Retail Hell

I work retail.  And usually, it's pretty fun.  Of course, it has its days just like anything else.  Days where you would desperately love to kick someone's shins.  Like today.....

Parents come into our store with their kids all time time.  More often than not, the kids are cute, and that makes my job more enjoyable.  But the exception to that rule is very frustrating and most of the time I end up wanting to say a few choice words to the parents.  Today there was a little boy, who couldn't have been more than two, who I could hear over a divider telling her little boy that he needed to sit down in the cart.  We all know that sitting down in the cart is about safety, especially when the child isn't old enough to understand it.  After about five minutes of telling her son that he needed to sit down, I'm guessing that she finally used to restraining belt to keep him sitting.

And that's when all hell broke loose.

For the next half hour, all you can hear all over in the store, is the sound of this little boy having a tantrum.  And when I say all over the store, I mean that literally.  You could not hear the music playing, which is saying something, because our music (in my opinion at least) is pretty loud.  When this little boy started screaming, he was right over the divider from me, so he was pretty shrill.  At one point, I could tell his mom had wheeled the cart up to the registers, that is how loud this child was being.

I really do understand that it is hard for parents, especially moms, to go shopping with the kids.  But I feel that it is very rude to subject other shoppers to relentless screaming and tantrums, particularly when the parent(s) choose to meander through the rest of the store at their leisure.  Either they do not care about how their child is behaving and think it is appropriate to just "wait it out", they are plain rude, or they are making the decision not to parent in public.  Whichever it is, I have to bite my tongue, nearly on a daily basis, when the parent of a toddler lets the child scream.

My other personal pet-peeve is the new parents; the ones with babies that are a few months old.  I cannot even count the number of times that I have heard the wailing of a new baby.  Where I do not have children of my own I'm not sure of the all the different cries babies have, but I am pretty darn good at deciphering the "hungry" cry.  It is the most awful sound in the world, and it always wrenches my gut when I hear a baby crying like that for over five minutes.  I may not be a parent, but as far as I understand babies tend to want to  be fed every couple of hours, almost like clockwork.  Why, I want to know, does it seem okay to let your new baby make the most awful cry in the world, trying to let you know that "Hey, I'm awake and hungry", and choose to ignore it?

My work has fitting rooms where you could come and feed privately, we have sinks in the bathroom where you could get water for a bottle if you don't feel the need to breastfeed.  But as a generally courtesy, please don't bring a child into a store (unless you are prepared) that you know will be crying at some point during your visit.

No one wants to hear your child scream for half an hour.

No one.

So if your child is screaming and you can't control them, please to the considerate thing and leave the store.

Nothing in retail is so important that it can't wait, either for your child(ren) to stop screaming and behave, or for you to come back on your own when you do not have your child (ren).

Please consider other shoppers and the employees....

......

Because, at least on the retail end, I know from personal experience, as soon as you leave the store, all the employees are talking about how rude you were and how they do not want to offer good customer service to you when you shop with us again.