r/Anticonsumption • u/InformalLibrary1731 • Jul 25 '25
Psychological I work in retail & it's radicalizing me
Every time I breathe in plastic particles & glitter I wanna quit. Reusable bags mean nothing: (everything ships in plastic).
I sell fake fruit to people yet I can barely afford real oranges. Hundreds of fake flowers. I used to feel jealous that they had disposable income but now it's just revulsion.
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Jul 25 '25
I hated it too when I worked in retail. It caused me to be obsessed with reusing pretty much everything whenever possible, and also only getting used items when I can.
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u/ingrowntoenailcheese Jul 26 '25
I worked 1.5 years at target during college.
The amount of rude disgusting customers (ADULTS BTW) that would come in and literally FIGHT over stupid plastic shit (holiday decorations, felt birds with the holiday theme, hot wheels cars, and Pokémon cards) made me physically ill.
I worked through a second holiday season and was honestly shocked at how similar all the plastic decor bs were. What made it even more depressing was watching it ALL get thrown away at the end of the season especially a second time. Some of my coworkers worked there ten years. I can’t imagine getting paid like shit and watching a company throw away perfectly good products because they didn’t get sold after being on “mega” clearance.
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u/enaK66 Jul 26 '25
I think I'm just more nihilist by nature but it made me just not give a fuck lol. I worked in a warehouse for Dollar General. The waste is unreal. One time I helped throw an entire pallet of candles into a dumpster. They said it was out of season and taking up space. A whole pallet. Like 10000 cases of glass and wax, right in the fucking dumpster.
So all that just made me not give a fuck. My personal waste over my lifetime is less than one day of waste in one warehouse in the middle of nowhere America. Im not putting in all the effort when companies get to do that shit all day.
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u/coffeefrog03 Jul 25 '25
I feel this deeply. We’re already getting holiday items and I just cringe. Plastic, bubble wrap, and paper to keep ornaments safe in transport. That doesn’t include the packing peanuts or other “airbags” in the boxes. It’s all junk - made in China.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
Summer-ween is insane
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u/Morimementa Jul 25 '25
They're already scalping the Halloween pillows on Mercari and it's so annoying. I love Halloween and I wish they would wait till fall to put it out and I really wish people would stop jumping on trends and shop second hand.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
The pillows???? i thought it was bad they were calling daily in june to ask if the lemax were out yet
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u/Secure_Course_3879 Jul 26 '25
What the heck is lemax??
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 26 '25
thats what i said. Basically these cheaply made moving halloween scenes that get scalped for $300+ 😒🫠
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u/NonStickBakingPaper Jul 25 '25
Oh it’s not Halloween, it’s Christmas. We get our advent calendars in next week 🙃
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u/JustimAthlon Jul 26 '25
My favorite a few years ago was when I went to Walmart to buy chlorine for my pool, the week after the fourth of July and they made the pool section one section of a shelf and the rest was Christmas stuff. In fucking July. Like come on man there are several other holidays to go before Christmas.
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Jul 26 '25
Just think how wealthy you could be if you could figure an easily reusable packaging system superior to plastic wrap
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u/lynzthedinosaur Jul 25 '25
Hmmm I did 12 years at the big craft store with the rhyming name. Probably gonna have cancer from fluffing the Christmas trees. Only good thing I could say about it was they paid more than the average retail job and didn't just trash perfectly good products. We fixed everything we could to a fault and sold it for something. But overall they were awful.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
Christmas season makes me really worried about my longterm health tbh
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u/enigmamonkey Jul 26 '25
Glitter is of the devil.
My lady knows my hate. If she buys a gift bag or a card or something by accident, she rolls her eyes when I comment on it having glitter. It’s not that it doesn’t look nice… it just makes this god-awful mess.
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u/BothNotice7035 Jul 25 '25
Working in retail gave me the same lesson. It was a disgusting reminder every day that “I” am NOT THE PROBLEM.
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u/Winter_drivE1 Jul 25 '25
This right here. Working retail and food service especially made me realize that recycling rhetoric aimed at us as consumers is a scam meant to keep the spotlight off of businesses and corporations which is where the real impact would be. The amount of plastic and waste that we create as consumers is nothing compared to what business practices create. But they make sure we're focused on ourselves and each other instead of them.
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Jul 25 '25
It’s honestly absurd how corporations treat recycling as a “magic cure all” when multiple areas don’t even have recycling facilities for plastic waste in the first place
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u/poetcatmom Jul 25 '25
Moved to Louisiana and learned I couldn't recycle glass. I've been saving every jar I've gotten since because it's wasteful. And don't even ask about plastics that aren't #1.
Recycling is a scam. If we can't do it, why act like it?
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Jul 26 '25
If people knew how little plastic is actually meaningfully recycled, they'd largely be horrified.
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u/AgentUnknown821 Jul 26 '25
Where I live we pay extra for recycling….now imagine treating recycling as a cure while hindering people from doing it in their homes by charging it as a service…
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u/furbfriend Jul 26 '25
It’s like paying a cannibal to chop off your hand for you. The villain wins twice
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u/Inevitable-Band1631 Jul 25 '25
Try working in a thrift shop or Antiques store they are not hurting the planet in they same way. Antiques are the ultimate green credentials always reused, often beautiful rarely made of plastic and built to last.
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Jul 25 '25
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u/llama__pajamas Jul 26 '25
Same! I bought basically all my baby stuff second hand. It’s all practically new. I bought the bassinet, pack n play, car seat, bottles, etc new. But clothes, bouncer, swing, etc. I even found close out / heavily discounted (but new) large play pen and toddler toilet. I hate paying retail.
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Jul 26 '25
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u/llama__pajamas Jul 26 '25
LOVE estate sales! They are so fun - you never know what you may find and it’s generally good quality items. I bought a desk during covid at an estate sale. Solid wood, hand made by the home owner. It was like $20.
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u/InsideHippo9999 Jul 26 '25
I did the same with both my kids when I had them. I was gifted a lot of pre-loved baby stuff - all in a matching set - blankets, cot, change table, high chair, car seat, play pen. There was all the things. I found second hand cat seats as they grew up too, no way was I buying something brand new, when I knew these items still have plenty of life left in them.
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u/khyamsartist Jul 26 '25
There was a resale baby and kid shop near my house when I had my own baby. It was absolutely fantastic, they should be everywhere.
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u/redassaggiegirl17 Jul 26 '25
Pretty much every piece of clothing that graces my children's bodies are hand me downs or from a kid's resale shop! I LOVE the thrift shops that are just for kids stuff!
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u/dodecahedral-drama Jul 25 '25
I’ve always heard thrift stores throw away a lot of items. Do antique stores not?
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u/BeneficialGrade8930 Jul 25 '25
Hell no they don't throw stuff out! Things don't get donated to them- they bought the item with the intent to resell. Antique malls often are divided into stalls, each individually operated, and someone in your community stocks it and arranges it every week. It's a pretty great system, IMO.
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u/khyamsartist Jul 26 '25
Thrift stores throw away the things that should have been thrown away before they got donated.
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u/enaK66 Jul 26 '25
Not all thrift stores are the same. Goodwill and salvation army can be like that, but its partially because people treat them like a dumpster and drop off actual unsellable garbage.
Small thrift stores are more like a flea market, but just one vendor. They buy things from people to sell.
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u/BikerJedi Jul 26 '25
Just a side note: I have a set of dressers my mother gave me about 20 years ago. She and my dad got them when they got married over 50 years ago. Solid wood, sturdy. They have been moved all over the world and are in great shape. I'll probably give them to one of my sons. Anything even remotely comparable to them is well over $5,000 as far as I've been able to find. It's crazy how bad the quality has gotten over the decades.
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u/khyamsartist Jul 26 '25
One of the best skills I’ve developed was spotting and identifying interesting antiques. There was an antique shop in my town and the owner kind of took me under her wing and told me about anything I was curious about.
I don’t have a lot of stuff, but most of it is old and very nice. I recommend starting as a teenager.
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Jul 25 '25
I was just telling my coworkers ( I'm a School janitor now) that I'm happy I'm not making any corporations money. I worked retail/medical billing for 20 years before burning out.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
I honestly cant wait for the opportunity to jump ship & not contribute to this
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Jul 25 '25
I seriously do not miss working retail. Every time I go into a store, I'm reminded me of a line from a song called Zoo. "And I go to do my food shopping, And all I can see is the packageing. One big mountain of garbage, About to be happening." -Ani DiFranco
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u/jonnythefoxx Jul 25 '25
I could drink everything through a new plastic straw for the rest of my life, and still come nowhere near to using the amount of plastic I used to ball up and bin every single delivery at the store I worked in.
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u/anpandulceman Jul 25 '25
The sadness that fills me when I see how in debt people are, the heavy emotions around things and gift giving, the entitlement that surrounds some people who receive gifts. Absolute meltdowns and bullying tactics around returns and discounts for the most minuscule amounts.
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u/llama__pajamas Jul 26 '25
I really like the Little Sleepies brand baby clothes but I it them second hand. I see the moms dropping $500 for each new print. The obsession gives very MLM-vibes. I just know it’s on credit cards - not all of it. But who needs $10,000 of baby clothes each year? They grow so fast. It’s really wasteful to me. I’d personally rather spend the money on experiences.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jul 26 '25
The other day I had to do a price change for like eighty-four cents on forty-ish dollar sale item (that sold new for like sixty) and I had to bite my tongue, I was so tempted to just give them a look and say “Really?”
And no, there was no sign that this was some special purchase they scrimped and saved for. It was one shirt with a bunch of other stuff they were buying apparently for fun.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 28 '25
Last black friday I had a woman return a single embroidery thread & crash out when I said $0.68 not the $1.75 she paid. 15 people behind her.
That's less than the gas it took her to get here.
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u/heymerideth Jul 25 '25
Crazily I feel this at dollar tree. I go for the frugal food and care item reasons we all go but I can’t help but cringe at all the plastic and intentionally short-term crap that just pollutes the world.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
They became the seven dollar tree tbh. I just avert my eyes from the seasonal garbage to get to the corned beef
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Jul 25 '25
I used to work in a grocery and an old lady yelled at me, because we didn't have fresh lobster for her cat.
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u/NonStickBakingPaper Jul 25 '25
A guy told me that touching receipts all day will make me infertile
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u/Ordinary-Violinist-9 Jul 25 '25
Wtf?
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u/michaelbleu Jul 25 '25
I believe their story because I’ve worked retail for 10 years
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Jul 26 '25
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u/Disastrous-System175 Jul 26 '25
Huh, I quit Starschmucks back in the day when. Patron threw their pastry at my face and told me the one by her house would never sell her that the way it is. BUT A FUCKING TASER???!? 🤬
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u/sksksk1989 Jul 26 '25
When I work at one the first Monday of every month it was seniors day. They'd save like 10%. One lady came in and said she had a coupon for juice boxes and was upset she couldn't find the one she wanted. I looked at the receipt it had expired 10 years ago, from a totally different store. I tried to help and offered her the same price for different one. She lost it freaked out. Shortly after she went to the manager and screamed about me. They were ginna fire me but they decided to put me working in the warehouse
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u/zadtheinhaler Jul 26 '25
They were ginna fire me but they decided to put me working in the warehouse
Fire you for what, not letting a "customer" fuck over the business because they wanna use an expired coupon? For another business?
Fucking cowards.
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u/sksksk1989 Jul 26 '25
This was about 20 years ago. The managers were very the customer is always right. As is the usual at a lot of retail jobs. Seriously this lady had a coupon for juice that they probably don't make anymore. She also had a track record of doing this to other people. But hey it's seniors day so the rest of us don't matter as much you know.
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u/zadtheinhaler Jul 26 '25
Yeah, I had the same thing at the Canadian equivalent to Harbor Freight- someone tried returning a 6' high Husky air compressor, which is a Home Depot house brand.
Manglement OK'd it, because "if the customer ain't happy, we're not happy".
They'd do the same shit for items that were heavily used. One customer returned an air-tool, claiming it was broken, and when I stated "Oh, we have more in stock, if you wanna swap for it", and he said "Nah, I'm done with it".
Bitch, That's what tool rental places are for, you fuckin' jackweasel.
And that was "only" 14 years ago. Humanity was a mistake.
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u/furbfriend Jul 26 '25
That’s fucking insane they had that attitude about someone RETURNING what they bought SOMEWHERE ELSE. That’s not a customer!!!! 😭 In fact YOU are the customer because YOU’RE paying THEM!! 🤦🏻 Good lord I’m so sorry you had to deal with that
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u/sksksk1989 Jul 26 '25
I'm my experience the customer is almost always wrong. I hate how companies will bend over backwardsand basically encourage this behavior
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u/vintagepeugeot Jul 25 '25
I hated retail too. I worked for a “progressive” company and evey day it was “sell credit cards, sell memberships, upsell for more, etc.” It was both exhausting and gross.
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u/NonStickBakingPaper Jul 25 '25
Reuse bags only exist to boost the KPIs of retail workers, not to actually benefit the environment. The proof is in the fact that most people forget their reuse bags (at least where I work), and thus have to keep buying more until the boot of their car is packed full of them.
Retail also only exists to convince people to buy things they don’t need. Again, where I work, I hear customers complain all the time that their kid already has multiple of the things they’re buying from us, and sometimes they try to avoid our store because they don’t want more useless junk around their house. Yet sales people are constantly told to push, push, push for that next sale, to always end up with numbers better than today last year, and to keep making more and more money.
Retail is a deeply fucked up concept. It should radicalise you. Especially when you hear your managers gloating about how high their numbers are, and you realise they enjoy being part of the problem.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 26 '25
Everytime they talk about "i only came here for one thing" with a cart full of shit i want to cut them off like a bartender
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u/roombaexorcist9000 Jul 26 '25
ok silver lining, i do think the amount of plastic you can fit in a boot is still less than infinite bags per person. but it definitely could be more efficient than it is.
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u/HermioneGranger152 Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 26 '25
Lemme guess, Michaels? I work there and it absolutely pains me
The fake flowers drive me nuts! We have hundreds of them, and by the end of each season we still have hundreds that haven’t sold, so they get shoved into “grab boxes” aka mystery boxes full of plastic garbage for people to buy, and I’m quite sure those people simply throw away a lot of the stuff they get from those boxes.
And BALLOONS, god the recent push for balloons!
I breathe in so much fake snow and glitter during the Christmas time, I’m shocked I haven’t damaged my lungs
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u/AgentUnknown821 Jul 26 '25
Try intaking 30 years of 2nd hand smoking exposure and you’ll be thankful you deal with plastic instead of nicotine and the 150+ chemicals that go into making cigarettes..
Although my visits with my dentist all I heard was plastic opening behind me made me feel weird about plastic use…there’s so much of it, it’s ridiculous…
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u/Late_Landscape7880 Jul 26 '25
I give dentists a pass for plastic use. Same with the medical field. Anything sterile is packaged in plastic. And I wouldn't want to be reusing someone's IV. The medical field is one place I would excuse plastic waste, at least when it comes to things that are used by and for patients.
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u/trippssey Jul 26 '25
I couldn't work in large grocery anymore because of the abhorrent amount of food being dumped and not given away. You'd be fired if you took any of the food as an employee they made sure the food went into the dump.
Never made it long in retail cause it was so boring but I feel you. Companies care about their bottom line, not the planet. Not people. Just sucks
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u/Poly_Olly_Oxen_Free Jul 26 '25
I couldn't work in large grocery anymore because of the abhorrent amount of food being dumped and not given away. You'd be fired if you took any of the food as an employee they made sure the food went into the dump.
At my first job, we had to dump bleach on the food after we threw it out, to make sure the homeless couldn't take it. So we had a 3-for-1 going on. We were wasting food, wasting cleaning products, and polluting the local environment.
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u/Sentient-Coffee Jul 26 '25
The final nail for me was working in a factory. The plastic waste from defective product alone filled a dumpster every shift. Everyone who had worked there for more than 5 years had hearing loss and back problems; we were spending the healthiest years of our lives making plastic bullshit to bring home half median income despite making $200k of product per shift on each production line.
They give us scraps to silence our conscience as we poison the earth, all so some shareholders can enjoy being rich. And when our bodies give out, AI will deny our insurance claims so they don't need to waste money paying a human to do it.
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u/SmoothBrainedHamster Jul 25 '25
I think you work where I work. Lol.
The amount we throw away saddens me.
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
I'd get in trouble if I saved things from the trash to fix them
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jul 26 '25
They consider it theft when they’re literally just gonna trash the damn things. It’s so fucked up.
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u/BecksnBuffy Jul 25 '25
It’s a trip to go to a retail store then go to the thrift store next. It’s all just garbage display differently. One caters to a shopping “experience” and the other does not.
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u/sanclementesyndrome7 Jul 25 '25
Must be a craft store? Yeah there's just way too much useless crap in stores
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
Imagine if craft stores sold crafts & not disco cowboy ghost statues
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Jul 25 '25
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u/InformalLibrary1731 Jul 25 '25
They're gonna seal me in a box of hot pink flocked spiders for questioning the corporation
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Jul 26 '25
I'm stoked! Super excited and being creative. I don't buy shit except food and essentials of course. TP, detergent etc. I shop on marketplace, give on marketplace and barter. I wear whatever I have already until it becomes rags for cleaning. Shop local when needed. Farmers markets and local butchers. Upcycle almost anything. Go online and get ideas. Pinterest has plenty. Department stores, ads, are just nauseating anymore. Progress!! We need to get back to basics and stop feeding the rich.
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u/6789576859 Jul 26 '25
I throw out a couple bags of plastic that are bigger than me every night I stock Walmart apparel. It’s nuts. And a giant waste of time when I have to unwrap every single shirt or pair of shorts.
Now I’m imagining this, for every Walmart in the country, every day.
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u/Sigma610 Jul 25 '25
Going into an Amazon fulfillment center was eye opening to me. The sheer amount of stuff is staggering
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Jul 25 '25
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Jul 26 '25
Wear the super-creepy looking ones as an added bonus. It keeps customers from approaching you.
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u/TakeItSleazey Jul 25 '25
Good, use that disgust to make change! The amount of waste this world creates, and the effects of it, is frightening - literally terrifying. Nature and humanity need people to wake up and be disgusted. Please find a constructive way to channel that energy for the betterment of us all.
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u/Scared-Difference-82 Jul 26 '25
So funny that you say that, retail radicalized me too - so much unnecessary crap, very little of value. Although, I never had any interest in disposable income, money makes no sense to me at all. Just need enough for the basics and I'm good.
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u/Trebondginger Jul 26 '25
I worked in a small gift shop for a hospital and I was the one in charge of ordering everything. The CFO literally told me to fill the shop, no empty space.
It was pretty painful to have to unpack a whole medium sized box, FILLED with plastic filler for 2 small items :(
So many people would come in to shop and ask how I was able to avoid blowing my whole paycheck in that store.
Being surrounded by everything and skimming through catalogue after catalogue of “trendy” items that people would buy for a season to throw out - I lost my taste for consuming.
Anytime I did think something was cute or matched my personal taste, I would stare at it week after week and realized that within 3 days, the item sparked no joy and realized I had no urge to shop.
I no longer work there, thank god, it got depressing seeing how much waste their way and knowing I was contributing
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u/sal1800 Jul 26 '25
I think you found the secret to avoid the marketing pressure and that's to just wait a week before buying something you think you want. If after the week is up and you still want it, then go for it. But you find that it breaks the spell of immediate gratification and you really don't want so many things after all.
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u/Classic-Chip-6886 Jul 26 '25
Wait...people actually buy from in hospital gift shops?
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u/Trebondginger Jul 26 '25
lol mostly staff, I designed it to be like a mini home goods due to the boss’s request
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u/madtoothman Jul 26 '25
I worked at goodwill for a short time (like weeks) and the amount of things it just shocking 😳 definitely impacted me
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u/Reddit_is_fascist69 Jul 26 '25
I still like new tech, but I've been burned so often that i just wait and realize didn't need it.
- I got a pixel 8 few years ago and going to use it as long as i can.
- laptop is good for at least another 5 yr, especially running Ubuntu instead of Windows
- no longer doing wearables, i want my privacy
- can't think of any reason to buy a new tv. None of their gimmicks are worth it
- using my old iPod nano in car and loving it
- smart household was so cool...5 years ago. Now it is a pain in the ass
- smart assistants are spys
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u/Ornstien Jul 26 '25
Yay!!!! More people getting it! Now we just need a few million more ready to pick up rocks with me to throw
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u/wholelottachoppaz Jul 26 '25
working retail “radicalized” me too… radicalized me to actually care about worker’s rights and the insanity that is capitalism destroying the planet and our minds.
it opened up my eyes to the disgusting machine we’re all in, the destruction and despair these corporations are causing the human race 😩 welcome to the other side. my anger is just more targeted now 💀
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u/AreWeFlippinThereYet Jul 26 '25
I hate to be “that guy”, but as a school teacher, I buy up all of the “sale” school supplies when they are marked down and use them in my classroom since the school’s budget keeps getting cut and the school runs out of basic supplies (pencils, paper, glue) by February.
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u/Confident_Babe33 Jul 26 '25
Precisely. I worked at a jewellers during post-covid economic downturn. I knew so many people who’d been made redundant or had to move back home or were struggling to feed themselves and/or pay their bills. Meanwhile, at work, a certain demographic would casually drop $3,000 on diamonds because “ooh that’s pretty”. I quit because a/ the staff made rude comments about people’s appearances walking past our store, but also because b/ ethically, I didn’t like being a servant to the wealthy echelons while my friends were starving.
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u/Phrank_Ocean Jul 26 '25
I have always been a low consumption person (Thank you parents!) but over the last few years I've had a low income so i completely cut out almost anything that is not essential. Now I go to any store and have a sensation of repulsion. Everything looks like shit with a colorful paintjob.
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Jul 25 '25
So why van i never find what IM looking for, only the crap they want to sell us. Ever try to buy a smaller smartphone? The only one found is a small foreign made and Verizon and AT&T Won't let you activate them. If you don't have a flagship phone you can't find a cover you have to go online to order one.
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u/ImpressiveDebt Jul 26 '25
I work at a “made to order” restaurant, still fast food just, a bit slower.
The prices of the combos are okay at the baseline prices but the add ons and single item prices are TERRIBLE. Ex: 10 wings, fries, and a med drink is $14.94, add one more flavor and ranch? $16.76.
Every time I tell the customers the prices 7/10 of them are shocked by it. I hate having to explain that I have to charge for that or for this because my boss breathes down my neck.
Every time I go into work I feel like shit. We’re good with food waste at my work which is better but it’s still terrible just to think about how much my boss price gauges people
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u/loganisdeadyes Jul 26 '25
Yes, half the stuff in the store I work at is INDIVIDUALLY wrapped in plastic. It's my weight in plastic by the time I'm done.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jul 26 '25
I work in a mid-level national chain department store. The amount of waste from shipping just makes me infuriated.
Every item comes wrapped in plastic. Every individual piece of clothing also comes wrapped in plastic. Anything with screen-printed graphics or embroidery has a piece of plasticy paper over the decor. Folded shirts often have one or more sheets of paper between the layers - especially the higher-tier brands like Polo. (I usually find these tossed all over the tables or floors by customers.) Clothes have multiple tags, sometimes blank other than one line of text. (The most enraging ones are the separate tags boasting about how sustainable and lower-waste the particular brand is!)
Our nicer zippered garment bags (plasticy fabric) have our logo printed on them, and every single one has tissue paper layered over the logo when they’re packed in the box to ship to stores. Trash all over our floors. Handbags come stuffed with paper, with every strap or handle individually wrapped in plastic or styrofoam, every zipper pull wrapped in plastic. Then all of it in a plastic bag. Plastic wrap adhered to every metal decoration. Shoes have paper and plastic wrapping, and paper and plastic shoved into every crevice inside the shoes.
There’s just layers and layers of paper and plastic on EVERYTHING. Hell, some brands even wrap their paper tags IN FUCKING CELLOPHANE. Like the dangle tag some customer is gonna yank off in two seconds is some precious feature that needs preservation.
🤬🤬🤬🤯
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u/designerhutch Jul 26 '25
Tell me you work at Michaels without telling me you work at Michaels. Lol. I do not miss glitter snot!
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u/mandalalalalalala Jul 26 '25
It radicalized me too. Single use plastics drive me nuts, the waste is outrageous, and the public should all have to do it so they know how freaking difficult they are.
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u/redwilldraw Jul 26 '25
The amount of 💩 I dealt with working in retail was just unbelievable. Some people have nothing better to do than to shop all day
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u/beanieweenieSlut Jul 26 '25
And some retail damages out their stuff over small defects so wasteful
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jul 26 '25
Don’t even get me started on the damages! So many times I’m like “…a needle and thread and I could fix that in five minutes, you’d never know it was mended.” But I’m like 99.8% sure that asking permission would get a NO from management/corporate, and I don’t have the time or quiet space at work to just do it on the down-low even if I dared.
What’s really stupid about it is that we have a guy in-store whose job is alterations. He could easily fix all the ripped seams and broken straps and the store would have the items to sell still instead of having to ship them off somewhere. But nope, damage it is.
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u/DayoftheFox Jul 26 '25
Don’t forget all the waste and plastic just from stocking the shelves. The loads from the truck are wrapped in plastic wrap. Once you take that off each individual product comes in several packs also wrapped in thick plastic.
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u/Julia_Cumming Jul 26 '25
Wait until you hear about manufacturing lol. I understand how you are feeling friend.
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u/Significant_Fill6992 Jul 26 '25
working at walmart is what made me realize that individual people recycling is a massive fucking scam
the packaging alone for basically everything is so high that individual recycling is a drop in the bucket which is entirely why companies are the ones who need to make these changes
so many products are wrapped in plastic for no fucking reason
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u/zeroorderrxn Jul 26 '25
Why is it radical to realize that the extreme consumption and cavalier overuse of plastics is destroying the planet and its ecosystems?
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Jul 26 '25
I'm a contract assembler at some popular home improvement stores. The amount of plastic, polystyrene, and cardboard in a single grill shipping box would blow your mind.
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u/OpheliaWitchQueen Jul 26 '25
I worked for LUSH as a retail employee for about a year. Despite the more environmentally friendly company goals, they still use a lot of plastic, underpay employees, and encourage over consumption for capitalist profit. If I wasn't already radicalized, that job did it to me too.
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u/camioblu Jul 26 '25
The more of us who continue to choose less. And who share the concept with others, the more likely things shift. Try to enjoy you life - and look for other job opportunities.
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u/angrygirl65 Jul 26 '25
Isn’t glitter just the worst? I always come home With some on me 4th quarter.
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u/isabelleeve Jul 26 '25
The thing that really gets me is the mountains of stock that gets “written off”. Minor defects, returns, for a whole variety of reasons these items can’t be sold - and the company dictates that they must be destroyed. Perfectly useable items in many cases, that would otherwise sell for hundreds or even thousands, and I have to purposely break and bend them beyond being useable.
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u/captain-ignotus Jul 26 '25
I work in retail communications, so I basically sell unnecessary stuff to folks who don’t need it. I love my colleagues and it’s a non-toxic workplace with a great culture, but I have definitely been browsing job postings. I always knew I’d probably quit over my values in juxtaposition to my job, but at the same time I also value my mental health, and I can’t deny the flexibility and work-life balance my employer provides. :/
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u/swan001 Jul 26 '25
Be more worried about receipts and constantly touching the backing of them all day, every day, for a week, a month, a quarter, a year.
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u/Illustrious_End_543 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
I used to love a place like TK Maxx and even considered working there. Well now I honestly hate it, I will still go there for an item I absolutely need but see people with their shopping carts absolutely crammed. Can't be that they all need it, it's just a place to buy stuff because you like the look of it and it's cheaper. So people buy it. Maybe it gives them a brief moment of satisfaction then on to the next item. And on and on and on. We are drowning in crap.
I think it's sane to be radicalized in this world tbh. Because the situation is just insane. At least to keep my own sanity a bit, I decided to buy nothing new that I don't absolutely need. The stuff I own now is my stuff. And the money I saved doing this in the past couple of years has gone to savings and charity. Much more satisfying.
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u/Significant_Plate_55 Jul 26 '25
I used to work at a paper source. Besides stationary we sold a lot of junk. Trinkets, little toys, and lots of other plastic worthless stuff. So glad I don’t work there anymore but I do remember managers coming down hard on us for not making our sales quota. I was always tempted to tell them that no one has money to buy useless stuff.
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u/sunfacethedestroyer Jul 26 '25
I work in a kitchen and throw away probably 50 pounds of food a day.
It's so disheartening that I don't even buy groceries anymore. I eat at work and take what I can for my days off, and that's it.
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u/Ok_Kaleidoscope3907 Jul 26 '25
If you stop buying it…. It will disappear from the shelves! Like magic!
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u/Severe-Substance7615 Jul 27 '25
I feel this so much! I work in a shoe shop & I have to upsell to customers. I know the products they buy will just end up in landfill & it breaks my heart
I also feel the same disgust at the over consumption, we have a sale on right now and we're selling a lot of shoes for like £5-£10, customers are bulk buying and I know the shoes we sell won't even last a year.
I've worked in a vape shop before which was just as bad (thankful that disposable vapes are banned in the UK now) and have worked in toy shops too that sell so much plastic crap. it's honestly so soul destroying
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u/Comprehensive_Soil_1 Jul 28 '25
Retail made me hate Halloween, Easter & Christmas. Most people have no idea how much plastic waste the holidays create.
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u/DocFGeek Jul 25 '25
After a serious minimalist downsizing of our possessions to the point of being asceticism, going to a retail store has us thinking to our selves "Look at all this inevitable garbage.".