The Truth

Every individual is different. We have our own ethnicities, sexual affiliations, sexual identifications, our own religious practices, our own political preferences and we all have our own walk of life. That being said, we all have four things in common. We all need oxygen to breathe, we all need a source of income to support our own way of life, we all need sustenance and we all have hobbies that we enjoy doing. The last two of these cannot be done without the hard-working individuals who work at retail stores.

The term retail applies to any store or business that has to deal with an abundance of people looking for goods to meet their needs. Stores like: grocery stores, restaurants and stores that pander to the hobbies of the many. Now, as essential as these people are (and yes, I do say essential) they don't get the respect they deserve. From the customers they serve to the management that supervises them, they are not treated fairly by any means necessary. There are many reasons as to why I say this. Most of which, comes from years of experience.

The first reason are the people they choose to hire. It's easy to present an ox to market, but its another thing to see him work in the field. Many employees have been known to call out from work at the drop of a hat with no consequences on their part. The employees that do show up however are expected to compensate for the ones who fail to show up. This leads to departments (and stores) becoming short staffed. For when they ask you to do something, they'll say, "we're a team" or "team work makes the dream work". However, they will only say that, when it benefits them to do so. Now, when you ask for help with something, they'll say things like, "Uh, no. That's your job to take care of it" or they will say "You don't need the extra help", when clearly you do. This, is the true definition of hypocrisy, and it is disgusting.

Retail stores also have tendencies to promote the wrong individuals. It's honorable to have a good work ethic. Hell, at one point, it seemed like it was a common trait amongst most Americans. However, that can only go so far. More times than not, it's not recognized by your superiors and will often lead them to promote the wrong person, instead of the right one. When stores poorly choose people, they tend not to work to degree that is expected of them. They'll say that they appreciate you, but that's honestly a façade. If they did, there would be some sort of tangible way of proving that. For instance, giving you a raise or giving you more weekends off would be some examples on how they appreciate you. To borrow a quote from P. T. Barnum, talk is cheap.

The second reason lies within the lack of their priorities. Things like inventory (in regards of shelving it, doing a count of how much needs to be ordered and disposing of the inventory that can't be sold for one reason or another) and the daily cleaning should take top priority of the store's needs. When in actuality, their priorities are placed in things like conditioning and cleaning when (and only when) food safety or health inspection are around the corner. Seems to me, retail management is more concerned with putting lipstick on a pig, rather than fattening it up before it goes to market. Either way, it's all about making bacon.

The third reason lies within the consumer. More times than not, anyone in retail (currently or formerly) will tell you that they have dealt with some less than friendly customers. These people will do things including (but not limit to): putting the phone in your face to help them find something, justify their rude behavior and bump into you without excusing themselves. All of this would in fact be tolerated, if the managers of set stores didn't enable this type of behavior. I say this because I believe it is our right, nay, our responsibility to acknowledge all the of individuals who work in retail and treat them with the respect that they deserve. For at day's end, don't we all deserve a little more respect?