Working in a shop

[shazzabell]

I work in a fashion shop and when I was on fitting room duty today a customer more or less threw the clothes she'd tried on at me and left them inside out. I think it's the height of rudeness! What do you think?
Also, the shop sells footwear and customers just leave the shoes lying everywhere after trying them on. I know it's my job, but I think it's just bad manners. How easy is it to put a shoe/piece of clothing back where it belongs?

[luckyeight]

You think THIS is the height of rudeness? Don't know how long you've been working in your fashion shop but it'll get worse than this. Any job working with the public, and especially retail, exposes you to the worst excesses of people's rudeness. Horrible, isnt it? Especially when your just paid minimum wage to put up with it.. :(
I agree with you shazza and you just need to take a deep breath and leave it all at work and not take it home.

[~Wingnut~]

You'd love me then Shazza, as when I try something on if I don't want it I try to go and put it back on the rack where I got it from! If the lady in the fitting room doesn't try to take it from me when I say I don't want it, then my Hubby tells me off for wanting to take it back when he says put it anywhere!!! I just can't and have to put it back where I got it from! Sorry but I can't help it!
Your right it is bad manners and always try to treat people how I would want to be treated.

[missjef]

yes someone agrees!! i work in a clothes shop too that sells shoes aswell, it really gets on my nerves! some people if someone isnt in the fitting room (as in staff) they just leave their clothes in a cublicle or just on the floor of the cubicle!! i feel really bad if i even dont do up a button on a piece of clothing when giving it back let alone jsut dumping stuff! our shop is always in such a mess at the end of the day esp. saturdays because some people jsut dont think! the worst is always the shoes though, people do just try stuff on then jsut leave them on the floor, its just crazy.
Then people will knock stuff off and just dont pick it up! some customers are jsut so rude aswell, it just really annoys me!!

sorry about the rant, but was at work today and the shop was a mess and we have to stay and tidy each day for half an hour after the shop shuts - which we wouldnt have to do if people actually take care when looking round shops!

also some people dont even put clothes on the hangers to give back to you , they just hand them over in bundle!!

[~Wingnut~]

Sorry missed out the I from "always try to treat..."

[bug123]

Completely agree! People don't seem to treat things with respect any more. The amount of times I have gone to try something on to find a big smear of make up all over it.
I had to bite my tongue today - I was shopping and this lady was looking at a top. It fell off the hanger and onto the floor and she just looked at it and then walked off, running over it with her bloody pushchair! Grrrrr !! :o)

[missjef]

~wingnut~ you sound like a perfect customer, please can you clone yourself and send them all into my shop!! lol

[dot.hawkes]

i am the manager of a fashion footwear concession within a national department store, if u worked for me i would say, get used to it pet, lol

[~Wingnut~]

Lol Missjef, I only wish I could as then it would make my shopping experience more pleasurable too!! lol

[ermintrude35]

...oh my god! ...I'm among friends!...uuugh I work on the kids clothing department in Woolies at a seaside town...it's a bl00dy nightmare...went for lunch came back onto shopfloor a huge pile of around 50 shoes blocking one isle...clothes dumped insideout stuffed at bottom of displays, and dont get me started on hangers...do customers eat them???.....maybe they should, one way to make em smile!...the toy lady was close to tears last week , she spent 2 hours doing new planograms, when along came a load of kids and trashed it, when she went over and picked the toys up , the mum said "excuse me! we havn't finished playing with them yet!"...ffs! it's a shop not a nursery!...I even found a half eaten sausage roll in a shoe on the shelf the other day.....

[wonderwoman1]

hiya shazzabell, i own a mother of the bride shop and they do it there too, and the clothes are bl00dy expensive!! it winds me up, but thats what i have chosen as my profession and i guess i have to put up with it. i also have a lot of snotty customers who look down their noses at you because you work in a shop!! its pathetic on their part but at the end of the day i'm taking their money off them!! and when they leave i have a wee chuckle to myself cos i know that what they have bought has been seriously marked up so i've made a lovely profit!!! haha

[quinah]

you want to try working in a post office, especially at car tax time, I've lost count of the amount of abuse I have to take, just because someone can't read the words CERTIFICATE OR COVER NOTE of insurance and bring the bloody schedule, and then swear at me when I say I can't do it for them!
Either that, or I get abuse when they try and cash their giro's early!
I have worked in a shoe dept too, and know what it's like to serve someone who think you are their personal slave for the day, and don't even know how to say please and thankyou!

[campbellking]

This is where you learn to smile very sweetly and not descend to anyone else's level. I have the joys of working for the N.H.S., and have had every swear word chucked at me, and a few punches thrown (have learnt to dodge these). Just last week, one of the patients called me a 'pygmy' (I know I'm on the shorter side, but is 5'4'' that small?)

[maggie01]

I am the same as wingnut, weather it is clothes or in a supermarket. If I don't want the goods then I have to put it back in its rightful place. Can't help it.

[missjef]

do any of you shop workers also find (esp. in clothes shop) you find yourself tidying up, not really tidying as such but if hangers are messed up or out of place you have to change them so theyre not? i did this the other week and my boyfriend was just like "stop it! your not working!". some other people who i work with said they do it too.

[ermintrude35]

...haha missjef...!!!!! .... I do that all the time when I'm shopping, my daughter tell me I'm doing it, I don't even realise it!... one of the girls on the entertainment counter had a cd chucked at her head yesterday by a customer who tried to jump the queue, and when she was told there were other customers before her she said "stuff your 'effin cd" and lobbed it at her..... not to mention the 70 year old man who comes in on a daily basis to pinch our bottoms!.... ah shopwork ya gotta love it....

[missjef]

hehe ermintrude35! we have tranvestites & transexuals coming in every so often, but they make up odd stories about why they are buying the clothes... although one of them who comes in a lot came in and bought a pack of 5 g-strings and said they were for his step daughter! which was quite scary!

[horselady]

Would you older ABers who've always worked in shops say things have got worse? I worked in Boots 30 years ago and very rarely met any rudeness but I know when I'm in shops now as a customer I can't believe the way people speak to the staff.

[luckyeight]

Modern society is making ppl more frustrated. I think.

[Ashleigh13]

Yes I agree that it is extremely rude.
I also work in a shop and you can go into the fitting room to find clothes lying on the floor. You get customers handing you clothes that are not on hangers and if they are, they are hanging off and the belts and zips are undone.
People come out and say "ill just leave that with you".

I don't understand why they think its so hard to put things back on hangers. I would never ever hand the shop assistant the clothes and ask them to do it....
So yeah I agree its really rude.