Okay the title is a bit exaggerated, but honestly not far off. This post is very mundane and a bit long, but thought it fits the community.

I’m visiting my home country and went shopping for pants, there were “30% off everything!” signs with a tiny text underneath that said “member discount” (don’t have membership). Not a problem, did not notice and I don’t care for such marketing tricks to get you into the store but okay.

Picked up couple of pants, went to the cashier and they asked me “do you have our membership?” - I answered no and expected the follow up question whether I’d like to join, but, to my positive surprise the cashier just happily responded “okay, not a problem!” and continued to bag my stuff.

I stood ready to pay and then the cashier said “now I just need your phone number and you can pay”. Hold up. What. I did not expect that, I honestly had a burst of anger inside me (never gonna take it on a cashier, they are just doing their job). I asked nicely why do I need to give my phone number and I was told that to register me as a member so I can get the discount.

I declined and said I don’t want to join and would like to just pay.

The entire interaction after questioning why they need my phone number was awkward, as if I had been the first person to decline, the weirdo, aluminum foil hat wearing hermit.

This was just one of many interactions in the recent years that make me feel as if I was a weirdo for not sharing all my info around. The worst is when everyone keeps telling me “its just an app, just download it and use that why do you make things complicated” or “just sign up you don’t need to pay anything”.

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  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
    3·
    5 hours ago

    … they’re just underpaid and under a lot of pressure from management to try multiple times and in some cases they even get written up for not doing it because it’s deemed part of their job. They hate it just as much as you.

    I’ve worked retail and call centre jobs and I can assure you this is many people (at least those who are not too exhausted to care). These workers are constantly pressured to enshitify their service at the expense of theirs and the customer’s experience.

    I haven’t worked a counter in over a decade, so can only imagine it’s got worse.