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

My hometown’s a shithole. There’s one store/small restaurant where everyday, someone is robbed there, as there’s a really poor neighbour next to it. Even my grandma was robbed there. I don’t know why people keep coming there.
I’ve only eaten there once, in vacations when I had just arrived and it was like 11pm and I was starving. Ate the food quickly because I was fucking scared of someone robbing me, and aside from leaving terrified, I also got food poisoning. Yay.
 
My first retail job (which sucked) included training for all departments. A few of us started on the same day and naturally tried to all be friends because we didn't know anyone else yet. One of the guys in my class was named Tim and he seemed okay at first but after training he was a dick. One thing we were supposed to do was keep a cart with returns and stuff that belongs in other departments with us as we "zoned" the store (which means to keep up your department, straightening and stuff at the end of the night.) I found something that belonged in Tim's department and instead of taking it up front for sorting (which is what we were supposed to do) I walked over to his department to give it to him and say hi. I tried handing the item to him and he said "go put it in my cart." I said I didn't know where his cart was and just to take it but he said no, that I needed to go put it in his cart for him. After I tried giving it to him the third time he took it from me, turned around and threw it as hard as he could. I didn't know what to do so I just went back to my department. After a while I realized how much this sucked and wanted to let a manager know. I let the manager on shift know what happened and never saw the guy again. I don't know for sure that he was fired, I suspected that rather than being repremanded he may have just quit. He was always running his mouth about going out to the parking lot and fighting customers he didn't like so his temper probably got the best of him a lot.
 
Yesterday I met a lady who was interested in a sterling silver ring I was selling on fb marketplace.
To sweeten the deal I was giving free matching earrings (silver plated and the stone was square and not oval like the ring, but same stone).
We met in her area near the metro station. She was quite old and really anxious. I don't know why.
I was friendly and all. I showed her the jewelry.
"OH NO, NOW YOU BROKE MY HEART! THESE AREN'T THE EARRINGS I WANTED"
'Ma'am, they are. Look at my phone, these are the exact same earrings, and above all, they were a GIFT"

She threw a tantrum, WHILE she was searching in her phone about my ad and she put my ring in her fucking finger while I was distracted.

"I'll keep that, I like it" (She said for the ring) "But the earrings are different"
"Ma'am, I repeat these are the earrings, same as the ones in the photo"

"NO, THEY WERE TRIANGULAR. I BROUGHT MY HUSBAND AND HE WILL TELL WHO IS RIGHT"

Husband arrives. Showed him the picture.
"Err... They're the same, maybe they look darker in the photo, but that's just it"

"Look lady, you got confused, no big deal, just give me my ring back since you didn't pay me and we're ok"
"WHY ARE YOU ANGRY? WHY? AREN'T YOU PLANNING TO SELL THEM TO ME?"

"Please give me my ring NOW."

:takes it off:
:I take it from her hands:
:I walk towards metro station:

She screams. "I DON'T BELIEVE IT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS"

Me (shouting): "I DON'T CARE IF IT'S YOUR FIRST OR LAST TIME, LEAVE ME ALONE WEIRDO"

The end
 
My first job ever was working at a GameStop (horrible, I know) and I only worked there for a month. The reason they gave me for firing me was that they were going to train a new assistant manager and needed to give him my hours, which I never really believed. A big thing at the time and even now was getting people to sign up for the Game Informer magazines and that was considered very important. At the end of the month I'd sold more than anyone, despite my low hours. But apparently that didn't really count for anything *shrug

Many years later I was in the same place and my high school best friend's sister was working there. She was horrible in every sense of the word for no reason, and she was like that to everyone. She had this disgusting, crusty tattoo on her wrist/hand and an infected nose piercing. But worse than that she asked me if I needed help like she didn't know me. So I was asking her all about a new game I wanted and when she asked me if I wanted to do a pre-order (also an important role in working there but not at important as subs) I said no, that I would buy it someplace else when it came out and left.
 
Calling all fans of Rufus; @CWCissey, @Chandler Cats, @dunbrine47, @scorptatious, @Xerxes IX, @Ravenor, @bigniggerdicklover, @The Un-Clit, the lot of you.

A NEW RUFUS STORY IS UP, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!
  • Rufus joins Facebook!
  • Rufus's script for Episode VII!
  • Deagle Nation meets Star Wars!
  • Grand Moff Yorpty!
All this and more can be found in Personal Lolcows, the new home of Rufus.
I have simply had the worst four months of my life and this is simply a joy to behold! Thank you so much! I was actually just thinking about Rufus.
 
Calling all fans of Rufus; @CWCissey, @Chandler Cats, @dunbrine47, @scorptatious, @Xerxes IX, @Ravenor, @bigniggerdicklover, @The Un-Clit, the lot of you.

A NEW RUFUS STORY IS UP, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!
  • Rufus joins Facebook!
  • Rufus's script for Episode VII!
  • Deagle Nation meets Star Wars!
  • Grand Moff Yorpty!
All this and more can be found in Personal Lolcows, the new home of Rufus.


Now I don't want to look like I'm signal-boosting @TheImportantFart 's post or anything like that....

BUT IT'S A NEW FUCKING RUFUS STORY!!! RUFUS, niggas!!!!

And yes, it's worth the wait and worth the read. That script is fucking Tommy Wiseau level horrigreatness.

Also need more peeps to post retail horror tales, this thread needs to stay top page because it's fucking awesome, but I am out of my own tales now unless I start posting the stories where I WAS the retail horror.....sad to say there are one or two cases in my misspent youth. :(

But not drunk enough to start sharing that shit yet.
 
SATURDAY NIGHT IS ALL RIGHT FOR FIGHTING (AT BURGER KING)

I heard some stories recently from a guy ("Guy") I occasionally work with, and he told me some interesting stuff about his previous experiences in the fast food business. So.. OK, Guy worked at the biggest Burger King restaurant in the city centre, it was a 2-story place where most of the 2nd floor was just seating and his responsibility was to keep everything in check up on the 2nd floor. Technically, his job was that of a bouncer. The place would get very, very crowded during weekend nights and fights were very common. His worst night ever was when the cops had to show up 3 times to arrest people.

Mostly it was chavs and thugs who did most of the fighting, but this time, the first to get in the ring were these two wimpy nerds who got into some kind of argument and just started beating the shit out of each other. That was swiftly taken care of, but after a while, a guy who was clearly tripping balls on something just got up and started screaming incomprehensibly in some foreign language, seized Guy and just tore his shirt off of him, ripping it to pieces. Another guy, who apparently spoke the language the raving lunatic was screaming in rushed to his aid and they managed to subdue the junkie until the cops arrived. Guy had to go and get another shirt and a while after that, then the title bout of the evening started, involving drunken bastards and headbutting. After Guy had broken up that fight and the cops got the perps away to city jail, Guy realized that wearing a "HAVE IT YOUR WAY" t-shirt covered in blood was not the best of optics, and went to get another shirt. Unfortunately, the only one he could find was too small and had one of those nonsense slogans that BK used to run in the early 2000's on it.

Guy was not a happy man after that night.
 
Many years ago I took at stab at selling cars.

There's a reason why there are always openings for car salespeople, and why the turnover is so high. In a word : customers.

I sold Fords at a dealership long gone. Dealer himself was okay, sales manager okay, fellow salespeople okay, Had some twats in the business office who looked down on salespeople.

Customers will flat out lie to you. They talk big until their credit comes back as "roach" credit - the credit of a cockroach. You would not believe how many people have absolutely shit credit. They will make a big deal about fifty dollars on a car. Customers will talk down to salespeople and treat them like shit. Or some of these fucks will want to test-drive the new convertible on the showroom floor. The salespeople (not me, in this case) get the car out. One salesperson goes with the "customers", who take their test drive and leave. We called these people "strokers" - they just waste your time. Car salespeople refer to customers as "up"s. Don't know why.

Customers will make an appointment and not show up. When you call them, as you have to do, they give a bullshit answer.

Didn't take me long to get tired of selling cars. Started planning to quit before I ended up hating the entire human race. Showed a couple one particular car. They made appointment for test drive. Got the car all cleaned up, looking good. They show up, take the test drive. Afterward, I invite them inside to talk business. They say they brought their dog with them and had to leave. What sort of fools bring their dog to a test-drive? Utterly appalling.

The area had a fairly substantial Mexican population. When Mexicans go car shopping they bring the entire (large) family, and let the kids run wild. The adults all sit at the table as if any one of them could put the kibosh on the deal. The first car I sold, I actually leased to a Mexican family since their credit was so poor.

After giving notice, late one afternoon some woman and her brood came by and wanted to look at vehicles. I'll never forget this fat-assed woman bouncing up and down on the seat of a new vehicle. She wanted to look at another vehicle but I said I couldn't get the key. I sure was glad to not need to deal with "customers" again. I lasted eight weeks. Sold/leased six cars.

Some things you may already know - dealerships make little on most new cars. The money comes from trucks/SUVs, used cars, parts, and service.

After escaping the car dealer, I later bought two cars from them. Got good deals. Treated the salespeople the way I wish most customers had treated me - with courtesy, respect and the truth. If you treat salespeople right they'll bend over backward to help you get the best deal they can.

I would pick up cans on the side of the road before I ever sold cars again.
 
Many years ago I took at stab at selling cars.

There's a reason why there are always openings for car salespeople, and why the turnover is so high. In a word : customers.

I sold Fords at a dealership long gone. Dealer himself was okay, sales manager okay, fellow salespeople okay, Had some twats in the business office who looked down on salespeople.

Customers will flat out lie to you. They talk big until their credit comes back as "roach" credit - the credit of a cockroach. You would not believe how many people have absolutely shit credit. They will make a big deal about fifty dollars on a car. Customers will talk down to salespeople and treat them like shit. Or some of these fucks will want to test-drive the new convertible on the showroom floor. The salespeople (not me, in this case) get the car out. One salesperson goes with the "customers", who take their test drive and leave. We called these people "strokers" - they just waste your time. Car salespeople refer to customers as "up"s. Don't know why.

Customers will make an appointment and not show up. When you call them, as you have to do, they give a bullshit answer.

Didn't take me long to get tired of selling cars. Started planning to quit before I ended up hating the entire human race. Showed a couple one particular car. They made appointment for test drive. Got the car all cleaned up, looking good. They show up, take the test drive. Afterward, I invite them inside to talk business. They say they brought their dog with them and had to leave. What sort of fools bring their dog to a test-drive? Utterly appalling.

The area had a fairly substantial Mexican population. When Mexicans go car shopping they bring the entire (large) family, and let the kids run wild. The adults all sit at the table as if any one of them could put the kibosh on the deal. The first car I sold, I actually leased to a Mexican family since their credit was so poor.

After giving notice, late one afternoon some woman and her brood came by and wanted to look at vehicles. I'll never forget this fat-assed woman bouncing up and down on the seat of a new vehicle. She wanted to look at another vehicle but I said I couldn't get the key. I sure was glad to not need to deal with "customers" again. I lasted eight weeks. Sold/leased six cars.

Some things you may already know - dealerships make little on most new cars. The money comes from trucks/SUVs, used cars, parts, and service.

After escaping the car dealer, I later bought two cars from them. Got good deals. Treated the salespeople the way I wish most customers had treated me - with courtesy, respect and the truth. If you treat salespeople right they'll bend over backward to help you get the best deal they can.

I would pick up cans on the side of the road before I ever sold cars again.
My dad survived it for over 15 years. We didn't have a large Mexican population, it was the Indians (dot not feather) that were the real pain in the asses. I mean to the point that salespeople would go out of their way to hide from them. They would be rude, demand insanely low prices, act like they were kings deigning to speak to you. My dad could sell them because he would pull out the even more arrogant act of "how dare you insult me like this, this is the offer take it or leave it" and frequently they would back down.
 
I'm lucky in that my job has never provided me with horrors (yet) but as I've posted before, I have two family members who work at Whole Foods and shit is going DOWN in the vitamin department. It's already full of weirdos who do mysterious "muscle testing" rituals and crystal waving around the fiber to make sure that brand correctly resonates with their soul vibrations, but the woman running the department is a trainwreck.

Very, very, manic woman who is constantly on the verge of an anxiety attack. Or so she says to everyone. She goes on and off weird diet trends while making her young kid be vegan. ( Last Halloween she took him trick or treating only to eat all his candy) As of a few months ago she went on a 30 day bone broth diet. All she consumed in the course of 30 days was bone broth, CBD oil, and shit quality weed. She doesn't go to one of our fine legal dispensaries, she's more of the "Meet Manuel behind the Circle K" buyer. She buys a fuckton of weed, she dips into her family's savings account to affort it all. And it's the not the calming type, it's the hyperfocused spazy type of weed and it's at least part of the reason she's such a mess.

I bring that all up because about two months ago she declared that she needed to take a month off, due to horrible health issues that she was sure she was having. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with her, but her crystal healing Woo specialist used her Naruto chakra powers to determine that her sickness and "severe social anxiety" is caused by pesticide poisoning from the bad weed she's smoking. I mean, yeah the weed is a problem but a whole month off? After a month of the department running suspiciously well in her absence, she came in to work specifically to tell one person that she'd be out for another month. That one person was not her boss, who had to find out through the grapevine that she's not coming back for a while.

On a side note, Whole Foods does something called OTS which I don't know what the hell it is, but everyone hates it and apparently it sucks. It is some kind of outside certification process that each store needs to comply to. Because this lady runs the department like a monkey enclosure, there's a whole lot that isn't OTS compliant. Everyone has been hauling ass to fix the things that she's fucked up and refused to fix, before the next OTS inspection. That was already going down the first month she was gone, the second month of absence just so happens to have coincided with that major OTS walk. Basically, she's avoiding doing her own damn job.

The other day, after two months of being gone, she came in to say she was coming back at some later date (after the OTS thing of course, and just in time for Team Member Appreciation Week where they give out free food) and was bawling the whole time for...some reason. No one has any sympathy for her at this point, her superiors are questioning why they're still employing her. She's got a bit of a shock though, because her absence caused the inspection to be rescheduled, so she won't be able to avoid it. She could take more time off for some vague reason but at this point she's out of money and needs to go to damn work. Since there's nothing medically wrong with her, she can't get any kind of disability what-have-you so this whole two months of leave has been without pay.
 
Firstly:
TIL one of the super cool new guys got fired for being a thirsty sex pervert, so that was fun.

You are NOT leaving it at that! Deets, man! DEETS!

Secondly:
I would pick up cans on the side of the road before I ever sold cars again.

Brother, I hear you. I never worked car sales myself, but I can't help but remember the mental state of the car salesman who me and my girlfriend (at the time, now ex-wife) were looking to buy from for her as my Mustang was getting...unreliable. Anyway, after the initial scratch and sniff at the dealership, the guy invites us to test drive to a restaurant in this car to have a bite and talk business.....and the dude pulls out of the track bag he was carying with him a fucking GIGANTIC pitcher of gin n' lime he had made and brought to work with him in an icepack. It was already 1/3 empty, and I finally realized at this point that the dude was fucking shitfaced already.

Naturally, I ordered nachos and accepted a giant mug from him. (yes the restaurant let him bring and drink his own booze on the patio. they must have known him.) I don't remember alot of the rest of that conversation, except that my GF drove us back to the dealership, then took me home in the 'stang.

A few days later we hadn't heard from him on if the deal we offered was accepted, so we drove down there, and he was 'no longer working there'. No one would tell us if he was fired, quit or dead. Oh, and the financing on the offer we made was not accepted on the used car we were looking at....but they WOULD finance us on a brand new model year version at 3x the price. Yeah, fuckin right. Told them what we thought about that kind of upselling and left, but I'll never forget the strangest car negotiation lunch I'd ever had. I guess the job quite literally drove him to drink.
 
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Those of you who have worked fast food/restaurants: ever been a victim of assholes that like to intentionally dump their leftovers on the floor?
Every Sunday when I still worked at a American/Mexican fast food place that's pretty wide spread in the southwest, this Mexican family would always come in after church. The mom looked utterly defeated and she had four boys (the dad did nothing the whole time but eat when he had his food), and every time, without fail, half their fucking food would always end up in the floor, especially lettuce, and let me tell you, shredded lettuce is hard as fuck to sweep up. I fucking hated her because she knew it happened all the time would never tell us to leave out the lettuce. They finally stopped showing up after a while, but fuck, I wanted to yell at her or at least tell her off. Not quite leftovers, but they did come often enough that the mom should have fucking realized how messy her damn kids were.
 
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