yeah, been there done that! I spent 4 years working in retail hell. I ran the commercial sales desk at Lowes, most of my customers were great (though there were a few that were not). Management on the other hand, thought that ruling by fear and threats was an effective means of forcing productivity. I generally balked at it. There was one manager that I egged on (via making him do his job) on purpose to get him to make physical threats toward me like he had other women at the store. He was one of those live with mom, Mr. Rogers sweater wearing, potential hatchet murderer, mental cases. I got him in trouble with the store manager when ever he wouldn't do his job. He ended up moving to another store - mission accomplished. The last year I was there when the market got bad, they started to write us up if we didn't get the expected monthly amount of credit card applications, that were actually approved and used, not just applied for. Most of the contractors that came to the store already had cards and were already struggling and that was the year I got sick (it took me 6 months to recover from it). I always gave 10% discounts to my regulars or anyone with a big project and I was top in regional sales, so to have my job threatened by lack of interest in credit card aps with charges, well it pissed me off! I applied for a new job and got it... and got the heck out of retail! That was in 2008. I am really glad I did too as I was enjoying the career I had, till covid, then lost that job because the company was sold. A few years later I had a manager at another store tell me that she used me as a model for training her commercial sales team....... why I was never given complements on my work just goes to show the mentality behind retail.
