this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2025
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You can't really say you worked retail until you've had to play Social Worker for 15-30 minutes and talked to an old person who has nobody to talk to.
If you're lucky the old rascal will tell you something unhinged but it'll be weirdly charming and not racist or sexist (it's a throw of the dice but that's life)
people will still really call it "unskilled labor" when the percentage of the population that can gracefully deal with this is infinitesimal and you can't learn it from a bootcamp
And they generally have no context of personal space
Oh aren't you a sweetheart! nudges you
I have literally taken a step back from a customer each time they took a step forward into my personal space and wound up half way down the aisle before they acknowledged that I was keeping polite distance while they were talking at me.
Customers are literally throwing a temper tantrum when you simply state "no, we can not do that/have not in stock, etc..." - people sometimes will just trauma dump randomly. It is a job that is requires skills found in social workers and therapists. It is exhausting. I remember the summer job, I had as a teen and oh god - never again.