h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The worst job I ever had was computer retail. It was impossible to get a weekend day off. And the work schedule ran from a6:30 am to 10:00 pm. You would get pushed rather randomly onto various shifts. So you might work until 10:00 pm one day, then have to drag yourself out of bed for a 6:30 am shift. It wasn't uncommon for me to work 10 days in a row. And my half-hour lunches were routinely cut short by panicking managers.

Add to that the annoyance of being constantly on your feet, and having to move heavy boxes around. Computer boxes can easily weight up to 50 lbs. Indeed, the store often stocked the heaviest stuff on shelves above the sales floor -- thus creating a health hazard for the box mover and anyone who might be standing beneath them. And of course, the shopping carts the store provided were too small to hold many of the monitor boxes, forcing us to haul them to people's cars. And everyone hated closing the store, because it was the closers' responsibility to restock tons of merchandise from the top shelves to the sales floor. That, and cleaning up the shoppers' mess could be an incredible chore.

Sometimes the customers were great, but sometimes they were really frustrating. Computer illiterate people would arrive in the store during the busiest hour, fully expecting a patient salesperson to educate them on computer basics before selling them a machine. So-called savvy customers would ply you for details about a product for 20 minutes, before deciding to buy it -- at another store where it's cheaper. My least favorite was the men who would refuse to accept my help, because they assumed a female couldn't possibly know anything about computers. (I will admit to a sense of satisfaction when they rather frequently got directed back to me because I was the only one able to answer their question.)

The pay was horrible, and the stress was tremendous. Worst of all was the Christmas season, when customers outnumber employees at least 20 to 1 at all times. At these times, even more heavy boxes must be moved and the store's hours are made even more ridiculous to accomodate last-minute shoppers. Overtime is required, and the seasonal employees hired on often know hardly more than the customers do. Plus there are the constant complaints that items are no longer in stock, because production during the holiday months can easily fail to meet demand.

And then there were the returns after the holidays. The worst were people who just weren't very good with computers, returning one brand and taking home another *time* after *time* rather than learning how to operate the equipment they have. And the rip-off artists who try to return their old salvaged parts in new equipment boxes to get refunds, or dress up pieces of wood in tin foil, pretending they are returning a hard drive. Of course, these are the ones who scream and jump up and down and threaten to call the police when their merchandise return isn't granted.

While on the job, I was insulted numerous times, spit on once, and was flashed rather obscenely by a man whose credit wasn't approved. We had to call the cops to have a man removed who insisted on dancing on top of our shelves to imaginary music he heard through his walkmen -- which turned out not to have any batteries in it. Plus there was the fellow who called our help line 35 times to curse at us, blamubg our store for 'allowing' his son to take the check for his new computer to a gambling casino instead.

And then there was the charming old man in the wheelchair who came by every Saturday, until we figured out that it was him responsible for the serial shoplifting in the store. He was pulling computers out of boxes when were weren't lookinng, replacing them with emty computer cases, carefully retaping the boxes, and then stashing them on the metal shelf under his degenerated legs, where a lap blanket concealed the merchandize during his exit. And the week before, he had tried to get me to go out with his grandson! Or at least, he said it was his grandson...

While some of the customers were bad news, most of the store's managers were insane. Why else would they work hard hours for such a pitiful salary? Many had complexes causing them to abuse their authority. The push to sell warranties got so out of hand at one point that employees were routinely fired for not pushing the sell hard enough. One boss required spotless shelves in the face of marauding holiday shoppers. Another went so nuts that he did a lounge show act over the intercom for 20 evenings running, until someone finally fired him. Yet another was discovered to be illerate and able only to sign his own name, after more than 5 years in the store's second-to-top position.

Eventually I couldn't take it anymore. I escaped to a desk job. I work regular hours, get paid well, sit down most of the day, and deal with clients rarely and always from the distance of a telephone. The holidays are slow here. My managers love me. And I tell you, it's sheer heaven.

Fragilis - I think this deserves to be an entry: "Retailing Computers - the Dreadful Truth" - or similar

Fragilis,

I trust that you are young and that what you learned from that experience will serve you well throughout your life. The reading of it was horror enough; it must have been an exercise in terror.

Agreed, there is nothing worse than retail during the holiday season. The sheer stupidity of the small percentage of people put on this planet to torture others is magnified beyond any measure of reason. Like you, I made it my business to get into a field where the majority do their business early on, then lock themselves in their homes after December 1.

In my youth I worked as the counter person in the Chinese restaurant in Caistor. The hours were 7pm to midnight, and from 7.30pm to 11.00 pm there wasn't another person in the shop so it was very tedious. But from 11.00 to midnight the shop was full to the brim with very very drunk men who had just been thrown out of the pub. At midnight the couple who ran the place (and spoke very little English) would just close the kitchens...leaving me to explain this to the unfortunate few who hadn't got their food order in.

Whenever I think I'm having a bad day at work (as I am now - it being Saturday ) I remember the night I had to evict a 20 stone drunk farmer from a chinese restaurant in the middle of nowhere...and it does cheer me up that I'll never have to do that again.

A girl called Ben, my post turned into quite a long rant, didn't it? My original intention was to invite other people to share their horror stories.

Duncan, I dealt with drunk customers very rarely, and had the option of calling the police if they got out of hand. It sounds like you were not so lucky. I can imagine a lot of arguments around midnight!

The very worst bit (look away if squeemish) was that some people would have had _far_ too much to drink by midnight....and I wa sthe poor tool who had to mop up before I could go home!

Trolley Dolly on the Eurostar...

I was based in Paris, travelled tot he Gare du Nord at around 4 or 5am. They made me cut my hair (logic I have never understood - men have to have a short back and sides whereas women with long hair can just tie it back.), stay in an awful hotel, five to a room... and the clients. THey would ask the most ridiculou=s qustions in all sincerity:

Can we see fish (to which you answer A) If you can stretch your neck thrugh metres of concrete B) Only if we are *really* unlucky and the tunnel is flooded.

Then there would be stoaways, vomit and runaway trolleys.

The uniform - canary yellow blue with a hat that looks rather fetching if perched at a jaunty angle.

Eew - still, at least you didn't have to deal with seasickness.
I've just heard that the Dublin-Liverpool ferry (the vomit comet) is delayed 3 hours due to heavy seas....wouldn't want to go anywhere near the bar on that boat!

Yikes! Cleaning up various bodily functions immediately qualifies a job as bad news in my book.

And I've heard that tour guide is one of the worst jobs, because you get sick of saying the same thing over and over again, and the tourists ask the most ridiculous and annoying questions. "How do you know they weren't cannibals?"

Tour Guides:

When I left the Eurostar, I joined one of the largest educational tour comapanies. I was in charge of 50 Teenagers and four of their teachers.

Top tips:

If you don't know the answer make it up. If someone asks who that woman in the statue is - answer Anne Boleyn.

If it's male - Henry III, James II etc and hope that you can all walk past quickly.

I had one student who was so excited at having a room with a balcony that she ran to the window and promptly fell over the balcony and landed on her bottom. You shouldn't laugh but it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. She was ok.

I had people asking me, when going to see the Last Supper in Milan, who the guy in the middle was.

I had people who, not used to unpasteurised cheese, would vomit every hour or so.

And of course the alcohol....

Having said this, I had a group from Brooklyn who were the best. I was leading them through a four week tour of France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Greece. When I had settled them into their hotel, the teachers told me that they were all 18, all had alcohol consent forms, wanted to see a few sites but more thn anything they wanted to party, party herd. I was asked if that was ok and that they would meet all my expenses. I have never danced, drank, ate and slept so much in a month.

that should be 'party hard'

I prefer "party herd" - such a great image.
Next to "hoovering up the drink" its one of the best descriptions of teenagers on the raz I've heard in a good while

Tour Guide definitely ranks right down there. Imagine if you will the questions we get here in Key West:

Does the water go all the way around the island?

Is that Cuba? (indicating Christmas Tree island in the harbor, maybe a half-mile square...)

Where are the six-tailed cats? (indicating Hemingway's well-known six-toed cats)

Do they only have sunset once a day?