Retail Certainties

[Boozy]

There exists an inverse relationship between the amount of money spent at your store and the suckiness of the customer. This is especially true in jobs that pay commission or offers other sales-based incentives.
Example - The worst customer is the one whom you've never seen before, despite protests that "they spend a lot of money here". They make a federal case out of an item that costs ten dollars, tops. You spend a disproportionate amount of time with them to make fifty cents commission. During that time, you are virtually GUARANTEED (according to the Murphy's Law of Retail) to see your best customer come in. This customer quickly picks up your most expensive item, brings it to the counter themselves, and hands over the big commission to whomever is lucky enough to get to the till in time. That lucky person is not you. You are stuck with Mr. or Mrs. Cheapskate.

[digilight]

Copiers/Printshop:

Law #4,001,231: Equipment will only go down when you are running asses and elbows with no time to accomidate a downed machine.

Extra points if it goes down after 3 pm (pretty much guaranteed that you won't see a tech till the following morning, they stop working after about 5pm and stop responding to calls between 4 and 430 depending on the problem and their locatation compared to you)

You just won the oh fucking shit lottery if it happens on a friday afternoon (won't be able to get a tech out until monday).

Rule #Q: The turn around time requested on a job is inversly proportional to the complexity and size of said job. For example a bankers box of litigation copying (about the size of 1 to 1-1/2 boxes of copier paper roughly 2,500 - 5,000 pages) full of staples, odd size originals (have to handplace on the glass) and other funky shit (should take about 4-8 hours). Will be needed within hours (please note, this means that the attorney will forget, close his office down early, and go hit the bar before his tee time), while the client dropping off a 250 page brief needing 5 sets acco bound won't need them until tommorow morning (takes maybe 20 minutes if that from start to finish)

RecoveringKinkoid - don't make fun of my times, I'm a one man shop without the equipment and staffing that kinkos would have Although I'm sure you faced pretty much the same crap as well.

CD Duplication:

Rule #Blue: The job you just picked up will require materials that somehow no distributers seem to have available at the moment (everything is still on a boat coming over from japan/tawain)

Summer Camp:

Rule #Oh Crap: The maintenance man who is strung out on crystal meth (come to find out afterwards) Will cause a small brush fire because he is to baked to make sure that the spark arrester on the weed eater is working corectly (1.5 acres in the mountains burned, but the foam that the firefighters used has a pleasent lemon smell), yeah its not retail but it is murphys law.

[MystyGlyttyr]

Rule of deadline: I can be here at 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. and get a grand total of four obits. The deadline is at 2:30, though, so between 2 and 2:30, I will literally make twenty round trips to the fax machine.

Rule of confirmation: The funeral homes who always get their stuff in on time are the ones who will call me 800 times in a panic during the day worried that I didn't get their obits, even if I've assured them several times already that I did. The funeral homes who never get their stuff in when it's supposed to be will never call to confirm anything, and will bitch the next day that their stuff wasn't run.

Rule of frustration: The funeral homes who make the biggest, most boneheaded mistakes on their obits are the ones who are so freaking nice and polite that you can't bring yourself to yell at them, while the ones who are total assholes and need a good reaming never even leave out punctuation.

Rule of grieving relatives: Attitude of the relative is inversely proportional to their relationship to the person. The widow will always treat you better than the second cousin on the father's side who hasn't seen the deceased for six years.

Rule of work: Just when you get waist deep in a good CS post, the phone rings off the hook for so long that when you turn back to your computer, you've completely lost your groove.

[seeress_83]

When you sign on Sunday afternoon with $100 in your till, your first customer will break a $100 bill to purchase $11 worth of merchandise.

We start with $200, but I've had someone want to break a $100 for a 33 cent pack of gum. I mean, honestly people, I could dig 33 cents out of the console of my car!

[Noelegy]

From the customer's perspective, it seems that if you only want ONE thing in the entire store, no matter how obscure that item or how certain you are that it'll be a quick "in and out" errand, there WILL be someone blocking your access to that one item, whether it's on a shelf or in a freezer. And they will apparently have all the time in the world.

[Noelegy]

We start with $200, but I've had someone want to break a $100 for a 33 cent pack of gum. I mean, honestly people, I could dig 33 cents out of the console of my car!

In the days when paying with credit card took longer and was more complicated than paying with cash, there were two college-age customers who'd come in the video store and pay for a 49-cent (non-new release) video with a credit card. I always wanted to offer to hold their videos while they went out to their car and looked under the seats for change. Furthermore, they'd always fan out 5 or 6 credit cards and debate with great gravity which card to put the 53 cents with tax on.

[reformedwaitress]

I mean, honestly people, I could dig 33 cents out of the console of my car!

Yes, but they're so SPECIAL they can pay for it with a hundred dollar bill. Aren't you impressed? Aren't you? AREN'T YOU?

Back on topic:

The rule of exhibits: If a lawyer hands you a stack of exhibits and you ask how many copies are needed of said set and they say "just 1" know that in three hours, when it's 4:00 and this has to be AT THE COURTHOUSE by 5:00, they will hand you the same stack and say there have to be 6 sets. I could have done it if you'd told me before.

The rule of needing-to-be-somewhere: If you actually have somewhere to be after work, that will be the ONE day your lawyer comes to you at 5:15 with a big stack of papers and sheepishly say "I need this to go out tonight". And, of course, everyone else will have already left.

The rule of annoying clients: The clients that talk and talk and talk will NEVER call when your lawyer is there so you can pass them off. No, the lawyer won't be in and you will have to take the call and listen to them talk for forty five minutes because you can't get a word in edgewise.

The rule of coworkers: The better you are at your job the more likely you are to have lazy coworkers who realize you're good at your job and won't let things not get done. And they will take advantage of this. (I really do need to learn to stick up for myself)

The rule of salary: The less you make, the harder they will make you work for it. And if you earn salary instead of hourly, you will absolutely work more than 40 hours a week and get no extra compensation.

Is it obvious I hate my job?

[Rapscallion]

The rule of discontinuing stock - if you stop getting a certain item in because it wasn't selling, the next day someone will want to know why their favourite item is no longer available.

Rapscallion

[ArenaBoy]

Top 10 certainties about working at arenas:

1. For the busiest event, you will always be at the spot you always hate. No matter what.
2. When you work VIP, you will get at least 5 customers who "forget" their pass and try to argue with you.
3. When you work a certain spot, you will always (Big emphasis on always) get that one co-worker or supervisor that you hate and constantly wish would jump off a bridge.
4. When you are a cashier on the drive, you will always get the one person who does a gasp, screams the parking fee, and complains.
5. If the basketball team loses, it is certain that you will be sworn at or receive any other type of verbal insult.
6. If you happen to be directing traffic, there will always be that one person telling you how to do it. No matter how light or heavy the traffic is.
7. If employees who work inside have to park far away from the arena, there is a 90% chance that they will turn into a bastard and yell at you.
8. As soon as you're done counting suite tickets or VIP tickets, it is time to go out to do egress.
9. When working suite you will always get at least 2 people who make a pun with that word.
10. There will always be one person who thinks that Box Office is in charge of us.

[Ringtail Z28]

The last customer you deal with on your shift will delay you from going home by no less than fifteen minutes.

The customer with the biggest ass in the world will godzilla their way down the aisle you just got through straightening up and knock over everything at waist level.

If your job consists of doing carry outs, you will only deal with people driving the tiniest cars ever made or garbage filled SUVs. Never an actual truck.

If you work in the toy department you will deal with the dreaded Star Wars collector.

If you're a guy working in HBA, you will be asked for details amd opinions on feminine hygine products.

[Discourtesy Clerk]

The size of the customer's purchase is inversely proportional to the amount of space in the trunk of their vehicles. Case in point, the lady with 10 cases of water and a Prius.

The price and/or complexity of the customer's Starbucks drink is inversely proportional to their intelligence. (We have a Starbucks in-store.)

People who let their three kids ride in the shopping cart and will not remove them always have a large order that needs that cart to hold it, most likely because...they have three kids. Who can walk, incidentally.

The richer the mommy looks, the less attention she'll be paying to her wandering hellion.

Thanking by name is success-proof. It's either the wrong name, the wrong prefix, or the wrong gender. And if it's spelled Smith, you can bet it's supposed to be pronounced "Schlockenheimer-Willis."

When a customer approaches, cringing guiltily for what they're about to ask of you, there will be a damn good reason for that cringe.

If you are female, no matter where you place on the scale of attractiveness, you will only ever be hit on by the dingiest, creepiest old men. If you are male, you will only ever be hit on by 400-pound walking STDs. Or other men. But only if you're straight.

Your favourite customers are never the ones that hang on your register for 20 minutes.

If you've just mopped a floor because it was covered in sticky footprints, it will be recovered in sticky footprints in the next 20 minutes.

[RentalRacer]

If your job includes both serving customers and answering phones....the phone will not ring until you have an actual customer standing in front of you. Bonus points for: A. Putting caller on hold only for them to hang up and call right back. B. Having multiple lines ring at once. C. In-store customer gets mad at you for answering phone.

[Scottya21]

If your job involves stocking, the ease locating and/or moving any item is inversely proportional to how often they are sold.
ex. Why do they always put the regular old pepsi at the bottom of a 5 high stack of crates, and the "Diet Caffeine Free Black Cherry Vanilla Pepsi Jazz!(with lime), with new Ass flavor!" on top?

[Dips]

In technical support the complicated-to-fix problems will only happen to people for whom "copy and paste" is too complicated if I don't break it down into smaller steps.