When I worked retail there was a time when I was in the middle of fixing a shelving unit under rather unreasonable time pressure when a customer walked right past three salespeople who were actively trying to get their attention, came up to me and was halfway through a question about the minutae of a product I have never touched in a department we were not in when they stopped to say "sorry, you aren't busy are you?"

I, balancing 40lb of sharp metal on one shoulder as I tried to jimmy a broken fastener loose with my own pocketknife (management refused to provide any kind of tools) responded with "a little bit, yeah"

And the customer got this look of utter Rage on her face, glared at me for a moment before spinning around and stomping directly out of the store.

I started to get back to work when I noticed that the salespeople were all staring at me with expressions of horror. I asked what was wrong, and one of them responded with a hushed, fearful "you can't say that!" and nothing more. Like they had witnessed me rip somebody's throat out with my teeth instead of provide an honest answer to a question asked by a dick.

When I worked at Walmart, I was an overnight stocker, I was assigned to the frozen foods section, I was the only one assigned to the frozen foods section, now for anyone who doesn't know this is actually against company rules, you are to have a minimum of three people stocking a section, at least when I was working there.

Well, I wasn't aware I was the only one assigned to the section, as on my first few nights I was shown the ropes by 2 senior stockers, so I assumed they were assigned to the section with me.

After five days they appeared in my section less and less, the work load began to gradually increase too, I inquired with my manager about where my coworkers went, and they said the produce area needed help.

After a week it became abundantly clear I was not gonna get any help in my section, so I soldiered on, I could get the section done by myself each night, but it took the entire shift.

Eventually I was asked to help every so often with the produce area, I thought nothing of it, but it did cause me to have to skip my lunch break to keep up with my section.

Eventually my manager began to demand that I finish my section by 1 am and then move to produce to help them, I told him if he wanted that he'd need to assign my section the proper amount of stockers.

I was assigned to worker conduct training as apparently I was rude to him, needless to say I missed my lunch, and didn't get any new people in my section.

To put it in perspective, frozen is supposed to have 3 people, produce is supposed to have 3-10, so how many did each have? Frozen had 1 and produce had 26.

So I bypassed the manager and negotiated with my coworkers, we came to an agreement, I'd get 2 workers to help me, and then I'd go to produce and help them by midnight, the manager found out and found it unacceptable that I'd deprive produce of 2 whole stockers.

I then went over his head to HR, got some new kid assigned to my section, manager now hates me, but I don't care, I was doing my job and it didn't matter to me if he liked it.

Me and the new kid got along, we would joke, share stories about school and so on, eventually I was reported for harassment to HR, turns out the kid was the day manager's son, and he told the day manager everything I said.

I got sent to a sensitivity seminar and was down a frozen section stocker yet again, it's now Christmas, everyone is panicking, they are running around stocking every section, I was pushed around the store to every section but was still the only one in frozen.

It was now the new year, the new pallette of ice cream came in during the day shift, they crammed it in the freezer in such a way that it was balanced atop old barrels, it reached the ceiling, I tried to ask for help moving it and was told to move it myself.

The ice cream collapsed on me, I was pinned for an hour and a half under it, the force busted the freezer door, knocked it off its tracks, I was wearing so many layers I barely felt it.

A week later I was told I was being let go, their reason officially was I was too slow in my section, their unofficial reason was that my attitude and conduct was unbecoming of a Walmart employee.

They said if I made a fuss I wouldn't get my pay, so I took my pay, finished my section and left.

That's like seven different flavors of illegal. You could have sued the company just for making you skip lunch breaks, before we get into all that shit about how you were buried in a freezer for over an hour because they violated two dozen safety regulations, and threatening to deny you pay for time you've already worked is the kind of thing that smaller companies have been destroyed by; it would definitely have gotten the manager fired by home office if you'd made a fuss.

Y’all wanna talk illegal retail or at least stuff that should be illegal?

Okay soI used to work at Office Depot. I transferred to another location in my college town after summer was over, so I could keep a part time job while at school

I wanted a pack of gum and asked my co-worker to run the transaction for me, because the registers reject employee discount for yourself. She gawked at me and told me that that’s against the rules, all employee purchases have to be approved by the manager.

Now then. I have worked at two other locations, one of which was a flagship store. I know it’s is absolutely not company policy that employee purchases have to be approved by a manager. I tell my co-worker as such, I buy my $2 pack of gum and I go to work at the miserable excuse for a print shop I’m attempting to salvage by fixing other peoples’ messes.

A half hour later I get called into the office and the manager lady is having a conniption.

“Do you know what you did?”

No, I don’t.

“You bought something without the manager approving it. I could have you fired.”

Ma’am, that’s not company policy. I haven’t done anything wrong.

She was soooooo mad, but she let me off the hook because she knew it wouldn’t hold water with HR.

Did I mention we were explicitly not allowed to take lunch or breaks and were heavily discouraged from using the restroom?

Honestly when I got my first non-retail “real” job I was surprised when I found out I could take breaks. Actually, they wanted me to take my breaks so they wouldn’t get in legal trouble. I was flabbergasted beyond belief

It felt really good when I went back to said college town a few years ago and that location had gone out of business.

There was also the time that my manager at my hometown location approved time off then later recanted that, not sure how legal that is. I had asked off two months ahead of time and it was approved. A couple weeks before, I see I’m on the schedule when that had previously been blocked out.

I went to ask my manager and was told they needed all hands on deck during restocking day. You know, the day they get reviewed by higher-ups.

I told her I’m putting in my two weeks.

More recently, I went across the street from my office building to another location of this store to buy some batteries and found the woman had been transferred to that store. Needless to say I don’t go to that location anymore.