NJ retail workers shared their stories and I’m crying

If you’ve ever worked in retail or if you know somebody who has, you know that this is the worst time of year. It’s a whole new level of chaos. People who are ordinarily rushing as New Jerseyans do, take it to the max. Rushing, sweating, snapping at each other, juggling bags, yelling into their phones, and somehow forgetting how to behave like adults.

I honestly feel for these underpaid, overworked clerks. My son is one of them, so I hear the horror stories straight from the trenches.

So on the show, I asked listeners who work retail to call in and share their “you’ve got to be kidding me” moments. And wow.

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Jersey did not disappoint.

One caller said a guy walked in and asked where the “fake glasses” were. She had no idea what he meant, so he started explaining that older people wear these things on the end of their nose so the print looks bigger. She said, Oh, you mean reading glasses? And he goes, yeah, those. As if “reading glasses” were too advanced a term for him.

Another clerk told me she asks customers all day if they want a bag, and at least once a day someone answers with, "Well, yeah, if you have one." Why would she offer you something she doesn’t have? Do they think she is doing a survey for fun?

Then there is the cigarette crew.

She said the second she asks for ID, people immediately tell her their age, their birthday, their zodiac sign, and how they are old enough to be her father. Good for you, but she still needs the ID. And yet they always look shocked. Have these people never bought cigarettes before?

And my favorite one.

A woman once asked the clerk if the two-dollar bill she was holding was “the real one or the fake one.” This is what retail workers deal with. Every. Single. Day.

If you are out shopping this holiday season, maybe smile at the poor person behind the register. They are fighting battles we will never understand.