I need to be super clear. I love my job. I find it fulfilling, my bosses are amazing, most of the employees are great and the average length of employment here is well over a decade which is crazy long considering it’s basically retail. The bosses pay well above market rate, well above minimum wage, and never encroach on our time off. If a shift needs to be covered they do it themselves. Like, when they say they consider the employees family it’s because we’ve all been written into the owner’s will. I love my job.
But sometimes the customers make it feel like no amount of money makes it worth it. This week I’ve been screamed and cussed at because a customer got sent to collections after 2 and a half years of not paying a monthly rental. She could have returned our inventory at any point. Instead she’s screamed at anyone unlucky enough to answer the phone about how we’ve ruined her credit so now she’ll be homeless. I felt horrible for her because it’s definitely a housing issue that her rent got raised enough to push her out – until she started the screaming and cussing and making people cry over something that none of us did.
Today I had a woman grill me for 20 minutes about my birthing plan. I’m 8 months pregnant. She wants to know why I’m still working because she thinks working will definitely kill my baby. She wants to know if I’m doing a home birth. She wants me to know that she used to be a doula and she can tell by looking at me that I’ll go to 42 weeks and my son is breach. (He’s not. His foot is in my rib as I’m typing this.) Meanwhile her three grandchildren tore through the whole store flipping everything they could reach upside down which meant more time on my feet before I could go sit again.
Right after she left a man in his 40’s came in, asked me if I was working alone, then unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, scratched his balls while making eye contact with me, zipped and buttoned his pants, then handed me cash to complete his transaction.
Y’all. I love my job but I hate customers who go around making other people’s days and lives harder. A topic I don’t see often enough is how we can support each other by not being shitty customers. Don’t make other worker’s days suck. Don’t yell at people who have no control over something going wrong. Keep your opinions about their bodies to yourself and don’t let your kids trash something knowing that someone has to clean up. And for the love of god, keep your pants on and be a decent human being when someone is obviously just trying to collect a paycheck.