5 Bad Habits Working Retail Taught Me
5 Bad Habits Working Retail Taught Me
Hi, My Name is Kathryn Huber, and I am an ex-retail
manager.
I worked in retail for over 12 years. I worked in stores that sold everything from
candy to bridal gowns. I was there to serve
any and every person that walked through my doors with a big smile. Throughout my career I became bitter,
unhappy, and over all depressed with my situation. Between the crummy hours, and the abusive
customers, I started to lose my faith in humanity. If you know me now you know this doesn’t
sounds like me at all and THANK GOODNESS.
So here is what I had to unlearn to be the person I am today. These are some of the worst habits I learned
from working in retail.
DISCLOSURE, I wasn’t always unhappy with my job, in fact for
the most part because of my helping nature I liked working retail. There were many wonderful things I learned from
the amazing people I worked with and from working retail itself.
1. The ONLY Way To Succeed Is Through Success
I
worked for several large chain companies (one that I am thinking of
specifically) that measured success by how the store out preformed last
year. In fact when I worked for a small business
that didn’t use this metric I was lost. I
did not know what to strive for, if we were not trying to beat last year. It is important for companies to track their
progress and an easy way is to track that progress is using numbers from last
year. Since leaving retail and moving into
the Life Coaching space I have learned that most people learn better from their
failures than they do their successes.
The most successful companies and people started out failing. Look at Oprah, and Steve Jobs, look at Colonel
Sanders, and that guy that invented the light bulb. They all failed many times before the where
huge successes. Hell even WD40 wasn’t
perfected for until the 40th try.
Retail taught me that failure was bad and the only way to success was
success at any cost. This is not how the
real world worlds.
2. Holidays Are For Spending Money
If you
work retail or are living in the modern day world you know all of the buzz around
buying things during the holidays. I
spent so much time in the store working during the holiday season I missed out
on a lot of family time due to my schedule.
Even after leaving the retail world I now feel the need to purchase or
get the deals during the holiday season.
Sometimes I even feel like it will be a bad holiday if I don’t spend
loads of money. This is a bad habit especially
if you don’t have tons of money to spend.
The holidays are about love and spending time with those we love not
about spending money and getting and receiving presents. The holidays for many retail workers are a
very stressful time even when they are supposed to be the happiest.
3. Kicking & Screaming Gets You What You Want
This
one kills me. We teach kids when they
are young not to throw temper tantrums.
However now with a culture that has been taught “the customer is always
right”, we allow grown adults to bitch, moan, throw a fit and treat employees
like crap because they are dissatisfied.
This is the worst habit that retail is teaching people. Let’s look at this example, if your neighbor
walked over to your house and started screaming at you because one leaf off
your tree blew into their yard, what would you do? What if they threw the leaf in your face and
then started to threaten you by saying they were going to call the cops? What
would you do? You’d probably close the
door, or even call the cops yourself as they were acting foolish. Yes, I have had many objects thrown into my
face, my life be threaten, and several people tell me they were “going to inform
my manager”, or better yet threaten me that I will lose my job and they would call
the Better Business Bureau on me. This
habit we have taught to people is part of the reason we can’t get along in this
country. We expect people to be
respectful even when we aren’t ourselves.
When you have a problem we need to address the issue by going to the
person with respect. Not surprising at
all they are most likely going to want to help you the best they can because
you were respectful with them.
4. Money Is More Important Than EVERYTHING
I
worked for a company that didn’t care how you met their standards they just
cared that at the end of the day you were successful in their metrics and they
turned the biggest profit possible. Of
course no company is going to tell customers this because they want you to
trust them enough for you to give them your business. However this is what many companies teach to
their employees. I saw employees, managers, and high level management make
decisions to get money over doing what was right. These choices may have not been completely
wrong but was at best in the gray area. This of course is not how all people in the retail industry feel or operate, but it is in my experience pretty common. It is hard not to pick up habits like these
when you are immersed in a culture that cares more about the bottom-line than
the customers or the employees. Now I am
not stupid and I know businesses are there to make money. But in reality when you go home at night it’s
not the money that you make, or the bottom line that you defend that is going
to keep you warm, give you fulfillment, or bring you joy. In my opinion companies would end up making
more money if they built their business culture to provide employees,
customers, and investors joy and fulfillment.
5. NEW Is ALWAYS Better
When
you work in retail NEW is always better. This seasons stuff is better than last seasons. This model is way better than that model, and
we always have to set a trend. When I
worked in retail I always felt like I was trying to keep up with the Jones. Many times I struggled with debt because I
was always trying to sport the latest trends.
I did this to encourage customers to trust me to help them pick out the
better or more items. With the mentality
NEW is ALWAYS better there is also the factor of waste, what do you do with the
“out of trend” items you own?
Now I am not trying to give retail a bad name, nor am I
trying to complain about my time there.
I learned a lot from retail like, how to handle unhappy customers, how
to manage employees, and how to train effective employees. Change is coming in many different parts of
life and hopefully one day these 5 bad habits retail taught me will be a thing
of the past. But until then we as the
consumer have to encourage change to happen.
We need to support companies that teach good habits. We also have the responsibility to act a certain
way when we do shop. Just because we can
get away with throwing a fit doesn’t mean we have to.
Here is a short list of things that you can do as a consumer
to encourage companies to teach good habits:
When you are unhappy do not throw a fit, simply state your
problem, and ask for the solution you want.
Once you have done this be willing to compromise and be flexible with
the solution.
Make it your responsibility in your experience in a store. Take interest in employees that you are trying
to help you. You are going into their
store for a reason let them to their job and help you.
Don’t shop on holidays.
I am a big believer in this one, if we shop stores will be open and
there for you are causing someone to miss out on family time.
Shop at places where you can find used goods. We don’t always have to keep up with the
Jones, and don’t forget the Jones donate their best stuff to places like
Goodwill and even use Consignment.
Shop locally. This
doesn’t just mean the small businesses on Main Street. Your community members are also those that
work at large retailers. Instead of
ordering online shop at the mall or other local stores because you are
supporting your neighbors by shopping in a store.
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