Retail Woes

My last Saturday night was horrible! Which in itself is horrible, because the customers I actually worked with were being really nice and using common sense and listening to me! So why was it so horrible?

THE CHILDREN. Ok, I love children, I want lots of them, but seriously, people need to learn how to discipline their children. Growing up, I used to think my mom was strict. Really strict. And maybe she was. But you know what? WE WERE GOOD CHILDREN IN PUBLIC BECAUSE OF IT. She could leave us three kids by ourselves in the front row at church because we were disciplined. Now, having worked 5 years of retail, I now appreciate my mom's strictness. Sure it was annoying growing up, but I'm a better person because of it and I will continue the trend (hopefully, lol) with my children.

So this is a summary of my night:

-I don't know why my manager thought it would be totally fine for me to work from 6pm to 9 pm by myself in petcare. I really don't. You would think after being open about 6 months he would know that this particular store gets swamped starting around 7 pm until close on Friday and Saturday. Not only do I have to assist customers, but I also have to close down the department, make sure all the animals have water and food to last through the night, and I have to medicate/feed any animals in our two holding rooms and I also have to clean, feed, and water the cats (which take a good twenty minutes if you do a good job). Naturally, starting at about 6:45, I was swamped. Not all that stressed, because again my customers were being strangely nice and happy, but I was constantly helping someone.

-Every single family in the town of Columbus that had screaming, misbehaving children came to visit the "petting zoo" between 7 and 8:45. I realize there is not much to do in this town, BUT PETSMART IS NOT A PETTING ZOO. And come on, I also realize that the animals here are cool, but they're not so cool as to illicit excited screaming from children. Please, INSIDE VOICE. These children screamed so loud that when I had my back turned and a new family came up about twenty feet behind me and started screaming, I jumped. The customer I was helping kind of laughed at me, but he did feel sorry for me when he saw another family start doing the exact same thing right after the other family.

-DON'T LET YOUR KIDS RUN AROUND UNACCOMPANIED AND STICK THEIR HANDS IN WITH ANIMALS. Do I seriously have to explain this? I had the guinea pig cage open for a family, and another family's kids came up. They at least asked, so I let them stick their hands in and try to pet the guinea pigs. Then some more kids came up. However, they did not ask, their parents were not paying attention, and one of them proceeded to grab the back legs of one guinea pig and pull it out of the cage. I kind of shrieked and told him to put it down, I was afraid the kid would drop the guinea pig face first on the floor. The kid did get in trouble, but clearly not enough.

-AGAIN, WHY ARE YOUR CHILDREN RUNNING AROUND UNACCOMPANIED? The same guinea pig kid followed me up to the register with two ladies buying a hamster. When the kid found out there was a hamster in the box, he grabbed the box and started walking away with it, trying to open it. I quickly put an end to that.

-WHY ARE YOUR CHILDREN RUNNING AROUND SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS? Goodness I would rather hear a dog bark than here that. I don't mind excited shrieks, but when the kid is talking viz screaming and there are about 5 kids in your party, it gets seriously ridiculous. It's fine out on the playground, not in a store.

Seriously, if I had tried to pull any of this stuff in public with my mother, I would definitely have gotten spanked. Maybe not in the store, but she definitely would have done it once we got to the car or home. No matter what, she would not have let us get away with any of that, we would have left the store. We were good enough kids, though, to listen after awhile and settle down, even if it was out of fear.

I don't have any experience with parenting yet. I know disciplining has to be hard, I have a hard enough time disciplining my dog and denying him something he really wants. It must be worse with children. I know it's not easy, but come on people, don't let your children run wild through a store, even if it is a PetSmart. It stresses me out, annoying my customers, and really annoys the animals.

*Disclaimer: This is absolutely in no way making me hate the South. This happens in any retail store, it just happens that my worst "children run wild" day thus far has been in the South. So no hard feelings, it was just a sucky day at work. (Although I do hate working at this particular store).