And it's worse at Christmas. Dear God, it's terrible at Christmas.
See, that schmaltz about "good will toward men" is checked at the door when you work in retail. Of course, there are the rare gems: the German ladies admittedly a little disgruntled that you don't have the white chocolate she's looking for but realizes that it's that time of year when everybody wants white chocolate and it's not your fault you're out; the little old men who still say "Merry Christmas" from their motorized scooters even though it's not politically correct anymore; those saints who stand outside and ring the Salvation Army bells and say "hello" to you even though you've walked past them six times on your way in and out from the smoke hut; the ladies looking for turkey basters because their husband needs one for getting oil out of a machine at work and they're cool with the cheap-o kind because all the good ones have been snatched up by last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers and the shitty kind is the only kind we get in on a regular basis during the holiday season. They're not bad. Some are even downright pleasant.
And then there are the horror stories. We've all heard them. Some of you may have actually been them. In which case, shame on you. We're doing the best we can.
We cannot, for instance, order something for you that we normally don't stock, just because you bought it in Georgia and can't find it here. We cannot produce the kind of Keurig K-Cup you're looking for out of thin air just because someone "always manages to find them in the back" for you when you demand the brand-name kind and nothing else. We cannot scrounge through a tractor trailer full of boxes haphazardly thrown in because oh my God, it's freezing out here and I don't have enough feeling in my fingers to stack each box neatly on top of another for the single nutcracker you need. And dear Lord, if I have one more middle-aged man trying to sweet-talk me into letting him look through the eighteen four-foot-tall boxes of Hot Wheels backstock on a shelf ten feet in the air just so he can find the one collectible car he must have, I swear I'll take a shit on somebody's windshield.
You learn to pick and choose who you ask "can I help you find something". There's just that look that all difficult customers have. Normally it's a scrunched-up face as they stalk back and forth in front of the same four-foot section of shelving. Maybe venting to a total stranger about how "this store doesn't carry anything I want anymore." I know I shouldn't, but these are the people I normally direct to Walmart. After all, they probably don't have a manager who's an asshole and doesn't like to spend money on certain things (on, say, turning the damn heat on) because it comes out of his end-of-the-year bonus. I'm sure you'll find whatever you need there.
The absolute worst - and I mean, the absolute worst - department to work in during Christmastime is...well, every department. Nobody's exempt. If it's not a shortage of baking supplies that have the customers' panties in a bind, it's a lack of the Christmas lights that "I must have or my whole Christmas will be ruined and I'll personally blame you, lowly shelf-stocker who has no control over what is whipped every week and what isn't." Or it's this type of "Frozen" doll that "my child will literally die without." And don't even get me started on the assholes who scream in the back room (or, even better, march through the doors that say "employees only" and start looking themselves), "DO YOU NOT HAVE ANY MORE MILK?!??!?"
Perhaps you should not have come at 8.30 on a Saturday night - notoriously the busiest grocery-shopping day of the week - to buy that one product that nearly every household thrives on. I fail to see how this is my fault.
If I didn't value my meager paycheck, I would have told so many customers by not that no one is forcing them to shop at our store: if they're dissatisfied with the products we do or do not carry, go the hell somewhere else.
But I'm not allowed to say that. I get paid minimum wage to stand there smiling like an idiot and take abuse from inflexible assholes who think it's my personal responsibility to have their favorite product on hand at all times.
"I just stock the shelves, ma'am. Write to our manager. Though he just got transferred to another store and doesn't really give a shit either, so you might be better off to just keep griping about it while you continue to shop here."
At this time of year I am truly grateful to have a job. I look around and see so many other people who don't, and it's especially evident at Christmastime. But my time at this job has run its course, and while my job hunting has been put on hold as planning a wedding, buying a house, the recent bombshell with my parents, car troubles, working two jobs, and now the Christmas season have taken most of my attention, come the first of the year I'll start hunting again. But for now, I stock the shelves, build the displays, and handle the customers in whom the Christmas season brings out the worst.
A plea, dear friends: don't be "that customer." Retail workers are people too. We're doing the best we can in the busiest season of the year.
Merry Christmas, dear friends.
