To be fair, it’s hard to harass an employee who has their back turned to you
I don’t know if I’d call it harassment but I had my first experience with a “Karen” last week after 3 years in retail. I couldn’t believe it, I wasn’t sure if she was taking the piss for a second but then I realised she was being genuine in her rage at some incorrectly priced ice-cream.
But I’ve found that customers are quite polite really. It’s very rare you meet a pig of a person.
Woking on a reception desk for the past 7 years and I can confirm the up tick in people being assholes over the past just couple of years
Those pricks Heasman and Lahive went around harassing library staff last year about some LGBT books, they then went on to harass bookshop workers, I know Easons and Dubray Books were targeted. They livestreamed their “work.” Did the same to pharmacies and vaccination centres.
Gobshites of the highest order.
Because they learned over the last decade or two that if you complain loud enough you usually end up getting something for free – who wants the hustle on the wages retail staff is on – why stop. Sure the concerned citizens are relatively new, but that’s another side effect of social media….
To me they all seem the same …..holes as 10 years ago. The internet just makes it easier for them to exchanges tips and trick about being an ……hole.
The general public are turning into babies who expect everything their way and if it’s not exactly how they want it, they think for some reason throwing a tantrum will solve everything. Some would think they may not have been raised well 🤔
Did 20+ of retail. Think I’ve had every type of verbal abuse thrown at me. Just when you think you can’t hate people enough. Rugby/GAA mums being the biggest offenders.
I saw some cow yelling at a bus driver last month. Then she stepped into the road to block the bus and other cars at the junction.
A passerby yelled at her to get off the road and she chased _her_ down the road shouting shite as well.
Exhibitionism? COVID brain? IDK.
Over 20 years in a specialist retail environment, even owned my own shop for a few years. It was always enjoyable, then covid hit and it all went to shite. Harassed and abused left and right. Threats to me and my staffs safety regularly. I left it all behind last year and I don’t miss it. I do feel like I had no option but to go because of the abuse. Honestly if you are using a service, please please be your best self. Just be fucking kind. Even when things go wrong.
I never hated the public more than when I worked in retail.
People have been really extra cunty especially post Covid.
Every person should be forced to work a year on a till or at a bar or cafe.
World would be much better.
I did a stint in retail from 07 to 2017.
I didn’t see a change then but since then I’ve worked as a claim adjuster and in the last 3, maybe 4 years, I’ve noticed the level of self-entitlement spike massively.
Some stories I wish I could tell but GDPR and all. Never know who is in the comments here.
Anyways, it’s the absolute refusal to believe that they as the consumer have a duty to provide any, and I mean ANY, info to back their claims up.
Or they provide a mess of irrelevant docs and throw a fit when you ask for x y or z.
From an insurance perspective, a part of me thinks it’s because people believe it’s a product like a bottle of coke, that they own once purchased, so they assume they can just say, gimme money.
I’d say in 5 to 10 years though, customers will expect a reach-around while we whisper sweat nothings into their ears anytime the fuss or whinge.
Worked in the bookies & lost count how many eejits gave abuse, got stuff thrown at me along with being spat at, threatened & people trying to jump the counter to hit me, scum of the earth most customers that came in, takes the guards ages to arrive & they couldn’t care at all, management is the worst, they blame you for it & they refuse to bar anyone from the shop as you need their permission to do it! A woman who worked in another shop was robbed by 2 men with a gun & obviously she was shocked but she was told if she wants the next day off she has to find her own cover.
I worked retail back in the day for a company that had a location in Walkinstown, Dundrum and Finglas. I was mostly based in Walkinstown but did a fair stint in Dundrum and the odd cover in Finglas. I have to say the Finglas customers were the soundest people to deal with. Spent like drunk sailors and never complained about prices or delivery fuck ups. To the point I actually felt bad the amount they lashed onto the credit cards. The Dundrum people though. The biggest shower of entitled miserable cunts I’d ever dealt with. Wouldn’t spend Christmas. Snooty stay at home auldones either looking for TRADE(?) prices or name dropping the owners of the business ( who id met only a few times myself) and pretending they were close friends of, so expecting a discount, also delivered chop chop, wanted an exact time from the driver aaaaand. “wot? You’re chorging me fur delivery too? ” Real upper middle class networking wannabes from Dundrum and Rathfarnham. I fucking hated everyone of them.
Anyone who’s worked retail/hospitality can tell you that the general public are appalling. Obviously it’s not everyone, but there is a shocking percentage of people who talk down to and mistreat retail workers. I left just before Covid for an office job because I was burnt out and jaded, just generally very negative and pessimistic about people and the world we live in because you were dealing with terrible behavior from customers every day. Being threatened, shouted at, insulted and sometimes assaulted (spat at or having things thrown at you) by strangers over the most minor of inconveniences.
All this to say, it takes nothing to be kind and just say your please and thank you’s and to realize that the folk working behind the counters in these places are not making the policies you have an issue with.
Welcome to powder keg island, céad míle fuckyourself.
I don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s bizarre. A certain % of the population seem to just go around in a permanent sense of entitlement and anger.
I can easily believe this. People have completely lost the run of themselves, especially over the last few years. Thankfully I haven’t had to deal with it because I don’t work retail but even as an observer I wouldn’t hesitate to tell someone to get the fuck over themselves. The world doesn’t revolve around any one of us.
I can’t imagine how infuriating it must have been to work retail during the worst of the pandemic 🤦🏻♂️
I’m sure retail is bad but working front line in the civil service can be awful too. Have had people threaten me and say they know where I live. You get all sorts in civil service public offices. You just have to accept that you’ll get abuse from all sides unfortunately.
I’ve a friend who works in a rental business. He told me in the last year the number of people not returning rental items on time and being outraged when they are told they owe late fees and rental for the additional rental period they took is unreal.
One guy who was six months late returning a one week rental, called him every name under the sun because he apparently didn’t use it for the 6months extra he kept the item, so couldn’t understand why he was charged.
The level of entitlement is astounding.
And the power the Karens have! I’ll leave a negative review on every review sites using all my different email addresses. I’ll talk to Joe!
The fuck is wrong with people, working retail sucks a lot of the time, no need to make it worse for people.
Covid conspiracy rabbitholes produced loony assholes
Covid anxiety produced old anxious assholes
Worked in customer service, mostly in more expensive places so customers were usually more well off. Some of it during covid times.
And jesus fucking christ the sheer entitlement. I rarely had an issue with younger customers. But people 50+? Jesus fucking christ. Some quick examples were when I worked in a bar, a woman in 70’s drank 2 bottles of prosecco (in ice buckets) with her daughter and then claimed that they were both warm and flat and refused to pay. Daughter apologised, paid and rushed her shouting mother out.
In a small store during covid we were only allowed to have 2 in the store at a time. People would just skip the line and come in and demand service. Always was older people and mostly older women.
Older generations are horrendous to service staff. The patterns i would notice would be that most of the time in was women, usually well off, and entitled as fuck. I literally have had one older woman I refused service to because she skipped the queue and called me a f*g stand in front of the till and not let me serve others while she called our head office to give out that I was agist and sexist.
I was literally just trying to do my minimum wage job during covid. Luckily we had cameras with audio because she spun a tale that would at the very least have gotten me fired if not arrested.
Worked in retail for 5 years and will always be mannerly and polite to staff because I’ve been in their shoes. Middle aged aul wants were always the worst – the sense of entitlement was astounding!
If the staff are good I’ll Often leave positive internet reviews aswell.
HOWEVER, if any of them are rude or cunty in any way I will 100% call them out on it and complain like a massive cock
I was dressed up as Santa one year when I worked retail did it as a fun thing for kids because I had recently become a first time daddy and at the time I was like 22 stone so it felt right and funny.
until I met Karen she was nice at first she asked my name , now it just so happens I share the same name as Santa she would not stop pestering me for my real name at one point I even showed her my learners permit and she still wouldn’t believe me.
Apparently dealz head office got a report that I refused to give her my name or something that’s when I realised people are crazy and never worked retail again.
This weekend in particular was really bad at work. I blame the full moon but there’s literally no need
Working in hospitality and although there are the occasional gobshites to deal with, the vast majority of the general public are great (if a little dim)
I worked in retail for 20+ years. A form of national service should be brought in where everyone has to work two years in retail/hospitality, they might learn a bit of empathy, respect and what a day’s work is
I was on the receiving end for 5 years and all I can say is people have been incentivised to be cunts now because if you’re a big enough dick about your complaint even if you have no case management will give them what they want so they’ll feck off whereas if you did have a case and you were nice about you’d end up with nothing. System is backwards.
I’ve been working retail for 12 and a half years now. I could write a book at this point of all the shit customers I’ve dealt with over the years.
I’ve had customers fake calls to head office in front of me when they don’t get their way.
I’d be patient as they apparently called, immediately got through to a person, explain how awful I was treating them and what they wanted, end the ‘call’ and then turn to me to smugly claim that the person they spoke to said I had to do what they wanted!
I would then have the absolute pleasure to explain that when you call head office, it goes straight to a machine, and you go through a few rounds of ‘for this, please press 1. For that, please press 2.’
The fact that I’ve had this particular interaction about 6 or 7 times, just speaks to the level of childish entitlement that people seem to have going on.
I’ve mainly worked customer support jobs over the phone. As always there’s arseholes in life and every now and again you get abuse down the phone but I did notice it increase a lot during and after COVID. I always found English people and particularly Americans more aggressive on the phone but I now notice Irish people are a lot more quick tempered and it does worry me.
I could never work in retail again and it’s nothing to do with looking down on the job or anything.
Some customers seem like they store all the bad shit that happened to them throughout the day/week (or their lives for some) and use any benign thing as an opportunity to unload on you and ruin your day.
Anyone who abuses retail workers deserves permanent haemorrhoids
In my job the worst customers are the boomers still, especially the women, they are so sexist, racist and so damn entitled.
I once went on a first date with a guy who was so rude to our waitress at dinner and the moment he snapped his finger at her and then screamed at her for giving him sparkling water instead of still. I actually excused myself to go to the bathroom and walked out on the date, apologising to this waitress as I left.
Fuck that guy wherever he is today.
Worked in my local Chinese all through 5th, 6th year and through college, the amount of people who will casually hurl abuse at TEENAGERS just trying to do their best, or anyone in hospitality is just insane. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back.
37 comments
To be fair, it’s hard to harass an employee who has their back turned to you
I don’t know if I’d call it harassment but I had my first experience with a “Karen” last week after 3 years in retail. I couldn’t believe it, I wasn’t sure if she was taking the piss for a second but then I realised she was being genuine in her rage at some incorrectly priced ice-cream.
But I’ve found that customers are quite polite really. It’s very rare you meet a pig of a person.
Woking on a reception desk for the past 7 years and I can confirm the up tick in people being assholes over the past just couple of years
Those pricks Heasman and Lahive went around harassing library staff last year about some LGBT books, they then went on to harass bookshop workers, I know Easons and Dubray Books were targeted. They livestreamed their “work.” Did the same to pharmacies and vaccination centres.
Gobshites of the highest order.
Because they learned over the last decade or two that if you complain loud enough you usually end up getting something for free – who wants the hustle on the wages retail staff is on – why stop. Sure the concerned citizens are relatively new, but that’s another side effect of social media….
To me they all seem the same …..holes as 10 years ago. The internet just makes it easier for them to exchanges tips and trick about being an ……hole.
The general public are turning into babies who expect everything their way and if it’s not exactly how they want it, they think for some reason throwing a tantrum will solve everything. Some would think they may not have been raised well 🤔
Did 20+ of retail. Think I’ve had every type of verbal abuse thrown at me. Just when you think you can’t hate people enough. Rugby/GAA mums being the biggest offenders.
I saw some cow yelling at a bus driver last month. Then she stepped into the road to block the bus and other cars at the junction.
A passerby yelled at her to get off the road and she chased _her_ down the road shouting shite as well.
Exhibitionism? COVID brain? IDK.
Over 20 years in a specialist retail environment, even owned my own shop for a few years. It was always enjoyable, then covid hit and it all went to shite. Harassed and abused left and right. Threats to me and my staffs safety regularly. I left it all behind last year and I don’t miss it. I do feel like I had no option but to go because of the abuse. Honestly if you are using a service, please please be your best self. Just be fucking kind. Even when things go wrong.
I never hated the public more than when I worked in retail.
People have been really extra cunty especially post Covid.
Every person should be forced to work a year on a till or at a bar or cafe.
World would be much better.
I did a stint in retail from 07 to 2017.
I didn’t see a change then but since then I’ve worked as a claim adjuster and in the last 3, maybe 4 years, I’ve noticed the level of self-entitlement spike massively.
Some stories I wish I could tell but GDPR and all. Never know who is in the comments here.
Anyways, it’s the absolute refusal to believe that they as the consumer have a duty to provide any, and I mean ANY, info to back their claims up.
Or they provide a mess of irrelevant docs and throw a fit when you ask for x y or z.
From an insurance perspective, a part of me thinks it’s because people believe it’s a product like a bottle of coke, that they own once purchased, so they assume they can just say, gimme money.
I’d say in 5 to 10 years though, customers will expect a reach-around while we whisper sweat nothings into their ears anytime the fuss or whinge.
Worked in the bookies & lost count how many eejits gave abuse, got stuff thrown at me along with being spat at, threatened & people trying to jump the counter to hit me, scum of the earth most customers that came in, takes the guards ages to arrive & they couldn’t care at all, management is the worst, they blame you for it & they refuse to bar anyone from the shop as you need their permission to do it! A woman who worked in another shop was robbed by 2 men with a gun & obviously she was shocked but she was told if she wants the next day off she has to find her own cover.
I worked retail back in the day for a company that had a location in Walkinstown, Dundrum and Finglas. I was mostly based in Walkinstown but did a fair stint in Dundrum and the odd cover in Finglas. I have to say the Finglas customers were the soundest people to deal with. Spent like drunk sailors and never complained about prices or delivery fuck ups. To the point I actually felt bad the amount they lashed onto the credit cards. The Dundrum people though. The biggest shower of entitled miserable cunts I’d ever dealt with. Wouldn’t spend Christmas. Snooty stay at home auldones either looking for TRADE(?) prices or name dropping the owners of the business ( who id met only a few times myself) and pretending they were close friends of, so expecting a discount, also delivered chop chop, wanted an exact time from the driver aaaaand. “wot? You’re chorging me fur delivery too? ” Real upper middle class networking wannabes from Dundrum and Rathfarnham. I fucking hated everyone of them.
Anyone who’s worked retail/hospitality can tell you that the general public are appalling. Obviously it’s not everyone, but there is a shocking percentage of people who talk down to and mistreat retail workers. I left just before Covid for an office job because I was burnt out and jaded, just generally very negative and pessimistic about people and the world we live in because you were dealing with terrible behavior from customers every day. Being threatened, shouted at, insulted and sometimes assaulted (spat at or having things thrown at you) by strangers over the most minor of inconveniences.
All this to say, it takes nothing to be kind and just say your please and thank you’s and to realize that the folk working behind the counters in these places are not making the policies you have an issue with.
Welcome to powder keg island, céad míle fuckyourself.
I don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s bizarre. A certain % of the population seem to just go around in a permanent sense of entitlement and anger.
I can easily believe this. People have completely lost the run of themselves, especially over the last few years. Thankfully I haven’t had to deal with it because I don’t work retail but even as an observer I wouldn’t hesitate to tell someone to get the fuck over themselves. The world doesn’t revolve around any one of us.
I can’t imagine how infuriating it must have been to work retail during the worst of the pandemic 🤦🏻♂️
I’m sure retail is bad but working front line in the civil service can be awful too. Have had people threaten me and say they know where I live. You get all sorts in civil service public offices. You just have to accept that you’ll get abuse from all sides unfortunately.
I’ve a friend who works in a rental business. He told me in the last year the number of people not returning rental items on time and being outraged when they are told they owe late fees and rental for the additional rental period they took is unreal.
One guy who was six months late returning a one week rental, called him every name under the sun because he apparently didn’t use it for the 6months extra he kept the item, so couldn’t understand why he was charged.
The level of entitlement is astounding.
And the power the Karens have! I’ll leave a negative review on every review sites using all my different email addresses. I’ll talk to Joe!
The fuck is wrong with people, working retail sucks a lot of the time, no need to make it worse for people.
Covid conspiracy rabbitholes produced loony assholes
Covid anxiety produced old anxious assholes
Worked in customer service, mostly in more expensive places so customers were usually more well off. Some of it during covid times.
And jesus fucking christ the sheer entitlement. I rarely had an issue with younger customers. But people 50+? Jesus fucking christ. Some quick examples were when I worked in a bar, a woman in 70’s drank 2 bottles of prosecco (in ice buckets) with her daughter and then claimed that they were both warm and flat and refused to pay. Daughter apologised, paid and rushed her shouting mother out.
In a small store during covid we were only allowed to have 2 in the store at a time. People would just skip the line and come in and demand service. Always was older people and mostly older women.
Older generations are horrendous to service staff. The patterns i would notice would be that most of the time in was women, usually well off, and entitled as fuck. I literally have had one older woman I refused service to because she skipped the queue and called me a f*g stand in front of the till and not let me serve others while she called our head office to give out that I was agist and sexist.
I was literally just trying to do my minimum wage job during covid. Luckily we had cameras with audio because she spun a tale that would at the very least have gotten me fired if not arrested.
Worked in retail for 5 years and will always be mannerly and polite to staff because I’ve been in their shoes. Middle aged aul wants were always the worst – the sense of entitlement was astounding!
If the staff are good I’ll Often leave positive internet reviews aswell.
HOWEVER, if any of them are rude or cunty in any way I will 100% call them out on it and complain like a massive cock
I was dressed up as Santa one year when I worked retail did it as a fun thing for kids because I had recently become a first time daddy and at the time I was like 22 stone so it felt right and funny.
until I met Karen she was nice at first she asked my name , now it just so happens I share the same name as Santa she would not stop pestering me for my real name at one point I even showed her my learners permit and she still wouldn’t believe me.
Apparently dealz head office got a report that I refused to give her my name or something that’s when I realised people are crazy and never worked retail again.
This weekend in particular was really bad at work. I blame the full moon but there’s literally no need
Working in hospitality and although there are the occasional gobshites to deal with, the vast majority of the general public are great (if a little dim)
I worked in retail for 20+ years. A form of national service should be brought in where everyone has to work two years in retail/hospitality, they might learn a bit of empathy, respect and what a day’s work is
I was on the receiving end for 5 years and all I can say is people have been incentivised to be cunts now because if you’re a big enough dick about your complaint even if you have no case management will give them what they want so they’ll feck off whereas if you did have a case and you were nice about you’d end up with nothing. System is backwards.
I’ve been working retail for 12 and a half years now. I could write a book at this point of all the shit customers I’ve dealt with over the years.
I’ve had customers fake calls to head office in front of me when they don’t get their way.
I’d be patient as they apparently called, immediately got through to a person, explain how awful I was treating them and what they wanted, end the ‘call’ and then turn to me to smugly claim that the person they spoke to said I had to do what they wanted!
I would then have the absolute pleasure to explain that when you call head office, it goes straight to a machine, and you go through a few rounds of ‘for this, please press 1. For that, please press 2.’
The fact that I’ve had this particular interaction about 6 or 7 times, just speaks to the level of childish entitlement that people seem to have going on.
I’ve mainly worked customer support jobs over the phone. As always there’s arseholes in life and every now and again you get abuse down the phone but I did notice it increase a lot during and after COVID. I always found English people and particularly Americans more aggressive on the phone but I now notice Irish people are a lot more quick tempered and it does worry me.
I could never work in retail again and it’s nothing to do with looking down on the job or anything.
Some customers seem like they store all the bad shit that happened to them throughout the day/week (or their lives for some) and use any benign thing as an opportunity to unload on you and ruin your day.
Anyone who abuses retail workers deserves permanent haemorrhoids
In my job the worst customers are the boomers still, especially the women, they are so sexist, racist and so damn entitled.
I once went on a first date with a guy who was so rude to our waitress at dinner and the moment he snapped his finger at her and then screamed at her for giving him sparkling water instead of still. I actually excused myself to go to the bathroom and walked out on the date, apologising to this waitress as I left.
Fuck that guy wherever he is today.
Worked in my local Chinese all through 5th, 6th year and through college, the amount of people who will casually hurl abuse at TEENAGERS just trying to do their best, or anyone in hospitality is just insane. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back.