r/retailhell • u/ferrycrossthemersey • 1d ago

Customers Suck! Open. Your. Eyes.

I wish I could go about life being as unaware of my surroundings as the customers that come into my store. I get at least 6-7 people everyday who, as soon as they step foot in the door, immediately ask me where an item is while literally facing that item. They don't even bother to look around because if they did, they would see the exact thing that they are asking me for, right in front of their eyes. I have no trouble helping someone out when they need it because I also miss things sometimes but when you don't even make an attempt to help yourself, I just have to shake my head.

ETA: The flip side to this also applies. People who come into my PHARMACY asking if we sell CIGARETTES will never cease to amaze me.

175 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

89

u/iceteabiiiiiitchhhhh 1d ago

once had a woman ask if we sold balloons... while standing directly under our balloon net. the strings were ON her.

i just pointed up.

54

u/ferrycrossthemersey 1d ago

My reaction to this would be what people like to call the 'Gen Z stare' but I am staring at you because literally wtf am I supposed to respond to that lmao

26

u/comprehensivechick 1d ago

yes!! I am staring bc I cannot believe you are seriously asking me that 😭 if you have a real question I can give you a real response. (guilty if the gen z dead air answering the phone thing too cuz it makes scammers hang up! lol)

4

u/watermelonpizzafries 15h ago

I was in the middle of cleaning a fitting room and had my arms full of clothes carrying them out when I got approached by two different people asking me where a fitting room was. It was in the middle of the holiday season, it was busy as hell and I kinda looked into the fitting room and back at them before going "this is a fitting room" and one of them went "Great! I've been walking around the store for the past 10 minute looking for one!" (We're a two story, major clothing department store chain that has multiple fitting rooms)

49

u/comprehensivechick 1d ago

my mom says it like this: if you believe in reincarnation then there's only a limited amount of souls to be reborn to our physical realm. when the population really boomed some years ago we ended up with a lot more warm bodies with "nothing on the shelf" so to speak- just got nothing going on behind the eyes or in the mind. just shuffling through life wherever the tides take them. it's an interesting concept lol

30

u/ferrycrossthemersey 1d ago

That is actually a PERFECT concept. I love that. That would explain A LOT of bullshit I deal with

20

u/comprehensivechick 1d ago

I call them empty vessels 😭 it explains so much of the bullshit tho lol

12

u/MidwesternLikeOpe 1d ago

My coworker calls customers zombies. Because they shuffler around the floor amd parking lot like braindead idiots. The amount of stupid questions we get is why I'm happy to work in the back.

We have 4 tvs on the wall explaining our sales, and yet people come up to us, "what are your sales colors?" We point to the tvs and they say oh I didn't know you guys have tvs. facesmash

5

u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme 1d ago

Orange cats have to go somewhere after those 9 lives are up!🤷‍♀️

2

u/mynameisjodie 19h ago

I'm going to think of this next time I'm working 

28

u/MedicineLow 1d ago

Worked at a gas station, bathrooms were pretty clear to see if you just turned your head to the left. But no, people would ask all the time "where's the bathroom?"

TURN. AROUND.

If it were a snake it would have bitten you!

11

u/JediBrent 1d ago

Funny, where I'm from the snake is a bear.

1

u/MidnightActive954 Ongoing gas station survivor 19h ago

We don’t have a bathroom at my location (we don’t have enough room). Yet people still get mad when I say we don’t have a bathroom

18

u/diddilybop 1d ago

i work in a makeup/skincare shop, and we sell perfume too. once this customer was spraying a bunch of different ones onto fragrance strips to smell them. then she walks to another table of fragrances and asks me, “how do i smell these?”. i plainly said, “…with fragrance strips? just like how you did earlier”

after that, she gave me some attitude while she checked out at the register. i guess she didn’t like me pointing out the obvious to her? 😂

15

u/Antsygrl1 1d ago

My recent fave was a lady asking if we sold condolence cards. We are a corporate pet store. Then, as she saw the confused look on my face, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Don't worry, my friend's dog's not dead, he just had to have an operation!". Ok lady, make it make sense.

2

u/rebelangel 22h ago

I worked at Lowe’s and once had someone ask if we sold diapers.

14

u/CognacMusings 1d ago

The most annoying question I get is: what are the sales for today? Ma’am, the sign is right there as come through the door.

14

u/SpellcraftQuill 1d ago

I just don’t know what to say since I don’t want to accidentally be condescending to them when that happens.

3

u/mynameisjodie 19h ago

They deserve to be spoken to like a child 

12

u/Rose_E_Rotten 1d ago

If someone does that to me I never say a word I just point to the item and if they feel dumb for not seeing it, then it's on them.

9

u/I_eat_paper12 1d ago

I work in a very small store. I hung up FOUR signs stating we're closed on Labor Day-one on each register one on the front door and one on the wall next to a giant calendar- and still have people asking if we're open that day 🤦‍♀️

3

u/watermelonpizzafries 15h ago

My store is closed every Thanksgiving and Christmas as long as I have worked there yet the day before Thanksgiving I'll still have people ask if we're open the next day followed sometimes with "you should be open so you can make early Black Friday sales instead of opening the next day at 6am". Fucktards

3

u/thedafthatter 15h ago

Those same douche canoes will then turn around if you are open and go 'wow you should close to be with your family'

6

u/Mr_7ups 1d ago

Omg same. I work in a very small store of a lm atheist’s brand, and I mean our store is literally like one room that’s MAYBE 35x35ft

And we have women’s stuff mostly on the right two thirds of the store and men’s on the left third AND a giant “Men’s Shop” sign on the wall above it.

Yet I swear like 7 out of 10 guys who walk in will look around and then ask me “do you have a men’s section?🗿”

No dumbass we just have a male manikin with men’s clothes and male advertising for shits and giggles, oh and that giant section of men’s clothes? Obviously it’s fake

5

u/hal_burt88 1d ago

Sir, this is a store. Of course we sell things?

2

u/Foreign-King7613 1d ago

Think of how stupid the average person is, then think of how half the population is even less intelligent.

8

u/Designer_Amount_8505 1d ago

I had a woman ask for tablecloths while standing 2 meters away from them. My store is small but boomers being boomers they want servitude. 

3

u/Accomplished-Ad3219 1d ago

I work at CVS. We used to sell cigarettes. Stopped ten years ago or so

6

u/ferrycrossthemersey 1d ago

Yeah we stopped selling cigarettes at pharmacies in my province almost 30 years ago so it’s a VERY different situation

3

u/Bambi1498 22h ago

I remember during covid. I had little just walked through the door, hadnt started my shift yet, and this guy who walked in just before me turns around and says " excuse me, sorry just saw your uniform, where are the face masks?" Like honestly, if he had walked a little further down the aisle he would have seem them. Literally the same first aisle as you come in...

Its also when people walk through the door and just stand there like, hello??? There are people coming in behind you or when you clearly trying to get past they just stand there like deer in headlights.

3

u/rebelangel 22h ago

It’s always Boomers who stop in the doorway too. They have no spatial awareness at all. Was going into Walmart the other day and I grabbed a cart just after this Boomer lady did. I was right behind her, then she suddenly stops just past those security sensor things. I made an annoyed sigh, and then she finally looked up from her purse and was like “Oh sorry.” It’s like they forget there are other people around them.

3

u/DonatCotten 16h ago

At least she said sorry! Where I live apologizing and admitting you did anything wrong might as well be a foreign language to the people here. As far as they are concerned the store exists solely for them alone and anyone else in it is just a nuisance who doesn't belong there 🙄

3

u/MidnightActive954 Ongoing gas station survivor 20h ago

I had 2 people come into my station asking if we sell alcohol. We don’t have the license (and never will). If we did, we also wouldn’t have enough room.

4

u/PsychologicalFeed961 1d ago

Some pharmacy’s do sell cigarettes

7

u/ferrycrossthemersey 1d ago

Not in any province in my country except for BC which is a 51 hour drive away and not in my province since 1997. Actually none of the Atlantic provinces have sold cigarettes in pharmacies for 26 years. That is longer than I have been alive.

8

u/AardvarkBusy7407 1d ago

Yes once in pharmacy in Ontario we had a guy come in and ask for lottery darts. Me and the other person at the front were not sure what he wanted, I took him over to the lottery station thought he wanted the.slips to pick your own numbers. He eventually left he never re phrased he's question and asked for cigarettes it was not tell much later that we found out what he wanted.

7

u/ferrycrossthemersey 1d ago

Yes! And cigarettes have been banned in pharmacies in Ontario since 1994!

1

u/PsychologicalFeed961 1d ago

Some do in the US

6

u/ferrycrossthemersey 1d ago

Right but thankfully I am in a completely different country so that does not apply

1

u/LIRUN21-007 8h ago

All the damn time.

When you walk into my store, it’s a giant V with men’s to the left and women’s to the right. Take a quick scan of the store and it’s easy to figure out instantly. But you’d better believe that people come in, take a glance around, and then ask where men’s is, or where women’s is.

We also have people who walk into our store and don’t even know which one they came into. I’ve often had people ask me if we were one of our competitors. How do you walk into a store without knowing which one you’ve went into?

•

u/YogurtclosetOk2889 20m ago

Open your eyes. It's full of surprise and everyone lies like the fox on the rocks. And the musical box.