Went back to my old place of work as a customer today, and the guy serving me is just starting his first ever shift and he's been given absolutely no training whatsoever. Doesn't know how to work the handset, look up customer names, find orders etc. He's literally just been told to stand there on his own and die under the weight of a thousand angry customers.
He obviously completely fucks my order, has no idea how to find it. He's just staring at this sea of boxes and I can almost hear the descending note in his head as he realises he knows literally nothing. He asks me what my order number is (which won't help him at all – he can't work the handset), and I can see him trying to ignore the queue forming behind me.
I tell him I used to do this job and offer him some help. He looks at me like I'm a prophet come to lead him out of the desert so I show him how to log in. Luckily for him the system hasn't changed since I was there so I start walking him through it, but it soon becomes apparent that the morons in charge have allocated the wrong order numbers to the wrong orders. Classic. I tell him it's fine, we'll just do it manually using the paperwork, which is a pain but not impossible. Anyway the paperwork doesn't match up with anything. What in tarnation. And the managers won't answer the phone. This is turning into a terrible shift for both of us.
So now I'm checking boxes trying to figure out what the hell has happened while my trainee stands there like a lost duckling. The next customer in line is getting quite agitated at this point and I find myself apologising, saying it shouldn't be too much longer s-. I nearly called him sir. I nearly. called him. sir.
Finally I just ask the grumpy guy exactly what he ordered and then tell my trainee to go and find those items. We're now using the unprotected sex method of doing the job. You can't confirm anything on the system, and if you're not careful you'll be giving stuff away for free.
By this point I've completely forgotten about my own order, I'm just trying to fight the backlog of customers and teach this guy how to get through the rest of the day without getting yelled at or giving away thousands of pounds worth of stock. Eventually we make it through the weeds and I get my order, and my trainee thanks me and I leave.
Anyway I'm actually having nightmares about what would have happened if I hadn't been the first customer of the day. And it makes me think about how difficult and stressful retail can be, because situations like this happen all the time. It's the reason I left. So yeah, next time you see someone struggling to do a job that should be simple, remember it's absolutely not them who's fucked up.