For the love of god, yes, please, this.  I’ve said it a thousand times before but I’ll say it again, the amount of stress in retail and food service and jobs like that is incredible for the shitty pay you get.  And no, it’s not just from customers, its from the corporate offices.  In fact I’d say this was the most stressful part of retail for me, and I’ve worked like 5 Black Fridays and holiday seasons.  With new system launches.  And midnight launch lines around the block.  And I’ve been called all sorts of names, be it over the phone or by some angry customer in line who just missed getting their precious Wii.  I’ve had a system stolen out of my hands.  I’ve had a customer get so pissed at me that I went in the back room and cried.  I had an assistant manager belittle me so much that I called someone to come cover my shift and walked out.  I’ve had to be on guard because of a string of robberies by some guy holding stores up at gun point.  I’ve had a guy call people a “faggot,” a guy follow me around the store because I commented on his Cloud Strife earring, had customers who play on the demos all day and not leave, have had kids destroy the store, climb the shelves, have been told I don’t know about video games because I’m a girl, and even after all of this CORPORATE is what made the job unbearable.  

The amount of things I had to do at GameStop was ridiculous. Subscriptions, reserves, trade ins, iphones, web surveys, just… believe me it’s not on purpose that employees get things wrong, that person is probably just tired and stressed out, trying to remember everything they’re supposed to sell to you in fear of their job, or their hours being cut because someone else on the team did a better job or hell, because corporate doesn’t give the store enough hours to begin with because the manager can just work a bunch of days, right, since their salary?  You only need 80 hours a week to split between the assistant manger, the third key, the fourth key, and the part timers, right? 

Retail/food service employees don’t get enough credit for what they do. The last thing they need is you snapping at them, they get enough of that from the higher ups.  And no, there’s no commission for getting you to reserve that game or renew your card.  It might SEEM like there is since they push so hard, but they’re pushing because they don’t want the people above them to show up, lecture them like they’re a child, and lose their job.  My manager flat out walked out because his job was posted as “available” because him and the new district manager didn’t get along.  Our store wasn’t performing so well and bam, just like that, looking for a replacement.  I’ve also seen stores close and instead of sending the employees to another store they actually have to REAPPLY at another store, and start all over again.  

So please, be nice.  Now if someone is a straight up asshole, sure, but just… they aren’t purposely trying to screw you over, believe me.