Dear Customers,

I am writing in order to highlight your constantly disrespectful and discurtious behaviour whilst conducting your weekly food shopping in the hope that you may rectify your behaviour.

Having worked in retail to support myself whilst studying, I have been subjected to rude, arrogant, and pompous customers who insist that they are the fountain of all knowledge and that shop assistants lack the intelligence to do anything but stack tinned goods shelves, operate tills, and bag pack (despite the fact that a large majority of my regular customers don’t work and can barely look after themselves let alone the twelve children running amock with my basket trolley). I, personally, have a problem with getting a withering look and the colloquial equivalent of ‘I’ll speak to a manager not a hired monkey’ from someone who can barely string together a sentence of standard English.

There are also only so many times, I am willing to explain that I do not set the prices for stock and no I cannot and will not give you a discount! I have never been into a store and asked for discount and I seriously don’t understand why you would want my measely ten percent off of your tin of Heinz soup (which incidently would be 72p instead of 80, and what are you going to do with the extra 8p? Put it towards a bottle of cider?).

Also, whilst we’re on the issue of alcohol: why do so many people (mostly unemployed men) insist on coming food shopping whilst steaming drunk? It’s not big and it’s not clever – in fact ALL of the staff and the other customers are laughing at you, and not in secret. On a serious note the abuse received from drunk customers is appalling. In what world should it be ok for you to yell at, spit at, and generally harrass shop staff because you’re too drunk to function let alone shop? In one particular case a man of his late thirties to early forties insisted on blowing a horn whilst mooching around the store with his drunk partner and their child to the annoyance of myself and other customers – when asked politely to refrain from his activity he persisted to cause greater annoyance and then angrily confronted members of staf concerning why he shouldn’t be allowed to blow his horn in the shop (quite simply the reason I wanted to give was if you blow it one more time I’ll shove it up your arse you drunk bum! Go home, get sober and get a job!)

Another highly annoying habit you have is to turn up five minutes before we close and not leave or even attempt to leave to anything up to forty minutes after the close of business. Do you not realise that I get paid til the shop closes, just because you’re still there doesn’t mean I get overtime! And then you joke and make light of the fact that I’m still waiting for you and how ‘oops’ you didn’t realise the time and you didn’t see the closing time – well, that may be well and true but when you’re the only person in store and every member of staff you’re holding up is following you giving you dagger stares then you think you’d take a hint.

Furthermore, would it kill some people to take a bath and regain at least minimum standards of personal hygiene? Not only for the sake of myself, other staff and customers who are subjected to the vile stench of dried sweat, stale alcohol and urine, but for the sake of your own self respect.

As I’m sure you can understand from this letter the life of a shop assistant is not easy. In fact, we do a difficult job often for very little money or gratitude and not many of us want to be working in retail for the above reasons – but work we must, and retail is probably the largest sector employing students. All too often you hear about the plight of the consumer facing poor customer service, and I appreciate that retail must keep to their end of the bargain, but when you have worked in retail you understand the soul-sucking experience of being constantly degraded and believe me it’s not something that makes you put on your happy face and serve like a robot!

Therefore, it would be greatly appreciated if you could just control yourselves in public – it’s not hard really, most people manage quite well, and those few of you are really damaging the reputation of the whole community of food shoppers. If you feel you are unable to show some respect for the people providing you with service, to wash regularly, or shop BEFORE you become intoxicated feel free to shop online or starve.

Yours sincerely

Aggravated shop assistant