Retail Crap: Tales from the Front

By Howard Harrison

"Retail Crap: Tales from the Front" offers a humorous look at the U.S. retail industry with a particular focus on the people who work in the stores. These are the people who must deal with the American buying public. "Retail Crap" explores how self-checkout, cashless stores, online shopping, and other technology are putting retail employees out of work. It looks at the effect of shoplifting and other retail crime on honest employees and customers. Most of all, it shares first-hand accounts from retail employees about parents who lose track of their kids and blame the store, shoppers who refuse to leave at closing time, Black Friday horror stories, and countless other "tales from the front".

In this hilarious follow up to author Howard Harrison's critically acclaimed Corporate Crap: Lessons Learned from 40 Years in Corporate America", Harrison shares a hilarious but compelling inside look into life as a retail worker. Harrison also is the author of two other books, "NOW They Make it Legal: Reflections of an Aging Baby Boomer", named a 2016 Reviewer's Choice by the Midwest Book Review, and "The Great Divide: Story of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race".

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098399870

Book preview

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© Howard Harrison.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-09839-986-3 (printed)

ISBN: 978-1-09839-987-0 (eBook)

Printed in the United States of America.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to all the people who work in retail. It is indeed a jungle out there. Hope you enjoy the narrative. All the best.

Contents

Introduction

The Pandemic

Unsung Heroes

Bankruptcies/Store Closings

Keeping the Doors Open

Malls

Little Cities

The Retail Workforce

Help Wanted

Automation

Check This Out

Online Shopping

Come on, people. Get off your naked asses!

More Technology

Science Fiction and Big Brother

Karen

The Customer is Always Right! (No, they’re not.)

Retail Crime

Stopping the Steal

Schemes and Scams

Many Happy Returns

Babysitting

Kids will be kids!

Attendance

No Call/No Show

Holidays

Tis the Season

Closing Time

Would you get the hell out of here already?

My Store

How I would do things

Introduction

My total retail experience consists of three years as a part-time shipping clerk/stock boy for a women’s clothing store while in high school from 1972 to 1974. Why in the world would I now want to write a book about the U.S. retail industry? Couple reasons.

First, like you, I am a customer. I buy things like everyone else. And whether you buy oranges at the supermarket or a bracelet online, you are a customer of some retailer. Some stores call us guests instead of customers for the same reason they call employees associates or team members instead of employees. It makes them feel better about themselves and they think it makes us feel better about ourselves. But retailers, employees, and customers do not spend much time singing Kumbaya together. The relationships are downright combative.

Whatever you call the combatants, the retail world is a battlefield. Customers want the best price and service. Employees want respect and a livable wage. Retailers want to make a buck. These things all clash. From the way retailers treat employees and customers to the way employees and customers treat retailers, it is a fascinating mix of commerce and human behavior.

The other thing that prompted me to write this book is that I am married to a Target team leader. My wife comes home every day with stories of shoplifters, employees who don’t show up, customers who insist on using expired coupons, and countless other tales from the front.

You should write a book, I’d tell her.

No, you should, she’d tell me. You’re the writer.

She had a point. So I took her up on it.

Eileen has more than 40 years of experience in retail, from working the counter at Dairy Queen to serving as store manager for various retail chains. She provided much input and guidance as I researched the retail industry. I also talked to employees, store managers and others in retail, and culled stories from social media, where employees in retail routinely spout off with their own tales of woe.

I began working on this book before the COVID-19 pandemic, then put it on hold because of the impact the coronavirus was having on the retail industry. Whenever we get back to normal, I wonder if people will maintain a higher level of respect for those in retail who must deal with the American buying public.

Retail is a tough business. Competition is intense. Profit margins are slim. The Internet continues to threaten the continued existence of bricks and mortar. This book focuses mostly on the people who work in the stores. They are the ones who do the work. They are the ones who deal with what I call retail crap.

This book is for them.

The Pandemic

1

Unsung Heroes

Due to high demand and to support all guests, we will be limiting the quantities of toilet paper and flushable wipes to 1 per guest. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Signs like this appeared in stores across the United States in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. No, the coronavirus was not caused by having a dirty ass, but you would think it was given the run on toilet paper. We were told to stay home, and for some reason, people seemed to fear running out of toilet paper. We were told to stay home to stay safe. We were told it was a valley of death out there.

Not everyone was told to stay home. Health-care workers, firemen, police, and others who worked for essential businesses had to carry on despite the risks. Also told not told to stay home were retail workers, or at least those working in grocery stores, pharmacies and department stores that sold food and drugs along with hand sanitizers, antiseptic wipes, and of course, toilet paper.

Most workers at Costco, Walmart, Target, and other grocery and drug store chains make little more than minimum wage. Yet these people risked their lives and those of their loved ones to stock shelves, ring up groceries, and take unprecedented abuse from the buying public during the pandemic.

I was grateful that my wife, a Target store team leader, still had a job, as the coronavirus caused many people to lose theirs. But I worried if it was worth the risk.

We had over 9,000 visitors in our store the day the stay-at-home order took effect, said one Walmart store manager. I feel like my odds of winning the lottery are better than staying well.

Retail workers likened their situation to being in the band on the Titanic that kept playing while the ship was sinking. All retail workers should be getting hazard pay, one said.

My wife has told me all about the abuse retail employees – or team members, associates, or whatever Corporate wants to call them – put up with every day. And this was before the pandemic.

At the start of my shift, I spent 15 minutes arguing with a customer, telling him that I cannot take his $20 bill from the Bahamas, says one employee. Then a woman’s ‘service dog’ pug takes a crap in the middle of the store. Then a woman goes full Karen because I won’t take a personal check for lottery tickets. I want to go home.

But the coronavirus brought out the worst in people. They started buying everything up like the world was ending. Then they berated the guy stacking potatoes because there was no toilet paper.

I know you have more in the back, they snarl, as if every retailer not only has a back but that they’re hiding merchandise there.

There ain’t no back, said one employee. The back has an employee bathroom and a clipboard with a schedule on it.

Can’t you check the warehouse? pleads another customer, as if there is a replenishment center down the road.

Retail workers must always deal with shoplifters who seem to believe they have a God-given right to take shit that doesn’t belong to them and then are indignant when they’re caught. But the coronavirus made things even uglier.

"At the supermarket