I recently quit the newsagency to work at the bar. To celebrate this milestone, I found a retail rant in my old livejournal. I shall repost it here in its slightly edited glory.


HOW TO PISS OFF A SHOP ASSISTANT


1. Meeting and Greeting

- Make sure to ignore all social niceties displayed by shop assistant. It is preferable to make eye contact for long periods of time to give the impression of boring your eyes into their soul. Grunting is a great way of communicating too! If anyone doesn't understand it, they are clearly stupid or foreign.

- How DARE that shop assistant say hello to you when you're looking at something! They usually ask devious things like, "Hello, how are you? Can I help you with anything?" but they really just want to sell things to you. Selling things, in a store! How perfectly horrible. To fend off such barbaric approaches, it's best to screech, "I'm just LOOKING" before they can launch their evil plan.

- Plastic bags are destroying the environment! It makes Greenhouse Effect stronger and the whales explode and Nazis take over the world. If a shop assistant is offering you a plastic bag, you must realise that they are actually offering the destruction of the natural world. Not to mention fascism.
This is why a suitable greeting is screaming hysterically upon first sight, "I DON'T WANT A BAG!!!!"

- It's a good idea to pick whatever it is you want to buy when the shop assistant serves you. They really don't mind when you stare straight ahead with your mouth open and say, "Uuuhhhh" for a few minutes while you're thinking.

2. The Transaction

- Throw or thrust your purchases at the shop assistant. After all, you are the Customer. You are being served by an absolute scum of nature. It is advisable to think of the shop assistant as a form of vending machine - cold, mechanical, devoid of human emotions and social contact. They are your bitch. Thrust away.

- Make sure to pay for EVERYTHING separately and sound disgusted at the very thought of all your purchases being efficiently put through as one transaction. Also, after you have made your purchase, randomly find something nearby that you want to buy too. Repeat several times.

- After waiting patiently for the shop assistant to process your transaction, randomly offer the remaining change of your purchase. This apparently makes the shop assistant's job easier, but we all know that all it does it make sure your wallet is a bit lighter.

- If the register decides to freeze randomly and the EFTPOS machine isn't working, you must always remember that it is not because the register computer is old and the EFTPOS machine won't accept your credit card with a bite taken out of it. It is definitely the shop assistant's fault because they are obviously making the machines break down out of pure spite. Accusing glares and impatient sighs are recommended.

- Assume the shop assistant is a mind reader. When they ask, "Is that all for today?" and you have not mentioned that you would also like a pack of ciggies and a $5 Instant Scratchie, they are obviously inept at reading your mind, which is a virtue that shop assistants should not lack. You have every right to be angry that they cannot read your mind, so feel free to be abuse them. A disdainful, "Uh, NO" is most suitable.

- This is a good time as any other to get rid of unwanted change. All those 10c and 5c coins that have been accumlating in your wallet for the last few years should be used to pay for a $10 purchase right here and right now. Even if you have been waiting in line for a long time, do not use this time to actually count the coins. This is where the shop assistant comes in. Dump the coins all over the counter and say, "I THINK it's $10, but count it for me." This works well especially when the shop assistant is the only person at the register and there are 8 other impatient people lined up.

- If the shop assistant so much as hands you 5c less change than what they're supposed to give you, go absolutely ballistic. After all, they are trying to rip you off. What if you were abducted by Communists, tied up and left hanging by a rope over a pit of poison-tipped shards of glass and forced to watch "Norbit" on repeat for the rest of your life, and the only way they would let you go is if you gave them 5c?
They are obviously part of a secret communist conspiracy. Ignore any apologies and attempts to ratify the situation. After you have flown into a rage and righted this severe injustice, disgusted sighs should signal your departure.

3. Socialising

- Respond to everything the shop assistant says with your life story.
eg.
SA (shop assistant): "Would you like a bag for those?"
You: "Yes, I have to go to Woolworths later, I completely forgot to buy a leg of ham and I have a dinner party today where my relatives from Melbourne are visiting..."
SA: *brains leak out ears*

- Tell the shop assistant hilarious jokes.
eg.
You: I would like a lotto ticket.
SA: Sure, which one?
You: The winning one. HA HA HA HA HA HA! *slaps knee* I bet you get that all the time.
SA: Trust me, sir, I do.

- Ask the shop assistant if a certain item is in stock. eg. "Do you stock any butt plugs?"
If it isn't, describe the item in great patronising detail. "You know, they're plugs, about this big, and you insert them into your rectum?"
When the shop assistant says no, keep asking. "But do you have them? DO YOU?!!"
All stores also have a tendency to hide any product you actually want in the mystical realm of Out the Back. Make sure you ask them if it's there. Oh yeah, and all shop assistants are lying when they say no. You'd better ask their boss as well.
Then compare them to another store to make them feel guilty. "Well they sell them in the Butt Plug store, I just THOUGHT you'd sell them HERE!" Shop assistants care so much about your purchasing habits that this deeply offends them. Teenage part time workers have taken to sobbing into their pillows late at night over things like this.
Continue to ask them if they stock the item. Unless your excessive questioning causes the item to magically appear, walk off in a disgruntled huff.

- When your child is throwing itself on the ground, screaming, it is definitely a good time to take them into a shop. Make sure to buy them lollies. Sometimes it's best to buy them a big chocolate icecream or milkshake beforehand. Melted icecream handprints on the displays? Spilt milkshake? Psst, who cares. The shop assistants have to get paid for doing something!


SHOP ASSISTANT WEEPING FOR HUMANITY OR YOUR MONEY BACK!