A Retail Rant

There are certain complete lies in the world of retail.

This 'customer is always right' stuff has to be our first port of call. How can this possibly be a truism? Not even me, the great and modest English Student gets everything right one hundred percent of the time. In fact, this statement is almost never true and often equates to downright disgusting behaviour. If the customer is always right, then they have no need whatsoever to show respect to others. Anyone working in retail becomes an obstacle to what a customer wants and as such, can be treated like the scum that floats up from the river of our capital city.

So what's the solution? Companies try to emphasise this basic tenet of retail and customers are determined to believe it. Perhaps if they understood that people working in retail are no different from themselves they may be more inclined to give respect. So I propose that everyone that would like to buy something from a retail outlet must work in a retail outlet also. Each member of the public would earn points based on the hours they do in retail and this can be exchanged for hours they spend as a customer. Not only would this force people to see the other side of the coin that they so readily ignore, it would result in truly idiotic shopping focused psychopaths like Paris Hilton working eighty hour shifts in the local newsagents!

Ok, perhaps it is best to take a few steps back from the precipice I have charged at here. I do not hate my job (temporary that it is) and I do not hate the public. In fact at times I absolutely adore my job. It is quite amazing when you can really make someone's day by helping them and the people that I work with are absolutely brilliant. So for all the abuse and hatred that get's hurled my way at various times in the day I certainly consider myself very lucky to have a job and miraculously lucky to have a job that I can mostly enjoy.

But at any rate, I will certainly be more inclined to respect others that work in retail.

-The English Student