Current Events > How many retail jobs, if any, have you worked? How was it?

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Do you have good or bad memories from retail? Did you still work in retail, or was it just what you did until you got your education?

Is retail a good career path or not?

I think I have PTSD from it

Lowe's, Target, AMC, Panera, Starbucks, Wendy's, Papa John's, Cracker Barrel, Quiznos (if anyone here remembers them)

5 stores, including my current job. Mostly filled the shelves at the first one; checkouts at the rest (supervisor at 3 of them including the current one).

Had two non-retail jobs, one in pizza delivery (was an "all I could find" situation) and one in IT support (drove me nuts, glad to be out of it).

I actually don't mind it tbh. You get the odd entitled or difficult person - the overwhelming majority of them being boomers - but overall it's not too bad in my experience.

Retail is fucking horrible. At my last major retail gig I'd get told some variation of "you don't have a real job" at least three times a week and I was openly shamed by management for legitimately trying to help customers and repair clients.

worked a few months on the overnight shift at a convenience store. it was ok i guess. pay as alright, co-workers were tolerable, management was... mostly decent. it was just such a slog.

otherwise i've always worked in the slutty step cousin of retail, the food service industry.

Been working retail for almost 11 years now... Hasn't been too bad since it's been on night crew... Perfect time to listen to podcasts...

Three grocery store jobs and one gas station in about 10 years before I changed to work at help desks.

I don't care what stigma working in call centers or cubicles has, it's still leagues better than retail.

Two, TRU and now Walmart since work is work. Its not glamorous but I think working in general unless you are doing something more personal has a lot of ups and downs. The crappy thing about retail tends to be the customers and being questioned about things you know almost nothing about it, on the corporate side training tends to be almost nonexistent with key things and most times upper management has zero idea how shit operates in stores. Yet they fell the need to always have some design that works for them but not in store.

I work one now ._.

Just the one at McDonald's and I hated it. I was already applying for new jobs after a month. My job now is technically customer service, but it's a lot calmer working in an office

1 while going back to school last year. It was awful. Especially Saturdays when the freedom convoy idiots rolled through.

15 years at Costco next month. Pretty hard to leave when you're making 31 bucks an hour with 2x bonuses a year and great benefits.

Also not the most glamourous job, but I don't hate it.

CanuckCowboy posted...

1 while going back to school last year. It was awful. Especially Saturdays when the freedom convoy idiots rolled through.

Oh god the amount of tongue biting id be doing.

Ryven posted...

Oh god the amount of tongue biting id be doing.

It was brutal. The amount of cringing behind my mask and fake nodding i did almost left me permanently disfigured. Lol.

I've worked at Target and Walmart. Target wasn't bad but I had to quit because I was still in high school, taking like 6 AP classes and they were scheduling me for 35 hour weeks. I asked if I could have the hours reduced because I literally didn't have that much time to spare and they told me no.

Walmart was hell. I begged to be put on shopping cart duty even when it was like 100+ degrees out because at least it meant I didn't have to deal with the customers.

Mervyn's
TJ Maxx

I also did an overnight shift at Claire's as part of a high school band fundraiser. I didn't realize that I needed to go to sleep beforehand, so at one point I was walking around like a zombie at around 2am and wandered out into the mall. Mall security stopped me and they ended up sending me home, lol.

I guess two.

I worked in the arcade of an amusement park. I don't know if I'd consider that "retail" though. I basically was the guy that made change and fix the games if there was a ticket or token jam.

And my other retail job was a few summers working at a deli. But I was in the back as a short order cook more than I was at the counter.

Working returns at Kmart was the hardest ive worked at a job and the one i got paid the least amount at.

I worked the cash register at Walmart in high school for a few months. It actually wasn't a bad job they were good about break times and the pay was more than minimum wage and there were benefits and upward mobility. The fluorescent lights and creepy corporate vibes got to me after a while though.

I quit to prep for going to college and they actually tried to get me to stay on or transfer close to the school I was going to.

Never worked retail. First job was an on campus job at university. Then I had an internship at an insurance company and have worked at insurance or aerospace companies since.

If you ever for even a second start to doubt that every single person out there is fucking terrible, just do a half hour in retail and your doubts will vanish.

still miles better than working at like a nursing home or something

None, and I never want one. I have only the utmost respect for people that have to put up with retail customers all day, though.

Not sure if it counts, but I worked as a gas station cashier for a couple of months until I found a better job. It was alright, the customers were pretty chill tbh.

Worked retail more as a high schooler and 1st year college student. Then got into the restaurant industry and now guest bartend at several spots as a side gig to my IT job.

I won't go back to retail unless I absolutely have to and if I do it would have to be night shifts only. I have absolutely no desire to deal with customers in the retail environment. Just......no.....

blazer4lyfe posted...

Worked retail more as a high schooler and 1st year college student. Then got into the restaurant industry and now guest bartend at several spots as a side gig to my IT job.

I won't go back to retail unless I absolutely have to and if I do it would have to be night shifts only. I have absolutely no desire to deal with customers in the retail environment. Just......no.....

oh really? would you say that most of the retail customers you dealt with, sucked?

I worked at a Macy's for a year. I stayed in the home store. It was alright, but definitely not something I wanted to do for a long term job. It was pretty boring and generally low paying. I probably would have stayed longer if I was trained in bridal registries.

I worked at Target, it was fine except for the typical retail random schedule.

If you want to count it, worked a few years in a grocery store deli. Hated how I was always referred to as "the boy" by the owners even though I was in my early 20's.

Spent a few years in target. Got a promotion to signing supervisor without applying to it. Loved the freedom I was given to come in, do my work, and leave without anybody looking over my shoulder. Left to go to school.

Came back after to school to a different target, and that one sucked. Nobody knew what they were doing and nothing was getting done. It got to the point where team leads were asking me how to use LRTs and I flat out told them I had applied for their position and didn't get it, so I felt no obligation to share my knowledge and train my superiors. Lasted less than a year there.

Then spent around 17 years in a movie theatre. Overall I enjoyed it, but the pay sucked. Especially when the company got bought by another change and I lost like $2.00/hr. Last day coincided with when the new pay rate would take effect.

Finally, worked at meijer for about the last 3 years, so had about a year under my belt before Covid hit. Lost employees and never built staff back up. I was an overnight stocker and was really feeling shit upon by the end. Used to be 3 of us that did sale tags on Saturday night in part of grocery. (aisles 11-16) Over time, it was just me doing aisles 3-18. Other nights of the week, I was supposed to do the hardhome section. Unless they told me to go do pets, or frozen, or dairy, or seasonal, or toys, or health &beauty, or straighten shelves in grocery. Then get bitched at by my manager for the hardhome section not getting done.

Not that I was surprised. I'll always remember that he compared working 10 pallets of home solutions when I couldn't get 6 pallets of hardhome done in a single night. For context, home solutions is plastic storage bins with maybe 10 boxes per pallet, max. And they just got shoved on the shelf wherever there was an open space. Hardhome was stuff like pots and pans, kitchen utensils, plates and bowls, water bottles, cleaning supplies, bakeware, coffee makers, blenders, and vaccuum cleaners. Almost all of that stuff either required me to open a box inside of another box or unwrap the plastic bags and bubble wrap they were shipped in. Or else needed a security strap put on it. (other departments got to set theirs aside for day shift to secure. I had to do them myself). Hardhome also averaged about 40-50 boxes per pallet. Only time in close to 30 years of working that I had finally enough and just straight quit when being given yet another thing on my plate when in the middle of getting set up for the night. That made me like the 3rd employee to just straight walk out in the span of a month. Obviously, this is not a job I have fond memories of.

Thanks for (maybe) listening to me rant. Felt good to get it out.

A few years back I worked in the Staples EasyTech dept. It was a side job I'd work after my normal office job a couple days a week. Was pretty chill and made some good friends there.

The main purpose of my job was to sell add ons(warranties, mice, usb drives, Microsoft Office subs) when customers bought laptops cause they sold laptops at a loss. I always sold the customer what they needed, not what the company was pushing. Because of that, my sales numbers were always dead last but customers loved me. Since I was the only one who knew how to repair the PCs in the back, the manager didn't care what my numbers looked like.

I used to take the empty printer cartridges from my office job and redeem them at Staples for credit. Between the credit and my employee discount, I kept the house stocked in free cleaning supplies for two years.

I worked in different old navys and the uc Berkeley student store. I loved it.

half a dozen or so

they all sucked but so does every other job Ive ever had so whatever, retail sucks but theres far worse

1 but i was there for 3 years. Everything was ok except for the pay and the boss.

It is what you make of it, to be honest. Youre going to have some rude customers and management will dump BS on you (especially if youre a good worker), but you largely know what to expect on a day to day basis and if you work for a chain, the check isnt going to bounce.

Macy's.

it was interesting, being able to forecast the downturn in real time.

The way the consumer market evolved/devolved took a lot away from what I could have seen as a respective job in sales. I get that Macy's had to get aggressive to survive, but any romanticism of shopping in what was a semi-premium department store is kinda gone imo. It's not really the place I'd look to get something for a girlfriend or wife.

To each their own, I wasn't trying to be there. I didn't just put all that time and money into an engineering degree for that. I won't put down other people for however they go about things. I just had a self-imposed, "my life will be over if I can't get out of here" fear. I had to make so it would become something to look back on instead of stay with long term. I'm fortunate to say that was the case. I get to look back it like it was "school", where there still was room to be casual with daily routines and do relatively immature stuff like be bored and try to hold conversation without managers catching you.

GranTurismo posted...

still miles better than working at like a nursing home or something

I went back to school to be a care aide and worked retail during school to have some semblance of income and fuck no it isn't. I make double the money and actually feel good about my job.

I was in radio 17-30, became a ticketed carpenter at 23 cause radio was only part time, worked full time in radio 25 to 30 and then went back to construction for a decade.... I've spent 7 months in health care and its maybe the most fulfilling and fastest passing the time job ive ever had.

And it pays okay up here as well.

CanuckCowboy posted...

I went back to school to be a care aide and worked retail during school to have some semblance of income and fuck no it isn't. I make double the money and actually feel good about my job.

I was in radio 17-30, became a ticketed carpenter at 23 cause radio was only part time, worked full time in radio 25 to 30 and then went back to construction for a decade.... I've spent 7 months in health care and its maybe the most fulfilling and fastest passing the time job ive ever had.

And it pays okay up here as well.

Do you have to help you r patients bathe and use the restroom, though

GranTurismo posted...

oh really? would you say that most of the retail customers you dealt with, sucked?

I mean....yes there are customers that flat out suck. And yes they factor into why I don't want to deal with customers. The biggest issues is how stupid society has become in general. I just don't want to deal with that stupidity. I am good at being professional and kind and respectful even when guests or customers get to being extremely disrespectful to me. I know how to exercise control and maintain a friendly professional demeanor.

I just don't want to do that because of how bad society has become in general. Be it stupid, clueless, argumentative, karen-like, disrespectful, lacking common sense etc etc....

I simply don't want to have to deal with it. That is why I would only do an overnight shift. Those are typically when the location is closed to the public and simply involves restocking the store. I can get the work done, get paid and only interact with the other overnight workers.