this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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I feel for the people working retail, but service is so bad at most retail locations where I live that I avoid it every time I can in favor of going online somewhere. The only good retail experience I have left is my local comic shop. Best Buy, Target, Home Depot, any pharmacy, any grocery store…. Everyone working there is borderline useless aside from the folks that stock the shelves. They’re not knowledgeable at all, nor are they empowered to do much of anything. If they were empowered, the pay would be too low for them to give a shit. I imagine endless strings of dickhead customers and low pay will make a retail employee jaded over time, but if all things are equal between retail and online, I’ll wait 3 days to get it online. I hate dealing with retail employees.
We’re in a viscous cycle at this point with little hopes of redemption. They probably think I’m an asshole before I open my mouth; and I assume they’re useless and victim to a horrible education system before they open theirs.
Yea dude, I feel you. I think at this point we're kind of expecting people working in retail to not be as "useful" as we customers would like them to be. I imagine if pay all around were better, this would not be as much of an issue.
Concerning online retailers, I also usually prefer those to physical locations because of the convenience and the wide selection. However, having worked at GameStop for around 1,5 years, it is astounding how many people feel entitled to certain prices of items and services they know from online shopping. For example, they expect us to price-match even though this has long been discontinued (in Germany) - both online prices which are usually a tad lower when compared to Amazon or other physical stores. Or they expect us to give them a full refund on a game they've just bought (new copy), opened, and then changed their minds about.
Lots of entitlement. But I'm still with you on most points.
When I say “useless,” what I mean is they’ve not tried any of the products themselves, have no opinions at all, don’t know how anything works, don’t know about the warranty, don’t know about competing products, and appear generally inconvenienced by my desire for an interaction with someone that might be able to provide some insight etc.
I say my local comic shop is one of the few places left that have retail employees that I go to that are useful because I get recommendations of more books to read based on what I’ve bought from them previously. Dude at the counter nails it almost every time he gives me a recommendation. Works out for them too because I keep buying more stuff.
I know exactly what you mean. Quite infuriating when you just don't get any input from the workers at all.
That's awesome! Cherish that store.