The RHU Dictionary

Welcome to the RHU Dictionary. The following words and terms are those which have been used over the years here in RHU. Also included will be new words and terms you can use in your submissions to describe the customers, co-workers and managers who make our lives hell. This is by no means a comprehensive list (nor is it in alphabetical order), and more words and terms will be added as necessary. If you have any ideas feel free to submit them, and they'll be added.

Retail Slave: Us. Those of us who work retail as a means to an end. Because we have bills to pay, and mouths to feed. If you like your job that's great, but really, dealing with stupid, mean spirited custys, idiot co-workers and useless managers can make you feel like a slave, doing maximum work for minimum benefit.

Crustomer(crusty): A portmanteau of cranky (or crabby) and customer (custy). These "people" have nothing better to do than annoy us at every turn with stupid questions, and an inability to understand even simple instructions, making what should only take a few minutes feel like hours.

Custo-monster: Worse than a crusty, custo-monsters are miserable people who feel that if they're not happy, nobody else should be either! They'll do everything they can to spread their gloom around to other customers, and especially the retail slaves who are forced to deal with them. Custo-monsters firmly believe the "customer is always right" even when they're wrong... which for them is 99.9% of the time. They expect the impossible out of the slaves, and demand a manager when the employee fails to read their (non-existent) mind or pull a miracle out of their ass.

Discount Rats: These customers think they deserve a discount just for existing, or because they spend "a lot of money" in your store. They will use even the smallest imperfection from a loose thread on a shirt to fingerprints on glassware to try and get an undeserved discount. They'll even try to get discounts on items that are already marked down, even clearance items! Even worse, some of them will try and get you to use your employee discount for their purchase. Discount rats cannot read ads, and will only see the percent or dollar amount off, and not the part of the ad that says "on selected items".

Co-worthless: Also known as co-workers, co-worthless are the ones who come in late, leave early, take numerous breaks, do nothing (yet complain about how tired they are), complain when you ask them to do something, do a half assed job when they actually do get around to doing anything, no call/no show, and despite all that, never get written up, talked to or (deservedly) fired. Probably due to kissing managements ass.

Hellspawn (AKA: Crotch-droppings, crotch monsters, crotch-spawn): Whether you like kids or hate them, everyone hates hellspawn. These ill-behaved children are an accident waiting to happen. They will yell, scream, run around, handle (and sometimes damage) merchandise, and their parents do NOTHING to stop it, mostly because they're not even paying attention. 

Sperm/egg donors: Parents of hellspawn. Usually don't care what their kids are doing, or aren't even paying attention... until you tell the kid to stop before he gets hurt. Then the donors turn into attentive parents "RAWR, don't tell my kid what to do!".

Heavenspawn: The opposite of hellspawn. These well behaved children have parents that have taught them the words "Please" and "Thank you", don't make a fuss and can sometimes be the bright spot in an otherwise shitty day.

Creepers: Both male and female, creepers will hit on you in well... the creepiest way possible. They will not be dissuaded by the fact that you are dating, engaged or even married. Sometimes telling them that you are gay (regardless of whether you are or not) will not get them to leave you alone. There are two types of creepers. Custy creepers, and co-worthless creepers. Custy creepers aren't as bad, since they'll eventually leave, but co-worthless creepers will pursue (and piss you off) all day until you start thinking of ways to kill them and where you can hide the body.

Man-ogres: The managers that keep your co-worthless employed. Man-ogres play favorites, and will ignore the uselessness of the co-worthless, and come down on the hard working employees driving them to quit, leaving the store in the hands of incompetent employees. Sometimes the hard working employees will follow the 3D's and use the gathered facts to get rid of the co-worthless and man-ogres.

The 3D's of RHU: Document, document, document. See here for full details.

The Mighty Thrognar: The God of retail slaves. To summon The Mighty Thrognar you will need a clearing in the woods, several rolls of duct tape, 2 pounds of jello (powdered, cherry flavor), bailing wire, an anvil, super glue, a branding iron, 3 cans of spray paint (any color), a dozen 2X4's, a 20 gallon fish tank, 6 live piranha, and a cactus.

Piggies:  The reason your store looks like a tornado blew through it. Piggies will open boxes to see what's inside and then take an unopened box, will drop unwanted items anywhere (even worse when said items are food), will leave empty cups/cans/bottles on shelves, will make a mess in the bathroom (the more disgusting ones will literally smear their shit all over the place), and will leave you wondering what their house looks like.

Bloodsuckers/leeches: These customers will monopolize (and ultimately waste) your time by turning you into their personal shopper. They'll wear your nerves to the point where you will be willing to do anything and everything to get rid of them. They're the reason the term "justifiable homicide" exists. Even worse when you work on commission.

Corpo-rape: The idiots that have never been in the store, but tell you how to run it. Any sentence that begins with the words "Corporate says..." means you'd better grab your ankles, because you're about to get fucked, with no lube, and not even getting dinner first.

Religious Freaks: The people that think that because you don't follow their religious beleifs that you are are a sinner and are going straight to hell. They will try to convert you, regardless of what religion (if any) you follow. The 1% of any religious group that makes the group as a whole look bad.

NAT: Nasty Ass Thieves. These lowlifes will steal whatever they can, however they can. From trying to be sneaky by hiding items, to trying to get expensive items for lower prices, to believing that the rules don't apply to them.
Some of the NATs favorite sayings are:
- They do it for me at [competitor],
- They always do it for me here,
- [Employee or manager who no longer works at the store] did it for me last time
- The sign said everything was on sale
Since you're expected to report (but not allowed to stop) NATs, most employees have just given up and will let people walk out with stolen merchandise since it's been proven doing something to stop theft has resulted in the employee getting fired.

The Retail Slaves Bible:

The other Retail Slaves Bible:

Feel free to use any of the above terms in your submissions to the site. Let me know of any additions and they'll be added on.

Comments

[Spritzy]

Assbasket: Someone who's such an ass that they are equivalent to an entire basket full of asses.

[Riferous]

Idiot trail: The trail of sample cups, tissues, broken cookies, go-backs, empty packages, etc. left behind by thieves, hellspawn, lazies; in general, idiots.

[Sales Agent Guy]

Coiner:
(Plural: coiners)

1. The type of custy who insists on paying you with as many coins as they can. Especially those who insist on paying large amounts with coins.

2. The type who asks you if you can open your drawer to give them quarters (or some other type of coin denomination.) Even if you can't officially open the drawer for non-sale transactions, they still beg you.

[Skittles]

So once you've gotten a clearing in the woods, several rolls of duct tape, 2 pounds of jello (powdered, cherry flavor), bailing wire, an anvil, super glue, a branding iron, 3 cans of spray paint (any color), a dozen 2X4's, a 20 gallon fish tank, 6 live piranha, and a cactus together. What's the next step?

[Riferous]

Thrognar will be summoned when Thrognar will be summoned. The next step is irrelevant.

[Potatohead]

One does not summon Thrognar. One gathers the proper sacrificial materials, then beseeches Thrognar's attention. It is Thrognar's will whether or not to answer the call.

[NC Tony]

Potatohead is right. Once you gather all the items together (and do the Thrognar dance), the will of Thrognar will properly assemble them and he will appear.

[LittleWriter]

So, it's good to know about Thrognar's ritual, but say I can't get hold of an anvil and the piranha because of the nature of my work. Will he accept two copies of the MLA handbook, a St. Martin's Guide to Writing, and a half-dozen problem writing students instead? I want to be sure before I go trucking out to the woods.

[Skittles]

Well it may take me a while and I might have to borrow an anvil from my neighbor but I'll be sure to let you know if I manage to summon Thrognar.

[Riferous]

Back to the theme: Visa customer. The type that, no matter where you go or how badly you need to go there, they're everywhere you want to be.

[Humor_Me]

Faker: Customer that attempts to bring their untrained, nasty, vicious, dirty, pet into an establishment and claim it as a Service Dog. Some store policies say that the store employees are not allowed to ask the dogs to leave for fear of a lawsuit. When in doubt, know your laws ahead of time and feel free to print them and offer them to your boss, particularly the revised ADA Service Dog Laws.

http://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

http://www.ada.gov/qasrvc.htm

Please be aware that anyone can buy a vest and "certification" online (http://www.freemypaws.com. SD owners hate these people with a passion). If you need to ask the dog to leave for inappropriate behavior that the owner hasn't taken efforts to rectify, or if the dog is overly dirty or smelly, and then the owner screams "lawsuit", please don't be intimidated. Be sure to get as much information as possible from witnesses, because if this person does file a lawsuit, they will be doing the same thing.

Also, please be aware that some Service Dogs wear no vests or ID at all. You can only legally ask two questions:

(1) Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform? Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.

Huggers: are people who bring their dogs, claiming that they are SD's, but they actually don't perform a task. They are merely a "comfort" dog. Under ADA law, SD's MUST perform a task or have a job such as medical alert.