Kill Me Now. An Insiders Look at Retail

  This is going to be long. Bear with me. I have been working in retail for 8 years now. Some of it has been good, but everything grinds together after a while. Shit breaks down. Policies change for the worst. Benefits are cut, you get new bosses and suddenly, things just aren't any fun anymore. You realize that retail is miserable as hell.

  In fact, several years ago, a group of my friends and I came up with a rating scale.

  The Stages of Retail Worker:

Stage 1: Freshly Employed
Soul Tarnish: 0-2
  Congratulations! This might be your very first job! Or you might just be an optimist. I won't judge you if you are (much). Things are great. Everything is shiny and new, you follow policy and procedure to the line, when people ask you how you are, you respond that you are "excellent!" or "great!". You are happy to be there, and you are happy to help everyone. You want to learn everything. Working past your scheduled time? No problem!! Doing the unpopular jobs? You don't know they are yet or that they are being dumped on you! You want to help *every* customer to your fullest ability! People like this are *adorable*.

  Stage 2: Seasoned
Soul Tarnish: 3-5
  You've been working retail for a while and you know when you are going to face bullshit. You still do the unpleasant tasks in the hopes that someone in management will notice your talent and you will be promoted or get that raise and everything will be gravy once again. You know how everything is supposed to work, but you also know how it usually works and you can generally work around it. You still pick up extra time because hey, being dependable means that maybe one day, you will be in charge! You are starting to get annoyed at the fact that you are the only one doing the unpleasant tasks, but you still do them. You might be asked to train new employees at this stage. Because you aren't a horrible person (yet) you try to shelter them as much as possible from the things that sometimes go wrong and make sure you are on hand to demonstrate how to deal with problems as they arise. You still help customers and know most of the answers. Sometimes the customers frustrate you but you can handle it. Management knows they can depend on you to do the right thing. You got this.

 Stage 3: Worn Out
Soul Tarnish: 6-8
  You need this job. You do. Rent/mortgage is due every month and you have to be able to eat more than ramen eggs and peanut butter taquitos or you will die of scurvy. You are reluctant to work extra hours despite needing the money. You wonder if an extra $8 is really worth staying another hour. You try to get other people to do the unpleasant tasks by pretending that you don't notice they need to be done or "being too busy" or "forgetting". You might pawn it off on a Stage 1. If cornered, you will do the tasks, but you might do them shoddily, and you will be resentful the entire time. You might make comments about how much you hate this job. You might even start looking for a new job, knowing that it won't be any better than this one. And then you have to worry about setting up your health insurance again and maybe changing doctors. If you can even *get* health insurance. You might call out of work frequently because the thought of going in and dealing with that place another day is just too much to think about. You might legitimately get a migraine from dreading going in. It might make you sick to your stomach. Your immune system may be compromised and you might get genuinely ill frequently because you are miserable. You will still help new employees but only if asked. You tell them a lot of what can go wrong in an effort to warn them to abandon ship without scaring them too badly. Management hasn't noticed your hard work. You got a 10 cent raise. Everyone else gets to leave before you do because you are dependable. You only do what you are told to do and nothing else. You see customers as a hassle, and you respond to them based on how they approach you. You go home every day and swear that you are going to get a BETTER JOB. It almost never happens.

Stage 4: No Longer Care At All
Soul Tarnish: 9-10
  You've had it. You are just there for your paycheck. You do not care. Customer doesn't have a receipt? Too bad. Aren't any more on the shelf? "We don't have anymore." Management is hesitant to assign you tasks because even if you do them, the way you mutter and scowl while you do them leaves them in FEAR for their lives. Any new employees are carefully steered away from you so they don't pick up bad habits. If one is inadvertently placed near you, you tell them about the absolute nightmare working there is and give examples of exactly how bad things WILL BE. Customers might complain about your bad attitude, but it's impossible to please those fuckers, right? You didn't even get a raise this year because the company "can't afford it". They also can't afford to pay you unemployment, which is why you still have a job. Management might start subtly making things slowly more frustrating for you in hopes you'll quit.

Stage 5: What The Fuck Is This Shit?
Soul Tarnish: Beyond Tolerable Levels
  You have transcended emotions. Things might be tolerable. Everything could be ok, you've calmed down, maybe the other day you just had a bad moment. Then something happens and you spend an hour in the bathroom planning on exactly how many police officers are going to have to escort you out of the building. You are cynical, blunt, and lacking in tact. You do your job because it's easier than avoiding it. You've ceased complaining about those tasks everyone hates because no one is listening and you are going to wind up doing it anyway. You probably swear a lot. You may say "Are you SERIOUS???" knowing that yes, they are in fact serious. You help the customers because you realize that they are in the same boat, but you reserve a malicious glee in being deaf, stupid, or blind to deal with rude hostile customers. One of the most satisfying times of the day is when you get to lock the doors as a customer is coming up to the door and you pantomime that the store is closed. Too late. Too bad. So sad. We open at 6am tomorrow morning. See you then! You hate the customers that come in an hour before the store closes. You help new employees and feel responsible for them. So bright. So shiny. So untarnished. It's sad, but they'll learn. You don't usually want to try to find another job, because you know exactly how much you can get away with and exactly what is expected of you.

Fuck it. Just. Fuck it.

 So. What is so bad that can turn a happy intelligent person into a cynical sarcastic worn out dusty shell of a human being?


Well, in a word, Retail. We'll go into detail in installments.

These are the topics I plan to cover in this series of articles:

*Self Checkout is a simmering hellhole
*When Customer lose their shit and start fighting each other (break out the popcorn!)
*Sisyphus. When the repetitive gets to the point when you can't tell if it's asshole or breakfast time or maybe just Tuesday anymore. Parts One and Two.
*Children. They are our future so let's keep an eye on them, ok?
*The Rumor Mill
*The People In Charge (either don't care or don't have authority)
*Staffing and Hours
*Why is stuff never where it's supposed to be?!
*College Degrees and the black hole of retail. Hahahaha. Student loans? That's cute. Minimum wage!
*When Customers go Insane

So yeah. Retail is a big topic. Granted that my experience lies solely with the place *I* work. Maybe the world is a different better place from where I work.

Maybe I'm just too cynical and jaded.

Maybe I'm just terribly terribly sane.