Retail non-therapy

There was a very brief (and dark) period in my life when I had the misfortune of working in the retail industry.

The work wasn’t difficult but the hours were long and incredibly taxing.

Every day before I entered the workplace it felt as if a little more of my soul was about to be chipped away by the harshness and just plain rudeness of the customers I was forced to deal with.

Don’t get me wrong, not all of the customers were all that bad and I formed a close bond with some of them.

In all honesty though, the majority of them were either extremely rude, or just plain dirty.

Now, I take personal hygeine quite seriously and if someone looks as if he hasn’t bathed in a while then my stomach immediately begins to churn.

And I don’t mean to say that people who don’t bathe are bad people, but bathing would just help make a better impression.

There were also quite a few customers who came to me for help and couldn’t help but breathe right in my face.

This on its own is gross enough, but the fact that some of these people hadn’t seemed to have brushed their teeth that day (or that week), didn’t help their case.

Imagine trying to plaster a smile on your face and be professional when you have the smell of an unwashed person right under your nose?

Or, what’s worse, trying to remain professional while someone is telling you how useless you are at your job, when you had nothing to do with the issue they are bringing up.

Nowadays people seem to think that kindness takes a lot of effort, and I assure those of you that are of this view, that this is not the case.

You would be surprised at how far a simple smile and ‘how are you doing today?’ will get you.

People who work in the retail industry have it tough, they work extremely long hours and have to take a lot of flack from customers and managers alike.

I also know from personal experience that working with money is extremely stressful, and knowing that if your till is short, the money lost will come out of your already meager salary, doesn’t do much to help the situation.

Then, on top of the stress you have the rudeness factor to deal with.

You are unable to defend yourself against the customer because if you do then he or she could report you to your manager.

So, at the end of the day you just have to keep your mouth shut and take it, which is not an easy thing to do.

In all seriousness though, it wouldn’t hurt to be a little bit nicer to the people who are providing you with a service.

At the end of the day, the person you are rude to behind the till at Pick n Pay is someone’s mother or sister, and she deserves the same amount of respect as any other human being.

If anything, people need to realise that the person working at Pick n Pay is just trying to make ends meet and support his or her family, just like so many of us.

Your face won’t crack if you smile at a cashier, I promise you.

I remember how much anxiety I would feel as a customer approached my till, not knowing how the person would treat me.

If a customer simply smiled at me it would instantly make me feel at ease and I would be inclined to engage in conversation with the customer.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, if the customer came to me and didn’t respond to my greeting I would instantly feel put out and not want to engage in any conversation with the person at all.

I can’t imagine that I was the only person who felt that way regarding customers.

Also bear in mind, that what you might mistake for rudeness from a cashier might only be her way of telling you that she has had a really rough and long day.

Maybe all she would need to perk her up a bit is for you to smile at her and pass her a deserved compliment, or even to make a small joke in an attempt to make her smile. There are cases in which you will find that the cashier continues with this behaviour, but it happens more rarely than customer rudeness towards the cashier. Please don’t think this column is a personal attack on any person in particular. I am merely expressing my opinion on what it’s like on the other side of the tillpoint.

Not all of the experiences I had were horrible though, I made friends with a lot of the customers and my colleagues and I have also remained friends with some of them since I left the retail industry.