Retail Hell Underground

Fitting Room Hell: Entitled Custy Demands To Use Handicap Room

From Denim Bitch:

Some people are so fucking entitled it kills me. Like, literally in the sense of emphasis (lol to anyone who has ever looked up literally in the M-W online dictionary smh). I feel like I'm going completely bonkers sometimes that people think it is okay to act this way!

Okay. So. This lady comes in, seems perfectly nice as I count her items for the fitting room (FR). I put her clothes in the standard room.

(side note: we have three room sizes. Basic size for one person (this is the majority of the rooms), slightly larger for mothers with strollers (about 1.5 fitting rooms, if you will, and we only have two of them), and a large handicap fitting room which I reserve for large families and handicap (duh) people that come through).

She commences to bitch.

I wish I could transcribe the dialogue, but I really only remember the tone of her voice. It was so fucking awful, but I will try to describe it.

She asked for the handicap fitting room and I said "I'm sorry, that is reserved for families and handicap(ped?) people." 

The tone of this woman's voice as she said "I'm a big girl, I need to move around. There isn't even anyone in there now. Not cool." (Or something like that) was deplorable. 

Now, when she said not cool, she said this directly to me as if it were an admonishment for bad behavior (almost like a child tbh). The tone of her voice truly threw me. It was as if she genuinely thought it was just completely unprofessional of me to not give her the handicap fitting room. To be clear, she was not handicapped in anyway that I could see. She was not obese, though tall and maybe slightly overweight. But she was genuinely angry that I had attempted to deny her the handicap fitting room.

Side note number 2: I try to leave the handicap room open because we have a TON of mothers with strollers coming through, and all total we have three rooms that they can fit in. Add in the families (3+ people with young kids that want to room together) that come through, it is necessary to leave the handicap room open and not let one entitled person hog it for 20 minutes.

It kind of ruined my mood for the day, especially since I immediately had another bitchy customer that seemed completely oblivious to the fact the I, as an associate, don't control the stock of items in the store (go figure). 

Thankfully! I had some incredibly nice customers come in that were fantastic and made my day much better.

To Shelly and Jerry, thank you so much for brightening my day and reminding me that not everyone has the manners of an caveman. I truly appreciate and remember people like you! So I give a big thumbs up to the people that, over the last year and half at Cold Gravy, have not only treated me like a human being, but have treated me on par with a friend. Thank you guys, you have no idea how much I appreciate it!

--Denim Bitch

 

More Gross Department Store Hell: Store Manager Allows Masturbatuing Custy to Hang Out In Store

Hello all! 

After listening to Red Rider's biohazard-filled story about customers mistaking the JCPenis fitting room/mesh bags for a bathroom, it gave me the courage to finally relive the grossest bodily function related story I had to deal with thus far at JCPenis.

This was back when we had my old store manager, a miserly older man who I only saw come out of "the cave" (management office) once.  To sum him up, he was definately the type to throw a sacrificial lamb/retail slave under the bus in the name of "good customer service".  Like, seriously.  This guy let a customer slap my friend's ass and keep shoping, as she was crying in a fitting room stall.  This guy allowed a customer to throw a heavy prom dress and a handful of jewelry at me and call me a b*tch and a c*nt and all of that fun stuff.  He was a real tool.

But, I digress.

On this particular day, my supervisor (we'll call her MILF, cause even though she's a grandma, she still gets hit on all the time!) came running up to my counter.  "Pennyslut!", she says, "Do NOT ring out a man wearing a blue baseball hat and a black hoodie.  Just walk away if he comes over!"

Alarmed that I am being instructed to turn my back on the customer, whereas usually I am commanded to do everything short of giving them a happy ending, I have to ask her, "why"?

MILF then tells me that she had been putting things back from the fitting rooms  (yeah, she's awesome and actually helps us out), and she looked over at a short man, hunched over next to a shelf.  She asked him if he needed help, and he gave her a death glance, and quickly scurried away.  Thinking nothing of it, she walks away, until she sees him AGAIN, hunched over next to a mannequin.  Confused, she asks a nearby associate if she knows anything about this peculiar custy, to which she responds, "Oh, yeah, that's the guy who jacks off on the clothes."

I'll allow a brief pause to really allow that to sink in.  A grown man, takes the bus (as we later found out) to his local JCPenis, comes in, and jerks off on the clothes in the women's plus-size maternity section.  Splooges on the clothes and on the mannequins.  That same night, he also stole a few pairs of women's clearance panties.

Why didn't we call the police, you may ask?

Oh, because our store manager decided that we "didn't want to upset a potential customer".  Never mind the fact that he is a sexual predator, ruining our clothes and our mannequins, AND could very well transfer some disease to a customer or associate if they were unfortunate enough to pick up the wrong item at the wrong time.

It wasn't until a fellow customer, after having witnessed the act, threatened to call corporate if it wasn't taken care of.  I was slightly relieved that she pulled the corporate card (first time that ever happened), although her tone was a bit insulting as well.....she yelled at MILF like it was HER fault some guy got a woodie from some clearance 4-XL women's top form 3 seasons ago.

This perv-atrator came back a few days later, and luckily, commited this act in another store in the mall, one who WASN'T afraid to call the cops.  MILF saw security escorting this guy out, so she reported the earlier incident to them.  She had to identify the perv, who kept asserting that he wasn't doing anything.

When they ran the report on this guy, they found out that he had a bunch of previous sexual offenses, and he is a listed sexual predator.  He steals money from his mom to take the bus to the mall everyday, to go spread his man juice around.

Thankfully, we have a new store manager now, and she doesn't take ANY of that sh*t.  Or, should I say, *insert joke here*.

Hang in there, fellow slaves!

--Pennyslut<3

 

 

Two Terrifying Tales From Department Store Hell: The Bloody Pants From Hell and The Case of The Mysterious Stench

Red Rider here.

Before I worked at Bullseye, I worked at a not-so-classy department store that my coworkers and I nicknamed JC Penis. It was hell. I literally did the work of 5 people while making less than minimum wage and conditions there were just awful. It was located in a not-so-nice area in a shopping mall that was in its dying throes financially, and the custys we attracted reflected this fact. We got a ton of NATs, sign-switchers, bitchy old ladies, and dirty entitled custys on an almost daily basis, but according to management "the customer is always right" (even when they are dead wrong) so we always lost a ton of money. The stories I'm going to share with you are about just how nasty and disgusting some of our custys were. 

Let me start out describing our fitting rooms. We had an attendant who was supposed to enforce the "6 items or less" rule, but she wasn't allowed to argue if a custy refused to listen. Also, they were carpeted and constantly smelled like pee. Custys would go in to try on clothes and piss on the floor or on piles of clothes. They'd also change their kids' smelly diapers and just leave them sitting in there. It got so bad that we literally had signs in all the fitting rooms that stated: "This is not a restroom. Our restrooms are located on the second floor for your convenience."

Despite the fact that thecarpet smelled constantly of urine and that we periodically had problems with ants in the fitting rooms (sometimes they even bit customers), management refused to get new carpeting or do the smart thing and fucking switch to easy to clean tile floors. All we had to combat the stench was a bottle of industrial strength odor fighter which covered up the smell for maybe an hour or so but never completely got rid of it. Our in-store housekeeping team constantly took the bottle during their morning cleaning rounds, and we'd have to beg management for days before we got it back (and only after customers complained about the smell).

Now that the scene has been set, I give you my first story:

The Tale of the Bloody Pants from Hell

It was an average Saturday at the mall. Custys were lining up for our "Doorbuster Deals" which are a complete ripoff most of the time. I somehow ended up stuck covering the fitting room for my coworker while she took her lunch break.

A pair of teenage girls hustle over with an armful of clothes to try on. They both go into the same room which is usually frowned upon, but since I had to do go-backs as well as watch the fitting room I was only half paying attention. I hear them giggling to themselves and whispering, but think nothing of it.

A few minutes later I've finished my cart of go-backs and return to do a quick pickup in the fitting rooms. I go into the room the two girls had been in and instantly see clothes all over the floor which is irritating but really not that unusual.

I grab up the pile and proceed to start hanging things back up. The last article of clothing I pick up is a pair of jeans. I go to put it on a hanger when I notice a faint odor and feel dampness on my hands.

I drop the pants and notice that both they and my hands are stained red.

One of the girls had obviously gotten her period while shopping, and decided to steal a pair of our pants rather than wear her own soiled pants home. Trying not to gag I call up my manager, explain that I came into contact with human blood which is a biohazard and potentially unsafe and that some of our merchandise (all the clothes piled onto the jeans) had as well. I asked her what I should do, and to my horror she told me to simply throw away the ruined jeans and put the rest of the clothes that had come into contact with them back on the floor. I did as I was told with complete disgust for whoever would be unfortunate enough to buy these clothes, and then proceeded to soak my hands in hand sanitizer periodically for the rest of my shift.

*    *    *

My second tale of woe and horror I shall call The Case of the Mysterious Stench.

Now, JC Penis while I was working there did not have shopping carts for customers however we did provide them with cloth bags to hold intended purchases while they continued to shop. They were intended to be for in-store use only, but people liked to steal them for some strange reason or other.

Anyway, one day my coworker (I'll call her Fluffy because she was named after a cute fuzzy animal) and myself were both busy doing go-backs in the women's department. We had just had a sale or something so there were tons of clothes everywhere, floor/fitting room/ you name it there were clothes there.

All of a sudden she calls me over to the business-wear section where she's straightening up a clearance rack. Fluffy asks me if I smell anything unusual, because she thinks she does but isn't sure. I sniff a bit and agree with her that something stinks. We brush it off as the fitting room emitting its usual nasty odors and think nothing of it. I decide to help her with her section since it's so awful.  

She goes to get what looks like a shopping bag full of clothes out from under a rack, looks inside, and hurls it to the ground gagging.

Someone had literally taken a dump in one of our shopping bags and then stuffed it under a rack of clothing. We both decided that we don't get paid enough to deal with this shit (pardon the pun), and called housekeeping to take care of it since we don't have any gloves or chemicals on the sales floor and some of the poop seemed to have seeped out the bottom of the bag and soaked into the carpet.

It took them 10 minutes to send someone downstairs to deal with it, during which time we had to keep customers away from the area.

When management heard what had happened they tried to chew us out, but we both stood firm and asked them where in our job description did it say we were to clean up human waste (more politely of course but you get the idea) so neither of us got in trouble.

I have many more tales of terror from my 2 years at JC Penis as well as a wealth more from my current job at Bullseye, but that's all I can stomach telling about for now.

'Til next time stay strong fellow retail slaves,

--Red Rider

Fitting Room Hell Rant

Hello, all. It's Sailor Blue again after a very long time.

I've made it into grad school! But that's not the point of this story. Since I am poor college student, I hold two jobs to make rent/bills/feed myself. I work part-time for my school (which I love) and part time for a place I like to call Zuhl's. (Yes, I finally got away from P-Mart at the end of last year and it feels glorious.)

Now, I mainly run the cash register, but I sometimes get pulled for other duties, including fitting rooms. How can I say this lightly? 

I lose faith in humanity every time I have to clean up fitting rooms. People are fucking pigs.

Last night, near closing, it looked like closet monster through up clothes in 2 of the 6 stalls in our juniors fitting rooms. Stuff piled in a corner, inside out, left of the hanger.

Seriously people? I am pretty sure I know who it was too, as I saw 2 women hurriedly walking from the fitting room and making side glances to see if anyone saw them.

I don't even like it when you leave stuff hanging (proper, right side in, on the hanger) in the fitting room, but when shit like this, it just makes me feel like these are the type of people who would miss the toilet in a bathroom.

Luckily I do not work these shifts all the time since I only work there twice a week. If I did, I might become a nihilist.

Here's for having an extremely worn shred of faith in humanity,

--Sailor Blue

 

Custy Has Ridiculous Fitting Room Demand

I've been working at my retail hell place of employment for three years now.

For the past two and a half years, I've been asking my managers if I can be moved from the front end (cashier) to another department. Layaway, sporting goods, electronics, shoes, grocery, domestics - whatever. And for two and a half years, I've been completely and totally ignored.

Finally I left a note for my boss a month ago that I wanted to be moved before my 21st birthday because there is no fucking way in hell I'm ringing up alcohol. (The note I left had a slightly lesser amount of intense description.) After discussing with her my moral objections to doing so, she finally, finally, FINAL- FUCKING- LY moved me.

So now I'm in fashions - fashion accessories, to be more specific.

YAY!

Except we're doing inventory and I can't do anything without an LRT which means I can pretty much not learn that department for three weeks. The person who is teaching me the department is retiring in four weeks. Awesome.

Anyway, onto the story... on Tuesday, my second day working in ladieswear, I was wearing the walkie talkie and carrying the fitting room keys for someone who went on break. I got a page to the fitting room and the lady said to me, "I need this shirt in a size Medium."

"We do have them in medium, yes."

"Well can you get it for me? I have other clothes to try on."

Now I'm thinking, what the heck? Well, okay, at least she's considering buying it.. even if she is kind of a jerk.

I returned with the shirt, and when I returned, she was picking out a couple outfits for her two-year-old who I didn't notice before. I handed her the shirt and she grabbed it from me and said, "Oh, by the way there are clothes in my dressing room."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I cleaned out the dressing rooms ten minutes ago... maybe it was longer than that."

"No, I tried them on, I just need them out of the dressing room before I try on anything else. I don't like stepping on messes."

Lo and behold, I walked into the dressing room and there were shirts, pants, and bathing suits on the floor, rumpled, and not one thing was on a hanger.

Pissed.

I removed the clothes without a thanks and disabled the fitting room button until my co-worker got back from her break.

With retail hell love,

--Jit

 

Old Slavery Nightmare: Christmas Returns and Hellspawn Destruction

Oh RHUers.

It's been crazy.

I must admit I've been a little stressed, what with starting my new interpreting class, taking a motorcycle course, watching a girl have a random seizure in said course and almost die (before you say it - no epilepsy or seizure history. Just a random 22 year old having a seizure. Scared the fucking bejeesus out of me), and then because I was quite shaken, crashing a motorcycle....into my mother. Heh.

BUT I have missed you all, so I'm back to astound you with tales of awful people.
In one recent shift, I was greeting, a slow and hellish ball-breaking task. I'm a fairly good (fake) people person though, so I just smile and wave. This man comes strolling in with an Old Navy bag in one hand and I immediately realize I'm in trouble. His bag has our Christmas design on it. Fuckity fuck fuck.

SirFuckface: Yeah I need to exchange these, they don't fit.

Me: Ok, no problem, do you have a receipt?

SF: Yeah, I got them for Christmas and they're too small. *hands me receipt. Date? Dec. 23*

Me: Ok sir, well unfortunately our return policy only covers 90 days, so we won't be able to exchange this for you *ITS BEEN FOUR MONTHS ASSWIPE*

SF: But....I just want to exchange them, not return them!

Me: Yes, well that falls under the return policy.

SF: WHAT?! So what am I supposed to do, just throw them away?!?

Me: No, no don't do that! If you really can't wear them or don't know anyone you can give them to, you could always donate them.

SF: Yeah right, like I'm gonna do that.

That sound you hear at this point is me punching him in the dick in my mind. What a douchenozzle.

He then starts screaming about how he's a regular customer and he's spent tons of money at our store and he'll never come back and FUCK THIS PLACE! Que storming out.
Oook then.

A couple days later I was working my ass off in the fitting rooms, running back and forth cleaning up people's messes (you ever feel like your doing other people's laundry? Ugh, I do.), and just generally busting my ass. A woman comes in with her two children, about age 6 (fraternal twins), we set up a fitting room for each child, and the nightmare begins.

These kids are literally THROWING CLOTHING over the tops of the doors, to the point where shorts were getting caught and I had to use that little hook thing that I think is my Gandalf staff to get them down. There was screaming and children slamming and locking doors, and Mom yelling......my head just reeled.

I thought I was watching the Twilight Zone. Kind of like a train wreck, you can't stop staring.....to which the mom just kept saying "I'm sorry, I have really bad kids".

REALLY LADY? REALLY? WHOSE FAULT IS THAT!? My mother would have beat me like a redheaded stepchild right there in the middle of the store if I acted like such a little beast. It was like a horror film that wouldn't end....

This weekend is the famous $1 flip flop sale. If I survive, and I may not, I'll let you know how it goes.

Love,

--T-Shirt Sponge

Saturday Sale Hell At Old Slavery

HOLY BALLS.

HOLY.

BALLS.

What the fuck, I dont even....

It's a doosey, ladies and gents.

Old Slavery has these mega sales called One Day Wonders. No doubt you've heard of them. They're always on Saturdays and they feature one item for one day at a ridiculous price, usually with a limit per customer.

Today's was $6 Polo shirts. We also had $2 flip flops, and all bottoms in clearance were $6.

I did not understand the word madhouse until today.

I was working the fitting room and I couldn't keep up with the mess. People were bringing in fucktons of clothes (most fitting rooms have limits! Ours is ten!!!), taking forever, and then not buying ANY OF IT, leaving it all over the floor, in my bins, freaking EVERYWHERE. SO MUCH.

The picture is from around 4pm? Yeah. Fucking holy balls.

Also, I'm sick. Again. Goddamn dustmite allergy.

So yeah, tiring day. To top it all off, even after the customers left, my processing bin kept mysteriously filling. Dumbfuck Mcgee keeps coming up and putting huge lods of mens pants into my bin.

Me: "Whatcha doin?"

DFM: "Oh just cleaning mens clearance. I'll be back for it."
*she comes back with more armfuls*

Me: "You know you have to process that right?"

DFM: "Yep" *she proceeds to meander around the store*

Rawr.

AND NOW, PARENT OF THE YEAR AWARDS!!

First prize goes to the woman who let her infant crawl around on our dirty clearance floor and play with sharp plastic hangers. I had to take them away from him so he wouldn't put them in his mouth.

Honorable mention goes to the woman too lazy to find an employee to climb a ladder for her and too lazy to do it herself, so she sent her 7 year old up the ladder. "Go get mommy some flip flops." NONONONO, FUCKING STOP.

Yep. Sleep needed. Sleep forever.

<3

--T-Shirt Sponge

Demon Hellspawn Siblings Leave Fitting Room Mess and Brag About It

APWORINVARJNGOWE ARRGGGGGHHH!

HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE! RAGE AND FURY!!

Hello all. K-Fit here (formerly Kerry – thanks to Sam for my new name!), and oh Dear Lord am I full of ANGER today.

I shall start by saying that I know I probably shouldn't be this angry over this occurrence, but at this point in my retail HELL career, I can't help it, nor do I care.

Last night (Friday), I dealt with the rudest, most inconsiderate devilspawn I've ever fucking encountered. They may have even beaten out the bitchy six-year-old first grader I took care of at a summer day camp (a story for another day).

These three little demon hellspawn seemed to be all sisters, or at least some kind of relatives. The oldest was not more than twelve years of age, the middle one eight or nine, and the youngest about six. Two “adults,”(and I use that term extraordinarily loosely), presumably at least one mother, were accompanying them. As the older females shopped, the maniacal children were running around the department yelling, being obnoxiously loud, and knocking things off shelves and off racks, leaving them on the floor, apathetic to the fact that I now had to clean up after their piggy little aggravating antics like the little jerks they were.

During their shenanigans, the oldest apparently picked up some shirts to try on, as she bombarded the fitting room with her and her sisters' presence. Every goddamn time they closed the door, they fucking SLAMMED it shut. Which is not only disturbing to my ear drums, but if they break it, no one else can use that room until it gets fixed, leaving a longer line for other customers and more headaches for us.

As she's trying things on, she's yelling through the door at her mom or whoever who is sitting RIGHT OUTSIDE THE FUCKING ROOM. It's very close quarters, you can hear each other fucking whisper in there.

When she was finally finished, she waltzed out of the room like the diva she thought she was, and continued to run around with the younger ones.

As I saw that she brought NOTHING out with her, I went in to check the room, KNOWING that everything was left in there.

Sure enough, like I have some kind of retail hell psychic curse, there are the shirts, every single one of them, thrown all over the chair, tangled together, and not one of them hung up.

Apparently, I must have “angrily” began cleaning up after them (what a surprise), because after I had brought the shirts out and hung them on the rack right outside the damn doors and began folding a pants table nearby, where I wasn't in visibility range of the fitting rooms, the mom said something about cleaning up after themselves for me (whether it was positive or negative, I have no idea).

I don't know what the girl said in response to this, but I heard her mom say “As she was cleaning up, she was hanging them up really hard.”

The girl said something I couldn't hear, probably extremely rude, to which her mom must have told her she was being too loud, because she immediately followed it with, “Good, I hope I'm loud enough so she can hear me.”

OH REALLY?! WHY DON'T YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE THEN, BITCH?!

All her mom said was, “You have an attitude,” but did NOTHING to correct her. They left the fitting rooms, and were in the department for another five minutes or so. Every time they saw me, knowing that I was already pissed, the middle one looked at me and just grinned with this devilish fucking evil satisfaction on her face.

When they finally left, as they were already in the AISLE walking away, of course not to my face, the middle one said loudly enough knowing I would hear hear, “I'm so mad I have to clean up when it's my job!”

WHAT THE FUCK?! Now I'm absolutely fucking infuriated. I wanted to fucking slap that acid-toungued little monster and her bitchy mouth and evil fucking grin right off her spawn of Satan demon face.

First of all (not that I have to tell you), yes, technically my job is to clean the department, but there is a rack to hang your shit outside the rooms for a fucking reason, and IN THE DIRECTION YOU ARE ALREADY WALKING when you leave. It takes an extra TWO FUCKING SECONDS! The rack literally states, “Back on the rack! We'll take it from here.” Just because “it's my job” doesn't mean you have to be a fucking dirty little barbaric piggy asshole and leave your shit everywhere. And at twelve years old, I'm pretty damn sure you should be able to READ THE DAMN SIGNS on the back of EVERY door that kindly request you to bring everything out (I have a pic of this sign in an earlier post). They didn't care in the least bit that they left me a mess. If their moms or whoever they were weren't there, I would have gotten fired yesterday for bitching out a bunch of kids. I didn't feel like getting into a fight with parents. Those are the people I want to follow home, tear apart their houses and just leave it there and walk away because “it's their job” to clean it because they live there.

The worst part of the whole thing is that the “adults” did absolutely NOTHING to stop or correct them from acting the way they did or voice their spitfire bitchy attitudes. And that, my friends, is why everyone is a fucking asshole.

My solution to this night – thank God it was my friend's birthday and she invited everyone out – was to meet some friends at a bar and dance out my frustrations.

You know what, fuck it, I don't care. I wish I would have bitched them all out. Fucking little assholes. I hope they swallow glass.

Until next time, RHU,

--K-Fit

BONUS FITTING ROOM NIGHTMARE PICS:

Lazy Piggy Shopper couldn't be bothered to throw the water bottle away...in a trash can RIGHT OUTSIDE THE FUCKING DOOR! Ugh.

Angry Hangers!

Here you have a maxi-pad wrapper wedged between the wall and the chair. At least it's only the wrapper this time!

Kerry's Fitting Room Nightmares # 35: Retail Hell lying in wait

This is what I walked into today. If only I had a flamethrower.

All gobacks. Kill me now.

--Kerry

Retail Slave Pet Peeves: Custys Who Are Rude When Greeted

From HighEnd Slave:

I have a submission about one of my pet peeves:

Customers who shop at stores with salespeople and act annoyed that the salespeople dare to talk to them. I'm wondering if anyone else has seen/dealt with this.

I work for a national "high end" department store in the US. Although the store is thought of as high end, the customers are total cheap, classless pieces of you know what.

As a sales person I am required to make sales quotas. This means I have to approach customers and see how they are doing, and try to find out what they need so I can sell it to them.

Well I get a ton of people who act so completely annoyed that I asked them how they were doing, if they found everything okay, or can I start a fitting room for you. Frequently I get the "I'm just looking thank you", but said more like "fuck off."

Sorry for trying to make things easier for you, I'll just let you walk around aimlessly like an idiot. Never have I walked in a store and had someone help me shop, or offer to start a fitting room for me. Even when I shopped at this store before I started working there, no one offered to help me find what I needed. I shopped, I bought, I left. Maybe one day they will realize that part of being a high end store is offering customer service, if you don't like sales people, shop somewhere else. This has always been a part of the shopping experience of this store shouldn't be a surprise when someone tries to talk to you.

Well the women and the couples are the worst I walked up to one woman asked her who she was shopping for, made a suggestion of an item to look at, she said she had already picked it up, I said ok great and I walked away. You know what this cum receptacle did? She left the mess she made at that particular rack and walked off as if I had done the worst thing in the world by suggesting a product. I LEFT HER ALONE! If I was an aggressive sales person I would be checking her out so fast your head would spin, and she wouldn't have time to act like a douche. But that's okay, hopefully you will end up with the shark who takes advantage of you and forces you to open up a credit card with 80% interest.

Couples are really shitty too. I'm a female salesperson and all the women here get upset when you approach them to help. I had only asked if a couple was doing okay when the women made faces like "ugh here she comes." Women even try to compete for attention when I try to help them find clothes for their husband. Please don't ask me for help if you don't want me to continue helping you or don't intend to give me the sale. I do not want your BF/husband, no one wants him, that's why you are the only one who married him. so get off your high horse and stop thinking other women want your used goods. If it wasn't my job I wouldn't even acknowledge your dumb, lousy saggy ass. I would love for these women to have their other half stolen by a gay man that they personally chosepicked out to be their sales person. That would be sweet justice! Anyway now I know to not help couples.

Anyone else have experiences with customers who are annoyed when you offer help?

--HighEnd Slave

Awesome N.A.T. Signage

From Humor Me.

Kerry's Fitting Room Nightmares #34: Hangers From Hell

WTF? Were they using them as frisbees?

Damn N.A.T.!

Kerry's Fitting Room Nightmares #33: Piggies Being Neat

From Kerry: So they had the energy to fold them but not to put them back?

Wolfycat Quits Ross Dress For Less With Horrible Working Conditions

Wolfcat gets a Retail Balls Award for choosing her sanity, health and well being over an unbearable working environment at a Ross:

Hello, my RHU pretties!

It has finally happened. After all the shit, hell, and abuse that I've gone through working at Smosh, I'm finally free.

Fabio was no longer coming to work at my store as often, which left Barbs with the reins. I swear she's freaking useless. I get put on fitting rooms as the sole attendant, and every time she tries to page me to go cashier. Then she gets pissed off when I page her telling her that I'm doing fitting rooms. Sorry, queen bee, but what do you expect me to do? If I'm not there, custys are free to frolic and be NATs and have sex all in the stalls or something. And I'm actually serious about that last one. This one couple kept trying to sneak past me to do a rendezvous in the men's fitting rooms. Yeah, the smell of restrooms and industrial cleaning supplies totally get me feeling randy.

The last straw came when one day, I was put on as backup cashier. About halfway through my shift, I notice her standing at the end of my row behind me. I asked her what was up, but she said to just ignore her. Hard thing to do when you're working and you feel a glare stinging you in the back of the head. After the wave of customers finished, I cleaned my area and went to go size the juniors section. Barbs stopped me on the way.

Barbs: You've been turning away returns all day.

Me: Yeah...I'm not on the returns desk. I'm just backup.

Barbs: But that doesn't give a reason why you haven't been taking returns.

Me:...The sign above those registers say Purchases Only. The returns function is disabled in those computers. That's why I haven't been doing returns.

Barbs: *huff* You think you know everything.

Me: Uh, no. That's just general knowledge. *walks away*

Then, later on, we were completely swamped up front like a mother. All registers except one were being manned. Even the girls who didn't speak English were trying to struggle on registers. Even with all the effort, all the lines were probably ten feet long. During all this, Barbs is just sitting on her ass in the back office, yelling at us on the intercom. Not the phone. The intercom. Where every single custy can hear. This eggs on some rude custys to start shouting insults at the cashiers.

By this time, every cashier on register is conspiring revenge. My supervisor grabs the phone and asks Barbs to come help on the last register. She declines.

Then a crusty decides that I'm trying to rip her off. She had come to the front with a dress that had no price tag. It was a size 22, typically a "women's world" item, so I grab the price book and scan it in for a women's world dress. It was like $19.99 or $29.99. She starts bitching that it's an outrageous price (Really? It was in awesome condition and something you would find at the mall for more than $50). But as it was a Tuesday, I could offer her a Crusty Tuesday 10% off discount to stop her whining. That wasn't good enough. She wanted a manager. I page Barbs up and NO ANSWER. I start paging like a maniac. Old lady snaps.

"This service is horrible! I waited in line for an hour! Blah,blah,blah, where-the-hell-is-your-manager-you-probably-didn't-call-because-you-know-you're-in-trouble, blah, blah, blah!!"

My supervisor is up to her elbows in a huge transaction nearing $1000, so she couldn't help. The lines are starting to dwindle due to people getting fed up on waiting, so naturally, it's like they punt their items across the length of the store before bailing. Then a rude-ass custy comes up behind me and jabs me in the shoulder. I throw her hand off of me and demand her to step away. She backs off of me, but yells that she's never shopping here again because we all suck. I yell good riddance to her.

Old lady says to me "You shouldn't speak to her like that! Blah, blah, blah, oldladytalk."

Then I hear "What the hell have you done?" behind me. Barbs suddenly decides to show her face. I snap.

Me: What the hell have I done? Where the hell were you when I paged you a couple hundred times?

Barbs: *lame excuse* blahblahblah, but why hasn't your line been moving?

Me: Because this lady *gestures to crusty* wanted your assistance, but you were not responding at all! She's been waiting--we've ALL been waiting for about 20 minutes for your ass to show up!

Supervisor: And why the hell did you even refuse to help us on register when you KNOW we're completely swamped?

Barbs: I didn't REFUSE, I just needed to do other stuff.

Supervisor: That's complete BS, Barbs!

That's when most of the lines started getting shorter as more people left. Even the crusty. Supervisor and Barbs are still verbally sparring, when the next custy in my line comes up glaring at me in a way that I feel like he's possessed by a demon or something. He has a pack of glassware that he picks up from his cart and slams it on the counter. Shattering ensues and he starts cussing me out like a psycho.

That's when I said fuck it. No more dealing with an incompetent manager not worth shit, no more insulting custies, no more displeased whiny crusties, and no more freaky demonic possesions that need Jesus. I QUIT!

--Wolfycat

Crazy Lady Encounter

From KitKat:

I wish I had a camera with me today. I went to the local HellMart for groceries since I'm having company this weekend. My HellMart is normally pretty tame all things considered. Then I encountered an older couple (husband and wife) with one of those carts with the extra seating. The wife is in the middle of the two seats while the husband's pushing her.

Now onto an old story from two summers ago (summer and Christmas I actually work retail).
I've just had a customer do a large return without a receipt and had called a manager over to help process it because the amount was over $100. Well, I get my manager C and another manager T. My customer is being really nice and understanding. I'm also the only associate at the cash wrap because my "partner" JL was putting away dresses.

C gets a frantic call from JO (another coworker) asking for a manager NOW. C tells T to go over while C finishes with my customer. C finishes and goes to leave when this lady comes up to the counter and starts yelling. She's yelling about how JO apparently attempted to steal her phone and how she wants JO fired. C is saying he'll talk to JO when the lady pulls out this whopper, "I know you don't have to be a genius to work at [my store]."

C just happens to have the majority of the high school and college kids and he goes stiff. He tells her very politely and stiffly, "We have some very smart people who work here," turns around and walks away. JL by this time has come up because she can hear the lady all the way down by Kid's and the store isn't small. JL also figured I'd be paging for help soon. The lady continues to complain to me and asks if C is a store manager and if she can have C's number.

I tell her that C isn't the store manager and I don't know his number. Then she asks me what the store manager's number is which I also don't know. This lady continues to tell me how her husband (supposedly) told JO three times to leave the clothes in the fitting room because his wife wasn't done trying things on. I finally get her rung up completely and she then complains about how she has a lot of money on her and starts pulling 50 dollar bills out of her pockets.

She doesn't have enough and yells at her kids to bring her another 50 bucks. Kids and
husband are standing there looking embarrassed and the oldest starts to come over but not fast enough for her. She yells at him to hurry up; I finally get her to leave and my next customer gives me a "wtf?" look.

JL and I find out later from JO that the lady had left a literal pile of clothing in the Junior's fitting room. JO just scooped it up and tossed it in the cart to deal with it from there. JO also said that the lady's husband was nowhere near and that she didn't even know the phone was in the pocket of the pants until it started ringing. Another customer even told JO that the loud lady was wrong and that JO was a good employee.

So I'm now back up at school for the spring semester and I would just like to say that there are a few people who work in the "coffee shop" on campus who are awesome. They know me by name and what I get and they're just awesome in general. I've also decided that I go there too often as they now know me by my nickname and not the name on my ID.

Enjoy the nice couple of warm days!

--KitKat

Shitty Coworkers and Bloodsucking Custys

Magic Mistress here again.

It's been a while since my last post, but like most of us, I've been busy because of the holidays.

However (and you may want to lock me away for saying this), my retail holiday was tolerable, nay even enjoyable at times!

How you may ask?

I did not have to deal with clothing at all, instead I was transferred to the fine jewelry department as a holiday hire. For two wonderful months I didn't have to deal with the inner circle of hell known as fitting rooms. I made commission. I learned useful skills like watch adjustments. I discovered it's way easier and more fun for me to suggest accessories for someone than clothing. I got along with the other associates and the area manager said I did really well there.

Alas, good things come to an end and I've sense returned to my little corner of dresses and juniors clothing. It took me a couple shifts to get back into the swing of things and start to pick up the leftover disaster from the holidays and inventory. And with a new year comes new gripes from the dresses!

First, some of you might remember my last post when I said the Yuka-tan and the Cheerleader weren't signing the fitting rooms. Well Yuka-tan might be in a different department, but the problem persists. Not only is the Cheerleader still doing it, but so is another associate who I'll call Purse Goddess.

I really don't know what these two have against signing for the fitting room. It's not f-ing difficult. I can understand if you get swamped or you're on your break and you miss a couple times. But, whole days have gone by and no one puts two lousy letters on a stinking piece of paper.

Take this morning for example. I get in at 12:30 and there is a fucking disaster in one of the rooms and surprise surprise, I was the only one who signed for yesterday. Twice. When the store opened and the hour after that. No one signed this morning. I know that the Cheerleader was there yesterday and Purse Goddess was there this morning. I had a nice chat with our manager who said she'd discuss with them tomorrow. I've got the next three days off so we'll see if anything good comes of that discussion.

Finally, I'll end off on the most awkward customer I've had yet.

I was covering for shoes and I did the usual "How are you/can I help you?" shtick to one woman today.

She proceeded to stand five inches away from my face and whisper to me why her life was awful starting with her expensive boots falling apart and ending with her father's recent death.

I had no idea what she wanted from me and I had no clue what to say.

She then kind of wandered off and asked where another store was.

It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't been nasty about. It's almost like she wanted me to wave my magic (seewhatididthere) wand and cure her life. I know everyone needs to vent, but there's got to be a better way than unloading your life story on a poor sales associate.

Like writing to an awesome blog!

Stay warm RHU (it was -4 yesterday morning here)!

--Magic Mistress

 

QUEER GEEK'S DRESSING ROOM DRAMA AWARDS

From Queer Geek:

Hello RHUer’s and welcome to the first annual Dressing Room Drama Awards hosted by your fellow retail slave Queer Geek! 

We are here to honor the most outlandish behavior and sadly TRUE tales of crazy custys as they create havoc in the one place they choose try on merchandise: THE DRESSING ROOM!

The first award is the Call Child Protected Services Award which goes to the unwed mother who abandoned her infant at the Original Five and Dime Store in the women’s dressing room. 

Sadly, it would have been an amazing sensational story for the Jerry Springer/Maury Povich crowd if it had been a live birth filled with blood, self surgery, and a baby discarded in a dumpster but no suck luck! 

Police were called the scene to haul the baby away while dumbfounded retail slaves observed in shock at the fact that a child had been left behind to be shuffled around in the foster care system.  Not to worry Brad and Angelina will adopt the kid who will grow up to write a scathing memoir about its fear of wire hangers. NO MORE WIRE HANGERS EEEEVVVVVEEERRRR!

The second award is the NAT Award which goes to the Nasty Ass Thieves who go in the dressing room, make a huge mess for the poor retail slaves to clean up, and run out the door wearing the clothes they stole on their back. 

This honor goes to the original Coal-Miner’s company Pervyn’s for its ghetto ass handling of such NATS by security and blaming the employees for not watching shoplifters even though it is SPECIFICALLY not their job to catch thieves. Shit! They don’t pay me enough to get my ass stabbed by some drugged out crackhead!

The third award is the Sex Offender Award which goes to the freaky nutsack who got caught taking pictures of women changing in the Messy’s dressing room on his cellphone.  Douche  Perv got caught by one of the female custys causing her to shriek for security.

He would have been apprehended if he didn’t escape through the exit and security would have gotten to him faster. They were on a doughnut break, apparently.  Oh well. 

If you’re into that kind of thing, you can catch his handywork on Granny Panties.com. Oh and if you see a guy wearing Star Wars underoos on there? That’s not me. That’s my twin brother Ralph. Uh…yeah…Ralph, that’s it.

The fourth award is the I Missed Award which again goes to the disgusting custy who couldn’t make it to the toilet and decided to do her business in the women’s dressing room.

You read it right! Miss Nasty Thang went inside the women’s changing room, released her bowels, and left a little souvenir on one of Messy’s evening dresses. I guess she realized that there was no two ply toilet paper inside there or she despised crushed silk velvet ruching.  Sadly, the poor retail slave came in, after the custy left, and you can imagine what happened next. She made mud pies alongside the stars of Two Girls One Cup!

The last and final award of the night goes to Messy’s department store once again which proves that it is truly the center of retail hell! It is the   I Forgot My Prozac Award and goes to the teenybopper girl who decided to cause some major drama for the other retail slaves!

Upon discovering that there would be no more Twilight movies, Justin Bieber having a girlfriend, and that she couldn’t fit into a size two anymore this teeny custy went into the women’s dressing room and decided to off herself by downing a bottle of pills.

However instead of peacefully going gently into the night, the custy ended up regurgitating her Molotov cocktail alerting a retail newbie and paramedics.  After being shipped off to the ER to have her stomach pump, the custy left quite a mess of her lunch in the women’s area leaving a horrible stench which had to be sealed off and cleaned for three weeks before it could be reopened to the public.  Needless to say, the women’s dressing at Messy’s was never the same. They say it is haunted by the ghost of Elvis who also mistook it for a toilet!

And there you have it! The recipients of the Dressing Room Drama Awards! I’m your host Queer Geek and we’ll see you again next week as we honor another bunch of crazy moments in retail hell from the dressing area.

Bye for now!

--Queer Geek

 

Fitting Room Hell: Custy's Phone Stolen

From Melpomene:

We've been suspiciously quiet for a few weeks now.

All over Christmas we were quiet, our sale started, and no increase in footfall, in fact this weekend has been the quietest weekend since our store opened a little over a year ago.

On the plus side, it's meant we've managed to flip the stock on my floor totally, and rearrange everything, however it's also meant my manager has been off the floor catching up on her paperwork, leaving me to run the floor alone. Which is fine, I can deal with that, and quite enjoy it.

Today however, nearly had me screaming in frustration. My till ops seemed to have had lobotomies:

"..these socks don't have a barcode."

"Well the socks are right in front of you. Get another pack and scan those"

"Ohhh.... I didn't know I could do that."

So the bells are going like crazy, which meant that every time I start to do something, the bells go. The constant back and forth had me getting pretty frustrated, but it was ok.

I was called across to our fitting rooms early this afternoon, as a customer was getting really irate and upset. When I walked in I found out why.

We have an 8 item limit in our fitting rooms, and any items over this limit are put in a basket, and placed on an arm in our processing section. If you want to try on other items, fine, you bring out the ones you've tried and swap them over. This customer had been doing that, and upon returning to the changing room she was using, found her phone was missing.

So completely understandable that she was upset. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about theft like that, which I explained to her. We took her details and a description of the phone, to contact her if it appeared (Not likely), recommended she report the theft, and contact her mobile provider. That was the end of it, so I thought.

Just as we hit the busy period, where we're clearing fitting rooms, shift changes are going ahead, and we get a rush of customers, I get a radio message (all supervisors and managers have hand held radios to make contacting one another easier) to phone one of the managers urgently.

I turn to go to the phone a hand wraps round my arm. "I'm her MOTHER!" bellows this woman.

"I'm sorry?"

"Name is my daughter. She's had her phone stolen from your fitting rooms and I want to know what you're going to do about it"

"I'm sorry, but as I said to your daughter there is nothing we can do. We've taken her details and a description of the phone, and if it shows up we will contact you, however..."

"It's not going to show up, it's been STOLEN!"

"I appreciate that, however, as I said there is nothing we can do. I contacted my store manager to confirm this, and unfortunately items left unattended are left at your own risk"

"I know all that, but what are you going to do? Have you looked at the CCTV to see who it was?"

"We don't have CCTV in our fitting rooms." 

"WHY NOT!?"

"That would be illegal."

Not to mention more than a bit creepy. She really wants our security guards watching CCTV footage of her 15/16 yr old daughter getting changed? I don't think so.

"Well of course it is, but why haven't you checked it?"

This went on for some time (a good quarter of an hour), during which I'm the only manager or supervisor on the floor, I can hear the phone ringing, and know it's the manager who was waiting for me to phone her, the bells are ringing almost continuously, and I can see half of my staff stood in one corner talking and not doing any work.

At which point my head began to pound.

Eventually, after asking me why I wouldn't report the theft to the police, and then if I could search the person they thought stole it (No. I am not walking up to a stranger and saying "Hiiiii! This lady thinks you're a thief so can I just have a rummage through your bag and pockets?") she realized there was nothing we as a store can do for her. Her daughter was stupid enough to leave her phone unattended and in full view. Not my problem. (Sounds really harsh, I did feel sorry for the girl, but what kind of idiot leaves a £200 phone unattended in busy store?)

I managed to get the bells answered, the phone answered and tore all my staff new ones for standing around and doing nothing, only to hear from fitting rooms that the mother had barged in there several times, rummaged through everyone's baskets, and gone into people's fitting rooms demanding that they show her their phones. Ugh.

I informed security, told them to kick her out if she went near fitting rooms again, and carried on.

Only to see her again when she got to the tills and started bitching about the fact that the underwear she picked up off the 'FROM £1' table wasn't £1, and asking me why it wasn't £1.

"Well it depends on whether the sign says £1 or 'from £1'"

She insisted it said £1, I knew it didn't, but I wasn't arguing with her because I just wanted her out of the store (they were £1.30 each, and she had 4 pairs. Not worth it).

She then spent a good 10 minutes after the transaction telling my till op that her daughters phone had been stolen, and they wished they'd never stepped foot in the store.

Believe me, I wish they'd never stepped foot through our doors either.

--Melpomene

 

 

Kerry's Fitting Room Nightmare #31: Christmas Rush Piggies

From Kerry: It's not like the piggies can read any other time of the year, but it's particularly hellish during the Christmas rush. AAAAAGH! Anyone got some spiced rum and a match?

 

 

 
Merry Christmas everyone, once you're out of hell!

--Kerry

 

Custy Leaves Gift In Kerry's Fitting Room

From Kerry: I found this little dude in my fitting room. A least it wasn't a shit monster. =D