Day 17: Retail

I hate and love retail stores. I like to find all the new stuff I've never heard of, especially when it's something I would have never found out about otherwise. I've been exposed to a lot of new movies, music and even food because of the recommendation of a customer. That's nice. There's a dark side, though, and it doesn't exactly hide beneath the surface.

People who have never worked retail treat retail workers like automatons made of flesh. As a retail worker, a fun experiment is to say no to something. People lose their minds when that happens. I guess it's like waking up one day and finding out your toaster has this whole other life outside your house and you want a slice of bread transformed like you've had it every other morning but he's like "No, man, I'm hung over and I only came in today to talk to the microwave but then the refrigerator made me stay and I told him I'd stick around but I am not in the mood for this right now so just give me some space." Of course, when you're on the clock, your job is to do stuff for people. It's just that there's a difference between hourly workers and indentured servants.

There's another problem that is becoming worse lately. Kids are apparently just being dropped off at whatever store their parents are near. I can't understand telling a kid to go to a toy section and look around inside of a Dollar General but that's actually how I was raised. I think the difference is that as kids, me and my siblings knew that the chance to wander around a strange store and look at toys we would probably never get to actually play with was a privilege but kids today seem to just assume the world is theirs for the taking. Under better circumstances, I'd be proud but there is a difference between walking quietly down a toy aisle and running through the store, throwing footballs and frisbees around. I don't work in retail any more but the urge to trip a small child still remains. I guess I should probably apologize in advance to any relatives because the holidays are coming up and there are more and more screaming little maniacs around me every year.

I guess retail can be lucrative and fun but maybe I just suck at it. I can't stand being told what to do, I don't want to tell other people what to do, I don't like being forced to help people and I dislike the general public. I do like putting stuff away when I know where it goes, I like getting a discount on stuff and I like people thinking that I know what's going on as long as they don't ask me any questions about it so I think those were the reasons I stayed in retail for as long as I did. Also, I needed money.