What Did Years of Working in a Shop Teach Me? About People and Communication

When I think today about where my relationship with shops and selling actually began, I have to go back many years.

I was still a little girl, going to primary school in Hodonín. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but on weekends a much younger friend of my mum’s would sometimes take me along to work. She worked in the Domos shop in Hodonín. They sold all sorts of decorative items, small vases, miniatures, shelves and lots of other things. I already loved the shop itself back then. There were so many little things to look at, and for a little girl it was a bit of a different world. 🙂

I helped her with whatever was needed at the moment, but mostly I just watched everything. I watched how she sold. How she talked to customers. How she showed them things, explained and recommended. And perhaps even more than the selling itself, something else fascinated me. How people chatted with each other. Not only about what they had come to buy. Often about themselves too, about what was new, what had happened where, or how they were doing. Now and then a customer would even talk to me. Customers often came back and already knew the shop assistant. Thanks to that, the whole shop had a completely different, pleasant atmosphere. 🙂

At noon the shop closed, we went for lunch at Švihák’s, and then the selling carried on.

I still remember those moments today. And perhaps that was exactly when my love of shops and selling was born. At home I then played shop, played shop assistant, and one Christmas I even got a toy cash register. So I “rang up” goods and had my own little shop. 🙂

In the eighth and ninth grade I did quite well at school, so I was advised to choose a school with a school-leaving exam. In the end I ended up at the clothing-industry school in Strážnice. In my imagination it meant that I would draw, design clothes, choose fabrics, deal with fashion and sell it too. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it also included hand sewing and work on a sewing machine. And I really didn’t like handicrafts at all back then. 🙂

Selling was part of my field, though, so even during school I went on work placements in a grocery shop. And sometimes, instead of regular lessons, I went on placement to the then textile factory Šohaj, which was best known for making shirts. In both cases, communication between people was a natural part of my work.

In the End, Shops Still Drew Me In

After my school-leaving exam I took a shop assistant course in Brno so that I could work in a shop. I commuted to Brno at the time, and in between I had another placement in a grocery shop. Over the years I gradually went through really different kinds of shops. I worked in small and large grocery shops, in fast food, in a clothing shop, in sporting goods and in building materials. The places, the range of goods and the people kept changing. My positions changed too. I started as a shop assistant and gradually worked my way through shift leader up to deputy store manager. I also worked in different regions, so I could see that even the people and the way they communicate are a little different in some places. But one thing stayed the same. Working in a shop was always, above all, working with people. 🏪

From life in a shop

✕ ❮

❯

“Working with people is the worst”

I’ve heard that sentence many times in my life. “Working with people is the worst.” But I can’t quite say that. Of course, over the years I met unpleasant customers too. Someone who came in upset, someone having a bad day, someone convinced they were right even though the situation was more complicated. But in my experience the vast majority of things could be solved somehow. A lot also depended on how you spoke to the person. I tried to be calm and polite and to show the other person that I was listening. I had also heard since childhood the saying “the customer is king” and I tried to live by it.

Over time I also learned to guess a little who I had in front of me. With some people it was best to speak briefly and to the point. Another person needed everything explained in detail. Someone first wanted to get it all off their chest, because they had come in angry, and only then were they willing to listen to a solution. There was actually a certain kind of psychology in it.

An Angry Customer Is Not Automatically the Enemy

I remember, for example, situations when someone came with a product that didn’t work and wanted their money back immediately. But it was never that simple. A complaint had its procedure, and the person needed to be told what would happen next. If someone had already come in angry, the last thing they needed, in my opinion, was for the shop assistant to start arguing with them as well. I found it worked much better to show that I understood why they were dissatisfied. That I wasn’t against them. That I was trying to find a solution and also wanted everything to turn out well. And most of the time they gradually calmed down.

I never wanted a customer to leave angry if there was a chance to resolve the situation normally. Because I always kept one simple thing in my head. I want that person to come back someday, and to have a pleasant feeling after meeting me.

Arguing With a Customer Was Unacceptable to Me

Later, when I worked in management positions, my job was no longer only to deal with customers. I also had to steer my colleagues. And sometimes it wasn’t easy. I knew colleagues who could get into an argument with a customer very quickly. Sometimes swear words flew, and within moments an ordinary problem turned into a vulgar quarrel. That was unacceptable to me. I had been raised, and later guided at work, a little differently. The customer was not someone we stood against on the opposite side. Of course, the customer doesn’t always have to be right either. And politeness has to work from both sides. But even when they were not right, I still believed that in most cases you could talk to them in a way that kept the situation from turning into a fight.

Perhaps it was right here that I realized most how important the way we communicate is. One sentence can make a person even angrier. And another can calm exactly the same situation.

When I Was Praised for Something That Seemed Obvious to Me

Once my boss praised me for how nicely I talk to customers. I remember that it actually surprised me a little. Not because the praise didn’t please me. But because being kind to a customer seemed completely natural to me. I thought: why should I be unpleasant to them? They came to buy something. They need advice. They don’t understand something. Or they have a problem they want solved. Why should I be mean to them just because I’m tired or having a bad day myself? Over those years I of course had my own life problems too. Sometimes serious ones. Financial, personal and others. But I tried not to carry them with me to work.

When I arrived at work, it was as if a different world began. There were customers, colleagues, duties and things that needed to be sorted out. And my own worries stayed for a while somewhere behind the door.

But Over Time Something Changed

During my many years in shops I began to notice that the environment around me was gradually changing. Perhaps the times changed. Perhaps the way some shops were managed. Perhaps what companies expected. And perhaps a bit of everything. I increasingly encountered an attitude that was different from the one I grew up with and knew.

For some companies the customer was no longer seen as someone to be cared for and who should leave with a good feeling and come back. More often I heard something along the lines of: if he doesn’t come, someone else will. And I heard the same about employees. And I personally found it hard to come to terms with that. Perhaps because I was used to something else ever since I stood as a little girl in that shop in Hodonín and watched the shop assistant chat with customers.

Because for me a shop was never just about someone putting goods on the counter, paying and leaving. There were always people there. And without people no shop would exist.

In the End I Had to Leave

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason I finally left working in shops. There were more reasons. But more and more I felt that my idea of how working with people should look was starting to differ too much from what I saw around me. It no longer made much sense to me and it didn’t make me happy or content. And one person can’t change a system. You can do your job as well as you can. You can be polite to customers and colleagues. But some things you can’t change on your own. And so in the end I left.

What All Those Years Gave Me

Still, I would never call the years spent in shops a waste of time. Quite the opposite. They taught me an enormous number of things. I got to know all kinds of people. Customers and colleagues. I heard a lot of life stories. I saw how differently people react under stress, under pressure or when something isn’t going well. I learned to listen. To explain. To look for solutions. Not to let myself be provoked right away. And also to realize that sometimes it’s better to stay silent for a moment and let the other person finish.

Thanks to the various shops I also gained a lot of practical knowledge. About food, clothing, sporting goods, different materials, and about how the running of a shop works, which the customer usually doesn’t see at all. But perhaps most of all I learned about people. Everyone comes with their own story.

When I walk into a shop today and meet a kind, pleasant and communicative shop assistant, it always makes me happy. 🙂

Perhaps because I know very well what difference a completely ordinary approach can make. A smile. A greeting. A few normal words. A willingness to advise. Nothing big is needed. And at the same time I also know that the person on the other side of the counter may be dealing with something the customer has no idea about. And of course that works the other way round too. We never know what the person standing in front of us has come with.

Perhaps this is one of the most important things that working in a shop gave me. Behind every customer and every shop assistant there is a life, worries, joys and a story of their own. And sometimes it’s enough to simply be a little more human and kind to each other.

When I remember today that little girl in the Domos shop in Hodonín, watching how the shop assistant chatted with customers, I have to smile a little.

Back then I of course had no idea how many years of my life I would end up spending in shops. Those years also left me with lots of nice and funny memories that still make me smile today. 🙂

But I think something began there that has stayed with me to this day. I like people. I like chatting with them, listening to their stories, laughing with them and trying to understand why they sometimes react the way they do. And even though I no longer stand behind the counter, this is what I carry on with me from all those years. 🙂