Out-Of-Work Borders Employees Deliver an Honest Farewell

[SenseOfTumour]

The note about parents treating shops like day-care centers is so true.

Many I time I would organise stock on shelves only to have a parent leave their child there to toss things onto the floor and all over the place

*Shakes fist*

I'd have a terrible urge to give the shelves a nudge in the hope of dislodging a few items from a higher shelves, teaching the kid that screwing around in a store is dangerous

In short, after 6 pages, all most of us ask, is that you treat us in the stores like human beings, we're not your servants, and if we do screw up, so long as we try to fix it, you should try to hold in the rage.

Oh a couple more specific annoyances:

People who carry on talking on their phones, or leave their earphones in when actually buying something. With then, people who just throw their item on the counter in front of you, maybe grunt, then flick their card or cash at you, without a word.

If you can't handle some basic human interaction during a sales transaction, bugger off to amazon and don't come back.

 

[samsonguy920]

"Retail workers bitter about their jobs" Film at 11. Not that it mattered but if that was their attitude they should get jobs where they don't have to deal with the public.

It doesn't matter what your job is, it doesn't matter if you like it. What matters is that you do the best you can to make the lives of your customers better.

You seem to miss the part is that they did do the best they could, and whether Borders was closed because they were underappreciated or not, they felt putting these statements out would be cathartic and appropriate for the time. Especially as they didn't have to worry about any of the management of Borders giving them backlash.
Frankly, I have to wonder if you ever worked a job in retail, flipping burgers, or anything else involving customer service as you seem to be ignorant of the sacrifice one has to make to keep customers happy so they come back and help pay your paycheck. Maybe you did get blessed with a job off the bat where you don't have to bend over backwards to serve a customer, but coming off with that statement makes you someone I hope never to deal with in my job.
Retail and any other customer service industry requires a lot from a person with little expectation of reward except getting the rent paid one more month. The next time you go to a retail store or any other place where an employee helps you, you should consider that instead of sticking your nose into the air and acting like it is expected of them like any other plebe.

 

[Mamzelle_Kat]

Wow. I cannot believe how polite they manage to be. I've never worked in a bookstore, but I have worked in a gamestop and trust me, for all the teenage nerds out there who think it's a dream job.. well.. Retail is retail. And I'll leave it at that.

Part of me is SO happy that they won't have to keep working there, but it isn't really better if they land in another retail job.

Still, chapeau! I wish I'd had the guts to tell customers what I thought of them (at least the unpleasant ones) when I left retail.

 

[Funcakes]

"customers see employees exposing their true colors, while employees see it as an opportunity to finally speak the truth about their customers."
Uh, to play semantics here, isn't that the definition of showing ones true colors?

 

[The Urban Moose]

I work in retail, and I must say, I silently applaud these brave souls. Bravo, Borders employees.

 

[6_Qubed]

I deliver pizzas now. I will be quitting this job as soon as I can find another to trade up to. I have a modest list of my own.

- Gas costs money, and my job pays next to nothing. If I show up at your door with food, you tip. If you do not tip, you are actively stealing money from me.
- I hate this goddamn hat.
- No we do not have any daily specials on pizzas. If they happened everyday, they wouldn't be special.
- Seriously, tip. No, letting me keep the change is not a tip.
- If you live in a hard-to-find place, and you can't provide decent directions to find your home, it is your fault the pizza is cold.
- If your order costs less than forty dollars, do not pay with a fifty. I cannot break that and you are a fool for expecting me to.
- Yes I am in a bad mood. No I do not want to be here. Yes I will help you anyway. Be grateful.
- No we do not keep spare pizzas on hand in case you decide you don't like what you ordered. If we did, you would be complaining about cold pizza.
- If I am in the middle of boxing up your order, and you call up complaining that your order isn't there yet, and I have to drop everything to placate you, you are not in fact making your order show up faster. No it is not my fault.
- When you call to place an order, call knowing what the fuck you want to eat. I will not help you decide.

 

[EvilScoop]

Cool story.

Uh I mean..

No, just stop there. I was feeling great until I read the rest of your reply, then I realized you're one of those people who has nothing interesting to say. You'd criticize your own asshole if you could see it. You can't simply let a person tell a story or a joke without trying to dismantle the thing, like this is 60 Minutes and you're goddamn Barbara Walters, setting the record straight for everyone.

... Also yes, I have no problem admitting I think you're a total pussy if you consider working in a bookstore anything like disposing of used needles. Here's my middle finger salute, buddy. Report me, cry into your pillow, move on. =)

As far as I'm concerned as long as you do your best at your job you have the right to complain about it as much as you want, regardless of who has it worse or better.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

"We hate it when a book suddenly becomes popular because it was turned into a movie."

Honestly, screw you hipster. If people show interest in a book because they saw the movie, I say let them at it. Book reading is going down and we don't need little ass munchers like you criticizing people for it.

Indeed, how dare someone be irritated when the only thing that motivates people to read a book is because a multi-billion dollar Hollywood studio spent millions to advertise their bastardised version of the text: trimmed down for 2 hours, stripped of seriously controversial events, significant parts altered to be audience friendly and with no serious effort made to cinematically transpose the author's stylistic qualities to film.

I have sat through classes on Jane Austen with people who said they were only reading the book because they liked the movie. And two weeks later they said the book was boring. I've had conversations with people who say they prefer the movie version of Breakfast at Tiffanys because the ending in the book isn't romantic enough. Best of all, in a few months time I'm going to have the privilege of seeing my favourite book ever turned into a movie, watching it suddenly become insanely popular and having people tell me that they tried to read the book but couldn't get into it because the style was too hard to follow.

But they liked the movie, so I should just be happy that they enjoyed what basically amounts to the Cliffnotes version with more eye candy?

So they shouldn't read the book at all?

What kind of logic is that?

The sentiment is not so much 'don't read it' as 'don't read it just because you saw the movie'. Cinema and literature are two completely different mediums with their own stylistic features that define them. The attitude of the kind of person who buys a book because there was a movie made out of it is, more often than not, that books are an outdated form of technology, they are what people do when they don't or didn't have the resources to make a movie. This reductive view of an entire art form means that such people will never appreciate the book for its literary qualities, and they may in turn influence others with this attitude. 'Oh, I liked the movie but the book was boring' is the kind of opinion that puts people off reading, so actually in the long run they may end up decreasing total readership.

If they're not going to enjoy it, learn from it, or positively influence others from it, I can see no point in them reading it. That's my logic, feel free to disagree.

 

[hooksashands]

I still think the list here is incredibly lighthearted.

 

[camazotz]

I have avoided working retail for 95% of the last 21 years, and this is why.

 

[hooksashands]

Cool story.

Uh I mean..

No, just stop there. I was feeling great until I read the rest of your reply, then I realized you're one of those people who has nothing interesting to say. You'd criticize your own asshole if you could see it. You can't simply let a person tell a story or a joke without trying to dismantle the thing, like this is 60 Minutes and you're goddamn Barbara Walters, setting the record straight for everyone.

... Also yes, I have no problem admitting I think you're a total pussy if you consider working in a bookstore anything like disposing of used needles. Here's my middle finger salute, buddy. Report me, cry into your pillow, move on. =)

Really? that's the best you can do?
I'm uninteresting and critical? Oh and apparently I'm a pussy.

Its funny, when you first posted, I figured you were just some dumbass with self esteem issues, trying to feel better about yourself by winning an internet pissing contest (one that didn't exist until you came along).
Now I can't make up my mind. You're clearly either a troll, or you actually believe what your saying, and thus even more ignorant than I first gave you credit for.

So far you havn't even given a shred of evidence as to how trash collection is a worse job. So you deal with trash as a trashman? How shocking. Try a job in which you deal with the kind of shit that isn't mentioned in the job description.
But you're clearly such an excellent judge of what is interesting that I've no doubt you can enlighten us with many a tale.

-How about the one about the threats of violence, and the bogans waiting in the carpark... Oh wait that happened to me.
-Well what about the countless shoplifters who... oh.
-Verbal abuse?.. ummm.
-Oh I know, how about the pervert who rings up to talk dirty to the teenage girls in cosmetics? No?

Ok well here's one from a co-worker of mine about retail. One time, in footwear somebody took a dump right in the aisle.
Oh but wait, that can't be right, cuz only trashmen deal with gross stuff, my colleague must have been imagining things. Just like the blood, vomit and partially chewed food that I "haven't" seen in my time with the company.

So tell me, is it worse to deal with literal shit and bile in a job you know full well holds that possibility. Or dealing with the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) shit and bile flowing from the very people you're trying to help and serve?

Don't strain yourself, the answer is neither. They're both bad, in their own ways for their own reasons. Some people will find one option the better, and others just the opposite.

For the moment, not my greatest but certainly not my worst.
Yes, yes, and no. You're very much being a buzzkill, and a snobby douche, but I didn't mean the 'pussy' thing, that was a flippant parting shot and thinking back on it I'm sorry for saying that to you. I'm sure your manparts fit you comfortably.

Here we go with the 'you're a troll' shit again. No, I'm actually an upstanding forum citizen, thank you very much sir, I just don't appreciate it when someone puts words in my mouth.

Let's get this over with. At no point did I say 'only trashmen deal with gross stuff', not sure where you caught that. I will say however that anyone who works exclusively in the field of human sanitation encounters monumentally gross-er stuff all the time, and the whole thrust of my joke at the end of my revelry was that if sanitation workers made a cute little grievance list like this, it wouldn't be funny, just unsettling, which cycles back to funny. It takes this thing called a sense of humor to notice. By contrast, the humor in the 'Honest Farewell' just strikes me as funny only because it's a mundane job, with no real danger to your health (or sanity).

Oh, I need evidence here? And if I don't present evidence, what's going to happen? Please tell me what you're going to do when you realize I can't prove something so ridiculously abstract as "My job sucks more." There was no intention of one-up-manship, I was just telling a story, and adding a small joke as footnote. Why don't you relax, laugh and stop putting people on trial for everything.

Your final question is rhetorical but I feel the need to answer it anyway: No, the foreknowledge that you will be presiding waist-deep in blood and poop almost every day does not absolve the discomfort. You can mentally prepare yourself, and you can be trained well, have a poker face to smells, but work long enough in those conditions and your mind will start to crack. Handling human refuse from someone at Barnes & Noble is nowhere near as stressful, unless your boss is literally feeding you his crap. Then that's horrible and you should probably think of quitting.

 

[Low Key]

I work at a liquor store, so I'd say 99 out of 100 people are the happiest they've been all day when they walk in. Plus, it's a municipal liquor store, so I make $12/hr. That helps. But for the past decade, I have been in retail or customer service, so I know how it goes.

 

[fletch_talon]

Here we go with the 'you're a troll' shit again. No, I'm actually an upstanding forum citizen, thank you very much sir, I just don't appreciate it when someone puts words in my mouth.

You came into a thread which revolved around the shit people have to deal with in retail, purely to snidely remark that you've had (in your opinion) worse jobs and finished off with a patronising remark that was utterly dripping with sarcasm.

What words am I putting into your mouth exactly.

If you'd come here, complained about your time spent as a garbage man without the attitude, I probably would have read it and sympathised with you and agreed wholeheartedly that waste disposal is a horrible job.
Instead you turned it into a competition and implied that any issues retail employees may have were petty and isignificant in comparison to your own.

Oh, I need evidence here? And if I don't present evidence, what's going to happen? Please tell me what you're going to do when you realize I can't prove something so ridiculously abstract as "My job sucks more." There was no intention of one-up-manship, I was just telling a story, and adding a small joke as footnote. Why don't you relax, laugh and stop putting people on trial for everything.

So now its a joke? Bullshit. Even if it was an attempt at humour, it was the expense of myself, and anyone else who has complaints regarding their work in retail.
Not to mention your second post called anyone who disagrees a pussy, was that a joke too? Oh I know you've taken it back now, but you still clearly stick by what you said, if not by the words you used.

In regards to your lack of evidence, nothing will happen, that's the fucking point. You say its your opinion in this paragraph and yet you came in here originally declaring "my job sucks more". If its a matter of what (in your opinion) you would rather do, then say that. Don't come in here and try and dismiss what everyone else feels about their own jobs.

Your final question is rhetorical but I feel the need to answer it anyway: No, the foreknowledge that you will be presiding waist-deep in blood and poop almost every day does not absolve the discomfort. You can mentally prepare yourself, and you can be trained well, have a poker face to smells, but work long enough in those conditions and your mind will start to crack. Handling human refuse from someone at Barnes & Noble is nowhere near as stressful, unless your boss is literally feeding you his crap. Then that's horrible and you should probably think of quitting.

Retail is every bit as stressful as most jobs, you get treated like shit, and lose any right to respond in kind. If someone threatens to beat you, you're expected to remain calm and ask them to leave. When someone calls you a fucking retard you're expected to smile and apologise for whatever you apparently did wrong.
Dealing with customers isn't that stressful on its own, its more the fact that you're forced to treat them with the highest respect, regardless of how they treat you. Suppressing all that emotional response and the feelings of helplessness that come with working in retail is fucking stressful, if you can't see that then you havn't spent nearly enough time in retail to be commenting.

I'm sorry, but handling garbage, whatever the source is not gonna make my mind crack. It'll make me gag, probably vomit and so on, but my mental health is not tied to my physical reactions to gross things. Not to mention if you're literally waist deep in it, and are without adequate personal protective equipment then that's either your fault or the fault of your employer. Faeces and blood are hazardous materials and any job dealing with them would require strict safety measures. If this isn't the case where you are, sorry, your job does suck but much like your crap feeding analogy, "that's horrible and you should probably think of quitting."

 

[hooksashands]

snip

Color me unimpressed by your steadfastness in front of yakkety old people. For someone who just got done telling what a tough nut to crack he is, you sure are sensitive to a subject that barely registers on my list of things I give a damn about. It's a job, get through it. You ask me "What's with the attitude?" I dunno, what's with yours Mr. Public Relations? You claim to have learned the virtues of patience and politeness, yet you are too flustered to show them.

Are we done writing angry novels to each other now? If you had bothered to read anything I write, you'd notice I mentioned quitting that job already. Yea, I got nothin else to say. Just pointing out your bad listening skills; they only click on when you've got something to say. Thanks for letting me experience what it's like to talk to a fucking wall. Ciao.

 

[Formica Archonis]

It was my primary source of Rex Stout novels.

Heeeeeeeeeeey! Love those! Must get back to mine - my morning commute is shorter than it used to be and it doesn't really lend itself to reading anymore.

 

[fletch_talon]

snip

Color me unimpressed by your steadfastness in front of yakkety old people. For someone who just got done telling what a tough nut to crack he is, you sure are sensitive to a subject that barely registers on my list of things I give a damn about.

*SNIP*

Thanks for letting me experience what it's like to talk to a fucking wall. Ciao.

Aww such a shame, you were so close to grasping the key concept of this discussion but you let it slip away in favour of trying discredit me personally.
Different people, different tolerances, to different things.

This lesson has been brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood fucking wall.

 

[hooksashands]

Aww such a shame, you were so close to grasping the key concept of this discussion but you let it slip away in favour of trying discredit me personally.
Different people, different tolerances, to different things.

This lesson has been brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood fucking wall.

I didn't lift a finger to ruin your credibility. You've done nothing this whole time except flip out over my first post, serve up pointless arguments and reveal yourself as a hypocrite (you tell me not to dismiss other people's jobs, then you go and do exactly that to mine). But okay, if you want to walk away from this feeling like you almost "opened my eyes" or nearly "made me see the truth" then by all means live in your little fantasy land, bathe in the imaginary creek, feed the pretend animals.

The reality is you have nothing to teach me, this is a massive waste of energy and if anybody discredited you it was yourself. Those customers who called you a 'retard' weren't very far off, though.

 

[DigitalSushi]

I so wish we'd done this, when MVC was closed in the UK.
The uttering of 'I know my rights' immediately dropped you to minimum levels of those rights, forfeiting any customer service.

I've got another seven hundred pages of this but I'll restrain myself.

MVC Closed because they demanded registration, well that's my thought's anyway, I actually tried to shop there and was blankly refused any help, maybe it was the MVC near me.

In San Fran.. fuck it, in Frisco! (yeah I'm cool and hip) in a Steak House the lovely chap next to me complained that the ice in his drink was too cold, its ice dude, ice is cold, because its ICE.

 

[V TheSystem V]

I don't work in retail, but I work at a carvery restaurant. The place feels fake and they can be really tight about shifts sometimes, but thank GOD I've never had to deal with the customers.

My kitchen manager was told by a guy when we were preparing food that him and his family would 'Wait with their cocks out' until their food came. He's nearly lost his cool and punched people in the past.

People are arseholes. These guys make us aware as to how douchebaggy we can be. I applaud them.