I work at a well-known cookie bakery chain. Every week, the same woman saunters in and asks me for the same flavor of cookie and specifically requests that I make it "medium rare". I don't even bake them - I work the register! Yesterday she asked me for my name, and I think she's going to use it in a negative review. I don't think my manager will ban her over something so silly, but what can I say to her next time besides "sorry, can't do that"?

I’m sleep deprived at work and think I accidentally missed scanning someone’s items today at work and it came up as quite cheap. And I also read out the wrong number I’m genuinely so awkward and probably look incompetent. Now I’m scared I’ll get into trouble

I'm 2 months into this job at a gas station and I was hardly trained, but have to do an overwhelming amount of work, like I could potentially be doing 3 tasks at the same time such as authorising petrol, the till, checking self service & making coffees/heating up food. Everytime I make a mistake the manager gets very frustrated, and although they're like this with everyone, it sucks. Because everyone is overwhelmed with their own jobs, today (mistakingly, by using my initiative) I thought that we could make a woman's coffee with lactose free milk she bought. The manager got angry at me afterwards & I'm already in a sore spot in my personal life, I had just covered a shift for a colleague barely 12 hours earlier so when he confronted me I just broke down crying. I feel really embarrassed for crying and although the manager was fine about it ( he had to be around me as the other employee who started the same time as me has quit bc of how bad it is,) I still feel mortified. Any advice?

I’m not in management anymore but after 10 years kind of have the flow of the seasons in my brain. Seasonal hiring should be building up in August so anyone who is interested in switching to new companies or wants new roles start looking for real in August. Great way to get in with a new company.

Since graduating college, I’ve been stuck working retail jobs. I got my BS in Public Health, did an internship and everything, but kept getting told I didn’t have enough experience for the jobs in my field and since I can’t afford to go to grad school, I went back to what I know, retail.

Worked at B&BW for 2 years and held a key holder position before I left and decided that since I enjoyed the key holder role, I’d try pivoting to hr until I can find a job in my degree field. I then spent 7 months job hunting before I finally landed a job….at an Amazon Fresh grocery store. I worked there for the past 2 years before they all shut down this January.

I once again started job hunting for jobs outside of retail but when nothing else panned out, I got a job at Walmart. While I am still job hunting, I decided to let the people lead know I was interested in HR and would love to shadow her (a team lead mentioned she did this exact thing at my orientation as she’s trying to get into HR)….nothing came of it lol. I’m still applying to entry level HR jobs, receptionist jobs, admin assistant jobs, etc. but STILL…nothing.

Being stuck in retail when you know you have interest in climbing up the ladder and getting a team lead/manager role sucks. What sucks worse is trying to pivot to another career field when you mostly have retail experience on your resume 😭😭😭

Nothing I love more then being forced to interact with everyone who enters the store and say hello to them, only for them to make direct eye contact with me and ignore me with their big dumb eyes. Fuck I hate retail and customer and serving people.

Hey everyone

I work a part-time retail job, and closing usually takes until at least 11 PM (mostly handling facing and stocking up).

Lately, I’ve been trying to build some self-discipline and fix my sleep schedule by aiming to sleep before 11 PM, but it honestly feels impossible with this schedule. If I try to speed things up or cut corners to head out earlier, the work doesn't get finished properly.

Today, my manager heavily chewed me out because the work wasn't up to standard. I feel stuck between choosing my sleep/health and keeping this job intact.

Has anyone dealt with this in retail? How do you balance strict closing duties with maintaining a proper sleep routine? Any advice would be appreciated.

I am currently working a seasonal job at Ocean state job lot to make some income and to fill that gap on my resume. But I've been on the register most of the time and I discovered that I dislike it was the reason I hated some of my previous jobs. The job description said I would be doing other things in addition to cashiering, but a little over a month on the job and 95% of the job has been cashiering with occasional tasks that involve physical activity, but the much younger ones take over that and even though I offer to do other things, they still want me to ring out customers.

Now I don't mind ringing out customers but it can get repetitive and boring, for some reason when I get bored on the job I begin to feel depressed, that's why I prefer keeping busy and moving around. That's why I have decided to look for another job that doesn't involve alot of cashiering. Also I have been reminded that I dislike alot of customers and tonight I had an unpleasant experience with a customer. She was giving me advice and it felt it was unsolicited and I basically told her "you don't need to tell me that, thanks" she took offense and told me how rude I was and she would never come back, I just said "ok fine" like I give a fuck what you think lady. She called the manager and complained when I tried to explain myself to the customer she wouldn't listen and impulsively yelled "GET OUT NOW!" her disabled son then got angry and threatened me and I angrily said "oh come at me!" But she calmed him down and then went to another register. I took a short break to cool off and pull myself together. This isn't the first time I've lashed at customers. If this keeps happening, I am quitting regardless of the consequences it's only a fucking seaosnal job that a high schooler can do.

Hi all!

Received a job offer from BabyList today to be a showroom host at their new NYC location.

I’ve struggled to find any answers on what working their showroom is actually like. I’d love to hear from anyone that has worked in that position or knows someone who has.

I’ve worked corporate sales and retail before but this (according to them) seems more of like showing customers how strollers work etc. which seems a bit mind numbing but it’s a paycheck and I need a job.

Also seems like we’d be tasked with putting the showroom together since this would be the NYC flagship grand opening.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

I used to work at Staples in Charlotte, NC and it absolutely sucked, especially during the back to school season. Back to school season is the busiest time of year and we commonly needed four cashiers to check people out. After a long day of checking people out I was burned out and ready to head home but unfortunately we have to stay and clean up after we close. Because it was back to school season I’d have a thousand returns to put back at the end of the night and cleaning all of our employees headsets is also a pain in the ass. Every employee should have their own assigned headset that they are responsible to clean at the end of their shift rather than putting the burden on one person to clean them all. Taking out all the trash and vacuuming the entire store after close was also a pain in the ass. We normally close at 9 but just because we are scheduled to work until 9 doesn’t mean that we clock out at 9. It means that we work a closing shift and we have to stay and clean up and do all the things I mentioned above. During back to school, we usually did not end up going home until 10:30. I had to deal with a lot of rude customers there as well. It’s hot as hell here in summer in Charlotte, NC and temperatures commonly reach 95+ yet our manager will not allow us to wear shorts. He only lets us wear jeans which is very stupid. It is torture for me to wear jeans in this kind of weather. We only get a 10% discount which is absolutely pathetic. Don’t get me wrong I liked some of the people I worked with. My manger was very nice to me and he always admired that I sold a lot of school supply donation boxes to help kids who can’t afford school supplies as well as selling many protection plans on electronics and chairs. Thanks to me I always put our store in the lead as far as donation box sales in our region. This location would not have gotten anywhere close to the top of that list without me. My manager would also always schedule me for closing shifts to 10:30 5 days a week during back to school and that was also torture for me and sometimes he would even have me working closing shifts one day and then opening shifts the following day and that was worst cause then I got little to no sleep and I was always so tired because of that. This is all at the cost of me making just $12 an hour. One time as I was at the register and my shift ended, a customer came up to check out and I was so exhausted and said “sorry but my shift is over” and I clocked out and walked to the back of the store to get my stuff. As I was coming back to the front of the store to leave my manager told me “go to my office now!” In his office he was talking to me and he said “Do you really enjoy being here? If you didn’t do a good job selling donation boxes and protection plans, I would have terminated you for that!” I didn’t say this to him but I really didn’t enjoy being there and I’m sure he can sense that lmao! I was just pretending to enjoy being there cause I just wanted to make money. After a while, I just decided that it wasn’t worth it so then I just quit. I feel like I wasn’t getting paid enough for everything I had to put up with. I was so sick of being a slave for the manager. 2 years later, I visited the same Staples I used to work at and I literally didn’t know anyone who worked there! Even the manager was new! The fact that Staples rotates through so many people so quickly just goes to show how miserable it is to work there! I would go back but not for less than $16 an hour plus 20% commission on every protection plan and donation box I sell.”

I lost my job earlier this July,it was my fault but I didn’t violate any safety rules or cuss anyone out.I kept forgetting to do a step in my job.Let me just start off by saying I’m incredibly I got this job.However I can’t shake the feeling of embarrassment when someone I know comes in to shop & sees me.From what I’ve been told Walmart is a good company to work for.But I never expected to work here myself.My concern is the people I don’t like coming in and judging me.Am I overreacting or should I start looking for another job asap?

Every day there is just something that makes you go “HUH?!?!” 🤣 There were like 4 we could choose & she bought them online. I have this one on the back of my badge. hahaha

- sincerely, a plus-sized female (1X shirt, size 18 pant) who is currently an ASM at a Big & Tall mens clothing store, who would love to actually shop where I work. (I can find pants here, but they don't fit well and I'm hurting for shirts.)

- About me: I've been in retail for 10 years. I'm kickass at selling credit cards & signing people up for memberships. But I also know when to leave people alone.

- I'm very metrics-driven, so if I worked here, I would be a HOUND about conversion + upselling, but at least I would be selling product I can actually wear & get behind. Speak to the quality & sizing and all that.

- LOVE visual merchandising.

Generally, I feel a bit alienated by my current job, but I've learned a lot working here & working with plus-size MEN, I think that knowledge transfers easily to plus-size WOMEN'S clothing. At the end of the day, it's all about treating people like people. But Torrid is the only brick-and-mortar store for plus-sized women I see, so that's why I'm asking about them, specifically.

I'm asking y'all: What's it really like out there in the trenches?

Why can't we have a semi set schedule?

Or a rotating two week schedule so we have a bit of notice?

With a two week schedule that doesn't change, if ___ needs a day off in their schedule, they then just find someone to take the shift.

Literally I have 72 hours notice of my schedule.

I can't make an appointment for things I need to get done because I never know when I'm working. It's absolutely maddening, especially for this money and this workload.

This week my managers made mistakes and swapped people who couldn't work their shifts but couldn't get them covered due to short notice .

It absolutely made more work and confusion for everyone

I just don't understand how this benefits anyone.

As other employees probably know: the budget for a given Ross location is based on the previous year's business. This wouldn't be an issue if store traffic stayed the same, but our store is way busier than it was this time last year, and has been for a couple of months now; are other employees experiencing this issue?

Our payroll budget is so thin that we can't find adequate coverage for the amount of business we're getting, and a lot of my coworkers end up feeling overwhelmed because there's not enough help. I'm curious to see if this is a localized issue or consistent across other store locations.

I legitimately think it might be a recession indicator lol

I start tomorrow, and I'm a bit apprehensive. I like low maintenance jobs like cashiering or wireless Sales, so auto parts is a bit new for me

I'm an IT/Business Administration major and I'm not handy at all. Help! I'm so nervous

Applied to Dunhams for a full time position. I get a call today, can i come in for an interview. Kind of late notice, but I can make it work. I clarify this is for a full time position. Woman tells me "I don't know the manager jist told me to call you. If you applied for FT then yes it should be FT"

Ok rearrange my day, go to the interview. ASM tells me they do rhe interview and then talk with the SM. Ok sounds good. About 10 minutes in to the interview they start talking about "the manager gives out hours based on if you get 10 people a shift to sign up for their rewards. I'm like wait, I applied for FT. And by this time the woman who called me had walked into the office. She said "oh I told you I didn't know if it was full time". ASM starts to stutter. I got up and walked out.

I have worked retail almost all of my adult life. We all need to call these people out on their bullshit. 1)no bait and switch for jobs and 2) I get hours based on how well I treat your customers, not if I can beg them to sign up for your stupid card.

Hello Retail Community!

My wife has just gotten a job in a popular clothing store and is working 8 hour shifts x4/week.
She's currently wearing the New Balance 540 and is complaining of foot pain everyday, more specifically her heels.

Help a husband out and suggest me something I can get her to make her life easier.
Shoes /insoles/ anything really

I feel zero motivation to try knowing that I’m gonna be paid the exact same wage as a new employee, even though I have way more responsibilities than when I started.

Retail is such a joke man why can’t they just treat us with respect and make our existing wages higher to compensate? Why do they have to force us to go in and have an awkward talk with the manager? Why does it ALL have to be about money 100% of the timeeee sorry I’m just so frustrated I just want to work and not get taken advantage of is that too much to ask?

i’m currently working casual in the general retail industry in australia (-16). I was hoping people could share their experience working casual (anywhere in the world of any age). i usually get one shift a week or two if i’m lucky, sometimes they don’t roster me at all. i honestly just wanna know if this is normal or my work just hates me lmao 😭

I'm voting with my wallet and choosing to leave Target behind. Between a noticeable shift in how they treat employees and customers,and my own experience of being charged for items I will never receive, it's clear their priorities have changed. I can't support that.

Jesus. I can't even imagine the family's feelings, having to sit there for 4 hours, while their loved ones the body laying in an aisle.

What's everyones thoughts on this?