23 moments every retail worker experiences during sale season
“Do you have this in any other sizes?”
Working in retail is tough enough on a regular day, but sale time is a whole other battleground.
You’ll be fighting challenging customers, overflowing hangers, mountainous piles of clothing and dust. SO MUCH DUST.
For those of you slogging it out during EOFY sale time, I feel your pain.
1. Customers will walk in the store, ignore you, and run for the sale section
2. You’ll find tops in the pants section, shoes with the hats and hangers EVERYWHERE
3. It’s time to give up refolding a pile for the fifth time when it gets ruined 0.3 seconds after you just fixed it
4. Customers will have the audacity to pick up an item and throw it back on the pile, UNFOLDED, all while staring directly at you
5. Resisting the urge to scream “is this how you live at home?!” to every second customer
6. Conversely, the full-priced section will be pristine
7. There’ll be a long line for the change rooms, with disgruntled customers huffing at the wait time as they stand with an armful of clothes
8. And there’ll be others who refuse to wait, getting undressed right on the shop floor
9. Prams. They’ll trip you up, knock over displays and get in the way
10. Inside the prams will be screaming children
11. Customers will ask you if there are other sizes out back
12. You’ll say no. So they’ll find another shop assistant to bother
13. Pro tip: you won’t have to actually learn maths if you just memorise the prices
14. You’ll inwardly reel every time someone asks you if you can do a better price
15. People will buy a sh*tload of clothes and you’ll see your UPT skyrocket
16. But alas, your ATV will be dismally low
17. Customers will buy things for their sister, son, mother, uncle and cousin, then come back trying to return everything because they bought the wrong sizes
18. If you haven’t by now, you’ll soon learn to recite the refund and exchange policy better than you can quote Mean Girls
19. Some shoppers will complete their Christmas shopping by July (which is actually a win for you, as they won’t be back in December)
20. You’ll give up folding the item clothing before you put it in the customer’s bag, and enjoy practically throwing it in
21. Customers will ask you for the nicer bag, but you’ll give them the plastic sale bag
22. You’ll lose all hope for humanity
23. But then you’ll feel better after you vent about it to your fellow retail friends