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first job
December 27, 2021, was my first day working. I did not know what to expect, easy or hard and all new people. A fresh start to what I thought I would enjoy but turned out to be the complete opposite. It was only a part-time job but it opened my eyes to what I did not wanna do. I experienced a lot of things, got exposed to a lot of things and I wanted to share the harsh reality of working retail. -
work situation 1
One of the beginning experiences was when it was a busy day, we were short staffed so at the express I had to do lotto sales and process grocery orders but to access the lotto display you had to get in and out of line. Customers didn't seem to understand this process and I had one customer, in particular, get extremely frustrated because I "disrespected them" when in reality they were just mad because they had to walk a tiny bit further to purchase the lotto. I ended up having to call security. -
work situation 2
I was working at the customer service desk, and it was about to be my break so my coworker came to cover it. Just as I was leaving we had an interesting individual walk into the store, I ended up waiting a bit to leave minutes passed by and I thought the coast was clear. I went for my break until I saw the customer running out screaming and the security guard following close behind. This customer ended up stealing and having a full meltdown in the middle of the store where cops had to be called. -
work situation 3 part two
She then freaked out because I wasn't saying what she wanted. She went on to call me a variety of names. I did not know what else to do at this point so I tried explaining it one more time before proceeding to walk away. Then she ended up pulling out their phone and recording and screaming before moments later finally exiting the store. Days later she contacted the boss of the company. I had to write a write-up of every detail that happened. -
work situation 3 part one
We had recently switched our points program and most customers were not happy about it. We would constantly be yelled at as if it was our decision. I was the "supervisor" at the front end at the time. When the cashiers had issues I had to deal with them. There was one very unhappy customer, she wanted to redeem points but the system was down and she wasn't happy with any word coming out of my mouth. -
lessons learned
Working in a grocery store was an experience and I met every single kind of person. As much as I am just saying the negatives about this job, I will say there were fun shifts, I have met such great people and it will be something I will never forget. But now writing about this experience as my last day at this company is today. I am closing one chapter and opening another. I am very excited to see what my next job has to offer.