40 Pics From “Retail Hell,” A Place Where Retail Workers Come Together And Support Each Other

Have you ever worked in a retail store in your life? If you have, you would probably relate to this post as much as the people who have shared their thought on the subreddit r/RetailHell. Those of you haven’t, I’ll give you a brief on how the employees are ill-treated and put in situations that you and I wouldn’t like.

Outline

No, I am not talking about the jobs they have to do, or how they are treated by their managers. More than any of that what’s frustrating is to deal with weird human customer and their expectations. The behaviours that employees have to deal puts them so off that they want to quit their jobs, but rather share their experiences with their peers.

The r/RetailHell is a community where people from the retail industry come together and share their experiences. So, as you scroll down, you get some of the raw and honest ideas of what retailers have to go through.

#1 Dutch Supermarket Chain Opens Slower ‘Chat Checkouts’ In An Effort To Combat Loneliness Among The Elderly

#2 It Do Be Facts Tho

Hiptoro wanted to know a little more about the community and the experiences so, the team managed to get in touch with the mods of r/RetailHell, and they were pretty kinds to answer a few of our answers.

“This subreddit is very easy to mod,” one of them told Hiptoro. “The community is really supportive and very little policing needs to be done, that’s probably because the majority of members work retail, and anything insulting or rude to employees will be downvoted to oblivion, so it’s largely self-governing.”

“That said, we pretty much just ban people for breaking the rules,” another added. “None of that negotiating a timeframe and then having to ban them again in a month. If you’re [a jerk], we just ban you.”

#3 I Love This

#4 Too Accurate

#5 Truth

#6 If Only

“The community itself is really positive, funny, and insightful about working in retail,” the first mod continued. “Lots of people letting their internal monologues out where in work they have to keep a smile on even behind a mask.”

“The most popular themes are humorous — we have a good sense of humor here. In retail, you have to or you just wouldn’t survive.”

#7 True Af

#8 On The Front Door Of A Local Liquor Store

We also spoke to Zeynep Ton, a Professor of Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He does study organizational behaviour and explained how labour suffers to get justified pay for their job. “In addition, many retailers see labor as a cost driver rather than a sales driver and therefore focus on minimizing its costs. Accordingly, they often evaluate store managers on whether they meet monthly (or weekly) targets for payroll as a percentage of sales. These managers don’t have much control over sales (they almost never make decisions on merchandise mix, layout, price, or promotions), but they do have a fair amount of control over the payroll. So when sales decrease, they immediately reduce staffing levels. The pressure to reduce payroll expenses is so high that store managers at several large chains, including Walmart, have been widely reported to have forced employees to work off-the-clock, paying them for fewer hours than they put in.”

#9 Nothing Better

#10 “You Are Not At A Level Of Skill That Deserves This Wage”

#11 I Love How Customer Actually Think We Care

#12 It Said “Call Center” Previously, I Believe It Also Applies

#13 Not Oc But Worth A Share

#14 Saw This At A Restaurant Today

#15 Upvote If You Would Not Fix This

The first moderator of r/RetailHell strongly believes that toxic work culture exists because “current culture allows it.”

“Retail and other front line workers have not benefited yet from the change in cultural behavior that we have seen over the last 20 years, and part of that cultural problem comes from retail itself. It allows customers a lot of room to abuse employees because, at the end of the day, the customer spends money,” the mod said. “These are my views only … but I’m 21 years in retail.”

The second mod thinks customers don’t use their minds. “It’s not that they want to be [jerks] to the workers, it’s that they literally can’t see outside their bubble and recognize that it’s another human being stocking those shelves. I really think they often don’t take the time to mention that. You’ll see that in stories from here. A customer is being a complete a***ole, but the worker shows emotion like crying, and suddenly they realize what they’ve done. I’ve seen workers talk about de-escalation methods that speak to this very issue. When you get them to realize that you’re a human, rather than simply a conduit to donuts, their attitude often changes.”

“This isn’t always the case, and some people just suck,” the mod highlighted. “I’m willing to bet most of those people suck outside of a retail setting, too. Sometimes retail is simply society’s first line of defense against [jerks].”