Working in Retail.

Main Entry: cus·tom·er

Pronunciation: \ˈkəs-tə-mər\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English custumer, from custume

Date: 15th century

1 : one that purchases a commodity or service

2: A paradoxical person who is both the reason a job exists and the reason the job is intolerable.

Working retail is something everyone should be forced to undergo for the first few years of your young adult life. It serves as training for the rest of your life and a kind corporal, corporate punishment (ha, word play). If you have worked retail, you will perhaps recall the feelings you had for humanity after working an eight hour shift. I usually felt that humanity was some sort of giant evolutionary-joke whose punch line had to be coming soon. Not a very good joke either. One of those where the teller forgets parts of the joke and then leaves out half the punch line, laughs loudly and decides to just stab you in the crotch with a butter knife.

If you are looking forward to job in retail let me give you some tips.

1)If a customer has questions about a product just read them what it says on the box. This generally answers the question and prevents the customer from getting angry at you for telling them to "Stop being a tard and just read the effing descriptions on the box."

2)When in doubt smile and nod. If you feel it's to demeaning you can flip them off when their back is turned.

3) Vengeance is best exacted through passive aggressive means. For some reason most corporations seem to leave this out of the employee hand book. Deactivating the rude customer's credit card with the alarm demagnetizer is a classic. As are throwing their product down the ladder or shoving their incorrect "exact change" where the sun don't shine. If you can pull that last one off passively aggressively then you are truly a master.

4)If customer is truly rude you can try stealing his or her credit card number and having 15,000 editions of "German Poop and Pornography Today" magazines delivered to their house.

The reason you need to undergo this nightmare of employment is because it will benefit you in the long run. If you learn not to abuse the people who are paid seven bucks an hour to help you buy useless crap, you might just avoid some awkward conversations with the postal office and neighbors.

Working in Retail.