For those who don’t know, I actually worked at Shoppers Drug Mart in the Beauty Boutique for seven years. It was one of my first jobs (after my paper route and Booster Juice) and I absolutely loved it. I got to play with makeup and skincare all day while having the best group of coworkers I could ever ask for. It was truly a great job. But as I grew older and got a full time office job after graduating university, I felt myself drifting away. It was no longer my passion project. I strongly believe that everyone should have a side hustle but that’s always been my blog, not Shoppers. Working retail for such a long period of time was a great experience (at times). It teaches you so many things at a young age. In a people facing role you learn invaluable customer service. I got less shy, I learned how to present myself and finally learned how to talk to adults. But, it was also the worst at times. And now that I don’t work there anymore, I can finally spill the tea on some of the worst moments. Now, please keep in mind that I loved this job, there were just a couple of moments that I didn’t love. However, I look back on them fondly. They’re quite funny for the most part. And I’m sorry if these stories are a lil’ hard to follow. It’s like explaining an inside joke to a stranger; it just doesn’t always make sense, y’know? So bear with me!
‘Are You Having a Bad Day’ Lady:
We had a promotion that if you spent over $50, you got 20,000 bonus points. Pretty good, right? Usually this offer could only be used once per customer but I’m a nice person. I like to make exceptions. And so, this lady was buying $700 worth of things and wanted me to split her purchases up into 14 fifty dollar transactions so she could get 280,000 bonus points. I’m sure any other retail worker would have simply said no, that’s not allowed. But I guess I was feeling really nice that day, so I agreed. And so, I started splitting her purchases up into separate transactions. But, here’s the thing. When you are buying different things, it’s not going to add up to exactly $50 every time. And so, when I was ringing up the fourteenth transaction, it only came to $49.13. I told her that she would need to add something for a dollar in order to get her last 20,000 bonus points. Any normal customer would have picked out a pack of gum to add. But no, she told me that I had obviously messed up my math and I needed to return all fourteen sets of purchases and re-do it. I politely told her that this was just the way the cookie crumbles and it was never going to equal exactly $50. I told her if I returned everything, she would have to buy it back in one transaction. I would not split them up for her again and waste another hour of my time. She was outraged. She told me that I was usually so nice but I was obviously having a bad day and taking it out on her. She also told me my face looked “mean” and “sad” and I was being “emotional” (as she yelled at me and I kept my calm disposition). Honestly, thank god for my coworker who stood beside me and backed me up the entire time.
Spring Roll Lady:
This is honestly one of the funniest stories I have from Shoppers. So there was this cute lil’ old lady who became friends with all of the girls who worked in the Beauty Boutique. She was so nice in fact that she started bringing us all homemade spring rolls when she would come shop. These spring rolls were no ordinary spring rolls. They were absolutely delicious. I would do anything for these spring rolls. Whenever she would come in to the store, she would buy maybe one or two inexpensive things but spend a while shopping around, browsing and occasionally chatting with us. We just let her do her thing because she was so nice and a regular at our store. Around this time, we also were having a lot of unexplained theft. It seemed like certain products were always disappearing but we couldn’t see anyone stealing it on the security cameras. Until, a year later, I got a text from my manager stating “SPRING ROLL LADY HAS BEEN STEALING FROM US FOR A YEAR”. Yes, that’s right, folks. All this time, we were being buttered up with spring rolls while this woman stole from right under our noses. We banned her from the store and that was the last of the spring rolls. But honestly, I would let her steal anything if it meant getting to taste those spring rolls again.
Crazy Throwing Bag Lady
I have only cried in front of a customer once but boy, this was well warranted. People tend to get really greedy when buying cosmetics. They just want more and more and more. I was selling this lady a bunch of little $20 Clinique gift sets. At the time, Clinique was having a gift with purchase promotion. If you spent $50, you got a free little cosmetics bag filled with samples. This lady wanted a gift for each set she bought (even though it was under the $50 minimum spend). I obliged because I was feeling nice that day. She also wanted a bunch of other samples. I also obliged. I usually try to meet customers’ requests when possible. But then, she wanted a free gift bag for every single set she bought. I told her we sold gift bags down aisle 8. She refused and wanted our free ones. I told her I would give her ten bags. She wanted twenty five. When she became outraged that I would not give her 25 bags, I politely told her that I had already gone out of my way to give her all of these gifts and samples. And you know what she did? She screamed that she didn’t even want them and threw them at my face. Threw. THREW. That was when other customers got involved and told her off. It wasn’t until she left the store and a customer asked if I was okay after what she had witnessed that I broke down and a singular tear rolled down my face.
Five Finger Discount Lady
We got a lot of theft at Shoppers. So much theft that I had gotten pretty good at suspecting certain customers and recognizing all the warning signs of them about to raid the Beauty Boutique. But there was one day in particular when my theft radar just wasn’t functioning properly. I walked to the fragrance section at the back of the store and realized that THREE shelves of perfumes were missing. I was shocked. I had been in the boutique the entire time, how did I not see someone steal them? It wasn’t until I watched the security footage back that I saw a woman steal them all while I was standing right beside her, helping another customer, with my back turned. Yes, she was that ballsy. And to make matters worse, this customer I was helping watched this other lady steal everything and didn’t even tell me. I now see where her loyalties lie.
Abundance of Chanel Lady
This was around the time when brands were just starting to really crack down on the amount of items you could sell someone (to stop people from reselling it for a profit). Chanel announced that we could only sell a maximum of six of the same perfume to a single customer and had us sign an agreement that we would follow this rule. I figured I would never have a problem with this as I struggled to sell even a single Chanel fragrance to customers. Well, luck would have it, the day after I signed this agreement, a customer came in asking to purchase 24 Chanel perfumes. Twenty-four. Yes, you read that right. Any memory about the agreement I had just signed the day before went out the window. All that flashed in my eyes were dollar signs. And so, I sold her all 24 perfumes. When Chanel found this out, they tried to get me fired. Yes, fun stuff.
Honestly, if I only have five bad memories of working at Shoppers after seven years, that’s a pretty good ratio, right? I truly grew up in that store. I got the job when I was still in high school. It was with me when I decided the faculty of Science just wasn’t for me. I cried in the Shoppers bathroom during my first breakup. I hid under the Beauty Boutique cash register when my ex walked in. The first place I drove my new car was Shoppers. I got asked out for the first time by a stranger when I was working at Shoppers. I made some of the best friends I’ll ever have at Shoppers. It was also the first thing I put on my resume when I started to apply for jobs after graduating from university. I even got recognized as “When I’m Older” for the first time by a customer at Shoppers. There was so many firsts at Shoppers and I will always look back fondly at the good (and not so good) memories. So thank you, Shoppers Drug Mart, for some of the best years of my life.