Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

Introduction - Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to my blog. My aim is to make this an entertaining blog about the frustrations and amusing situations that arise when one works full time at a photo shop (where we sell cameras, develop pictures, and offer related services and products). While the subject matter might not sound intriguing (I’m sure you would not want to work at a store all day) do trust me in that plenty of situations arise there that are truly entertaining. When I started writing this (thoughts/reflections/observations about my job), I’d been working at a photo shop for only three weeks, and the funny and absurd stories and observations I had already collected would by themselves make for interesting reading, I promise you.

I’m not just writing to entertain the world, of course. Like any blogger, my main goal is to vent my frustrations, and to give you a glimpse of the mini-hell of doing what I do (in my case, working retail). But after hearing two people tell me that my experiences would make a great blog, and after thoroughly enjoying blogs about porn video rental stores and special-ed classrooms, I think my stories will be painful in the most entertaining way, if I manage to write them well enough.

Now, allow me to introduce myself… or, rather, not to. It should be obvious that my co-workers and especially my customers should not find out I am writing about them. Also, it would probably be alienating to you if I told you too much about myself, like my hobbies, my tastes in books and movies and TV, what I studied in school, where I’m from, and so on. Suffice to say I’m a male in my early twenties, looking for a job in the field I studied in school, but so far failing at that, and having to work retail to pay the bills. Possibly the only pertinent details are that I am a bit of a gadget freak and love digital cameras of all shapes and sizes, which is what led me to work at a photo shop. I’m sure you’ll be able to deduce other things about me as the blog progresses.

If you have any questions or comments about this blog or about myself – or, heck, if you want camera or photography advice – feel free to
email me. Also, please post comments/replies to the posts in this blog - Anyone (that means YOU) can add your comments to the blog. (Thing You Can Deduce About Me #1: I have a big ego, and think you will bother to write me, and comment on my writing).

I should also say, I’m really not a bad person, IMHO. However, dealing with impatient customers all day who do not try at all to figure things out for themselves, and having to behave according to conflicting expectations and mutually exclusive ideas of what a good salesman is, can make one kinda tired of acting nice, and here I can compensate by being extremely not-nice. Most of what you will read in this blog is cynical bitching, me making fun of customers who don’t really have any good reason to know as much about gadgets or photography or computers as I do. It will sound intolerant, disrespectful, and overly harsh. (So while this blog is not as bad as this guy's site, my blog is largely inspired by his tone and the nature of his complaints. One of my favorite quotes by him: "People are the worst!").

Please believe me when I say this is not the way I talk about (or to) people in real life. Thing is, in writing down the initial set of thoughts that led to this blog, writing down the STUPID things people said/did, turned out to be more fun that I imagined (because, of course, it made me feel smarter than everyone else), so it kinda snowballed into a major theme. I can only ask you to trust me when I say I’m a pretty nice guy. It’s just that a blog entry about how much I love my family, how awesome my girlfriend is, or how much I miss my little dog who now lives far away, would seem out of place here (but would be a better reflection of who I am most of the time). This is a distillation of all the bitchiness and apathy and irritation in me. I promise to try my hardest to make it sound entertaining.

All right. Enough with introductions. Let’s get going.

posted by Remus