Any retail or former retail workers remember "The Back Room"?

[Aristus]

You know, that magical place where you hid all the things customers really wanted from your store?

I used to work in a bookstore, you know, back when they had those things, and I can't count how many time when I would tell a customer we had no copies of the book he/she was looking for. They would ask "Well, can't you check in the back?'

"The Back"?

Where we keep the toilet, a little lunch table, and a water cooler that hasn't been serviced in eight months? What do you expect I'll find back there?

If we had the book you're looking for, don't you think I would sell it to you so you would go away from this place that is a portal to a magic Narnia that has every copy of every book ever printed?

As stressful a career as clinical medicine can be, I'm glad I escaped the retail gulag.

[Harker]

1. Oh, yes.

I worked nearly my entire working life in bookshops.

"Sure, there are maybe another hundred boxes in the back... I'd be happy to leave the front unattended and look through them all for you to see if there's a copy of that blue book, the title of which escapes you, in one of them."

[Aristus]

2. By that guy, about those people who go to that place. Do you know the one I mean?

[Harker]

3. That's the one!

[Harker]

5. I had a guy ask if we had a copy of the Wilhem & Baynes "I Ching"

when I had one in my hand. I was able to say, " yeah... we sure do", and hand it to him without breaking eye contact.

Some days I'm just a little sad to be retired.

[BComplex]

10. That guy had smarts! Great book.

Still read it a lot. Describes every part of the human dilemma and how it's reflected in nature. You know one, you know the other. Amazing stuff.

[Sherman A1]

4. Yes, 43 years in Retail Grocery

the last 20 of those as the Grocery Receiver for the store where I worked and we kept all sorts of stuff in the magical "backroom."

I recall being sent to the "back" by the customer knowing full well that the desired item was out of stock and would not be in until the next truck arrived.

Working with the public was an "interesting" experience and one from which I am happily retired.

I will share one story from my early years as a Produce Clerk. I was filling the plastic tab holders (Quick Locks) that customers used to tie off their bags of produce before leaving the department and one customer returned to me the one she had taken so that she could get the fresher one that I was putting out in the holder. My co-workers and I all went to the "backroom" and just stared at each other in disbelief.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. Yes! My SO works at Home Depot, and they have no 'back', hence, everything that is

in the store, is already out on the floor, they don't store $millions of dollars worth' of merchandise in the 'back', it's all out on the floor already. And yet, despite customers can see this for themselves (they can readily see the back of the store, and the exits at the back of the store), still ask 'can you check in the back?' or some other iteration of this phrase.

[Phoenix61]

7. I worked at Sears many years ago. We not only

had a back room we had a huge downstairs storage. We would get the sale flyers early along with the merchandise. Plenty of times we stashed stuff in the back to buy later when the sale started.

[sanatanadharma]

8. I have had a variety of jobs giving me access to the 'back room' of different industries

I worked at or cleaned places. I delivered things. I merchandised products.
Liquor stores; I hate when the back room is a basement.

Large name supermarkets with many back rooms.
Single location grocers of alternative, natural, organic, wholesome; not all back rooms are wholesome.
Boutique businesses with backrooms behind other businesses.
Cluttered businesses that seemed to be all backroom, and businesses where I never past the front desk.
The kitchen of my favorite greasy-spoon breakfast and the kitchen of the fancy French restaurant that was no less greasy.
The JC Penny where the back room was on the top floor.

Most of the time I could tell truthfully tell asking customers, "I don't work here"
Now I stand by my shopping partner and hear (he, she or it) ask, "Did you check the back room?

[NBachers]

9. Working in hardware, the term I've come to fear is "Adapter" - the one magic thing that will

adapt every one thing to every one something else. There apparently is this magic "adapter" that will connect two dissimilar things together and make them work with each other.

[BComplex]

11. Yep. The US Senate needs one of those!

Can you look in the back?

[Effete Snob]

12. Enjoy this...

[zeusdogmom]

13. JC Penny lingerie dept. late 1980's, early 1990's

We actually did have a back stock room filled with boxes of stuff we already had on the floor. But many a shift I would gladly tell a customer that I would check the back to see if we had her size. It made the customer think I was going the extra step to help her when in reality I would sit my weary self down for a minute or so. (there were some long shifts tucked in between being a wife, mother, and grad student) I knew we didn’t have what she wanted ‘cause I knew what was on the floor and what was in the stock room.

[Phentex]

21. I worked as a floater in linens and there was a back...

because comforters and such could not all be out all the time. God, I HATED that department! I am short and it was not easy to climb up and drag a large comforter down only to show it to someone who then changed their mind. Occasionally I was placed in the back only to put things back! I liked that better than dealing with customers.

[Fla Dem]

14. Whie I have never asked a retail employee to check "the Back" .........

More than a few times over my shopping lifetime, when I was looking for an item, and a sales person would ask if they could help, when I told them what I was looking for they would "offer" to check out back. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes, not.

Also worked as a retail employee part-time for a major department store in the Northeast for a few years after HS. Everything was not put out on the floor. Sometimes there was no room for additional stock, sometimes there just wasn't time during your shift to get everything out on the floor after a stock drop in your department and wait on customers too.

Book stores may be different than a larger retail store.

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. I've asked workers to check for sale items that are out of stock on the shelves

On the last day of a sale, they'll often have back stock that they don't put out because they're waiting until the sale is over to restock. I worked 13 years in retail.

[GoneOffShore]

16. There's a site called 'Not Always Right'

Stories of the retail trade.

You either laugh or tear your hair.

[Aristus]

17. I posted one of my most memorable bookstore anecdotes there.

Great reminder of why I'm glad I'm no longer in retail.

[GoneOffShore]

18. bookstore tales are the best.

[Skittles]

19. that IKEA dude referenced "the back"

1:33

[Totally Tunsie]

20. It was surreal, but I just had the opposite happen after reading

your post! Went out to do errands and stopped at a local shop with counter service. When the display was short on the product, the clerk said "Let me see if there's more in the back." There was, and I had to tell her of your posting for a chuckle.