I'm working retail this holiday season, and boy is it nice to vent anonymously sometimes. Anyone have stories to share?

I could rant for days about how awful most of humanity is. I know these things are minor annoyances in the grand scheme of things but holy shit are most people lazy, entitled, greedy, ungrateful assholes!! It's bad enough during the bulk of the year with people tossing items everywhere (including things that spoil!), ripping boxes open (there are pictures on them for a reason!!! There is no valid reason to open a box and ruin it), being rude, etc. but it's so much worse at Christmas time. :( All of the bitchy "YOU JUST RUINED MY KID'S CHRISTMAS!!!" people come out and I wish I could drop-kick them.

I'm working until 6pm on Christmas Eve but the store is open until 8pm. Sadly, I won't have the pleasure of kicking people out. Last year I worked until 6:30pm while the store closed at 6pm so I had the extra half hour to do signage for Boxing Day sales. I couldn't let customers know the prices so I had to wait until they all left (after having a bunch of the "wink wink you can tell us the prices" idiots bothering me all day and getting offended when I wouldn't be buddy-buddy with them) and some people just WILL. NOT. LEAVE. One woman I went up to laughed and said, "You probably want to get home to your family don't you?" and I replied, "Yes. I would." She took another minute to browse then skedaddled. The first year I worked at the store, people were very rude on Christmas Eve. They yelled at me, "Then YOU need to get more cashiers up front!" as if I could do anything about it. Bluh.

Most people suck and I hope that anyone who has access to the internet and isn't a complete tool knows how to behave. Of course the usual age group that acts out don't care what people have to say and just read their old people Facebook memes that bitch about how awful retail workers are even though we work harder than they ever have in their entitled lives. :( Even some of my family are bad shoppers. If I share a story of a bad customer they'll say, "Well it IS annoying when..." and I always cut them off and go, "Nope. No. It's never the worker's fault and none of us deserve to be treated badly. Also, no, if you side with the customer in the story you're as much in the wrong as they are. They were being ridiculous."

I'm working in retail for the first time in my life and it's honestly not as bad as I thought it was gonna be, even with all the holiday craziness! Black Friday wasn't bad because it wasn't NEARLY as crazy as we thought it was gonna be so we were actually slightly overstuffed so I was in the back organizing the clothes lol. But yeah, not to say that I haven't dealt with super rude bitches before. Actually at my full time job I deal with way worse adult brats throwing tantrums, so the attitude I get in retail are a little easier to deal with.

The little things that annoy me are the obvious ruining the neatly stacked clothes, constantly asking if there's anything in the back, etc. but the thing that kills me the most is if we ask for a donation (NY&Co partners with a 100% non-profit children's hospital every year) and the customers straight-up say NO! or "oh ok I'll just round up my purchase to the next dollar" and it ends up being like $0.08. Like bitch really. Rude lol

I work at a very happy place located on this planet, and let me tell you, the holiday season is not very merry. Last year I had a man shoulder check me into a garbage can. I had another man push me out of his way, then stop, turn and smile at me, and wish me a merry Christmas. So many people like to tell you that you personally ruined the holidays for them, their family, and the future unborn members of their family. It is wild to me how very upset and aggressive people can become during these times!

So far this year's holiday time hasn't been as eventful for me, but the wild things tend to happen next week so we shall see how it goes!

im super stressed to be working christmas. im not in retail but in food services (specifically, a bakery/cafe) and we're going to get like a billion orders for our christmas cakes. i survived thanksgiving but all my managers are freaking out over the christmas spree. so far i havent had any super bad experiences, but i feel like i know they're going to happen. we have to box/wrap people's pastries and im slow at it and i imagine thats gonna be a problem in the next few days lol. people also get VERY angry when you dont wrap them exactly the way they want, at lightning speed. its like, im sorry but if you want each donut in its own box that's going to take longer than putting them in one box??? maybe i would be able to ring you up faster if you'd STOP PAYING ME IN PENNIES!! i have to count your change outloud or ill be fired sorry if thats annoying ???

Is it a new company, or one that has recently increased in popularity? It seems strange that the managers would be freaking out, that is something that would definitely increase my own stress level. Like, they're supposed to be the calm, cool, and collected rocks!

Thankfully I am not in retail right now but I've worked many a holiday season. It usually isn't TOO bad, but I do have some stories:

My last holiday season I worked at a large department store, and I was on fitting room duty. No big deal usually, just hanging and sorting clothes to be put back out on the floor. One day I was picking up an incredibly messy fitting room (why some people think it's okay to throw the clothes on the floor after they try them on and just leave them, I'll never know), and a lady suddenly came up to be and starting yelling at me that she wanted the fitting room! I calmly told her that I was just picking it up and I would be out shortly, but she was SO upset that I wouldn't let her in immediately. Uh, sorry for doing my job? She even complained to my manager, who could see how upset I was for being yelled at FOR DOING MY JOB that she told me to take five minutes in the back. Ugh. Craziness.

At a different store with lots of little girls clothing, we would sell out of the really popular outfits but then have people come in the week before Christmas and ask why we didn't have any more. Uh, because other people are more on top of it than you are and bought them all already? Start your shopping earlier next year and you won't run into these problems 😐 I also worked at this place during the Monster High doll fad which was SO obnoxious. We would have people buying EVERY DOLL we had in stock, and we had no way to limit them.

Working retail has pretty much ruined Christmas for me. I don't really enjoy shopping during the holiday season because I know how awful it can be for the employees, and I cannot listen to Christmas music any more. I hate it. Christmas to me is so commercialized that I would rather not celebrate it at all.

its an international chain but i think that its a small store and its kind of an internal problem with the managers. two of the managers just always seem to get in screaming matches in the back office ? its very weird haha .

I've only worked holiday retail once. I didn't think it was too bad, but I put up with a lot of crap. There were people who would come into the store specifically so they could be waited on and insult the staff.

"Do you work here?" Nah, I'm just folding shirts for fun. Yes I bloody work here.

"Do you have Iron Madden?" "Do you have Metallic shirts?" ... You mean IRON MAIDEN and METALLICA. /beats head on wall

"Do you have gauges?" No, sorry, I don't have a gauge card. Oh, you mean plugs.

"Do you have shirts of (x thing we don't carry/never will carry)?" Try Spencer's Gifts. :|

"Can you explain the promotion (that you literally just explained)?" Please leave.

I like working there because my coworkers are great (and I need the job because no one will seem to hire me?! D: ) but the holidays ugh.

Oh my god, you poor soul. ;A; I am so sorry you get paid in pennies. I feel bad when I pay in change at all, so I try to do that only at self-checkout at the grocery store.

Oh my gosh, thankfully I don't work standard retail anymore. Last year, my manager had me working overnight christmas eve and then 2-10 christmas day. So basically she was trying to force me to choose sleeping through christmas morning so I can go to work, or spending christmas morning with my family and not sleeping before work, meaning I'd stay up over 24 hours straight. I told her I'd help her out by working ONE of those two shifts, and if she tried to bully me into working both I wouldn't come in for either. Thankfully it worked. Sometimes managers forget you're a freeking human being. -_-

Finally, people who understand the struggle that is December in any type of store!

To be honest the days on/around Christmas are never really that bad because people have places to be. The weekends before Christmas however.. Nightmare fuel. I work at a large popular furniture store and I sell lamps/lights/lighting fixtures. As you can imagine, in the dark months that creates extra traffic because people suddenly realize they need more light in their houses.

Last weekend I had a real gem. A man waved+whistled me over (lovely..) and asked about a ceiling lamp, what lamps are supposed to go in. I explained to him he could pick any lamp from the small fittings that we sell- they come in different brightness and shapes. The show example had small round bulbs and the cheapest ones we sell are the same brightness as our round bulbs- but in a candle shape. I'm all for selling the cheapest option to people so I told this man about the different shapes and about the cheapest option. He then looked at me and said "no, I don't believe that these lamps fit in here". I then pointed him to the packaging which literally had a picture of the small fitting lamp in a candle shape + the specs in text. Then he went: "No they don't look like they fit" and then he ripped the packages open. I told him "sir, you're not supposed to rip packages open" to which he sneered "WELL I'M BUYING IT AM I NOT". At that point I was pretty much done and continued to help other customers who were waiting for me. Needless to say that later on I found both packages ripped hidden behind a shelf..

TBH I have stories for years. I have been working here for 2 years but the weirdness from the weekends are enough to write a book about.

I've been working at a used bookstore for nearly ten years and we sell new toys, mugs, shirts and gifty things as well. Our store is full to the brim, and yet any time a customer can't find a nice, used copy of the most popular bestsellers from the past six months -- suddenly, we aren't a real bookstore.

Customers coming in with huge shopping lists and walking out with nothing is frustrating for both the customer and myself -- especially when I was poring over every title and shelf to htry and find the book. Some customers are thankful for my time, but most everyone feels retail employees are getting paid well enough to deal with their indecision or gruff attitude.

Tldr; if anyone has seen the library ostrich memes, that's me. But bookstore ostrich.

Specifically a holiday problem, but the whole 'war on Christmas' rampage some people go on when I don't say 'Merry Christmas' is the literal worst thing about the whole season. I don't even say Happy Holidays anymore out of the fear of being attacked. I literally tell /everyone/ 'Have a good day n.n' to avoid getting yelled at by people who seem to assume that everyone in this country needs to conform to their traditions. That tactic doesn't always work - I've received negative surveys from people who were insulted that I didn't acknowledge Christmas at all. The worst part is that they attribute my choice to 'pc culture' when it's literally a choice I make because 1. I don't celebrate Christmas and 2. I don't want to have to spend ten minutes explaining to them the holiday I do celebrate (Yule).

Ughhh I absolutely hate when people tell you that you're wrong when you SELL THE STUFF FOR A LIVING. I used to work in a scuba diving store, and people would come in with friends to buy a set of diving gear, and they would listen to their friends (sometimes very wrong) opinions over me. Like, okay fine, I'm just trying to keep you safe and/or get you the best gear for the money and I was required to research all of the features and benefits of EVERY item in the store, but SURE, listen to them over me.

Retail has made me a very salty individual xD

Luckily, most of the customers I get are really friendly. Some can act entitled, or snobbish. Had a woman the other day respond very negatively to a friendly "Morning!" I said to her. She'd got a cushion in her hand. When I spoke to her, she glared at me, threw the cushion back on to the bed she picked it up from and said to her friend, "I hate it when they pester you like that!"

Yes. Saying morning to a customer is pestering them apparently. There have been other instances but she's the one that sticks out at the moment. But like I said, I get so many decent customers that it makes the not-so-nice ones just fade into the background. I wish everyone's workplace was the same but I know it isn't. I used to work for Poundland. Most of the customers there were horrible!

I no longer work with clothing, but I still work retail at a pet store. I have no awful stories to share, because I've had nothing but good experiences, except for one pissed off customer at the clothing store who called me a "terrible employee" because I apparently wasn't helping her find jeans in her size.

somehow i get a error where i can only vend 250 items weird

Oh wow I didn't realize this thread was actually getting posts!

I live in Hawaii, where we get tropical storms every winter, around when people are trying to have their dream christmas vacations that they didn't research well enough and they expect the entire island to operate like a resort. A couple weeks ago I asked a customer how her day was going and she looks at me pointedly and goes "Well it would be much better if it weren't raining." And I agree and try to make small talk but she just cuts in with "Yeah I came here for the sun." and continues to give me this pursed lip sass for the rest of the purchase and leaves in a huff. Like OH SORRY YEAH? NEXT TIME I'LL DO A FUCKING SUN DANCE AND MAKE SURE THE SKY IS ALL PRETTY FOR YOU K! I don't know what these people expect. We also ran out of bags because people went absolute nuts on the gift shopping, and of course they have to yell at the cashiers and security about it. One guy tried to get us to send someone to buy him a bag from the grocery store next door.

I JUST WANT LESS HOURS AND A NAP, MY BACK HURTS I HATE RETAIL