Jobs past come to haunt me...

If you've worked retail, I feel it's only right that I warn you the following blog may dredge up long buried memories of idiots gnawing away at your sanity and IQ points with their never ending need of stuff.

My first retail job was at Best Buy, but I didn't really have any problems there. Hastings is where the real problems with working retail started to crop up, and to this day I still remember some of the more... fascinating idiots and instances.

The more readily remembered problems come from when I had to work in the book section of the store. Now, I love books. I don't read them as much as I should, but a lot of people don't either apparently. Despite this, they seem to have passing knowledge of books that may or may not have existed. It was common for somebody to ask for a book, but give only the barest of details:

"Do you have a book?" (I don't know, do we?) "It has a dog in it, but I think the dog dies... maybe not. But the family is really sad because of something with the dog... but it might have been a cat. So can you tell me where it is?"

I enjoy being helpful, I really do, but when I'm given an impossible task and then a dirty look/comment when I can't deliver (through no fault of my own), I want to get off the ride. There were a couple times when I had to work books that I would take off my name tag, sit down in a chair and read a book. At least I was lucky to be trusted enough to not be checked up on.

Yet as bad as the book section could be, it doesn't hold a candle to working the register. After all, not everybody will go over to books, but they all will go to the register if they're buying something. I have plenty of stories to tell about stupid customers berating me for asking to check their ID when they pay with their debit card, or getting angry when I wouldn't help them cheat the buy two get one free system.

No. They pale in comparison to the contingent promotions we had to suffer through. Y'know, the "If this doesn't happen, the customer gets this" kind of thing. The Hastings version was if the worker at the register didn't ask the customer if they wanted to buy a Snickers, they would get one for free. The promotion details were in plain sight at the register so it was hard to miss, and when something free is on the line it doesn't get missed.

Conceptually, it's easy to remember to ask a customer if they'd like to buy a Snickers, but it doesn't hold up in practice. Especially after five hours of it. It would be so damn frustrating to not miss a beat for hours, only to forget to ask an obnoxious jerk who rubs it in your face. For instance, a soccer mom who poked me in the chest and laughed, calling me incompetent as she did so. Is it any wonder that I can come off as bitter? There were so many times I wished I could fire back at them, like so:

"Look, I'm exhausted. I've been at this for about seven hours now, and I'm here another two. So you have essentially outsmarted a practically non-responsive lump of clay. Good job. Here's your #$@&ing Snickers." And then I throw it at them. Or better yet, smash the Snickers and drop it in their bag. The promotion says nothing of the condition their candy will be in after all.

There were a few shining spots where I was able to reverse my mistake. A teenage girl got all snotty and excited when I forgot to ask the question, to which I replied. "Well, I actually have until the transaction is over, and it's not. So would you like to buy a Snickers?" I'd never seen a smile wither into a frown that fast before or since. It made my day.

What I've written here is just the tip of an iceberg that extends far into the frigid depths of the hell known as unrewarding customer service in a retail environment. For all the crap I put up with, I had friends there and they helped to make it pretty enjoyable. Maybe I'll talk about them some time for a happy blog post.