The Customer Is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles

by Jeff Martin

Other authors: Clay Allen (Contributor), Michael Beaumier (Contributor), Jane Borden (Contributor), Timothy Bracy (Contributor), C.A. Conrad (Contributor) — 17 more, Richard Cox (Contributor), Jim DeRogatis (Contributor), Hollis Gillespie (Contributor), Victor Gischler (Contributor), Gary Mex Glazner (Contributor), Catie Lazarus (Contributor), Stewart Lewis (Contributor), Anita Liberty (Contributor), Randall Osborne (Contributor), Neal Pollack (Foreword), Becky Poole (Contributor), Wade Rouse (Contributor), Kevin Smokler (Contributor), Wendy Spero (Contributor), Elaine Viets (Contributor), James Wagner (Contributor), Colson Whitehead (Contributor)

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A tragicomic and all-too-revealing collection of essays by writers who have done their time behind the counter and lived to tell their tales.

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Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)

There's no point in reading this. Not a single story is as entertaining as anything you'd find on customers_suck. The writing itself is at best trying-too-hard and at worst pretentious. Each and every one of the authors comes across as a precious would-be David Sedaris.
In fifty pages, I didn't even crack a smile. (

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wealhtheowwylfing | Feb 29, 2016 |

Waiter Rant for the retail trade.... Many of the stories have nothing to do with customers or customer service....they seem to be first hand accounts of each author's time spent in a retail job (more or less).
(

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Auntie-Nanuuq | Jan 18, 2016 |

Collection of essays on retail. Some great, some so-so. (

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njcur | Feb 13, 2014 |

Really very meh. I was not entertained by a large percentage of the essays. I think that there were only two that I really enjoyed and they did make the book almost worth it. Sears, Sbarro's Sayonara and The Bad Call were highly entertaining, but most of the stories just were very meh... (

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bookwormteri | Oct 2, 2013 |

A collection of 21 stories and essays about working in retail, The Customer Is Always Wrong is a humorous look at life and times of the retail associate. Having worked for 11ish years in retail myself, I can relate to quite a few of these stories. While some are better than others, overall the book was fun to read. More later. Maybe. (

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tapestry100 | Jan 2, 2010 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Jeff Martin	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Allen, Clay	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Beaumier, Michael	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Borden, Jane	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bracy, Timothy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Conrad, C.A.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cox, Richard	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
DeRogatis, Jim	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gillespie, Hollis	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gischler, Victor	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Glazner, Gary Mex	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lazarus, Catie	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lewis, Stewart	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Liberty, Anita	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Osborne, Randall	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Pollack, Neal	Foreword	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Poole, Becky	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rouse, Wade	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Smokler, Kevin	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Spero, Wendy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Viets, Elaine	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wagner, James	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Whitehead, Colson	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed

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Epigraph

What the customer demands is last year’s model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay

I'd just like to be treated like a regular customer.
--Elvis Presley

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