Entries Tagged as 'retail hell'
At the Circuit City in Bradenton, Florida (which I envision something like this) one anonymous employee reports that much of the staff’s downtime is spent obsessively playing Guitar Hero 3 in the store’s breakroom. They even have a 42-inch wall-mounted flatscreen expressly for this purpose. Or at least, they did, until about a month ago.

Our anonymous employee takes umbrage with two issues here. First of all, “there are more than 50 employees who share this room. Does it really look that dirty?” And second, the fact that “instead of reminding us to pick up during any one of our 30 daily meetings, someone actually wasted the time to TAKE PICTURES of the ‘mess’ and hang them in place of the TV. Wouldn’t a simple, ‘hey y’all, clean up your shit?’ have been much, much more efficient?”
What is this “efficiency” of which you speak? It’s certainly not in the retail management handbook!
related: office anthropomorphism
Tags: CAPS LOCK · exclamation-point happy!!!! · Florida · now that's management · retail hell · that's disrespectful · visual aids
Ruben in Pregon works for an Apple reseller where the managers like to fire up the sales team with little competitions. (iPhones don’t sell themselves, people! For that, you’ll have to hold out for version 2.0.)
When Josh, the store’s very own Dwight Schrute, was pronounced the winner of a recent contest, things unfolded pretty much the way you’d expect.


The only person more universally reviled than the office suckup? the new guy, of course.
Says Ruben: “Most of us are real sticklers for keeping track of new product, but recently we brought on this new guy, Victor, and he hasn’t been doing too well.” Ruben came into work one day to find this MacBook battery on one of the tech benches, along with these notes that explain the entire story in just nine words. (And three question marks.)

Ruben says this pwnage became less hilarious when Victor actually did end up getting fired. “Awwkard!”
related: Your last day of work was yesterday
Tags: confusion??? · fired · group bitchfest · office · Oregon · retail hell · whiteboard
Mara in Minneapolis ( average temperature in January: 12° F/-11° C) says the worst job she’s ever had was at a local thrift store — and not because of the crazy customers and their indiscreet use of the fitting rooms. No, like many workers, the crazy person driving Mara crazy was her boss — the author of the masterpiece below.

Mara says she lasted three weeks before her boss made her so angry that she walked out and never looked back. (No, not even to leave a little surprise behind in the bath—er, fitting room. That’s management-level thinking, folks.)
related: When nature calls
Tags: "helpful" advice · crazy boss · Minneapolis/St. Paul · now that's management · retail hell · runaway run-on sentences · temperature
I thought it was pretty crazy when Jessie sent in this sign from a thrift store in Wilmington, North Carolina a few months years back…

Then Ashley sent in this eerily similar note from a thrift store in Barnegat, New Jersey. “The first time I noticed it, there was only one note,” Ashley says. “Weeks later, when I came back to photograph it, they had added a second. Obviously, just the one note on the door wasn’t getting the point across. How do they know that the perp doesn’t only speaks French? That could be the reason for the recurring problem.”

And still, it continues!
Alice saw one at a thrift store in Tennessee…

Caity in New Orleans spotted another at Goodwill in Covington, Louisiana…

And now this, from Stephanie in Wichita, Kansas. Says Stephanie: “For years at our neighborhood DAV thrift store there’s been a dressing room that has smelled like pee. Turns out we weren’t imagining it!”

Seriously, what is it about thrift store fitting rooms?
related: This is why your postal worker is disgruntled
Tags: Kansas · Louisiana · New Jersey · North Carolina · piss · retail hell · shit · Tennessee · that's disgusting · Wilmington · WTF?
Writes Deanne: “Because Orlando prides itself on being a friendly city, we tend to do most of our dirty work via passive-aggressive notes and signs. This one is from the front door of a tacky tourist shop on international drive. I can get past the reference to ‘plane rude’ but the ‘Macdonalds’ analogy is a stretch.” (I’d add that characterizing this as a safety concern is a bit of a stretch too, but I think the amazing clip art and the hand-drawn smiley are what really push this one over the top.)
![Please do not bring bags of the other store into our store. Besides for safety it is just plane rude. Would you bring a Burger King bag into the MacDonalds [sic]! Thank you very much!! Please do not bring bags of the other store into our store. Besides for safety it is just plane rude. Would you bring a Burger King bag into the MacDonalds [sic]! Thank you very much!!](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2084/2066290597_d080b21800.jpg)
Adds Deanne: “I’ve never brought a Burger King bag into McDonald’s, but that’s not because of fast food etiquette, just lack of time. I did bring a Macy’s bag into a Sears store, and I’ve never felt the least bit guilty about it!”
Tags: clip art catastrophe · etiquette · exclamation-point happy!!!! · Florida · Orlando · questionable logic · retail hell · smiley · spelling and grammar police
Dan in Miami Beach — who by the way knows a thing or two about roommate drama — bring us this sign from a clothing store in the gay mecca of Wilton Manors, Florida. Says Dan: “Sometimes, gay men are a little bitchy with each other.” (Again, something he knows a bit about.)

(And seriously, sweetheart, don’t even start with the whole “but that’s not exactly passive-aggressive” stuff.)
related: Ladies, if you happen to have forgotten your undies…
Tags: attire · Florida · hygiene · more aggressive than passive · pleasantries as afterthought · retail hell · spelling and grammar police