Confessions of a Retail Employee, Part 2
Open Your Eyes
This bit a two-parter. That being said, I'm going to repeat the title of this section once more because it's important. Open.Your. Eyes. Most stores are very much "self-serve" stores. This means there's almost always giant signs hanging from the ceiling to tell you what department you're in, and sometimes, what items are in whatever aisle you're looking at. Some stores even have maps to help direct you along the way. Sounds pretty simple, right? Wrong. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me where the electronics department was when I was standing under an immense red sign that stated in bold letters "Electronics," well, let's just say I wouldn't need to be working in retail to make ends meet. I understand the layout of some stores can be confusing, but if your eyes function well enough to read from that list in your hand, it's pretty safe to assume that they can also be used to look around the aisle you're in, which brings me to my next point.
Look in Front of Your Face
Companies like Unilever and Proctor and Gamble, who distribute Dove and Pantene, respectively (among other things), pay big bucks to have their merchandise displayed on the eye-level shelves. It's considered prime real estate because, theoretically, their products are located in the most convenient of places - right in your face. Yet somehow, customers tend to look everywhere except right in their faces. I have yet to figure out a reason for this behavior. Again, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me where the Pantene was while it they were quite literally almost nose-to-nose with the bottles, I could quit my job and live richly every after.
A Store is Not a Daycare Center
And retail employees are not baby-sitters. Please, keep an eye on your kids when you bring them shopping with you. I'll be perfectly honest - when I see someone enter my store with a child, or multiple children, the first thought in my head is a sarcastic "Oh, great" followed by an eyeroll and a sigh. It's not that I don't like children, in fact, I happen to think they're just dandy. It's just that I've seen how horrible kids can be when they're dragged along (usually unwillingly) on their parent's shopping trip. Pint-sized people running around and yelling like maniacs and leaving trails of destruction in their wake that, surprise, surprise, the employees get to clean up. Keeping the store tidy is part of our job, but that does not mean it's perfectly okay for a parent to let their kid wipe out an entire shelf of VO5 shampoos just because he felt like it (yes, that actually happened).
Allowing your children to run unchecked around the store not only creates more work for us, but it's also unsafe. Aside from the slips, trips and falls kids are so fabulously skilled at, some stores use ladders or step-stools in their daily routine. Running face-first into a metal three foot ladder, or face-planting on a wood floor doesn't exactly tickle. However, the scarier and harsher reality is that child predators usually rely on parents being preoccupied, and if you allow your child to wander around the store unattended, you're also putting their safety at risk. The scariest retail experiences for me have always involved a frantic parent screaming for their child and repeating the phrase, "I just turned around for a second." For everyone's sake, keep an eye on your kids.