The Retail Horror Thread 2: More Tales to Chill your Bones

[Cosmos]

suddenly she snatches the bag out of my hand and forces her phone in my face, shouting at me "would YOU want to get a text like this?! would you?!?" and on the screen i could see a text from someone else telling her they wanted to kill themselves. i was so stunned i just kinda stared at her and shook my head and she glared at me for a few moments then angrily stormed off. i had to go to the restroom to splash water on my face after that because i couldn't snap out of how stunned i was.

Man, that's really fucked up. It's fucked up that you had to deal with that, and it's fucked up that someone said that to her. I don't want to speculate too much but I'm guessing that it was a friend/relative who was suicidal and she was upset because duh, nobody wants to hear someone they care about saying they want to kill themselves.

 

[The Joker]

I recently started working at a department store that treats it's employees very well. We make more than most places and get good benefits. The only downside is that we are a half mile away from the local high school and we constantly have teenagers coming in and messing around.
Sometimes I find it funny and just let them do as they want as long as they don't mess shit up. But today while my coworker and I were doing re shop meant for at least 5 people I almost killed some teenage boys that we wearing batman masks and recording themselves running through the aisels.

 

[CWCissey]

I recently started working at a department store that treats it's employees very well. We make more than most places and get good benefits. The only downside is that we are a half mile away from the local high school and we constantly have teenagers coming in and messing around.
Sometimes I find it funny and just let them do as they want as long as they don't mess shit up. But today while my coworker and I were doing re shop meant for at least 5 people I almost killed some teenage boys that we wearing batman masks and recording themselves running through the aisels.

Oh God, Worse is when they get hold of the toy lightsabres and start whacking each other with them.

 

[TheImportantFart]

I recently started working at a department store that treats it's employees very well. We make more than most places and get good benefits. The only downside is that we are a half mile away from the local high school and we constantly have teenagers coming in and messing around.
Sometimes I find it funny and just let them do as they want as long as they don't mess shit up. But today while my coworker and I were doing re shop meant for at least 5 people I almost killed some teenage boys that we wearing batman masks and recording themselves running through the aisels.

Aw man, these stories are even more disheartening to hear with that avatar of yours. At least when it was the Joker I could imagine you getting through it all with a manic grin on your face, but now I just imagine you going about your business with tears rolling down your cheeks

 

[Atropos]

Yesterday the cleaning lady was out, which was bad because on that day the lady's room refused to stay clean. It seemed every thirty minutes I had to go in and clean poopy toilets or fish out diapers and sanitary pads from the small trash cans. One of the toilets got clogged, and the plunger was trapped in a stall that someone managed to lock from the inside.
This all wasn't as bad as a few days ago when a grown-ass dude came into the store, headed straight for the bathroom, and took a runny shit on the floor. He bolted as soon as the deed was done, but apparently another customer was in there with him.

 

[The Joker]

Yesterday the cleaning lady was out, which was bad because on that day the lady's room refused to stay clean. It seemed every thirty minutes I had to go in and clean poopy toilets or fish out diapers and sanitary pads from the small trash cans. One of the toilets got clogged, and the plunger was trapped in a stall that someone managed to lock from the inside.
This all wasn't as bad as a few days ago when a grown-ass dude came into the store, headed straight for the bathroom, and took a runny shit on the floor. He bolted as soon as the deed was done, but apparently another customer was in there with him.

I always respect the employees that have to clean store restrooms. They deserve some sort of medal on a daily basis.

 

[Ravenor]

I always respect the employees that have to clean store restrooms. They deserve some sort of medal on a daily basis.

Aint that the truth, I was taking my lunch today and being a rather nice day I rode round to a Asda to pick up some milk, coffee and tea bag's for my warehouse (I forgot this morning DOH!) and walked into the toilet and I can only describe the pure look of horror on the two cleaners faces dealing with a toilet I only got a glimpse at but had obviously had a visit from fat bastard himself the day after a Curry and Guinness session...

 

[Goofy Logic]

Another bank story from mom:

Alcoholism was quite rampant in Mom's town, so dealing with drunks who went into the bank to get more money for the bar was pretty common. Only problem was that later on, you had irate customers screaming at you that you were defrauding them because they don't remember withdrawing the money from the bank.

Remember this was in the early 80's, and computerized transactions were about 5 - 10 years away (and even then, it was first mainly used between bank branches). You had to fill out a withdraw slip, present it to the teller who would process it and get your money.

This story is about the one and only time mom called the police on a customer.

One customer got pissed off that mom would refuse to give him money because he was too drunk to sign the slip. The customer got belligerent, refusing to leave the bank and trying to swing at mom the moment she went near the front counter. After trying to swing at mom when she walked up to another teller to assist her, she got fed up and called the cops.

The police officer came to the bank and approached the drunk, asking what the problem was. He went up to the officer and placed his arm around the officers shoulders, likely in a attempt to say something like 'oh, yunno those crazy bitches...'

Instead the officer immediately clocked the drunk in the face for touching him, and hauled him out of the bank to the drunk tank.

ETA: Mom never experienced a bank robbery. About the closest to that was when two customers started quarreling, and one of them brought in a hunting rifle to intimidate the other. The bank manager successfully negotiated taking the gun away and surrendered it to the police.

 

[Ambivalenz]

I´m just discovering the thread, glorious, so story time of my own.

At the time I was working at the cash desk at a car dealer shop. Which was obnoxious on it´s own, but different story.

There was this older guy in his 50´s who came in. Wearing a nice suit, even you could see it was rather old-ish, short beard and hair, nothing really unusual about his appearance. A bit like an eccentric university professor maybe. He was talking to one of the staff for the longest time and you could see something was off rather fast. Getting more and more agitated, gesturing with his hands A LOT, raising his voice more and more. Dude came in apparently because of having some troubles with his car. OK, just he did drive around without license plates, and his ID wasn´t even valid anymore. So far so good, or rather not good. Things are getting really out of hand at some point and someone called the cops. A few minutes later the cops arrived, including an ambulance. The weird guy is totally going nuts by now. We closed the shop, shooed every customer out of the place and basically locked it down.

A doc knocked him down with an injection while four cops were literally sitting on the dude. And I´m not talking about some overweight cop a week shy of retirement but those tall, lean, well trained guys. Which wasn´t really the worst, but his screams. Dude was screaming like it was coming out from some really bad horror movie. It was incredible. I don´t know what the guy went through but he must have developed some real strength, and struggled so much that he almost got the four cops off of his back. Until he went silent and ambulance hauled him off into the hospital.

We had some really good relationship with the cops due to dealing with them on a daily basis so some guys talked the day after. The weird guy was well known since he was doing that shit every couple of months where he´s causing havoc. He was a lawyer with his own business until his mental health problems took over and everything went south. I think he was under some kind of supervision, but dont really remember what his living situation was. Anyway, so what happens is they pull him off for treatment, gets released until next time. Apparently he´s unstable enough to have him locked up for some weeks for treatment, but he isn´t unstable enough to have him perma locked up or anything. He is more or less stuck in his own loop of a hell.

After we closed shop for good and that episode ended we went collectively for a drink in the nearest bar, it was very much needed.

 

[Overcast]

Had to clean up somebody's period in the restroom at work yesterday. Got all over the floors and there were pieces of toilet seat covers stuck to the ground from it.

 

[HypeBeast]

I got called a cunt today by a woman after I told her that if she wanted to get a 3x size bathing suit she would have to walk over to the plus size department. She wanted me to go get all the swimsuits in her size and bring them to the fitting room so that she wouldn't have to put her clothes on and pick them out.
I hate people.

I had a woman once moan "helppppp" repeatedly from the fitting room, I went over thinking something was wrong and she just wanted me to bring her a bunch of clothes in different sizes. Too lazy to even find an assistant, she just sat in the stall moaning like an upset cat. I hate when people make me pick out their clothes for them because they are lazy, I'll do it but man I'm judging them inside. Then they leave all the clothes on the floor turned inside out in a tangled mess.

 

[shartnado]

I used to work in...sort of retail, at a thrift store warehouse. People came to the thrift stores to drop off their boxes in a shed outdoors, our trucks picked them up and brought them to the warehouse for things to be sorted (and for the crappy things to get thrown away).

Of course, people gave us all kinds of trash, like broken video games and newspapers. And used diapers. And a vibrator, one time.

Less disgusting and more bizarre, we once got about 10 large bins of donated Osmond family merchandise. And it was my job to sort through it and find out what would be worth selling. At first, I figured we might be able to make something of it, but it didn't take long for me to realize that about 90% of the contents of each bin were completely worthless. Sure, there were shirts and collectible dolls and CDs, but there were also back issues of TV Guide. And then copies of said back issues. Old newspapers. Ten of the same exact pins. I think the strangest thing that was in the bins was an old ad for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter with one of the Osmonds on it, accompanied by about five black-and-white photocopies of the ad. Why anyone thought that was worth keeping, let alone worth anything at all, still escapes me to this day.

 

[Shoegaze]

This isn't quite retail, but I worked in a Dunkin Donuts for a month and it might have been one of the most bizarre and draining jobs I've had to date. This is probably gonna be boring as shit and I'm a very poor storyteller.

In hindsight, I should have realized something was wrong when I got called in for an interview 6 hours after turning in my application. My future manager sat me down at a sticky table and asked me two questions:
"Are you a team player?" and "You can pass a drug test, right?"
I answer yes to both and get hired on the spot.

I was lucky to have tolerable customers, but the store I worked in was some Game of Thrones shit. I worked with 3 teenagers and 10 grown women who acted like teenagers. Within days of getting hired, I was being pulled into freezers and back rooms and learning everyone's life story. Who's mad at who, who's trying to get who fired. Every single conversation ended with "Don't tell this to anyone," and my dumb ass is just sitting there trying to wash out coffee pots.

2 weeks into the job, our district manager comes in and sits our store manager down by the bathrooms and talks with her for about an hour. Meanwhile, I'm on bathroom cleaning duty and trying to figure out how to clean explosive diarrhea off the walls. I walk back to the managers to ask if there's some kind of extreme sanitizer I can slap on the walls, only to walk in on my manager being fired. I have to interrupt my manager's firing to ask "So uh...What's the protocol for shit on the walls? Do I take a mop to this?

20 minutes of deep cleaning later, I make my way to the back room to douse the cleaning supplies in sanitizer when I'm blind sighted by a box of stationary and office supplies scattering across the store counter. Coffees spillin everywhere, customers looking up to see what the fuck's going on, our senior regulars going nuts gossiping and trying to get a better view. My (now ex) manager kicks the backroom door open and throws another box down while screaming "FUCKING FIRE ME, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE. I FUCKING QUIT."

She grabs her boxes, kicks the store door open, and I never see her again.

The rest is pretty uneventful. The chick who takes over manager shift had her 16 year old sister making the schedules for everyone and my hours drop from 40 to 7.
I ended up leaving shortly after that.

(I'm sorry for anyone who read through this expecting anything good )

 

[Lorento]

Lortano's Story: Why Western England is a hideous place full of hideous people

So I've never worked in retail (Or at all) but I have volunteered for a lot of things and I'm afraid that I have a very strange tale from a few years back.

I visiting my grandmother in the west country (If any Americans ever visit Britain, I suggest going there, its a very beautiful place) and my uncle was organising a concert to raise some money for a local festival he was planning. He needed a bit of help with chairs and shit, and he's a pretty cool guy so I was down with helping out.

So I get there and the place is crawling with people, listening to the music and generally laying out in the gorgeous weather. The music was mostly cover bands, so it wasn't like we were dealing with some edgy rock louts with shit music and even I, the most miserable bastard in the world, was enjoying myself.

Oh how things were soon to change.

So the last band shuts up shop and the people begin to drift away. Naturally, with half of them being drunk, they leave their chairs in the middle of the fucking field, which is extremely annoying for people who have to pick them up (I.E: skinny, weak louts such as myself). Therefore, I decided to be clever and preemptively offer to take chairs from people before they left. This is where the real shitstorm begins.

I approach what appears to be a family, two kids, a mother, a father and another man who might be a friend of the family. As I approached, I began to realise my mistake, as both men were bald and the mother was rather fat. Trouble with a capital T.
So I steel myself for having to talk with these drunk, English equivalent of rednecks.

So I put on my smiling face and ask

"Hi! Would you mind if I take your chairs."

The father stares me right in the face as if I've come from outer space. And then, in front of his kids, he utters the following words.

"I will if you suck my willy."

Now, normally I think of myself as a pretty quick witted chap, but in this situation my train of thought was as follows.

'WHAT THE FUCK? DID HE-WHAT!?"

So the man, his friend, and his wife start laughing at this hilarious piece of humour, completely ignoring their children as they laughed in the face of the teenager that a middle aged man had just asked to suck his dick.

Staring blankly at them, I can think of nothing. The man who had just said this unfunny joke then tried to explain things to me.

"It's a joke mate."

At this point my smiling face had vanished. I don't remember what I said then, probably some variant on, 'I see' but I quickly collected their chairs once they'd fucked off, presumably to make love to their siblings, and ran for my fucking life.

This incident has affirmed my belief that in certain parts of my country people have started to mate with the local fauna and their children grow up to become incredibly unfunny. I would also like to add that so far, that is the only time that anyone has offered me sex. Isn't life a wonderful thing?

 

[DrJonesHat]

Well, since no one said I couldn't, I'm going to post a tale from my direct support professional (glorified babysitter) days. For the uninitiated, a DSP provides supports, care and compionship to a person with intellectual disabilities. So I'm a tard wrangler. Ok, story time:
I was at a house (clients either live in group homes or their own residences now, the big institutions were closed years ago) with a client, Eric (not his real name), who was what we call total care. He could do nothing for himself. He was verbal though, and could ask for things and talk to you. Occasionally he'd get stubborn, but not often. His mother was more of a problem than him, nothing was ever good enough for her. But the real drama lay with one of my coworkers. Her name was unique, so unique that I can't use it here, cause I'm sure you could track her down, and thus me, if I used it. So we'll call her Sara.

Sara seemed to view her job as intrusion on her social life, and would often leave me to do the work of two people while she texted and posted on social media, and talked on her phone. I didn't complain because she did the bare minimum to not get fired. I also suspected she was fucking our boss on the sly, which explains why when money went missing from petty cash and she was the only viable suspect, she didn't get fired. About 5 months into the job, our boss gets replaced by another guy who is impervious to her charms (he was gay). Also, the new boss was a lot more hands on, and liked to drop in unannounced on his houses to see what his staff were really up to. One night, Sara was sitting on the couch as usual leaving me to cook dinner for Eric, and Steve (our boss) drops in. Steve quickly observes that I'm doing the bulk of the work, and that Sara yells at Eric several times. He has to leave later in the evening, but he texts me and asks me to stick around until the night shift shows up because he doesn't trust Sara alone with Eric now.

About an hour before shift change, we're changing Eric's briefs (gross but neccessary) and Eric smacks Sara (he had limited control over his arms) because she'd been mean to him all night, and she just starts wailing on him. I was stunned for about 5 seconds, then screamed "SARA STOP IT", she kept pounding on him, so I pull her off of him, and she turns and starts hitting me full force. Now, we're not allowed to hit clients under any circumstance, but nobody said shit about other staff when they're trying to claw your eyes out. I haul back and clock her across the face (I normally don't hit women, but when they're trying to draw blood, I make an exception). She and I trade blows for a few seconds, then she tries to kick me in the balls, but got me in the stomach. She knocked the wind out of me, and she takes the opportunity to run out of the house, get in her car, and drive off. I ended up calling the state agency that oversees us, the cops, my boss, and looking up the nearest bar after all that. She got arrested for aggravated assault on both me and the client, and I got a black eye. The end.

 

[shartnado]

Well, since no one said I couldn't, I'm going to post a tale from my direct support professional (glorified babysitter) days. For the uninitiated, a DSP provides supports, care and compionship to a person with intellectual disabilities.

Off-topic, but that's not easy work and on behalf of my family and severely disabled uncle (who is now in a group home), thanks for what you used to do.

(Actually, the place I did warehouse work was with a nonprofit that helped people with disabilities, and used thrift store sales to add to the money they had for programs.)

 

[DrJonesHat]

Off-topic, but that's not easy work and on behalf of my family and severely disabled uncle (who is now in a group home), thanks for what you used to do.

(Actually, the place I did warehouse work was with a nonprofit that helped people with disabilities, and used thrift store sales to add to the money they had for programs.)

Thanks man. I appreciate that.
I wore many hats, I was a job coach too, and worked with people with disabilities in both sheltered workshops (places just for people with developmental disabilities) and regular work sites. People like Jordan and Phil piss me off, because their only disability is being a lazy entitled fuck. My last coaching client would yell at Phil to get off his ass and get to work. I don't think that guy knew HOW to be lazy. He was always doing something. He was high functioning, and could read, and was lucky to have his family involved. Only thing is he had no sense of suspicion, he trusted everyone, so he had to have someone around to keep asshats from taking advantage.

 

[Cosmos]

Mother's Day weekend is huge for us at the floral shop. It's on par with Valentine's Day, if not a bit busier. Things were super hectic all weekend (of course, Mother's Day weekend just had to coincide with the weekend I was planning to use for finals cramming/final project doing, but whatever. Needless to say I've been stressed all weekend long). So yesterday I'm putzing around in the back area trying to get some things together and this lady comes with up with her young daughter. She asks me if we blow up balloons customers bring in (along with doing flower stuff, we do balloons and cards and stuff), and I said yes and pointed her to the sign on the wall that outlines our helium prices. It's kind of pricey ($2 for latex balloons, $4 for shape balloons, and $8 for jumbo balloons). She's immediately shocked and asks why it costs so much; I explain that it's the helium that's valuable, not the actual balloons (which probably cost a few cents to produce) so customers don't really save that much if they bring in their own balloons.

She kind of starts to freak out because altogether she probably has $20+ worth of balloons to fill and she clearly wasn't expecting it to be that much. Just then my boss walks up and I quickly hand the customer over to her because I feel as if it's going to get ugly (I'm a total pussy who can't handle confrontation, which is why I work in a retail service that doesn't have a ton of customer interaction). After some discussion (with the lady getting more upset and her daughter totally oblivious to it; also, I should clarify that by "upset" I mean "close to tears" and not "irrationally angry"), my boss offers to do all the balloons for $10 (she later told me it was because she felt sorry for her, and I agreed). The lady immediately acted like a heavy weight was lifted off her and thanked my boss profusely.

As I was blowing up the balloons I started to make conversation with the two of them, saying that I really liked the dinosaur balloons they brought in (one thing you need to know about me is that I fucking love dinosaurs) and asking who they were for. It turns out that they were for the lady's two-year-old son's birthday and he also fucking loves dinosaurs (a kid after my own heart). I mentioned that I had a dinosaur-themed 7th birthday party (complete with a Jurassic Park bouncy house and a dinosaur egg hunt; it was pretty much the coolest party ever) and we basically just talked about how cool dinosaurs are. After a lull in the conversation when my coworker was helping me bag the balloons, the little girl (who was super cute btw) said "Those girls are nice, aren't they?" Her mom answered "Yes, they're very sweet" in an obviously grateful tone. Then the little girl said, with a hint of awe, "They're EXPERTS" after she saw me and my coworker finish up what we were doing. The mom thanked us profusely again before she left.

Not a horror story, just a story that I thought would turn into a horror story but ended up making me feel good instead. I don't really want to speculate on why the customer was so upset, but I'm assuming she just didn't have the money lying around to spend $20+ on a few balloons. Like I said, she wasn't mean or rude, she just genuinely seemed like she was about to cry. This is just another example of what happens in retail depending on what attitude customers have; if you're nice or seem to be having a hard time and you're not a dick about it, we'll really try our hardest to make you happy and might even go above and beyond what's expected of us. But if you're an asshole we'll just do the bare minimum and then gossip about you later.

 

[fire_fly]

This is just another example of what happens in retail depending on what attitude customers have; if you're nice or seem to be having a hard time and you're not a dick about it, we'll really try our hardest to make you happy and might even go above and beyond what's expected of us. But if you're an asshole we'll just do the bare minimum and then gossip about you later.

Exactly. My coworkers and I will do anything we can to help certain people, but if you're a fucking asshole, don't expect anything out of us. The most you can hope for is us calling another store to see if they have the thing you're screaming at us over.

 

[littlebiscuits]

This happened to me over the weekend.

Spoiler

I'm opening up the store. It's a beautiful sunny Friday, warm and happy outside! I'm not anticipating a big sales day, and maybe that's not positive thinking or whatever, but I don't really care. It's spring, it's sunny, is 9 am in the goddamn morning, and I'm mentally checked out.

So, I get to the gates of the store and there's this woman sitting on a bench outside staring daggers at the gate. She's just siting there, staring. Again, it's 9 am and the mall doesn't open for another hour. So I smile at her and wish her a good morning. She rolls and huffs, "well, it WOULD be!"

Whatever bitch, I don't actually care. So I just chirp back, "oh dear! Well I hope things look up for you!" as I finish unlocking the store.

I let myself in, the Hawaii collection display has tipped over AGAIN, so I fix that, open the registrars, light the fragrance oil, email a few other stores about this and that, just you know, doing the morning things. But I get this weird feeling that someone's watching me. I look up and the woman is literally standing at the gate peering into the store, glaring at me as I get ready. Wonderful. I smile at her and she pounds- pounds- on the mental gate at me. Bitch I don't have to deal with you till 10 a.m. It is 9:53. Good-fucking-bye. I skip into the back and browse kiwi farms for a bit. Oh that Julie Terryberry! What a crazy one! I mean, I guess I could have opened the store a few minutes early, but since bitch pounded on my gate, bitch can fucking wait.

Eventually 9:59 am does roll around, so I hop over to the shopfront and open the gate. The woman let's out the most exasperated sigh in the history of mankind and glares at me, again, because it is 100% my fault that she got to the mall an hour early.

As soon as the gate reaches eye level with her, she storms in and makes a beeline for the cashwrap. At this point I also notice that she's wearing a full parka. It has to be at least 80 degrees out.

I get the gate up and follow Nanuke of the Northface to the back. She has a small something bundled in Walmart bags set on the counter. A return.

Let the games begin.

"Alright Ma'am, what can I do for you this lovely morning?"


Parkasarus growls at me before starting, "Well first, let's start with your attitude. Don't call me "ma'am", its not a lovely morning, it's ungodly hot out"---YOUR WEARING A FUCKING PARKA "--and I have a return."

Ooo weak finish!

"Aww, that's too bad! Well, let's see what you've got here and we can go ahead and fix that for you!" I am beaming sweetness and it is unnerving her. Clearly she wanted to fight me. Not at 10 am bitch. No way.

"This soap-" she spat, jabbing her finger at the bag bundle, "is broken!"

"Oh no! Well, we can swap it out for you or give you your money back. Which ever you'd like."

"I want my money back. I'm never shopping here again!" HOORAY!

"That's totally fine," I say and begin to unwrap the bundle. But...the soap isn't our brand. At all. It's not even close. "Okay, well I'm afraid I can't do anything about this guy here since he isn't our brand. Sorry about that!"

Parkalips balks. I have denied her. What will she do now? Walmart is already open. How will she be able to wait outside a store that's already open!?

"But the soap is broken," she hisses.

"It sure looks like it. But again, this isn't one of our items. So there's not much I can do. I do have soaps for you to buy here, but beyond that...."

Parka stares at me, uncomprehending. "I don't understand. This soap is broken. I put it in my bathroom and it leaks all over and it doesn't work. How can you make this better?"

"I don't know if I can, honestly. If it was an item that was purchased from our brand, I could help. But it isn't, so...."

"I've never head of this before. I've literally never heard of this before" ----of what, stores? This is how they work, lady--- "I've always been able to return things here."

"Oh yeah, we have a very open return policy. If it's one of our product, you can always return it or exchange it for another. If it's one of our products."

Parka slaps her hand on the counter. "This is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Do you have corporate number I can call?"

"Oh I sure do, ma'am! Let's see that original recite!"

She rummages through her black hole of purse and triumphantly pulls out a Walmart recite. She kind of snaps it at me before smacking it down on the registrar. She has the offending item highlighted and underlined.

Oh bitch I got you now. Cue doe eyes, "Ummm....but it looks like this is a Walmart recite. And we're bath and body works, so...."

She snatches the recite back. "Well I'll still be having a word with your corporate office, don't you doubt it."

"Okay. Great. Have a lovely morning! Enjoy the warmth and sunshine!"

Go ahead bitch. Call corporate on me. I put in my two weeks, two week ago. Today's my last fucking day.