I’ve Worked In Retail For 4 Years. I’ve Seen Firsthand How Customer Treatment Of Employees Is Getting Worse.
I’m Lee Weinstein, and I’m a retired dentist. Since I like to stay busy, I’ve now worked at several different stores at my local mall in Arizona for about four years — including an electronics store, a department store, and now a café. There are tons of rude people everywhere, and I’ve been dealing with that since I had my own dental practice. But I think it’s getting worse. I think some of it’s the pandemic. I think some of it is entitlement, from both older and younger people. Everybody works on their own time schedule, and their time is the most important in the world. Usually, 99% of the customers I work with are good, and 1% of the people are rude and obnoxious. The 1% cause 99% of your problems. The incidents range from general customer complaints to targeted harassment. Read more at Business Insider.
I agree that there is a certain customer that is just looking to cause trouble. like his customer with the almonds. Some of this the stores bring on themselves with the layering of promotions, items that don’t qualify for the promotion, etc. Many employees are not trained of how to deal with issues that come up. Yes, I have gotten aggravated in stores when the employee doesn’t know what they are doing or have an “I don’t care” attitude. Customers do need to understand that stores are not a local bazaar where bargaining is allowed. Stores also need to get more of a backbone and stop bending over backwards to please a customer with ridiculous requests.