Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor® blog at Retaildoc.com

63 Comments

• Bosch
  November 10th, 2009 at 8:49 am

  I take offence that retail workers who complain about customers/guests have a bad mind set. And we are looking for the nasty customers to ruin our day.

  I can sight example after example of customers who won’t take honest answers to their questions for truth and after you are told you are lazy liar to your face a few times no positive attitude is going to adjust for that. Customers who think expired coupons are just as valid as valid ones and scream at you that the other stores take them as gospel that you should too..

  Managers that hold your ability to get customers to sign up for the stores credit cards as the measuring block for what employee gets hours that week. Not that you do a good job are trained in multiple areas – only your ability to get credit card sign ups.

  Come work as a retail employee in a big chain store and I think your perception will change on the ugliness we face everyday from the general shopping public.

• bobphibbs
  November 10th, 2009 at 11:28 am

  If it is so bad that you start a site http://www.retailsucks.com, why the heck don’t you leave? You’re doing no one, including your bitter self any good. Geez….

• Mari
  November 10th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

  I’m going to have to completely agree with Bosch here. I really did enjoy going into work everyday. I loved my co-workers and my managers/asst. managers. they were like a second family to me and I could always count on them for help.

  I’m a generally happy person, and I understand that if you have issues outside of work that you should keep them there and not act upon the customers as if they are the victim of your attitude.

  I can’t think of one instance where in my entire retail career that I’ve ruined someone shopping experience, as opposed to the customer completely breaking me down and making me feel worthless as a human being.

  I can recall numerous times when a customer came into the store with a sour puss on their mouth and nothing positive to say. I say “Hello”, and they ignore me right out. I ask them how they are doing, and once again I get the silent treatment. I’m was also constantly bombarded with the notion that I didn’t know how to do my job, or that an item being misplaced was my fault.
  I’ve also had several women scream at me because they didn’t have THEIR ID with them.

  Also, to “bobphibbs”. If it was that easy to quit and get a better job, there wouldn’t be any working retail stores. Do you honestly believe that this person is staying at their job because they love it, or perhaps the reason is because the economy is so bad and he/she has no other choice?

  I’m appalled that some people have no empathy towards retail workers simply because it’s an entry level position, and you really don’t need much education to do it. We’re not all idiots. I myself worked very hard for the store I was employed at, and always came in refreshed and ready to help people. Can I help how they act. Are the customers at any fault here?

• bobphibbs
  November 10th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

  It’s called customer service Mari, it’s a job. I worked retail for much of my life with 70 hr weeks, trying to hit goals to earn bonus, etc. I get it. Sales training could have kept you from asking the same tired questions, “Can I help you?” and “How are you today?” which encourages brutish behavior. They are robotic and do not endear anyone to them. Until and unless retail workers take some responsibility for the responses they get, they will continue to feel put-upon and downtrodden. When the mind goes, the body should too. Again, the difference in your and Bosch from what I’m talking about is – me-it’s your fault for the way you’re treated – you-it’s all “THEM.” I would suggest the truth is somewhere in between. Again, the point of the post: I can and I won’t. Think about it.

• Mari
  November 10th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

  Well, I appreciate that you are being honest about your own work experience, but I must still defend myself and others that work in retail. My job was/is to ask if the customers needed help, otherwise I’d have to be psychic in order to make a bigger sale.

  I’m sorry, but the general mindset is that, if someone gives you a reason to be miserable, you will be miserable. This is very common within almost every job. This also happens with friends, family and those we work with. I would never expect an employee helping me to take any rude behavior I was displaying.

  Wouldn’t good customer service also include being honest? What if this person was swearing at you, discriminating you or verbally/sexually harassing you. Is the employee not allowed to defend them self? Are they not allowed to have their own feelings?

  I’ve been humiliated many times at my work and afterward I felt so embarrassed and ashamed of myself for not being honest and standing up for my right to be respected.

  Yes, you may be right to some extent, some people do quickly accuse others of their problems. However, I do believe there is a difference between personal fault and the direct fault of someone else. Tell me, how many people do you know, including yourself feel great after having been yelled at and degraded. It’s not a pleasant experience, and everyone is not going to react the same. Some people might let it roll off their back, others aren’t so waterproof and they are deeply offended by the words of others, and rightly so.

  Asking a customer if they need help finding something, or asking about their day does not brutish behavior. Why would we be trained to ask those questions if all we were going to get was ignored or sneered at. Listen, I’m not speaking about all customers, but you also have to realize that their are some terrible people out there that will never be satisfies no matter how much help you give them or how nice you are.

  I’m only being honest and speaking from my own experiences. You say that you have worked in retail, so you must know that there are customers like that. You must know that being nice doesn’t always mean that the customer will be nice back.

• Bosch
  November 10th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

  gee bob

  Calling me bitter, that doesn’t show a positive outlook on things.. Actually I really enjoy what I do, I’m not a desk jockey. I didn’t start the site and actually we trade lots of stories and most of it is that the things that happen in retail are common no matter what color smock you wear. There is just comfort in knowing “ok that isn’t just me who sees this happening”. Or you can find info, to help you deal with customers or company info if you are thinking of moving to another company.

  A positive outlook will only get you so far when you are dealing with a screaming parent threatening to sue you and your store, who told you not five minutes ago to go “Mind your own D business!” when you politely asked them to get their child to sit down in the shopping cart. Now that child is on the tile floor with a bleeding head injury as you are waiting for the ambulace to arrive. And we don’t ask you that just to ruin your day, we want you and your child to not get injured. I keep asking even though I get some of the most nasty responses.

• bobphibbs
  November 10th, 2009 at 10:26 pm

  Sorry Bosch but I think you’re wrong. You’re identifying with misery. It isn’t a site built on anything but whining and complaining. Been there and it got me nowhere in my life. We become what we focus on. It sounds to me (and I know I don’t know you) like you are stuck. We perform to the level of our fears and concentration. You post on a site retailsucks.com – you can’t tell me you start your day concentrating on what positive could come your way, how customers could enjoy or appreciate you. If you want to work in retail, you have to get your head around changing how you both initiate to customers and react to them. I’m not looking to make this blog post a running argument though. Have a nice day.

• bobphibbs
  November 10th, 2009 at 10:29 pm

  As I just posted to Bosch, I have no intention of this being an ongoing dialogue. Got it, you won’t, you’re stuck, in your job, your outlook, what you deal with. You can change it. And ONLY you can change it. If you want to commiserate with how unfair the world is you’ll find many people to support you and keep you there. The trick in getting ahead, however you define that, in your life is to realize all of it is a choice. You can do the hard work on seeing what you bring on your life or take the easy way out and complain. just sayin’…

• czander
  November 11th, 2009 at 11:56 am

  The Negative Influence of Positive Thinking- Enter the Gurus and Coaches
  Ehrenreich (2008) suggests that the greed we see in America’s corporations may be a function of the cultural phenomena of “positive thinking” and she suggests this way of thinking is firmly embedded in American culture. This type of thinking entered corporate America in the early 1990’s and is now a staple, permeating executive constellations and in most corporations all levels of management. It can be said that in the modern corporation one cannot gain entry into the executive constellation unless one can demonstrate that they are proponents of positive thinking. Simply defined positive thinking is a dangerous mixture of ideological “right wing” conservatism, religious fundamentalism, Ayan Rand’s philosophy, and the happiness psychologists.
  Positive thinking has been around for some time gaining wide popularity during the Great Depression and further popularized by a Protestant preacher Norman Vincent Peale in his 1952 book “The Power of Positive Thinking.” He preached that one is thinking positively when one has a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. These were the steps he laid out in his book and sermons for developing personal strength and if followed would lead to a successful, healthy, and happy life. He claims to give:
  • Confidence-building words to live by
  • Ways to overcome self-doubt
  • Strategies for achieving good health
  • A program to release the vast energies within you
  • Accepting ourselves and our individual needs
  • Embracing the spiritual forces that surround you
  In corporate America it is almost impossible for a manager to avoid those who sell the virtues of a positive mental attitude. The attitude and how to get it is contained in a barrage of books, business magazines, corporate literature, and newspapers, and forms the basic message at corporate “pep rallies,” which range from large scale cavernous meetings of several thousand employees to intimate pseudo group therapy meetings and inspirational retreats. Managers returning from these events eschewed all forms of negativism even to the point of isolating employees accused of spreading “negative energy” or “negative vibes” and in some cases terminating them. What is a negative employee? Typically they are those who cause trouble, give their manager a “headache,” they may seek to mobilize employees against management or some change initiative, but in most cases they are employees who point out flaws, suggest alternatives, and question assumptions. They enjoy critical thinking and they love to diagnose and solve problems. One could say they embrace what the positive/happiness people dread, the diagnostic medical model. As a matter of fact the positive/happiness people don’t refer to it as the medical model of diagnosis they call it the disease model and maintain that it promotes victimization, pathology, and of course, negativity. As a consultant stated in an address to several hundred managers, “We have to stop focusing on problems or what’s wrong, we need to change our attitude and the attitudes of our employees and develop their strengths. Negativity and pessimism spreads like a cancer and the only way to combat it is to get on with what’s good, what works, that’s our strength.” While condemning the medical model he conveniently uses it. Positive consultants aggressively report that negativity is a disease and must be defeated and only a positive attitude defeats this disease. This is indeed simplistic or magical thinking, but it has a powerful voice in universities and among an ever growing field of organizational consultants, coaches, gurus, speakers, and writers.
  Legitimizing Positive Thinking
  In many American universities there are “positive thinkers” who like to call themselves “happiness coaches.” Coaches, motivational gurus along with executives and bankers subscribe to “positive thinking” ideology and they point to the happiness research that has been pouring out of these universities. Conceptually and perhaps in other ways connected to “positive thinking” ideology is the happiness researcher, a former American Psychological Association President and University of Pennsylvania scholar Martin Seligman who has also been connected to the CIA and Bush’s torture programs. He chairs the university’s master program in Applied Positive psychology. Seligman is also the author of “Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.” Positive thinkers led by Seligman claim they have “scientifically” discovered what truly makes people happy and they now offer programs where they claim they can teach people to overcome negative emotions (anger, fear, pessimism, and sadness) and replace them with positive thoughts and feelings, and help individuals identify and cultivate their character strengths and use them everyday to achieve happiness in their work. Of course included in this potpourri of magic is a motivation to change corporate American by putting a smile on every employees face and develop and strengthen employee’s positive emotions so that they can work harder and longer hours like noncomplaining robots. To further their claims of legitimacy, the happiness researchers and consultants have created the Journal of Happiness Studies and a World Data-base of Happiness. Others who lend credibility to this movement are Tal D. Ben Shahar, who teaches a course on Positive Psychology and Psychology of Leadership and Shawn Achor who teaches Positive Psychology and the Science of Happiness, they claim these are the most popular courses at Harvard. Ben Shahar gives advice, self-help tips, and writes books on how to be happy and of course he gives inspirational talks and is called “Dr. Prozac” by his students. Antidotal data suggest that every university in America is either offering or planning to offer a “Happiness” course in 2010.
  Ayan Rand and the positive thinkers
  What does this all mean for corporate employees? This is nothing more than a brainwashing movement supported and funded by corporate titans and bankers to keep employees happily working at the “grindstone” while filling the coffers of the elite. Consider this, we find the thinking of Ayan Rand intertwined with positive thinkers and happiness gurus. Followers of the late Ayan Rand are found in large numbers among bankers and corporate executives and this fits neatly into the positive thinkers and happiness ideology. These Randians or objectivtists, as they liked to be called, believe that any encroachment by government into the free market system is a recipe for disaster, except when they screw up then its OK to get a bailout. It’s a perfect world. Their rationalizations boggle the mind. While accepting the federal bailout they go so far as to conclude that the 2008 financial crisis is the direct result of government interference and regulation. They also believe:
  • Altruism is destructive
  • Redistribution of wealth is bad
  • Self-interest/selfishness is good
  This philosophy (if one could call it that) is not only preached throughout the corporate world it formed the basis for how the Federal Reserve and the American government operated for many years. This was recently borne out when Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman from 1987 to 2006 and a long time disciple of Rand, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that past decisions and the lack of government regulations helped pave the way for the current financial crisis. He angered Randians when he acknowledged that his libertarian (he did not use the term Randian) view of markets and the financial world had not worked out so well. “You know,” he told the legislators, “that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.” While Greenspan did defend his various decisions, he admitted that his faith in the ability of free and loosely-regulated markets to produce the best outcomes had been shaken: “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.” After more than 40 years an admission by one Randian that her philosophy not only does not work but was responsible for the financial crisis and the loss of millions of jobs. In spite of this, corporate titans still pitch the Randian belief system to their employees because it will enhance their wealth. There is no better example of this than John Allison the CEO of BB&T, America’s 11th largest bank, who gives all his new executives a copy of Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and new employees receive a 30 page pamphlet based on the company’s Randian philosophy and values (Martin, 2009). In 2009 he resigned his CEO position, (he remained as chairman) to travel the country condemning government interference and he took a position at Wake Forest University’s business school. By the way in 2008, his bank, BB&T, received a $3.1 bailout from the government (TARP). In addition BB&T spends $5 million to finance teaching positions and research on Rand. And of course they collectively deny any responsibility for the financial crisis. We now see colleges and universities fighting for the opportunity to teach their undergraduates the wonders of an almost perfect immorality.
  We not only see an underlying connection between the Randians, positivists thinkers and happiness gurus spreading their ideas in corporations, banks and government but we also see a bizarre unholy alliance between the Christian Free Enterprise evangelists and the Randian atheists. While the Christian Free Enterprisers would most likely not accept Rand’s position that Jesus devoted his life in an erroneous attempt to help a bunch of losers, they would suggest something akin to Ronald Reagan’s “trickle down” theory that maintains one should be free to accumulate as much wealth as one wants and those so-called losers will somehow benefit. We see the religious roots in positive thinking beginning with its founder the Reverend Norman V. Peale and this is carried forth in the studies by Robert Emmons the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology. Emmons includes religion in his happiness studies. He says that religious people are grateful and gratitude is found in religion and religious people see God as the ultimate benefactor. This is spelled out in the title of a chapter in his latest book “Thanks be to God: Gratitude and the Human Spirit” (Emmons, 2007).
  It comes as no surprise that the “right-wing” ideologist’s have embraced positive thinking and have used it to lambaste the “Left” by accusing them of being negative. The late William Safire writing for VP Spiro Agnew called Vietnam protesters “nattering nabobs of negativism.” President Obama was condemned by the “Right” as being negative when he pointed out the policy mistakes America has made in the past..
  Believe it or not, there is another group, an offshoot of these positive/happiness/evangelical/Right-wing/Randians. This is a growing group of so-called organizational development consultants who preach a model of consulting based on positive thinking. They call it “appreciative inquiry” or “AI”. Following the positive thinkers their approach focuses on what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn’t work. It is the opposite of problem solving or critical thinking and rejects diagnosis. Narcissistic CEO’s and bankers love “AI” because it never considers inadequacies, blame, or the need for remediate skills or practice. They preach a “you can do it if you just believe you can” attitude that claims if one builds on successes, strengths, and focuses on how to create more exceptional performance than one need not understand what is “broken” or dysfunctional..
  These “AI” consultants, “positive thinking” preachers, and “happiness” coaches entered the financial corporations in the early 1990’s and told managers and executives just what they wanted to hear. They were told to be positive, dismiss trouble and critical analysis. They were selling blind optimism and bankers were buying. Gurus and motivational speakers told executives, managers and bankers to be successful “go for it”, “you deserve success”, “negativity is for losers” and have a “yes attitude”. This type of thinking feeds into the development and maintenance of narcissistic cultures and what Ehrenreich and others maintain led to the financial crisis of 2008. They claim that financial executives, influenced by these gurus and coaches, took extraordinary risks and avoided caution, and engaged in behaviors that went beyond the boundaries of good business practice. These “success gurus” sold a delusion that success comes when one wills it. The “go for it” mentality is the equivalent of saying its OK to be greedy, you deserve it. Narcissistic corporate cultures brought in these gurus, consultants, and motivational speakers for two reasons. First, they needed to justify their behavior of greed, selfishness, and the fact the millions were loosing their jobs as executives got rich. Just as the compensation consultants obtained fat fees for suggesting outrageous compensation for CEO’s, these consultants and coaches told executives they deserved to be rich and were handsomely paid for their advice. Secondly, consultants, motivational speakers and coaches were used to pump up employees. Based on the flimsy notion put forth by Tal D. Ben Shalar, the Harvard happiness professor, who maintains that if a traumatic experience could create a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than an exceedingly positive, euphoric event could create a happy joyful employee. As a result we witnessed the meteoric growth of corporate “pep rallies,” or what some called “brainwashing events.”

  Pumping up Employees- “Smile or your fired”

  What do Wall Street bankers and retail giants like Wal Mart and Home Depot have in common? They both embrace this mixture of Randian, positive thinking, happiness ideology as well as free enterprise fundamentalist philosophy that seeks to maintain traditional male and female sex roles where men are the conquerors and heroic hunters (in this case wealth accumulation). Executives stage major corporate events that become celebrations of Christian manliness by emphasizing power, correctness, and dominance over all things, especially women. The pep rally in and of itself is a masculine activity. Like a football pep rally, the warriors are celebrated as they go off to battle and women are turned into submissive cheerleaders in skimpy outfits. At these corporate rallies they hear inspirational speeches from military heroes, celebrity professors, gurus, positive consultants and retired billionaires. They use an array of techniques to foster a collective or mass psychology by putting employees through a variety of exercises or activities where they visualize themselves as successful, instill a passion to be successful, and tell them if they “will it,” they will be wealthy. They complete happiness questionnaires and are told to memorize and follow certain steps that will make them happy. They sing, clap, cheer, laugh, yell and cry. They are told that being a happy and eager follower is “servant leadership” and a good Christian value. They rally around corporate slogans “You can do it” “We can do it”, “You can have it your way”, “It’s up to you”, “Just do it”, “It’s up to you”, etc. Psychologically they merge their self system with the corporation and its leadership. They become children of the corporation and if the event is successful they become children of a cult. Employees identify with their corporate executives and in the process want their leaders to have wealth and privilege. Under these conditions leaders can do no wrong. If the company falters it is not the system or leaders who are responsible, it is the employees. They are the problem because they are not working harder.

  There is another side to this. There are those employees who attend these events and go through these brainwashing programs and maintain an intact self system by using the defense of cynicism. They go through the motions, play the game and hold on to their job. Just as the elf in McDonalds looks the customer in the eyes and says “have a nice day” if they are good actors the customer believes it is genuine and not part of the requirements of the role. However, if the customer realizes that if the elf fails to express the correct mood and may be fired then the customer is drawn into the conflict between employee and management.

  This brings us to the real function of these positive, Randian, fundamentalist, happiness programs. Their aim is to eliminate employer-employee conflict and create an unquestioning workforce that will idealize its leadership by cherishing their power and wealth while never realizing they are being exploited and oppressed. Also, we can see why these corporations are so vehemently antiunion. Unions are a threat to the executive’s power, masculinity, and all the accoutrements that go with it; wealth, private jets, limousines, etc. Unions form a collectivity that is capable of defeating the elitist executives and stockholders. However over the years the unions have been reduced to a quarrelsome sort, making concession after concession to the new power elite and there threats. Meanwhile a workforce faced with the anxiety of being terminated and loosing everything, defends against the dread by conforming to the bosses who say “smile.” Those who fail to “smile” or fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter what the external reality is are considered maladjusted. They are either fired or sent to “positive adjustment” events or rallies where they are pumped up with positive emotions in a climate that resembles a religious revival. They are convinced that they must adopt an upbeat vision of reality. This belief creates a state of mind where one must deny reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings.

  These specialists in “happiness” argue that we are capable of attracting those things in life (Law of Attraction), whether it is money, relationships or employment, both good and bad if we focus on them. What does this mean? It means those who are abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those crushed by poverty, the terminal illness, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those who are terminated, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity. It’s their fault because they are focusing too much on negativity. Hummm I wonder what they would say about the writer of this book. The positive, happiness, right-wing, evangelical ideology justifies the cruelty of Rands unfettered capitalism and absolves CEO’s and bankers of guilt by shifting the blame to those they oppress- “If you are in a sorry state it’s your fault, not mine”.

  Psychotherapists and psychoanalysts get to work with these employees after the power elite and their positive happiness gurus, coaches and consultants have done their damage. When the employee is burned out, rejected, failed, or accused of being responsible for all the failure in their lives, they then seek genuine help, if they can afford it. But beware, the happiness people are entering the field of psychotherapy with promises of how positive psychology or PP interventions can be used to alleviate depression, anxiety, ADHA, and relationship problems.

• bobphibbs
  November 11th, 2009 at 2:33 pm

  And your point is exactly what in the 3100 words you’ve cut and pasted? You’re bitter and spreading the gospel of unhappiness? That you’re shroud of cynicism is somehow preferable? That the world is an oppressive place and “the man” or whatever corporate deity you call it is out to “crush the worker” like Ehrenreich – an avowed socialist – continues to harp on in all her work? Please, this isn’t Norma Rae.

  Grow up, get a job and take responsibility for living your life, not helping others give up. The hard work isn’t lifting weight, it’s realizing you have a choice to look at your feet or the sky. Have fun looking for grubs.

• Doron
  November 11th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

  I think what some people don’t understand is that customer service is a major part of your job when you work in retail. If bitter, cynical, non-customer people make it through the hiring process, then it’s really the manager’s fault. If someone turns that way, training and positive motivation is the first tools I would use to turn it around. Again, it really falls on the manager’s shoulders to make sure that doesn’t happen. Bob’s training is completely relevant in this era of retailing as most (as the posts here would indicate) have forgotten why were are in retail in the first place: The Customer.

• bobphibbs
  November 11th, 2009 at 4:22 pm

  Thanks Doron, obviously you are successful at what you are doing with your priorities on the customer, not on the mirror.

• Mari
  November 11th, 2009 at 5:46 pm

  Well, if managers hired simply on the fact that the potential employee was a positive thinker or not, we wouldn’t have a work force. It’s natural to be cynical in the workplace. It’s almost what makes the job worth doing in the first place. I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with having a bit of pessimism in life. It gives you a cushion for the bad experience ahead, if there would so be one.

  Believe me when I say that I’ve heard stories from users on retail-sucks.com about level entry employees that do everything within their power to rise up in their job. They spend years doing exactly as they are told, upholding a positive attitude and kissing up to every boss they have, and for what; to stay at that level-entry position their entire life.

  I’m sorry, but positive thinking doesn’t always work. I believe rather in integrity and honesty. Employee are basically taught to accept that they will be physically or verbally abused by their customers, and that they have to remain cheerful and subservient. I understand the title of retail worker entails you do interact with customers, that’s what customer service is after all, but to stand their and be disrespected is not my definition of good “customer” service.

  With the mindset that you possess, I do believe you mean to say that employee deserve to be treated this way, and at the same time grin and bear it, all for the sake of one measly sale. Realistically, all those training videos all bull shit. Customers are rude, stupid, messy and just as cynical as we are. It’s almost as if they come into the store expecting bad customer service.

  Let me tell you I’d rather be venting on some website than screaming at a customer any day, or taking a knife to their throat. I might be cynical, but I’m also an extremely nice person, and I believe respect is earned, but in the work place that doesn’t even exist. I have to respect someone who would rather kick me in the head rather than be calm and patient as I have to be.

  There are instances when this behavior is completely understood. An airport, a hospital or a police station, but not in a retail store. It’s completely uncalled for. what about positive thinking customers, now that’s an innovative idea right there for ya.

• bobphibbs
  November 11th, 2009 at 6:20 pm

  Mari, this is the last comment I’ll accept from you. You get the respect you deserve by your actions, not being subsurvient, dishonest or kissing-up. I’ve hired thousands of employees and fired probably hundreds for attitude and cynicism. No person in retail should use the language you do but enjoy the accolades of others who find snideness something coming at them, not spilling from them.

• Bosch
  November 11th, 2009 at 7:28 pm

  bob

  We are the kind of workforce that when it gets down to it gets it done. All the smiles in the world are not going to get your latte made, your jeans brought to you while you wait half naked in a fitting room, or get you out of a store without taking an hour.. Telling anyone who vents about a bad day to just up and quit would leave this world very understaffed..

  Have a nice day

• Sitbackrelaxxxx
  November 11th, 2009 at 8:35 pm

  Ok, all of this talk about how it’s “my” fault that I’m miserable at work may be true to a certain extent. I’m willing to accept the fact that if I come into work in a less-than-”happy” mood, I may not enjoy helping customers find the products or that I may even exert a slight undertone of pure exasperation. However, I certainly will not blame myself for outright acts of what is referred to as “reverse racism”. Let it be known that I, myself, a young, white female who is not racist or prejudice. (I have many friends of all different races and backgrounds and I was not raised to be someone who to discriminate. It’s just not who I am.) I work in a predominantly low-income area. So, a typical day for me goes something like this: I ask a person of a different background how they are… I get nothing in response. I ask them if they have a store card… I get a grunt and they literally THROW the card at me. They make no eye contact… they throw their money on the counter and spill change out everywhere when my hand is clearly open, signifying that I’m ready tender their sale. All of that I can handle… until they imply that I am a stupid college student who knows nothing about my job (even though, I have worked for this company for 5 years and have held many different positions)… as a matter of fact, they LITERALLY say it as well. I am threatened for a coupon worth only a dollar that has expired MONTHS ago. I am sprayed in the eyes and face with perfume… all of this because the customer is not pleased with an answer I give them. When I give them an answer, it’s always in a non-condescending manner. I explain my answer as intelligently as I can. All of our sale ads, sale signs, coupons, everything of the like… are clearly explained somewhere in the appropriate text. These people are simply trying to take advantage of the “customer is always right” adage. I feel that I have been abused at my place of employment. Perhaps, not physically… (although I have been threatened)… but mentally. Not all of the customers that come through the door are down right mean and selfish. Some of them actually bother to ask ME how MY day is. Some of them APOLOGIZE when they know they’ve been rude for no reason. To these customers, I am grateful. It is the rare bunch of people like them that make my job a little less inane and cruel.

  And you wonder why people like me, who are young and just trying to make enough money to get themselves through college so that they don’t have to work in such conditions, are cynical? I have news for you… opinions run both ways. You can hire and fire as many people as you want because of their outstanding optimism or their unnerving cynicism. But, I’d bet my life, that even, you, Mr. Bob Phibbs, have had at least ONE day where everything we, the retail force, are saying hits a little close to home. I’m sure at least once in your retail experience you’ve come across someone who was completely unreasonable and refused to accept any kind of intelligent answer. And yes, before you even think it, I have, when I was a manager given even these types of people want they wanted for in return for their business. But, I cannot and WILL NOT give people who come in with an unbelievable sense of self worth, so unbelievable that they feel they can treat me as though I am less than a human, the satisfaction of getting what they want. These people… I can live without their business. Tendering a sale valued at $20-$30 from such a person is not worth enough for me to take all of their degradation and cruelty. I value MYSELF more than that. And unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about this… I can’t complain to the higher ups at my company because I realize we cannot control how our customers behave. There are some instances when we are all faced with the reality that the “raw public” is not always as pleasant as we’d like to think them to be.

• Guy w/ Pink Phone
  November 11th, 2009 at 9:00 pm

  Here it is plain and simple…Its retail, the customers are more than likely going really piss you off at one point in the day or another. Most of the time in my experiences it is usually because they just don’t understand something and feel like making you feel stupid because they may in fact be. However, you can’t let it affect you. This is your job that you have chosen. If you don’t like it, some one will take it gladly. Laugh it off. Sometimes yes they get under my skin, I shake it off, laugh at how ignorant they just made themselves look and go on selling the products that I sell that I know are far superior to those of my competitors, despite what Joe “Mad Customer” Blow said. At the end of the day when I am counting cash I look at my guys and say…”Did you hear that one guy/girl.” No one wants to hear you complain about the customer so you shut up and do your job and at the end of the day you laugh it off while at the same time being grateful that they bought from YOU whether they did it with an attitude or not.

  “I didn’t say you are the dumbest people in VA…I said you are the dumbest people in North America”

  This was to an employee who didn’t care about his customers. You don’t want to be the guy that comes across to his customers that way.

• Guy w/ Pink Phone
  November 11th, 2009 at 9:08 pm

  And to Mari, You can change a customers negative mindset by simply giving them the customer service they don’t expect. They may be shocked and shun away from you for a second but if you keep on with the niceness they will learn to be able to trust you as well as tell their friends of the service they received at your store. Not sure what your retail field is but I HOPE that is in my same field because I am stealing business from you everyday and turning it into repeat business. Kill em with kindness. Don’t kiss their rear end just do your job and enjoy doing it. Don’t act like you enjoy it because customers are not stupid and can read right through it. If you enjoy what you do and believe in what you sell, it makes it worlds easier to keep that smile on and do what you are supposed to do best…. SELL PRODUCT!!!!!! (Regardless of the customers attitude that you have to put up with just to get that one sale. That one sale can mean the difference between you making your sales plans and not)

• bobphibbs
  November 11th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

  Everyone can have a bad day, of course. My point I have made over and over again in these replies is YES, there is something you can do about it. Find something else to do. My God man you’ve been there 5 years. FIVE YEARS and your’e that miserable. Doesn’t it hurt enough to leave? To change? Is the thought of something else so scarey, so frightening that you stay stuck? I hope for your sake you can break free.

• Worst Greeter in the World
  November 11th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

  “Do or do not, there is no try” a wise man once said. I couldn’t agree more with you Bob about positivity. You create your own reality in the workplace. I tell my employees that if they talk about movies, for example, let it be about movies that they liked – not about movies they hated. I believe that there is a certain congruency between social and physical systems. Just as two positive numbers added together can only result in a positive number – the atmosphere you allow to exist in your store has a direct effect on performance.

  To those sipping the Hatorade out there I think you are missing a subtle point. You are choosing to allow the negative people affect your reality. As Bob said – look at your feet or look at the sky – it’s your choice. Reasonable people will act reasonably in reasonable situations. Everyone else is just nuts or has a legitimate reason to be angry with the firm. The exception does not prove the rule – do not let the occasional “nutty” customer define your day or the mood in your store. You know how I deal with the “spray perfume in my face” people? I am thankful that they are taking their anger out on me as opposed to going home and beating their kids. Your feet or the sky – it’s your choice.

  As an aside – Bob you crack me up. They should give you a talk show when Jay gets cancelled in January. I agree with you totally on the “help” thing. Help is the four letter word in retail and should never be uttered. I’m still working on your greeting though. It’s a paradigm shift I haven’t quite made in my head yet – I still think that a well presented “How is your Thursday going?” can be an effective greeting. I use your greeting method when busy though. I’m still working on it – perhaps I need to follow Yoda’s advice from above.

  Have a good holiday – and let me know when you are in NoVa – maybe we can do lunch or something. My store is about 10 mins from IAD.

  bruce

• Sals
  November 12th, 2009 at 12:00 am

  I think that assuming every retail worker is just a bitter individual who resents their field is just as toxic as a retail worker who expects customers to be crap.

  Just a thought.

  And find me a person who works at a basic associate level who is 100% happy with their position and I’ll find you Jesus reincarnated. No one goes through schooling thinking, “Gee, when I grow up, I want to spend 25 hours a week helping elderly women dye their hair platinum blonde!!! ” So yes, a little doom and gloom about the positions is to be expected from time to time. But at the end of the day, I do it. I make numbers. *shrug* Girl’s gotta eat.

  It’s nice that you’ve found a niche selling the verbal equivelent of snake oil though. Can’t really hate on that. Nice hustle.

• bobphibbs
  November 12th, 2009 at 7:21 am

  I sell snake oil Sals? Wikipedia defines that as, “the most common usage of the phrase is as a derogatory term for compounds offered as medicines which implies that they are fake, fraudulent, quackish, or ineffective. The expression is also applied metaphorically to any product with exaggerated marketing, but questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit.” I’ve personally increased sales and way of life for hundreds of businesses and their employees – and I can prove it. If anyone is selling snake oil it is the downtrodden wanna be miserables happy to join others in a pile of s*** and tell themselves it’s not their fault.

• bobphibbs
  November 12th, 2009 at 7:23 am

  Thanks Bruce. Love the Hatorade – very nice. As to your “How is your Thursday going?” -imagine asking most of these bitter employees or those at http://www.retailsucks.com – I’m sure you’d hear just how miserable and awful. Great point about liking the movies – hadn’t thought about that but spot-on!

• Coconut
  November 12th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

  Bob, you’ve made some very interesting points, and I do truly admire those who can keep a positive attitude no matter the situation. I’m happy for you that you have made quite a career for yourself. You say that you worked in retail during the urban cowboy trend, and that’s all well and good. I have to ask though when you last worked at entry level?

  The market place is different than it was 25-30 years ago. For one, the economy hinders business because people aren’t shopping for “material wants” anymore. I also wouldn’t feel right selling someone something they didn’t need or couldn’t afford. For example, some stores like Kohl’s use pressure tactics to get their customers to sign up for an in-store credit card.

  Also, one poster here mentioned that we own our own reality. Now that is absolutely right, but to some extent. I can’t just sprout wings and fly, that would be ridiculous, no matter what amount of positive thinking. Also, if one were to let what the customers say roll off their backs, which is good advice, can the same be said if you came home to see that your family had been murdered? Could you still let that roll off your back?

  As Buddha once said “Life is suffering”. We are born into a world of negatives, and there’s nothing wrong at all with wanting to turn your reality into positives, but there has to be a limit. There has to be a point where you are willing to protect your own integrity.

  Worst Greeter in the World: You mentioned that you are grateful for those negative customers because they aren’t at home beating their kids instead. Well, that is exactly what these people are doing on that website. They are venting their frustrations so that they won’t do physical or verbal damage in the workplace or elsewhere. I think it is a brilliant idea.

  One final point. I don’t believe it’s very fair to lecture about positive thinking when you are condescending the other people who have posted a comment. Shouldn’t you be happy that they have an opinion and are willing to discuss it in an intelligent manner?

  That poor Mari person can’t even post anymore. Is that fair to them? It’s not very positive to block off a person who wasn’t insulting you or your ideas, but merely sharing their thoughts about the issue.

• bobphibbs
  November 12th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

  Coconut, please I’ve hired and worked with entry level employees as recently as one week ago – have you? As to the Budda, that is one of the most overused simplistic things to cling to. The Buddha taught four truths — not one — about life: There is suffering, there is a cause for suffering, there is an end of suffering, and there is a path of practice that puts an end to suffering. These truths, taken as a whole, are far from pessimistic. They’re a practical, problem-solving approach — the way a doctor approaches an illness, or a mechanic a faulty engine. You identify a problem and look for its cause. You then put an end to the problem by eliminating the cause, you don’t cling to it. Equating murder to having your feelings hurt is quite a stretch. Yes, poor Mari is banned, how unfair.

  As to your contention that people aren’t shopping for material wants – what are you talking about? The economy is recovering, products are selling, businesses are making money. Maybe not all but many. You hit the nail on the head, you “wouldn’t feel right selling..” that’s why you should not be in retail. It’s called retail sales, not retail warehousing. And yes I do have a very strong opinion that can be seen by some as too blunt however mine is a voice that is rarely heard by many in retail still suffering under the Cinderella dream of “someday” someone will rescue them from the ashes. Go out and buy your own glass slippers and create the life you want, not live the life you dread.

• Coconut
  November 12th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

  I’m all too aware of the four truths, and do believe that there is an end to suffering, perhaps using it in the context of retail isn’t wholly realistic, because using it in real life situations isn’t very easy either. I don’t believe that witnessing someone being hurt and someone hurting you (the employee) is any different. Is someone was being abused I would help them, not ignore the situation because it’s a negative experience.

  Yes, negativity is somewhat of a delusion, but the same can be said for positivity. I can’t make someone behave the way I want them to simply because of my actions, they have to also make the decision to respond positively to my positivity. It’s a balance that is often ignored by both sides.

  This isn’t just about retail, you have to apply this mindset to everyday situations, and I will tell you that people aren’t as nice outside of work as they are on the clock. Not many people care about who you are or what you have to say because you aren’t selling a product anymore.

  I understand that when I am a customer that I would want to be treated with respect, so I’m polite, friendly an an efficient shopper. I’ve never had an employee be coarse with me, ever. I’ve always had a great shopping experience, and it’s because of my positive nature. I believe that there is also a customer mindset: You THINK you are getting bad customer service, so no amount of assistance will satisfy you. This is also a delusion.

  You think that everyone that doesn’t agree with your every point is the exact opposite of what you are teaching, but that’s not the case at all. Most people here are agreeing with you. I don’t believe the majority of retail workers go into work expecting to have a bad day or have rotten customers to deal with. By the end of the day they are strangers and I won’t have to deal with them until they decide to come back.

  Yes, there are instances where you might be able to change someone for the better, and all other transactions between them will be pleasant, and you have to be thankful for those people. I just feel that the world needs the negative to make the positive all the more meaningful.

  If you put your motivational skills into the military, you could end all the wars in the world. You could end hunger, violence and greed. Why not spend your time on those things rather than lecturing a 17 year old on their negative behavior? I’m only curious.

• icantgetno
  November 13th, 2009 at 10:39 pm

  I would just like to add that this story is written by someone with no actual retail experience waiting on customers. Dont say you have experience, because you don’t. In the real world the cashiers take abuse and blame for managers retardedness, and they also get in trouble for taking credit for anything whatsoever, no matter how much they care about the store. They try and make sales by being nice and giving a microscopic discount, they get in trouble. They ask the manager for permission or involve the manager in day to day business related activities and they get in trouble. Basically, the job of the retail worker is to make money so that the manager can take credit for it. Again I would like to add that the original poster is someone with limited to no experience in dealing with the actual public.

• Michael
  November 16th, 2009 at 1:27 am

  Earlier in the comments Bob posted,

  “Again, the difference in your and Bosch from what I’m talking about is – me-it’s your fault for the way you’re treated – you-it’s all “THEM.” I would suggest the truth is somewhere in between. Again, the point of the post: I can and I won’t. Think about it.”

  Somewhere in between is easily the best solution here. Bosch and Mari, I don’t believe you are necessarily “bitter”, but I do sense a slightly defeatist attitude in your language. Some of the things you say about the ‘bad’ customers and ‘bad’ managers are true, I’ve seen them myself… but how you deal with them IS your choice, not theirs.
  I understand these situations can be difficult, and I and I’m sure Bob sympathize.

  Coconut, come on, really? I see where you’re coming from with your “goes both ways” explanation… after all people are people whether they are a customer or an employee… but I think you’re missing a crucial detail. “The customer has the advantage.” They are there to buy, the employee is there to serve, and they KNOW that. Learning to deal with the difficult customers and overcoming problems is something you should look into.

  There are some bitter negative employees on RetailSucks.com, but it’s also a place for employees to vent about their frustrations, which everybody needs to do… lets face it THAT is a fact.
  Michael´s last blog ..How to Repel Customers

• bobphibbs
  November 16th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

  Got it, you too are bitter. Thanks for stopping by, hating retail, thinking some “them” managers or others are making money off your backs. You’re making money for your own dreams or whatever, if you can’t enjoy it, then quit and find something else. If some of those vehemently protesting my position and posting about how wrong I am, took half as much time trying to be better at your retail jobs, you’d be much more productive.

• Michael
  November 18th, 2009 at 3:58 am

  Wow Bob, you just poop rainbows, don’t you?

  The reality of the situation is, you can be the top employee in retail, the one who takes top marks on every secret shop, the one all the other people in the store go to when they have a difficult or highly technical problem…

  …and still get stepped upon by bad customers and backwards thinking management on a regular basis.

  I’ve worked in my current store for just short of four years. Before that, I had worked a variety of customer service jobs, including three and a half years in a competing hardware store. I’m full time. Officially I’m a department manager for electrical, but I can (and often have to) fill in for every other department, including cashiering, color matching paint, re-keying locks, re-screening doors and windows, and how to use each of the tools correctly.

  There are still people that come in and just barrage me with ignorance covered with bravado and bluffs, abusing me because of whatever problems they caused. There are still bad parents that drag their spoiled hellspawn in and allow them to run amok, wrecking displays. There are still people trying to game the various systems to get a bigger discount and/or freebie, and they don’t care how much lying and personal abuse they have to pour on to get there. There’s known shoplifters that will threaten you physically for following them so they won’t be able to steal.

  Most of all, in this economy especially… there’s little to no opportunity to “just quit and move on.” I have put in an average of five applications a week over a three month period, and gotten zero callbacks, because I can not afford to quit without a new job lined up. My city and county have hiring freezes in place. Businesses in my town are shutting down entirely on a regular basis. We just lost a bank, two electrical supply stores, a pool store, and the town’s one appliance repair store in the past year. We haven’t had a bookstore in over five years.

  I am, hands down, my store’s most productive employee… and I complain about and mock the customers on a regular basis. Satire is the reason I haven’t taken a gun to work yet. I wrote a “Ten Commandments for Customers,” which Freddy of Retail Hell Underground liked enough to share with the world. I took it to retail-sucks.com myself. Both places, it was praised heavily for being dead on by those who are down there with me in the trenches.

  You, sir, have sadly lost touch with the reality of the current situation, both in the job market and in the customer service field in general. It’s something that happens gradually over time, and it’s always sad to see. A big part of it is, doubtless, the SNAFU principle in effect, but the fact of the matter is that HIRING and WORKING WITH people at the bottom is not the same as BEING one of those people. It’s rough down here, and the solution is NOT as simple as packing up your troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smiling.
  .-= Michael

• laura
  November 18th, 2009 at 4:32 am

  dear bob,

  . Now I am a happy person, I always have a smile on my face and treat others with the respect I would like to be given. But I feel from the comments on this site that you customers are ONLY mean, rude, or otherwise brutish when confronted with bad service. I can recall an incident when working as a manager at a pizza place where no matter what I did, I was berated
  If you’ll take a moment to read I’ll explain.

  We were having a fabulous deal where you could get two medium pizzas with 1 topping each for $5.55. we had a similar deal where you could get two smalls for $4.44. I had a woman order over the phone for two large pizzas (at $9.99 each). I informed her of the offer and she declined, saying she needed the larges.

  When she arrived to pick up the pizzas she saw advertisements for the deal and became upset that she was not informed. I hadn’t even gotten a moment to apologize to her (even though I know I told her about it) for not making it known to her before she started getting very angry. I offered to quickly make her the mediums if she wished, it would take about 10 minutes. She briskly declined, saying she had to take these home to her hungry family, but that she was very disappointed in the “scam” we were running by 1) not offering the deal for large pizzas, 2) not informing her of it until she came to pick up the pizzas and 3) not offering to fix the situation for her.

  She was talking at me, not to me (if you understand the difference I’m trying to make between the two) and I could not get a word in edge wise. I finally had to put my hand up in a “stop” motion to say to her “Ma’am, I am truly sorry for any misunderstanding and grief this is causing you. I will, this time only, give you the larges at the price of $6.66 (the supposed equivalent) and I’ll also throw in a certificate for two mediums at $4.44 and a free bread for you to use on your next visit.”

  She said “fine” and I quickly gave her the certificate, explaining that it was only valid for 6 months, this was also printed in size 20 font on the bottom. However, I must note that she did not say thank you or even smile after I gave her the deal.

  The next day I come in to work to have the owner confront me over an email received at corporate from the customer. To sum up, she basically said she went in to our store after ordering over the phone and when she went to pick up the order was told she could not have the offer and nothing was done to remedy the siutation. The owner was about to yell at me (he was a very bad boss, his idea to get out new regulations was to tell one person only ‘and let it spread vlike gossip, that’s what you all do anyway’) when I informed him of what was done and showed him the receipt of the cusotmer showing the mark down and the copy of the gift certificate. He didn’t say anything else to me other than “ok.”

  9 months later this same customer came back in to redeem the now expired gift certificate. I happened to be working and explained that it was unfortunately expired and could not be redeemed. She went on another tirade about our deals being scams. I said I was very sorry but that the certificate explicitly showed the expiration date and would be more than happy to give her one of our current (but not as cheap) deals. She vowed to tell all her friends and family to never order from us again and left the store.

  What could I have done differently to to change her reaction? I was nothing but courteous and went beyond remedying the situation for the guest with a smile on my face.

• Hellbound Alleee
  November 18th, 2009 at 5:46 am

  Sorry. I think the truth is more valuable than this. The universe is not conscious, it does not “want” anything for us. Anyone who believes “the Secret” need only apply it to those who suffered through the Holocaust.

  It is not true that I sell anything to customers. I work for a corporation, and a CEO who makes over 100 times what I make. To tell me that I should feel it a privilege to serve great customers is frankly insulting, and reeks of scam business/motivational seminars and Scientology.

  I do believe that we have control over how we react to situations. I am genuinely happy to interact with people–especially when we are honest with each other. However, my corporation does not allow honesty; only playacting. This brings the experience down for me and the customer, who knows very well how corporations work, and generally has the expectation that I am being SOLICITOUS because I am a SOLICITOR.

  There is no truth to the idea that we have any control over others. To claim this is basically creepy. We can decide how to feel about things. We cannot decide to be abused, no matter how much money people spend on scams like “The Secret.”
  .-= Hellbound Alleee

• bobphibbs
  November 18th, 2009 at 7:15 am

  Hi Laura, I wasn’t there so i don’t know what could have been done. I hated it when “higher ups” didn’t support me, whatever my position. And yes, customers can be demanding and rude and dare I say even lie to get their way. Your isolated incident though is normal in every job. I don’t hear the same energy around how awful customers are all the time. Thanks for visiting my blog.

• bobphibbs
  November 18th, 2009 at 7:53 am

  Yes, I did print your reply Michael but If I’ve lost track of harsh reality then you’ve embraced it. Glad to know there is another site for bitter employees http://www.retailhellunderground.com/my_weblog/2009/11/positive-thinking-ignorant-retail-veteran-retail-hell.html#comments. Its funny the link “Mari” posted was only the comments section – not even the blog post. From the language you and “Mari” and some of the others use, it is amazing to think you work in retail, with the public, when you continue to feel violated and abused. But this is America, you’re entitled to your bitter beliefs and hanging out with others must meet some need. The choice is yours, stay stuck or break through – and only you can choose. I have a track record of helping people, what do you have?

• RockinGamerMom
  November 18th, 2009 at 8:10 am

  I’m sorry, but seriously bobphibbs, you could not be more wrong. I worked several years for retail. I am generally a very friendly and happy person. I enjoyed most of the jobs I have held. In fact, working for a major video game retail chain (whose colors are black, white, and red), and a certain off-beat musically inclined restaurant/retail chain were my absolute favorites. However, liking your job and going in with a good attitude is not going to determine your life at said job.
  I remember many days, going in strong and happy, that turned out to be extremely hellish. There are customers that come in looking for a fight or are in a bad mood and find it comforting to spread it. There are customers, no matter how nicely you ask them not to, who will allow their backwoods hellspawn to destroy the store you just neatly arranged and alphabetized.
  I am a strong-willed, tattooed, blue-haired, gun-range loving, gaming, sword fighting, tested near genius, warm hearted, charity giving, community activist, loving wife and mother. I have a vast number of friends from every background, religion, style, and personality. I can get along with just about everyone, and they will love me. Back in school, I was friends with the geeks and the preppy kids. Seriously, I am probably the most trustworthy, open-minded, caring person you could meet.
  However, none of that could stop a certain group of customers from reducing this former waitress to tears on an otherwise fantastic day, simply because they wanted to cause enough pain to make the managers give them free food (which means at the waitress’ expense) just so they’ll leave. Luckily my manager was cool enough to void the sale, so I didn’t have to pay their tab.
  Working at a famous ice cream shop whose initials are B and J, another favorite job… that personality didn’t stop me from wishing I could gut one of my customers. During a busy, yet fulfilling day, the manager had me go to register as a break… you can imagine how hard I was working, and I enjoyed it. However, one man, as soon as the wife and daughter walked out of the crowded store, made the comment, “I bet you love sitting back and taking the money all day at your job. It prepares you for life as a woman. I bet you watch your mom do it all the time.” At which point, he and his equally idiotic son laughed, and I had to turn and clench my entire body to prevent myself from shoving a pen through the man’s eye. Sure ruined my otherwise lovely day.
  Point is, you could have the best job in the world, and you can’t wait to get out of bed to go enjoy it. But you will still have days ruined; you will still shed blood, sweat, and tears for undeserving, ungrateful pieces of s***.
  I’ve even had people hand me pamphlets, and telling me Jesus can be my friend… all because I happened to be wearing a black shirt, or my hair color caught their attention, or I’m wearing Converse shoes. It’s extremely insulting to me, to be judged so unfairly for actually having a personality. Friendly disposition doesn’t deter anyone. Although those instances actually made me laugh.
  Honestly, if I can’t have a *perfectly* happy retail life, there really isn’t much of anyone who can.

  I will end this on a happy note. No, not every day sucks. If it did, stores would go out of business for not having employees. One of my favorite moments was the little old lady commenting on my bright red eyeliner (I was 18, working at a game store). She told me how much she loved it and how pretty I looked with it on. Ha, the same eyeliner that my mother told me mads me look as though I’d been crying for a day or that I was bleeding. That little old lady made my day.

• bobphibbs
  November 18th, 2009 at 8:14 am

  Thanks for your opinion and sharing your experience RockinGamerMom.

• atombomb1945
  November 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am

  Really? Is this guy serious? The whole “Self-fulfilling prophecy” stuff about how we all make our own customers? This guy has obviously never had a customer walk up to him and scream at the top of their lungs because the batteries in his Walkman died. Nor has he ever had someone pull back a jacket to show off a gun to get an item returned. How in the world can you tell me that five minutes prior to shift we all talk about how nice the day is going to be is going to keep that guy from walking into my store? And to top all of that off, how the heck are you going to actually study this? Are you going to tell me that because someone came into my store and started yelling at me for something they purchased at a competitor’s store that it is my fault for saying I have bad customers? Is this a retail suggestions or Karma web site?

  Tell ya what Bob, try manning the front doors of your local Wally World next week during Black Friday. If you get ran over and end up going to the hospital in a body bag, then I suppose that you had your own “Self-fulfilling prophecy” and that you woke up thinking that “today is going to suck!”

• Renee
  November 18th, 2009 at 9:51 am

  Dear Bob,

  You’re an idiot.

• bobphibbs
  November 18th, 2009 at 10:00 am

  Incredible insights Renee and Atombomb, thanks for sharing.

• Ryan
  November 18th, 2009 at 10:41 am

  I worked in Retail for about six months before I came to college. I agree with Bob that sometimes your attitude can determine how the customers treat you because we had an employee at our work that hated life, the world, anyone who wasn’t of his race or age, and customers in general and he had a lot of problems with customers and other employees. However, I am generally a happy person and I also had to deal with rude and ignorant customers. I am the type of person who, if they are in a bad mood or angry, can have their mood changed by something very small. Usually all I need to get out of a bad mood caused by an ignorant or rude customer is five minutes of another task to distract me. Even though I had a good attitude, I still had customers who were rude and yelled at me. They yelled at me about policies I couldn’t change and started their rants with “I know this isn’t your fault and you can’t change this but…” I also had customers take advantage of the fact that I look a lot younger than I am and I’m female. I have a quiet demeanor and sometimes customers would assume they could call me anything they wanted or yell at me as much as they wanted without consequence because I wouldn’t stand up for myself. I had a man scream at me for asking him to pay in advance for some copies he was making because I though he was leaving the store. That was the store’s policy, that you pay first if you’re leaving. He screamed at me, got in my face and told me that the policy was ridiculous and that he’d never had to pay first. I explained the policy to him again and he sneered at me and yelled that he wasn’t leaving. I apologized to him for my mistake and he rolled his eyes at me and told me like I was a “slow” person not to remove his staples from his ‘oh-so-precious’ document. The thing that turned my mood around and restored my faith in customers/humanity? The person behind him in line who had witnessed his intimidation and misplaced anger came to the counter with a smile on his face and said “Man, he was an asshole, wasn’t he?” Many of the stories on Retailhell have this same theme. A customer makes an ass of themselves and another customer calls them out on it to their face or waits until they’ve left and validates the retail worker’s annoyance and anger. This happened a lot at my work. I was also very lucky in that I had great managers who told us that we did not have to take being yelled or cursed at. All we had to do was call them and they would step in between an irate customer and us. Not all of my customer stories are terrible ones. By the time I had quit that job, I had learned that there were two types of customers that were almost always polite and spoke to me. The Mennonite people who shopped at the store very often and young black males (usually about 16-25.) Normally, they were the most understanding of policies and the fact that I was working a job where I had to deal with and be polite to ignorant people. I think the reason Retailhell is so loved and enjoyed is that it’s a place to vent. It’s a place where people can share their stories of stupid customers and bosses and feel validated in their feelings because they see that others have the same problems and a place where people can having a feeling of solidarity. Sometimes making it through something is made easier by having some place to go to where you know people will understand.

• bobphibbs
  November 18th, 2009 at 10:50 am

  Thank you for your thoughtful comments Ryan. My concern about constantly sharing war stories is there is no balance. Like the guy down at the Bada Bing club complaining to his buds about his wife while she’s at home. You want to make things better, do something positive to change. Ever gone to a movie you thought was great and another person told you they hated the part where… ? Your opinion of the movie has been changed. Now what if several more people jump onboard? It goes down even more. A place to occasionally vent is one thing, to immerse yourself in the dregs is another.

• The One That Smiles
  November 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am

  I agree that the right mindset can make the workplace better for the average retail drone. It usually helped me very well. HOWEVER, Mari is ALSO correct: No matter how happy, how nice, and how much good service you provide, you will ALWAYS have at least one or two customers that will go through your presence with a negative, horrible attitude, and there will be NOTHING you can do about it. I pride myself on my ability to do well with people, personally, and my boss has praised me over and over again for this.

  But saying that so-called ‘bad customers’ are OUR fault? Us, in retail?

  You have GOT to be kidding me.

  I would go into work in the BEST mood, smiling, making conversation. I got so many repeat customers just from being a pleasant person at my job. And you know what? I STILL couldn’t help that, once in a while, a problem customer would come in. They mess up your shelves, they complain, they hold up lines, they want impossible refunds that even the BOSS can’t get them. And you can be as SWEET and CARING to these people as you can, my friend. You can smile and be polite all you want.They still act like they want to rip your guts out.

  I’ve seen other retail drones CRY because of some of these awful people, even excuse themselves when things get ugly and leave it to a more apt individual, like a manager, so that they can cool down before they start to drop the ‘kind and caring’ retail service face.

  So I take much offense to this. MUCH offense. It is NOT just the fault of the worker, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for making it sound that way. There are just as many bad-tempered, nasty, horrible people out there who are ‘customers’ as there are some of the (admittedly) bad retail slaves out there. Just remember that some of us working the registers, the fitting rooms, or what have you ARE trying to make sure the shopper has a good experience. It’s the shoppers that come in baying for blood no matter what that makes for a ‘bad shopping experience’.

  Unbelievable.

• if you want
  November 18th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

  If you want to make this arguement of the retail worker’s interaction with customers being solely based on one the retail employees outlook let me give you this shining example as to how that’s not allways right.

  Any store gets secret shoppers on randomly. These people grade based on their own personal bias. These events happen in this order about a week apart from each other to me.

  Got written up because a a secret shopper wanted help while I was helping another customer, I asked another employee to help out but they insisted on me.

  Got written up because I left another customer unattended in order to help the secret shopper.

  Got written up because I needed to put garbage in a out of the way place so that it wouldn’t be in any customer’s way.

  Got written up for leaving garbage in middle of isle to assist customer.

  Let that settle and tell me if I was the one at fault because my attitude wasn’t possitive enough.

• Left Retail
  November 18th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

  I am one of the people who left retail. There. I did it. Just like you asked me. I was an accomplished, high selling associate. I made bonuses for my managers left and right. My customers loved me. I treated them like kings and queens. I shoved positivity down their throats. They ate it up. And I went home and vomited every night because I was living a lie. I felt like an Orwellian drone putting a mask on for the thought-police. Sure I was a success at my job. My numbers were beautiful. Sales went up and up and up with me around. I had an offer for a promotion to manager on the table when I left. They were begging me to stay. I was a model employee.

  But I left.

  I left because retail is a worthless existence. It has no purpose. Serving people is not satisfying. Not when what you’re serving them is cheaply produced products at a high margin to line the pockets of 5 guys a couple hundred miles away who sit in a big room smoking cigars lit by flaming hundred dollar bills, laughing about the little people in their stores struggling to make an extra $10 to get their kid a calculator for school. Yeah. That’s a great day in my book.

  Have you heard of the terribly offensive Sambo stereotype? The constantly smiling and dancing idiot slave who’s just pleased as punch to do somebody else’s work…’yessuh massah! I gladly wipe yo ass suh….ha HAA!’ That is what you are peddling.

  Critical thinking is not the enemy. It is the solution. Critical thinking is what makes revolutions. It’s what keeps us constantly improving. I never trust anything or anyone who tells me that my feelings are wrong and I ought to change them. If I feel wrong about something, or uncomfortable, or fearful, I have a RIGHT as an individual and a human being to feel those things. I will not press down my misery into the depths beneath a plastic smile and call it the “power of positive thinking.” That’s just lying to myself.

  Not once in your comments do you mention that the CUSTOMERS could benefit from a little positivity. Why is it perfectly ok for *them* to be racist, lying, degrading thieves but not for the retail worker?

  THe customer is NOT always right.

  I’m pretty sure that if someone shoved a gun in my face and told me to empty the drawer, that someone would NOT be right. And no amount of smiling and positive thinking is going to erase the shit stains from my pants and the terrified tears from my face as I wonder – what a waste that my last moments in this beautiful life were spent in this indentured servitude.

  You’re an idiot peddler Bob. And as a guest on your website, as I would be in your store, I expect the utmost respect and positivity from you in response. I want my Bob’s website experience to be impeccable. Serve me please Bob. SERVE ME WELL.

• Michael
  November 18th, 2009 at 3:39 pm

  Let’s see… First off, those of us that followed the link from RHU are smart enough to hit the “Home” key and read from the beginning.

  As for Bob’s question to me: “I have a track record of helping people, what do you have?”

  I have the same thing, both in my career and out of it. I consider my life to be much more than my current occupation. Since leaving college, I’ve been a peer counselor in an online suicide prevention network, and have helped people in their darkest times. When at work, I have gone above and beyond for customers that come in with genuine problems and a willingness to talk to me instead of at me. I’ve bent company policy in little ways to assist people and get them leaving with their problems solved… even if that sometimes meant them not buying anything from us this time, because the solution was in another store in town.

  You, I have yet to see provide any real help. Your article is full of delusional fluff and something tells me that were I to invest the time in reading your other ones, I’d just find more of the same.

  Going in with a positive attitude might help a little, but the reality is that some days the only way to get through with one’s sanity intact is to remind yourself of how soon you can go home.

• bobphibbs
  November 18th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

  Glad you could admit that a positive attitude could help and thankful for your positive work with others.

• Michael
  November 18th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

  My word Bob, you have one of the most extreme cases of tunnel vision I’ve come across outside the character Stephen Colbert plays four nights a week on Comedy Central.

  Seriously, who’s foolish enough to pay you money for spreading this thin pop philosophy? Do they know up front that you aren’t speaking from firsthand experience? Do they realize that two paragraphs in, your entire argument can fall apart by providing one or two real life anecdotes from people who actually face the public 40 hours a week for single digit per hour pay?

  The Universe doesn’t give two farts in a windstorm what your attitude is when you punch in. I’ve gone in feeling like tearing people’s heads off and ended feeling better and more hopeful, and I’ve gone in feeling like I’m going to be on top all day and left contemplating just what the right ratio of fertilizer to gasoline would be. I’m very fortunate, in that the store I work has a manager that understands that we can’t control the kind of days we have, we can just persevere and hope to break even at the end of the worst ones.

  Lord knows if I’d had one spouting what you pass off as wisdom, that store would have more turnover than a pancake house.

• Advocatus Diaboli
  November 18th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

  I’m reading these comments with interest and I have something to add about sites like RHU and retailsucks. As others have pointed out, they are a chance to vent about customers and trade stories in an appropriate manner (as opposed to yelling at the customer).

  If you actually read the stories, you will see there are exceptional (but not uncommon) tales about customers threatening them with knives, stealing, making racial slurs and all sorts of anti-social behaviour no one would put up with outside of retail. No amount of ‘positive thinking’ will help these situations.

  I also think that dismissing these sites as just ‘doom and gloom’ is missing an opportunity for management to learn how to do things better. Most of the posters are anonymous, probably because they fear getting in trouble if management finds out about their complaints. It is a great resource for people who may not otherwise hear, about how their corporate plans are actually working in stores. For example, one poster talked about the ‘incentive’ system in his store where they must sell 1 customer card per week to avoid getting fired. He/she referred to the compromises the employees in the store made to customer service in order to sell those cards. Perhaps if higher management read this, they might make changes to this policy to improve the retail experience for all.

  Employees are a resource and if you take steps to improve working conditions, you can increase worker productivity. Positive thinking is all very well and good, but it’s easier to be a positive employee when your job doesn’t suck.

• I'm listening
  November 18th, 2009 at 5:23 pm

  While I do believe holding a positive outlook in life and learning and that you can affect the world around you with your attitude, my issue here is that it sounds as if you are saying that if the employees had been more positive and had “thought” better, that these situations, stories, and events would not have occurred.

  Believing that positive thoughts will prevent all negative events is a mental version of a lucky charm that the fail-proof ability to keep you safe. The world is an unpredictable place and random events will occur regardless.

  A real, positive outlook and attitude is so many things combined like perseverance in adversity, being prepared for those adversities, setting a standard for your life, and more.

  To speak of attitudes in retail or sales setting means you are dealing with people interacting with each other. When combining attitudes with direct interaction, attitude becomes a two way street and employees aren’t the only ones responsible. The concept that by assuming the worst/best, so the worst/best will happen applies to everyone involved.
  Customers can start affect others with their attitude and behaviors as well. I say this not to move blame, but to acknowledge that customers and employees are individuals with their own personalities who both can affect the situation they are in.

  As for these customer and retail suck sites, these workers often do not have any other way to vent as they can be treated very badly and then are offered no projection, sympathy, or even resolution training from their companies.

  Not all of the customer service or retails sites are bad. Some, not all.
  There are also websites for awesome customer stories, bad/good service stories, and bad/good co-worker stories. In this day and age there can be a website for anything and everything.

• Michael from Retail Journey
  November 19th, 2009 at 12:44 am

  Howard Schultz… CEO of Starbucks said….
  “It’s ironic that retailers and restaurants live or die on customer service, yet their employees have some of the lowest pay and worst benefits of any industry. That’s one reason so many retail experiences are mediocre for the public.”

  True… but I think too many employees use their bad pay, bad benefits, and bad customer experiences as an EXCUSE to provide poor customer service.

  I’m sorry but Bob is right… turn your negativity into something positive and you may find these bad customer interactions turn into something exciting instead of horrible.

• Michael
  November 19th, 2009 at 3:46 am

  Something pointed out by a commenter over at RHU, which I think bears repeating over here where can fall deaf upon your ears:

  “I Love how the guy basically claims that you can not let other peoples temperments influence yours and that you can change someone else with a positive attitude, while he is clearly getting pissed off with the topic (not controlling his own mental state so well) and is not changing the other responders with a positive attitude. He is actually disproving his own point. ”

  Somebody calling himself Logan said that, and it was like a fresh revelation for me. Right here, in your very own comments section of the very article you blogged, is a group of individuals who you want to ignore as “cynical” because we don’t buy into your claim that a positive attitude from the workers will prevent a negative customer from causing problems within the store. Yet your “positive attitude” hasn’t stopped a single one of us cynics from coming in here and submitting responses telling you that the above article is weak pop philosophy at best, and a potentially damaging delusion at worst.

  In your trying to respond, to my replies in particular, you actually showed a shift in mood away from being positive, giving me this holier-than-thou line of “I help people, can you say the same?”

  Unfortunately for you, not only could I, but I’m the kind of person that punches out, goes home, and does it for free, with people with a far more pressing set of issues than having a clogged sink or a dead fluorescent bulb. If you had bothered to read the whole of my first reply, you might have noticed that I started by saying that in my store, I was the “go to guy” for helping people. Do you know WHY?!

  Because when people come to me with their issue, I’m cynical enough to think of the problems that others in the store wouldn’t. Because sometimes the fix is something that everyone else assumed they already checked or did correctly. Me, I’ve been around the customer service scene long enough to know better. I’ve “fixed” people’s flashlights by opening up the battery compartment and turning the batteries around so they faced the right way. I’ve also “fixed” broken lamps by replacing the burnt out bulb. I’ve even “fixed” water heaters before, by insisting they go try again with the gas valve leading to the heater in the other position.

  I’m great at customer service, _because I can assume the customer is an idiot._ You seem to lack such ability. Come do my job for six weeks, and maybe you’ll start to learn how.

• bobphibbs
  November 19th, 2009 at 9:09 am

  I didn’t write this post to have the vetriol leveled at me from several commentators Michael so if I come off too strong to you, I apologize. I’ve been where many of the commentators are in my life. I didn’t like the work I did or the feeling I had when i went in or left for home. When I was able to see it was my own attitude towards the process, the very job I sought out to work at, I found I enjoyed it more.

• Michael
  November 19th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

  Well that sounds a touch more reasonable, but that’s not how you come off in this article. You may need to revise/revisit the topic and try to hold back more on blaming the bottom-level employees for their bad experiences. The way this is written, it implies that if I have a bad customer, it’s my own fault because I wasn’t being cheerful enough. That, in a nutshell, is where the vitriol is coming from. It’s a severe oversimplification and makes the misbehaving customers (and the managers that bend over backwards kowtowing to their demands) blameless. That’s patently offensive to those of us that work these jobs, and know firsthand that you can be acting like Ghandi’s latest reincarnation, and *still* be abused, insulted, threatened, and generally treated as less than a human being because the customer has come in with an attitude that makes everyone wish they’d just switch over to the competitor permanently.

  As I stated previously in my posts, it makes you sound like you’re speaking from a lack of experience in the area you’re speaking upon, and even worse, it brushes up on the dangerous delusion that we who work the sales floor and cash registers *deserve* every abusive, insulting, and over-entitled customer we receive. Worse yet, sometimes giving that positive attitude is misinterpreted and you wind up with a very uncomfortable situation (see today’s RHU article, “Niceness Kills”). Safeway had to deal with a class action suit because its female workers were getting sexually harassed regularly by customers… because of the way they were required by policy to maintain a friendly attitude towards the customers no matter what.

  That doesn’t mean the inverse of the argument is false… that going in with a bad attitude will result in an average increase in how bad the day feels… but to suggest that going in with a positive one and expecting that to make every customer into Fred Rogers is like expecting a bull not to charge at you because you’re a vegetarian.

• Evie
  December 10th, 2009 at 1:18 pm

  From experience, I can say that regardless of whether the customers are misbehaving, what makes a difference is having a supportive and fair-minded managerial staff. If you know someone has your back and that you are valued, you can keep a smile on through a lot more foolishness from customers.

  That said, Bob, I would hate to work for you. You seem to be the type that blames your employees for problems rather than helping them get through things. You are the equivalent of a doctor who tells an ailing patient to “suck it up and stop feeling sorry for yourself” rather than trying to cure his illness. Taking a positive attitude is one thing — but deliberately whitewashing the world to make it *seem* more pleasant, while not actually changing any negative situations, is ludicrous. No retail worker would feel confident, happy, or valued when you belittle their concerns and blame them for confrontations.

• bobphibbs
  December 10th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

  Thanks for your thoughts Evie. I say if the pain is too great, change what circumstances you are putting yourself in or change your attitude about it but take control of what you can take control of – not “suck it up.”

• Mario
  December 26th, 2009 at 9:47 am

  After reading your article and these many comments, I have to confess that I find your attitude to be quite naive.
  I’ve worked retail for 5.5 years, and naturally have good and bad stories. In the space of less than a week I had the extremes of customer reactions. On a Sunday afternoon, I had a customer so pleased with how I had helped them that they returned a few hours later with a warm chocolate cake they had baked especially for me – needless to say it seemed like the start of a great week! A few days later, I assisted another customer who was impossible to please, it didn’t matter what I said, they would be totally contradictory and antagonistic. They even criticized me for smiling while talking to them. These people then went on to say that they would find out where I lived (we wear name tags with our full name on them) and make me wish I’d never been born. I still get abused by these people whenever they see me around town.

  I can say without a doubt that my attitude had nothing to do with the way these people responded to me, as it was the same attitude that had earlier scored me a home made cake. Bob, rude people are going to be rude people no matter how they are approached.

• Jim
  December 27th, 2009 at 3:15 pm

  I’ve read these comments with interest. From my perspective there’s some light being shed from all sides within this debate.

  Bob Phibbs, “The Retail Doctor” appears as a regular weekly contributor on our local AM radio station here in Canton, Ohio. …I was just taking a moment here on a cloudy afternoon to check out the doc’s Web site, and I got sucked into this discussion…

  My own story: I worked in retail floor sales several years ago at a well-known electronics store. I did this for less than a year, although it seemed like an eternity. At times I hated it; sometimes I loved it (that’s going too far, sometimes I liked it!)

  I’m grateful for the lessons retail sales taught me. I’m much happier having left retail, grateful that I had a choice to leave for something else, for something better for me. The good: retail loosened me up, taught me how to interact better with people, exposed me to the gamut of human personality types, taught me how to ask for what I need (the sale), and tuned me in to what people are looking for. The bad: the pay is lousy; if you stay in retail sales at the entry level it will never get much better than lousy.

  But back to the good: you can take the lessons from entry-level floor sales and if you enjoy sales the sky is the limit really, in terms of rising up into management, or going on to some other area of direct sales, or something else sales-related. It is fun to sell things to others!

  Rude customers will walk in the door. They do exist! I’m not sure the reason for your hesitancy Dr. Bob, to call a spade a spade. Retail managers, or “Retail Doctors” should help in a positive and proactive way sales people of differing personality types, who may be inexperienced , and who may need assistance, to learn to negotiate the interpersonal minefield of rude people. When dealing with rude people I agree with the comment offered above that management ideally should offer understanding and support in these rare situations. I believe rude customers are a small, small percentage of those who will walk in the door. Truly rude customers are the ones with “the problem” and with the proper support and training I believe any sales person should be able to learn with 100% success how to deal with the rude and the impolite. With help on how to tackle them, rude people are easy, they are water off a duck’s back. Bob Phibbs no doubt has a lot to bring to the table on helping sales people learn how to get past rude customers. I disagree with the suggestion though that the sales person is somehow personally “lacking” when they vent about or need to decompress from their interactions with rude customers.

  The sales process gets trickier with “annoying customers.” Here is where I side with “the retail doctor.” If you are in sales, it’s your job to deal with the annoyances customers bring into the store. They are in your store because they ARE annoyed: something needs to be replaced, they need to spend some money, the would rather be somewhere else, something is not working, etc. etc.

  If you can’t do it or don’t want to do it, as the Doc says you’re making yourself (and possibly others) miserable with your job choice and you aren’t cut out for a career in sales. Find something else to do!

  Any chance for some middle ground on this issue, Doc, and others?

• bobphibbs
  December 28th, 2009 at 6:05 am

  Thanks for stopping in Jim. This entire discussion became something other than the blog. I agree there are times everyone has customers who are a challenge – in any job or business. My fairly blunt points early on were based on several contributors insistence that it was their every day, day-to-day existence and owning that miserableness which I think you spoke to as well.

• Kelly
  February 10th, 2010 at 1:19 am

  A little late, but I had to jump in on this.

  I’ve been in customer service for over 35 years, working as a bank teller, a waitress, at a copy shop, and in a convenience store. I have rarely had trouble with customers and believe it or not, I get along better with the “weird” customers. Maybe it’s because I understand them better, I don’t know.

  But the customer is not always right and no matter how positive you are, you will have upset, rude and plain idiotic people come in that no amount of happy attitude will cure. They are not “the rare event”. In fact, at the convenience store, they were the norm.

  There are a lot of reasons – first off, you’re working for a company that wants you to be loyal to the max for them, but pays you peanuts and will kick you out the door for the smallest of reasons. You give up your holidays, your weekends, your evenings, your special days with family and on occasion you miss funerals, marriages, and graduations among other thing and even risk your health sometimes for these companies. In a large company, you have the most important job of all: you are the one meeting the customer face to face and representing that company to the customer, yet you make the lowest pay, have the least power and little to no decision making power whatsoever. Sometimes you go without raises or cost of living increases while your CEO walks off with a million dollar parachute. It’s very disheartening.

  Most people still attempt to do their best. I know I did. But CEOs, stockholders, managers and customers have a distorted view of reality. They say the customer is king. I don’t disagree with that, but what I have to say to them is, “The reality is there are 10 kings in here right now and all of them want to be helped first. Someone is going to have to go second and that one is going to be upset.” Also, the fact that a customer thinks he is king still in no way entitles them to swear, spit or scream at me, nor do I have to take slurs or give up my dignity to help someone.

  Bob, where you and I disagree is that I’ve found the average customer thinks the phrase “customer is king” means they can do exactly as they please to any other human being in the store without any recourse to themselves, never mind whether I have a positive attitude or not. You think they won’t if I just smile and act happy.

  As someone who was called a bitch at least once a night for following the rules by not selling tobacco and alcohol to minors, for example, I would like to see you do that one job and stay positive and make your customers happy at the same time. Really, in order not to go home crying or take the name calling personally, you have to take your positive attitude and good feelings and hide it in a shell someplace. That doesn’t mean you quit helping customers or being concerned that you do a good job. It just means that the reality of the situation is you recognize that most customers want what they want, they want it right now, and they want it for free, and the majority of them will act like animals if they don’t get exactly that. So you can accept that as the reality and stay sane at your job (and it’s a job, not a career), or you can keep the positive attitude, let the customers run rampant over you and end up doing needlework at the funny farm. Your choice.

• bobphibbs
  February 15th, 2010 at 9:09 am

  Again, any job you could be called a bitch every day is not a good fit for anyone. Staying there meant saying, “I can’t” leave because you wouldn’t leave. Again, it is a personal choice. Thanks for stopping by.

• Kelly
  February 15th, 2010 at 10:09 pm

  I left when I wanted to. I actually enjoyed the job up to a certain point. I worked grave and liked working on my own at night with no supervision. It was when state law made us cashiers basically be cops coupled with the low pay that finally made me decide to leave. But think as you please. And thank you for allowing me to post.

• Not a retail worker
  July 9th, 2010 at 10:56 pm

  Wow, I really love just how condescendingly Bob reacts to anyone who has an opinion that differs from his!

  (And yes, that was sarcasm, in case anyone was wondering.)

  And hey Bob – I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the economy is kindof sucky right now. I’m sure those people who are called names daily would LOVE to say “I can,” as you suggest, and leave those jobs. The problem then comes in the form of bills with no job to pay for them. Staying there means saying “I can’t,” because that retail employee literally cannot afford to leave, not because they chose not to.

• bobphibbs
  July 11th, 2010 at 11:31 am

  Melissa, we get the life we choose. Want to change your life, its up to you – not your boss, your country, your union, your ethnicity, your parents, your city – you name it. Until people take the reins of their own lives, they will wallow in the “whoa is me” that hobbles them and their families. That has nothing to do with working retail.

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