As shoppers flood stores across the country during the year’s biggest shopping season, retail workers are bracing for what many describe as the most demanding — and often demoralizing — stretch of the job.
“It magnifies everything,” said Nick Leighton, host of the podcast Were You Raised by Wolves?, which he co-hosts with comedian Leah Bonnema. Together, they dissect etiquette and the subtleties of social behavior.
“People are stressed, they’re busy, they’re frazzled,” he said. “When that happens, we tend to forget other people exist.”
Whether it’s gridlocked parking lots or shelves picked clean, the holiday retail environment can become a pressure cooker where manners evaporate quickly.
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November and December have long driven retail sales, prompting companies to hire large numbers of seasonal workers to manage the surge. These workers often absorb the brunt of shoppers’ frustration. Some customers treat employees as extensions of a corporation rather than as people.
This year, there might be even fewer employees to handle crowds of holiday shoppers. Companies say they could cut back on seasonal workers because of economic uncertainty, while at the same time, shoppers are expected to spend more than they did last year.
“Yelling at a worker isn’t doing anything,” Leighton noted. “Everyone else is busy, too.... Your shopping isn’t more important than the next person’s.”
Here are some expert suggestions on how customers can be kinder, more polite and more empathetic toward the people helping to execute all those holiday lists.
Manners apply everywhere
People who behave courteously generally do so everywhere, while those who are rude in stores often have similar issues in their personal lives, etiquette consultants say.
“We do not pay retail workers to be a therapist, a social worker or a punching bag. It’s not appropriate, and it’s not fair,” said Jodi R.R. Smith, president of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting in Massachusetts. Long before she advised companies on etiquette, Smith worked several holiday seasons at a Hallmark store.
Plan your shopping trip and leave time
Smith advises shoppers to plan ahead — knowing who is on their list, which stores they need to visit and when they will go. “Set yourself up for success,” she said. “Bring water or a snack. Do not go hungry.”
Timing matters as well. “Ask yourself, ‘When is the best time to go?’” she said. “Weekends are busier, lines are longer and parking is tighter. If possible, go on a Wednesday morning when the store opens.”
Establish a little rapport
Smith suggests making friendly eye contact with workers, offering a greeting and using humor to diffuse tense moments. If someone in line becomes irritable, she said, a gentle joke about needing a nap can reset the mood.
“We don’t have control over others’ behavior, but we certainly do over ours,” she said.
Shoppers can help reduce frustration by asking questions — and recognizing that workers may not have all the answers, said Elizabeth Medeiros, 59, who spent more than 35 years in retail in New York and the Boston area.
Some companies are acting preemptively. Delta Airlines is encouraging kindness between customers and employees with a “Centennial Cheer” program. It says it will recognize “100,000 acts of kindness” with Holiday Medallion cards, which can be redeemed for gifts.
Manage expectations
Customers often assume store employees can control everything from inventory and discounts to restocking speed and even the behavior of other shoppers, she said.
They can’t.
“Customers are focused, especially during the holidays,” said Medeiros, a former district sales manager and longtime store manager. “They’re checking off lists and looking for deals, and anything that interferes with that throws them off.”
Holiday work is already tough for staff under the best of circumstances, she noted. “Everyone is often stretched thin. Breaks get skipped, shifts get extended unexpectedly and six-day workweeks become common.”
As Smith puts it: “Clerks are not the CEO. Don’t expect someone making hourly wages in December to change a store policy you don’t like.”
Training workers to defuse tension
Adam Lukoskie, executive director of the National Retail Federation Foundation, emphasized that most customer interactions remain positive.
“In the news you might see a couple of incidents, but most experiences are OK,” he said. “We work hard to provide a high-quality environment.”
The industry has invested in new training programs to prepare workers for tense encounters, Lukoskie said.
The foundation’s RISE Up skills-training courses now reach more than 80,000 people annually. “It gives associates the tools to provide customer service and to understand that an angry customer is usually mad at the problem, not at them,” he said.
Above all, he said, shoppers should reframe how they view the person behind the counter.
“Act as if the person helping you is your daughter or son, or your mother or father. Not just someone there to do a task for you.”
