As soon as I turned 18, I had one of my first jobs at Forever21 in a popular city plaza. Of course being my last year in high school having this cool, trendy job was a game changer for me in so many ways. But I soon learned that this part-time job was a full-time love and hate relationship. The job wasn't just about putting away clothes or cleaning fitting rooms, there was always some kind of drama. Don't get me wrong, I loved my job (I'll admit the discount could've been better)- but it set me up for all my following retail jobs. Just to quickly recap a majority of my resume, I was a shift lead at Children's Place, an associate at New York &amp; Company, a store manager in training at Kohls, a shift lead at CVS, and lastly an associate at Ross. Let's just say I discovered I had terrific communication with other people and problem solving skills but when I look back I always wish someone would've told me what to expect to work in retail- you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly truths.

I always like to hear my bad news first, now I can only speak for my own worst experiences at each place of course because other places could have different circumstances. Some of this is common for most people in retail, if someone told me any of these before I applied to all my favorite shopping spots, I probably would've been more picky sending my applications. So let's dive in for those of you who are truly curious...
<ul>
 	<li><strong>You will <em>always</em> deal with people stealing.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">Part of every job training is learning how to customer service the heck out of customers (or "killing them with kindness" as I was taught) as a form of loss prevention. You are expected to always be on the look out for certain signs of stealing, like torn off hard tags or censors. Most of the time, you get regular shop lifters- they do the same trick every time. They may recognize you and even know what camera blind spots the store may have. You can't confront people either, even if you saw it happen right before your eyes. It could cause violence and really escalate- no one wants to see that.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">I think the most angering moment was a time when I was cashiering (<em>I won't say where or when exactly</em>). I saw a couple fill up an entire cart full of random items. I slowly rung up the whole thing- a whopping $500. In my head I'm thinking, "okay, they have a card ready but something is off", they kept trying to get me to walk away and distract me. They were both very talkative, very friendly. Not at all nervous or jittery, very confident that they were leaving with those items. Well little did I know was that their pony trick was heavy in motion. As soon as I bagged items one person immediately wanted to hold it, she wouldn't even let me add to the bag. When I bagged that last item, the other person, he, distracted me. She grabbed the last bag and walked out with it all before I even noticed. So then it's just me and him- he kept trying his card. Decline after decline. Then he silently stopped and walked out. I tried to have my other coworker grab their license plate as he is declining only to discover they had blacked out their plate!</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">Other customers will try to cheat the system, meaning people will try to bring back things they stole expecting full cash back for it or people will bring it back after wearing it down. One person bought a pair of shorts for their child, an hour later the kid peed in it while they were still in the mall. She came back with the smelly soaking shorts expecting a full refund.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">I mean you expect <em>anyone</em> to walk in, but it really could be <em>anyone </em>that day- a drunk person, a homeless person, a bunch of regulars who steal, teens who steal, moms who steal- and yes I've seen it all. It really can create this huge distrust for people and the public as a whole. It either bothers you and your entire shift because for me- that's my job, if people keep stealing while I'm on duty I must be doing something wrong. Or you really don't care about that, go about your day and the stealing keeps happening.</p>

<ul>
 	<li><strong>Some customers are racist, and sometimes your coworkers are too.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">Okay so this is going to be brief. I am a hispanic woman, I don't speak Spanish fluently but I do have strong hispanic attributes. Not that my background matters but since COVID-19, I have experienced much more blatant hate from both coworkers and customers for literally no reason. I don't take it to heart when hurtful words are being said- but it hurts and it still makes me cry in anger. For any of these occasions, I have always reported to corporate or the company's human resources. Sometimes problems get solved, but most of the time you never really see the consequence if there is any. I do know that one of my coworkers did get let go for reportedly being racist but it took more than 10 reports. That's more than 10 instances of racism. It can definitely bring your mood down, and I'm not going to lie I didn't want to work there or work with certain people. It should never get that difficult for you or anybody to work in such a hostile environment. It could really happen at any job you get but what really matters is how the workplace handles the situation.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">With coworkers it doesn't always start out harsh, it's little jabs and jokes that add up until their message is clear. It gets a little bit personal, questions about your family and life to questions about your political views. Yeah, work will train you about avoiding these types of conversations but it still happens, ever so casually too.</p>

<ul>
 	<li><strong>Coupons and credit cards will tire you out.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">Signing people up for credit cards or emails is the one of the biggest concerns for companies anywhere. Why?- because your hooking one-time shoppers into becoming regular buyers (even if it means they are blasting coupons and ads to customer emails three times a day). Instead of getting debit charges from different banks, you're directly giving the store funds when you're using their credit card. So for the big boss, this is main priority for all associates. There are usually daily goals and pep talks, managers usually listen in on how you're asking customers to join and what you could do better. You will get a ton of no's and then some complaints. It is pretty hard to keep a positive vibe when people are shutting you down left and right, I mean I don't make it my personal goal in life to sign someone up for a credit card but when you are the last one on the team to get on the board or haven't signed someone up for one at all in weeks it's just hard to hear the same tips over and over as if you aren't doing them in the first place.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px;">If your store sends out coupons, then you will face extreme couponers. No joke, people will gather a ton of coupons from newspapers, online, and the store itself to have a total as low as 20 cents. And yes it is possible, I mean I've given whole transactions for technically free because of all the coupons people come with. Some people do all the math before they come in, which can go two ways- easy and super quick or problematic and tricky to fix. The tricky ones are usually Karens. Karens will be rude, they will do the survey about you, call your store, call your manager, and call your human resources all to complain about how they want their coupon to work. If by the end of your shift you don't feel mentally drained from massive amounts of rudeness on a daily (not to mention nowadays with reminding customers to wear masks on top of all your other tasks) then it's probably because you've learned to get through it all with a ton of caffeine to perk you and your day. <em>It really does work that way if you think that last one was a joke.</em></p>

<ul>
 	<li>Stores will sell anything- even if it's broken or missing pieces.</li>
 	<li>Hours are ridiculous: You are expected to work every single holiday.</li>
</ul>
be okay with hours getting cut