by Matt Bird

Created on: May 09, 2009

Though I only worked in retail for a year and a half, I have enough memories from the experience to last a lifetime - and most of them insist against ever doing it again.

I won't deny that the job had its perks. Because I worked in the Electronics department of Wal-Mart I got to watch all the new movie releases for free (some days there's just nothing to do, you know?) and I was alerted of new arrivals the moment they came on the floor. The only reason I got a Nintendo Wii is because I clocked out when a shipment arrived and bought one.

But for all the perks there were a thousand trials to overcome, and though not all of them were crippling - indeed, most of them weren't! - the whole lot together made the job unbearable.

- Customers. Customers are always the major trial of any retail job. Most are quite nice; some, however, are loud, demanding, rude, uncooperative and just plain dumb. I don't mind people who are ignorant of the products - it was my job to explain things to them, after all, and after a while I got quite good at doing that - but having to explain the same thing over and over to somebody who just doesn't get it is horrible.

- Especially when you're faced with the next trial: line ups. I didn't mind dealing with long-winded trouble customers when the place was empty, but during peak hours with tons of people filtering in and out you just don't have time to worry about one person. Customer line ups are a real pain to deal with, especially during Christmas time, and ESPECIALLY when somebody in said line up has a problem with one of their products that they feel the need to discuss with you. Juggling line ups and customers who are still shopping is a horrid thing, especially if you're the only person in the department, which happened way too often for my liking.

- Cash transactions. Let me be frank. I abhor dealing with money. I can DO it, yes, and I know how to operate a cash register, but I really don't enjoy it. There's too much pressure to get it exactly right, and no matter how good you are at scanning items or counting money, something's going to go wrong eventually. And when it does, the only person management can blame is you. This is especially bad when multiple people use the same register and they can't differentiate between transactions - that way, when something goes wrong, all of you get blamed, whether it's your fault or not.

- Cleaning your section. I'll be honest, I didn't mind this so much. Compared to everything else you have

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