There’s account that I have gotten a lot of amusement out of lately. The creator’s name is Kaeli. She recounts funny stories from her career in retail. In her last video, she said the thing she had promised she would say on her last shift: No. No to the customer who entered the store and lingered after close. It is a funny story, because humor relies on a twist. The twist is that retail workers are expected to treat the customer as being always right. And as the Karen compilations videos on YouTube will show, they are often very wrong.
It is interesting that we had that burned into our culture, this expectation that we should try so hard to get every person’s money that we should just turn a blind eye to their bad behavior. And in some cases, we should reward it with perks that are basically hush money. I can tell you, that while it may make customers fleetingly happy (because there will be a new thing to complain about later), it strains the already stressed retail worker.
With all of the innovations coming to get more people into stores and to encourage sales in a tight economy, I hope that one of the suggestions will be to support employees and their ability to say no when it really should be said.
What bad customer behaviors have you witness and how have they experienced your own shopping experiences?
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