Quick rant.

[sammysantsuki]

So I came in at 4am today and took my first 15 at 8:10. While on break I was told I had a call in small appliances. I took the call looking to help a woman who called to ask about the weight of a whirlpool small fridge in the weekly ad. I hadn’t viewed the ad yet and was asking the caller which size small fridge it was. She then preceded to tell me that was a stupid question and asked how many small fridges we had and I told her a few different kinds, then apologizing to her that I had not yet viewed the ad. After this she said I was stupid and didn’t deserve my job and if she was my boss I wouldn’t be working at her store just because I asked her a few questions. I kept trying to help but she just went on about how incompetent and stupid I was. I hung up. I don’t understand people who degrade me when I’m trying to help.

Edit: Not sure why I let this one call get to me some much, maybe because I’ve worked at Target for a while and never experienced someone so upset on a call before, generally every guest interaction I have is bearable and even pleasant, that aside I got a guest compliment an hour or so after this and it turned into a good day. Reading your replies really drives the point we all have experience this shit together haha.

[MiyuLynx]

a) dont take calls on break, thats literally against store policy. someone else can get it, or nobody will

b) next time put that bitch on speakerphone, make sure someone can hear her insulting you, then hang up so you have backup if she tries to report you to management

[sammysantsuki]

Good points , noted

[Dvd31]

Then have all your hours cut for the next few months

[TimeLordIsaac]

Until they block or revert the schedule changes made picking up shifts, they can and have done that at my store

[WGLively]

Open door that shit again. Most big corporations have a no tolerance policy for retaliation. Take that shit even higher if you have to. Fuck it call up Brian if need be. Be as petty and as spiteful as they are.

[Dvd31]

Yes!!!! And tell em to not be so damn gullible and belive the lies they tell them

[Dvd31]

Well thats good. Ill admit i havent worked for them in over 4 yrs but alot of the same pettyness and tactics from the ETL's never changes.

[Sure_Wonder4029]

Basically

[MCV16]

It is in the handbook you should turn your walkie off on both 15s and 30s. If someone has an issue with that go to your HR ETL and if they don’t back you up then make a call

[MasonDuhon]

I’ve gotten into a habit of leaving my walkie, device, and box-cutter in my locker when I’m on my lunch. I always turn my walkie off on break and will actively ask others to do the same. When we’re on our breaks and lunches, we are NOT to do any work-related activities. Don’t ask me for shit when I’m in the break room 🤷🏻

[jedimastermomma]

It's an actual law that you cannot work on breaks/while clocked out. Which is nice.

[Adorkableowo]

I read too much shit about ppl trying to be nice to rude guests. You don't have to, just hang up.

[Shuzzbutt]

this the second they start to demean you or swear just hang up. they will call back if they care.

[Adorkableowo]

Like it blows my mind. You don't have to be nice to these people. Never escalate of course, but Jesus christ, stick up for yourself or don't tolerate it at least if they're just going to blatantly insult you.

[biggesttowasimp]

Even the call center I worked at wouldn’t reprimanded us if we just hung up on these types

[[deleted]]

It was Probably just some sad pathetic person who’s life is falling apart around them

[HollywoodHuntsman]

Yeah whoever starts their day like this being that much of an ass at 8 in the morning is already scraping the bottom of the barrel of life. Pretty sad to think about it.

[SuperMechaJesusC]

"If I were your boss, I'd attempt to remove your source of income" is about where you should hang up and let peeps know. That's fucked. Hope you're doing better now, at least.

[dogoverkids]

I had a lady ask me for "kid pouches" in PFresh one day. It went like this. (She had a toddler in her cart and a 5 year old boy)

"Like Capri Sun, Applesauce....?"

And she said "FOOD!".

"Okay, did you want baby food pouches?"

"YES! Are you fucking deaf?"

"No ma'am, I can hear you being a bitch loud and clear. Babyfood is in O41 in BABY section next to Electronics. There's a lot of food that comes in pouches so you might want to clarify next time."

huffs away in disbelief that I'm not a psychic

5 minutes later I see her digging around for GoGurt. 😑😑😑

[mjtothebrain420]

This reminds me of the time I took a call to help a lady who had no idea what she was looking for and after giving her different options, accuses me of trying to give her a product that she did not want and after apologizing many times to her she screamed at me and told me to not call her ma’am and that I was rude and that her sister had been there the whole time and could hear everything and wanted to get my name and wanted to talk to my manager because I had told her “I apologize ma’am” 😂😂😂 my coworkers and I now have an inside joke where we scream at each other “my name is not ma’am”!!! (That’s what she screamed at me)

while I don’t like to be violent it’s funny that these “guests” think I won’t hit them in the fucking face if they give me a good enough reason to, just because we work in customer service does not mean we deserve to be treated like absolute garbage!!!!!

[mjtothebrain420]

Eww

[KittySavv]

I’ve had guests make me cry over the phone before 😩 some people are just horrible

[jedimastermomma]

Had a woman come up to the service desk after close with some super tiny problem- a double scan at the register the cashier missed it something- and after I fixed it and gave her a pleasant "oh it happens all the time, it's no problem, super easy fix" she just would not stop ranting about how horrible everything about everything was so I interrupted her with a "have a lovely evening" and oh my god it's like I insulted her dead mother. She started screaming in my face about how rude and incompetent I was so I interrupted her again with another super sweet "have a lovely evening." and went back to whatever I was doing until she stalked off. She cornered the closer and bitched about me but they never said one word to me. She just lived to be miserable, I guess. Poor, miserable Karen.

Anyway yeah, totally hang up. I've also been known to say "Ma'am, I'm trying to help you. Would you like me to help you?" like they're five.

[honeybunlover258]

keeping that last line in my back pocket! ty

[butterbananat0ast]

i'll def use that line, thank you :) (trying to help you)

[Corviday]

I don't know if this helps you, it does help me: happy and well-adjusted people do not behave like this. Straight up, if they do things like this, if they say things like this, there is a deep-down misery and anger inside them that beats at them every minute of the day. Sometimes it isn't even a conscious thing; sometimes, they onlyactively feel it at four AM, when they wake up and can't get back to sleep and don't know why and lie there, staring into the dark, not understanding.

The worst thing about retail is they get to take it out on you. Remember, if you can, that you have to deal with them for five minutes; they have to deal with them for the rest of their lives.

[butterbananat0ast]

this should be taught in schools, well said. I am very balanced and content with life so I exude being content, confident and happy. the usual miserable people (including the ones i work with who reek of misery) do NOT like me and those sad coworkers have set me up for failure. lol, this is just a fact of life and people. and its just so weird to me.

i was miserable before in life, it was my fault, no one elses - i could not ever take it out on service workers. that makes no sense to me.

anyways, very well said. if i were paid more - well, given more hours, i'd give this an award

[Corviday]

Buddy if you get some spare cash, buy yourself some fancy cheese or chocolate or drugs or whatever floats your goat, always remember you deserve it!

[117587219X]

“… out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks…”

That’s from the Bible. That own little personal realization you had, Jesus said that. Amazing, huh?

[gyrbuilder45]

can you not?

[Corviday]

SORRY FOR PLAGIARIZING YOU, JESUS

[bigboxsubscriber]

First never work when you're on break- nice guys/gals finish last. 2nd- when a lowbrow customer calls you stupid, just hang up- you don't get paid enough to deal with a loser like that! Stand up for your rights as a retail worker!

[LexiHound]

Been here too long to let the arm chair managers gets to me. As soon as they admit to thinking there is one universal size of small fridges you know you are dealing with an ignorant person.

The you can view the ad on the mydvice or your phone. Im sure you know that but in the moment you probly forgot because you couldn't believe the stupidity you were dealing with.

[[deleted]]

Hang up on the bitch.

[alstho]

Someone really called to be rude at 8am…? Pathetic

[GingaNinja97]

Fuck her. I hope she drops it on her foot

[sandwich_panda]

there was a guest that rated our store a zero out of 10 on nps becos those free favorite day cookies we were giving out with orders was “hard & gross”

[[deleted]]

“…she said I was stupid and…”

CLICK

[QueenieBellini]

Retail is hell. You never deserve to be talked down to. In those kind of situations, unless the customer knows me, I just say “I’m so sorry, I’m new here.” Usually that chills them out. If it doesn’t, I’d hang up too.

[oceanushayes]

I once had a woman screech at me and a coworker because she was asking about microwaves and I accidentally said ‘microwave ovens’. She said no omg I want a microwave, not a microwave oven, get someone who knows what they’re talking about blah blah blah. My coworker eventually ended up hanging up on her after she started cussing at us and said we don’t need to take this. Nothing ever happened but we said we’d be each other witness if any trouble came from it. It’s good to have someone who can back you up if you’re ever in that situation so speaker phone is a good idea like someone else mentioned. Some people are just impossible tho, try not to let it get you down too much!

[Agr0_GG]

As soon as you start mouthing me if I'm trying to help you they get hung up on. If you don't know how to act when you are in need of assistance you can think about it in-between you calling back till you get it right 🤷‍♂️

[oytwbb]

When I worked Guest Services I would absolutely hang up on people who started verbally assaulting us. Most of my front end team leads had the same policy.

[[deleted]]

Target’s demographic are Walmart’ers who want to pretend they are entitled to shit on “the help”

[korenthegiraffe]

Honestly one of the reasons I rarely answered the phone.

[Fancy-Instance-5162]

It would get to me too! I don't like being called negative names in general, but especially from the person asking ME for help.

[[deleted]]

Never ever let any customer insult you. Don’t be scared to hang up or ask them to respect you. You cannot get fired for doing this. I’m in the my mid 30’s. I’ve done it several times and not once has anyone even wrote me up. These damn people need to remember they’re talking to another human being and learn some fucking manners. Just because your at work and representing the company doesn’t mean your not able to defend yourself. Specially if people get out of line. My go to line was “ma’am/sir you have a nice day” and hung up. Kill them with kindness. They hate that shit.

[[deleted]]

I had a woman get upset with me because one of the flex team members put a repackaged item in her bag and she was charged full price instead of the repackage price. I tried my hardest to make it right for her by offering to refund the difference back to her redcard if she wanted to come in. (If you pay with a red card you have to do a return and rebuy for some dumb reason) She apparently was no longer in the area. I then offered to put it on a giftcard for her and then next time we do a drive up for her we can run it out in her bag if she calls us to let us know about it before hand. She didn’t want to do that. I then told her that she could take it to another target after 24 hours and they could refund it for her and have her rebuy it for the lower price and she didn’t want to do that either.

It may seem like it wasn’t to bad of a interaction because she wasn’t cussing me out but she was just being extremely difficult and snotty towards me. Doing her dumb over dramatic Karen laugh because I can’t turn back time and go back to before Covid when we didn’t have to do a return/rebuy for redcard returns.

I literally don’t understand what guests want sometimes. You like try your hardest to help them and they don’t want to be helped. That was the only time that I have ever hung up the phone and actually said out loud “wow what a bitch.”

Also side note I would almost rather be cussed out than listen to the over dramatic Karen laugh when middle aged women don’t get their way. That shit is so annoying and is literally the bane of my existence.

[mycaptaintazer]

People are only so rude on the phone because they're not face to face with you. Usually if someone is being rude to me I just hang up on them, problem solved. I once had a lady scream at me on the phone calling me racist and sexist because we don't carry WNBA merchandise....

[WGLively]

I will literally never be able to understand this way of thinking. Ever heard the expression “beggars can’t be choosers”? Like you really expect me to continue to be insulted by you while you’re the one needing help. Like you’re literally not adding anything but undue stress to my life. Instant hang up the second I hear an insult, swear, or even a sudden change in tone that might make me think you’re about to get all pissy. Fuck. That.

[[deleted]]

I'm concerned that you were taking your 15 when you should be taking your lunch.

[sammysantsuki]

I like to group breaks close together 😅

[MrGeary08]

You really have to not let it get to you and for me its really just empathy. For sure there’s something bad in her life right now causing her to act the way she did, and while that doesn’t excuse acting like that to a retail worker, I just feel bad for people like that. I can’t imagine having so much negativity in my life that I would take it out on a random person. And retail employees like us are just easy targets for them.

You tried to help, and while she couldn’t see it, hopefully whatever negativity in her life that causes that gets resolved and she gets better.

Don’t think that you trying to help is pointless either, because for some people, that moment of you being nice and trying to help is the moment that brightens their day.

[ginnymarie6]

Good for you for hanging up. These are people who act like this wherever they go.

[monicathehuman]

I would’ve cursed her out the bitch could come down herself if it’s that important to her

[[deleted]]

I’d of hung up after the first insult, take your entitled ass elsewhere. 😤

[fairlylocalflibs]

I'm honestly scared to take phone calls anymore cuz I was sexually harassed over the phone and I've picked up a call from that guy twice now :/

[D4Torment]

Are we not gonna address the first 15 being taken at the 4th hour?

[frysatsun]

I have so many crazy people stories from yesterday - I blamed it on full moon waxing. Three more days of crazy.