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Working any job and dealing with different customers will teach you different things, whether you work at a fast food place, clothing store, restaurant, or office etc. Working as a sales associate I’ve learned patience, people skills, time management, how to fake smile and fake laugh at jokes that don’t make sense, I’ve learned to ignore people’s comments and laugh them off.
Patience:
Working at a beauty supply store, customers automatically assume I know everything there is to know about hair, skin, nails etc. Professional customers that own their own salons come to a 19 year old for advice.
“Are you in beauty school? Do you have a cosmetology license?”
No, nope, I’m an English major, this is just a job.
“Wow you look so young”
Ok, what do you expect me to do about that?
“If you’re not sure how a product works, why are you working here?”
Because they hired me, why are you here?
“Have you tried this shampoo? How about this spray? What nail treatment do you recommend?”
Just because I work here doesn’t mean I’ve tried every single product. I don’t go to Target expecting you to have tried everything Target carries
“Do you know how this works? What does it do?”
*takes product, reads label* couldn’t do that yourself huh?
When calling the store, a machine gives customers some options to dial depending on what they want to know. For example, for store hours or the address, you dial 1 and the machine will tell you. If you don’t dial any options, the phone call will come through to us. Surprisingly, most phone calls we receive are people asking what our store hours are or where we are located.
Apparently working somewhere also means you magically know where the rest of the stores are located, and what they carry.
“I’m by *gives location* is there a beauty supply around here?”
“I’m not sure”
In my head: Ever heard of Google?
People Skills:
“Don’t stay too late girls”
Me: politely laughing,
In my head: I close today so how am I not supposed to stay late? Huh?
“These prices are ridiculous. You’re charging for bags? I’m not paying for a damn bag”
I. Have. No. Control. Over. The. Prices.
Me: “Do you need anything?”
Customer: “Yeah money, you got money?”
Me: “hahaha.” 🙂
Dies inside.
Me: “Sorry ma’am that’s just policy”
What I really want to say:
Time Management:
Working as a sales associate has taught me how to manage my time wisely. If the boss isn’t working on a certain day she’ll leave some notes for what my coworkers and I need to do.
For example, when my boss writes I have to clean the back room for the day, I know it takes me 10 minutes to clean it so I spend the rest of the 7 hours and 50 minutes of my work day on my phone.
I can also manage my time perfectly to clock out for lunch when it’s getting busy so I can sit in the back and ignore the phone calls and questions from customers.
I may seem like I’m complaining about customers a lot, but the truth is there are those regular customers that you can have a genuine conversation with every time they come in. Customers that don’t make things difficult for you, they understand that you’re busy and they let you do what you have to do before assisting them. To those that understand working in retail, thank you x3.
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