason. Flesh is no match for steel.

It's like fighting Terminator on wheels.

And one of those wheels is dangerously close...

   

Halloween Carpet Barn Store

I wonder how many carpet returns they're getting.