What You Need to Be a Good Retail Worker

The ongoing effort to curtail the spread of COVID-19 has brought to light many problems in American culture. Chief among these problems though is just who in this country is truly essential to the workforce.

Medical professionals have long been vital to this country, along with firefighters and law enforcement. A growing appreciation for sanitation, maintenance, delivery, and transportation workers has also emerged.  One group of workers, however, who are finally being appreciated are the most invisible, most dismissed, and most disrespected workers still on the job today. I’m talking about retail workers.

The poor drudges are finally getting their due for all they do. Until this pandemic, people looked down on them as that most forlorn of creature, “unskilled laborers.”

“Oh, retail workers,” people in the past said, “Anyone could do that job. Who cares about them and their problems?” These same people also said, “Oh, there’s no way in hell I could work retail.”

Why do people say that? Seems contradictory to me. I mean, if the job doesn’t matter and anyone could do it, then why don’t more people do it now? Besides the medical field, retail is the only other major industry constantly in need of new workers.

The simple answer is this: retail is hard. Not because the work is hard. Anyone who does the job or has done the job can confirm that. Once you’ve done it for about six months, you can practically do it by wrote. What makes retail difficult is also simple: the fucking customers.

That’s right. The customers—with their petty complaints, their asinine requests, and their dumbass questions—are what make retail hard. How do I know that? Simple again: because I used to work in retail.

For exactly 1 year, 7 months, and 2 weeks, I worked as a deli clerk for a well-know grocery store chain in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. I can’t say the name of the store because I don’t want them to sue me, so I’ll have to disguise it. For the sake of this piece, let’s call them Schmucks.

I worked for Schmucks again for, 1 year, 7 months, and 2 weeks. I can honestly say the job really wasn’t that bad. Yes, the work was ephemeral and mind-numbing, and the customers about as welcomed as recurring bout of pneumonia, but it had its highlights. It was a steady paycheck, I loved most of my coworkers, and I got to do something I haven’t done since, which was being part of a union. More than anything, while at Schmucks, I learned firsthand that the worst part of working retails was the customers.

After about three weeks there, in fact, I began asking myself questions. “Do people just turn off their brains the second they walk in here? Is there some kind of array around the doorframe that saps them of their abilities to think and read?”

At the time (and it’s probably no different now), one of the managers shared and interesting fact with me. “Did you know there’s a 75% turnover rate in retail every month?” 75% Can you believe that? 3 out of every 4 people hired quit within a month. But let’s focus on the positive: 1 out of every 4 stayed.

The real question then is what does that 1 person have that those other 3 didn’t? (I’m glad you asked.)

Having been, for a time anyway, that 1 person, and having had time to reflect on it now, I’ve come up with a theory. It isn’t, in fact, just one thing that gives that fourth person a resilient edge to last in retail. 3 traits allowed me, and allow others, to stay in the job for any extended expanse of time.

The first trait you need to be a good retail worker is simple. You need a willingness to do the job and to do it well. I phrase it that way because, while there are many people willing to do retail work, not all of them do it well. Some do it passably. Some do it barely. Their coworkers often look at that latter group and ask themselves the same thing: “How are they still here?” Like anything in life, though, I believe you should always try your best, even if the work you’re doing is frankly menial dribble.

Probably more important than the first trait is the second: the patience of a saint. We’ve already established why retails sucks (if you’ve forgotten, it’s the customers). Thus, the only way you can even hope to deal with that daily annoyance and remain sane is simply by being patient. This is the trait most unsuccessful retail workers lack, in fact. They can do the job well enough, but they can’t stand the tsunami of stupid they’ll face on a daily basis. If you don’t have a level of patience that could rival the Pope’s, then please consider another realm of employment.

Finally, and the most important trait you must have to be a good retail worker is…(get ready for it…are you ready…even if you’re not, here we go…drum roll please)…an innate and intense distain for humanity.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Wait a minute, Ian. How can an innate hatred of humanity be beneficial for a retail worker? Wouldn’t that in fact be the worst possible trait for someone to have, especially since you’d have to deal with so many people?” Ordinarily, yes, but not in this case. Humor me.

See, if you hate people—and by hate I mean possess a seething, smoldering, scorn for your fellow members of the species we call Homo Sapiens—to the point where you went out of your way to avoid them long before we had a contagious disease to fret over, then you will do anything to limit your interaction with them as a retail worker. You will patiently help them with any request; you will answer their ridiculous questions; you will do your utmost to insure they have a pleasant shopping experience. Anything to get these awful, stupid bipedal mammals away from you. Why? Because all you want is for them to go away. You want them out of your space, out of your face, and out of your life.

Hatred. It’s the ultimate motivation. Don’t believe me? Look at history. Count how many atrocities were committed out of hatred, and you’ll see I’m right.

Now, you should also be cautious. This same motivator can also, over too long a time, become a hindrance. You can end up working in retail so long that your hatred of people can become so strong, that it ends up eroding both your patience and any desire you have to do a good job. You can see this in many people, who are life-time retail workers. They may as well have the word contempt tattooed on their foreheads because that’s all they feel towards life, the universe, and everything.

If you’re lucky enough to get that that stage, as I did, early in life, I have only one piece of advice for you: get a new job. Find a new way to be a productive member of society. If you don’t, you may end up trending on social media…for having committed a mass shooting.