Tales From Retail - Tumblr Posts
this morning
manager: I know it's slow and stuff but just make sure you try to look busy...
coworker: *begins gently rubbing the scale
me:...
manager: You know, just clean the scales or empty the trash...
coworker: *continues pretending to clean until manager leaves
me: mood
Sometimes when there's not a camera nearby at work and I hear something especially stupid I look into my reflection like I'm on the office
The other day I had a customer come through my line who was extremely embarrassed to be buying his wife tampons. Like a 40-something year old man. And he literally snatched one box out of my hands and the other from the bagger so he could shove them into a bag as quickly as possible. He double bagged it so it would be really hard to see. He said he was worried about what people would think.
Dudes. Let you be my witness, I hope I never end up with a person so afraid of a tampon.
The first one, they chalked up as a fluke. Every store had their share of Karens and, statistically, they were bound to get one. She was exactly as they expected, the haircut and everything. She even had a necklace with the single word ‘Love’ hanging from her badly tanned neck. The Karen had screamed about not being able to use a six month expired coupon, made the cashier cry, and called the manager a fucking idiot before storming out. It certainly could have been worse and the entire staff laughed about it later, the story circulating quickly.
None of them could have expected what came after. There were a few cases after the first Karen came (one had mistaken a customer for an employee, another had deliberately made a mess to try to sue, and a third had broken merchandise when she found out her favorite tea was out of stock) but they never connected them. Until it was too late. Until every other customer seemed to have disappeared, each one replaced by one of those horrid monsters. Karens in all shapes and sizes. Some didn’t even have the trademark signs, meaning they didn’t know the danger until it hit them full in the face. Literally and figuratively.
Managers were killed off left and right. Corporate claimed that they had transferred stores or had simply quit but the staff knew better. Enough of them had seen what really happened. The skin of their faces had peeled under the onslaught of shouting. Blood flowed from their ears, more blood than should have been possible. As if their brains had melted down to flow out as well. Their screams stayed in the air for weeks, echoing around and driving many a new hire insane. There were those who left the store with tear scars on their cheeks. Some never stopped crying long enough to quit. Dried husks were stored in the break room. Someone sat them in chairs, posed them like they were still there but just taking a long break. It was morbid but it was one of the few ways they could cope.
The senior staff claimed to have seen worse and seemed unaffected most days, though plenty could see the haunted looks in their eyes. They dealt with the Super Karens, taking the blows so others didn’t have to. They had no hope anyways. Nothing to lose. And when they saw high schoolers being hired on they just shook their heads. None of them even tried to appeal to the Retail Gods for those poor children, it was a lost cause in their minds.
They didn’t know that these poor kids, raised up on tales told by older siblings/cousins/friends, were already prepared. They entered the store with smiles on their faces and wicked fire burning behind their eyes. Sure, they had to deal with the Karens. But the Karens also had to deal with them.
You thought they were myths. Simply legends, nothing more. Until you met one at the local grocery store.
A Karen.