9 Things Costco Employees Can't Stand

If you've worked retail before, or know someone who has, then the premise of a list of things Costco employees can't stand is undoubtedly calling up memories. It's true that you can expect to discover a certain amount of crossover with other customer service jobs as far as some things that irk the warehouse workers the most. But at the same time, there are some problems that appear to be unique phenomena to Costco — like a failure to grasp membership expectations.

Despite going out of the way for accommodations to facility a family-friendly shopping environment with access to a members-only food court and product samples galore throughout the store, some shoppers actions — or failure to act where it concerns kids — can make it hard to come back to work every day. Be it product pickiness, over the top demands for help, or certain behaviors that are way out of line with what is considered appropriate in a polite society, Costco employees have dealt with it all. What's more, there is one specific thing they can't stand that only serves to make the rest of their grievances even worse.

Among the common complaints shared by Costco employees, a considerable number agree that some members make a troublesome habit of depositing refuse anywhere but in garbage cans. Be it a wrapper from something they brought with them into the warehouse, the plate used for the Italian classic calzone combo snagged at the food court, or one of the myriad of sample cups from vendors featured at the end of aisles, trash disposal alternatives include apathy, aggression, and sometimes unusual efforts in secrecy.

Counted with the more benign places that employees locate trash inside as well as outside the warehouse, customers, for whatever reason, too often leave garbage in their shopping carts. Even those courteous enough to fulfill the social compact and walk their cart to one of the returns about the parking lot are guilty of abandoning trash. Others are seen as vindictive for lobbing sample cups and whatnot behind pallets of goods — or even into the middle of a stack of clothes. Still, some take extra lengths to stow their garbage within a product before leaving that on a shelf or hiding it behind something else. In such cases, one employee has admitted to taking the leavings, catching up to the responsible member, and casually suggesting it was something dropped earning mixed responses. Of course, what truly makes the lack of trash etiquette frustrating is the abundance of garbage cans conveniently scattered about the warehouse to deter such behavior.

Seen in some instances as worse than leaving trash behind, employees aren't happy with customers who change their mind on a purchase and decide to abandon a product anywhere they please. In general, such behavior is viewed as a readily avoided, unnecessary inconvenience. Anyone who has worked in retail would tell a shopper they'd much rather an item be left at the checkout to be put back later or handed off to any employee in the store if that customer isn't willing to restock the good themselves.

Unfortunately, where it concerns perishable products — especially frozen breakfast items customers agree on — the mere inconvenience of depositing merchandise willy-nilly in the aisles becomes a matter of dollars and cents. Generally speaking, with no idea when a perishable good was abandoned by a customer, it is out of an employee's hands on what can be done with it as Costco requires it be discarded out of safety concerns. In some extreme instances, employees have discovered entire carts filled with frozen and refrigerated goods, abandoned for untold reasons, destined for the garbage leading some to wish memberships would be revoked.

Like pell-mell traffic in and out of toll booths or parking lots with vacancies, there are some places where rules of the road appear to be abandoned — and the same goes for shoppers navigating the aisles of Costco. It isn't just the seeming obliviousness displayed by some as they push their carts one way while looking in an entirely different direction. Nor is it the way in which customers will eschew any semblance of a directional flow to zigzag from one endcap to another. More than anything, it's the total disregard for anyone else in the warehouse, meaning customers and employees alike.

The list of complaints involving cart etiquette also includes those loitering about for a chat as though resting horses at a watering hole, those with large parties blocking entire aisles by walking side-by-side-by-side, and those who abandon their cart in one part of the store to go shopping elsewhere. In general, employees express their desire to see more self-awareness from shoppers — especially if a team is trying to get by with a forklift — from the time they arrive until they complete their visit by returning the cart to a corral. That is a touchy subject unto itself, as cart attendants lament shoppers who think it helpful to pass off a cart to them while they navigate the busy lot with a collection to bring to the front of the store. It tends to cause more trouble by arresting momentum or sending attendants off course.

From bordering on entitlement to downright quirky, there is a spectrum when it comes to customers and what they will or will not pull from a shelf to put in their cart. According to Costco employees, members will take great lengths for a choice version of an identical product, well beyond simply grabbing the second carton of milk out of the refrigerator. In fact, while some customers have been observed avoiding merchandise at the front or top of a pallet, sometimes moving cases to get to something untouched since it arrived at the warehouse, others go even further.

Members have been witnessed cutting open pallets stored in the shelves above the sales floor to get something they want. Other examples of pickiness can be found with items like the popular rotisserie chickens. Despite an employee explaining to Business Insider that Costco's policy prohibits sale of one of their chickens if it has been on the warmer too long, customers still aim to get the freshest bird possible. To do so, some will even ask an employee to pull a specific one off the rotisserie in a rare service example of the customer being considered wrong. Meanwhile, given the food safety concern that explains why the shelf life is kept so short, customers need only wait for a bell to chime in the deli section for a new order or check the time stamp on the packages to find the freshest one available from the last batch.

Be they bundles of joy, toddlers, or curious kiddos, Costco employees generally take no issue with children being in the warehouse. However, the way that some parents choose to treat the store like a playground or makeshift daycare center is frequently a point of contention. Child safety is no joke, and there is little recourse for employees save triggering a potential conflict if they see parents standing by dismissive of the fact their child is posing a threat to themselves or others — say be treating cases of bottled water as a jungle gym or pretend mountain range for scaling. This is why Costco similarly changed the rules regarding kids and free samples out of concern over allergens.

In other instances, employees report that parents treat the area of the warehouse where games and toys are on display as a makeshift babysitter so they can go about their shopping unencumbered while the little ones are entertained. Unfortunately, such a decision inevitably puts an emergency stop on work as employees suspect the child is lost and endeavor to locate the parents. Worse still, sometimes the kids actually go missing. Additional troubles can arise in the checkout line when children are left in the cart and the cashier or assistant are expected to play Tetris with the purchased goods when reloading the occupied wagon.

Perhaps it's a case of main character syndrome, or maybe some shoppers just happen to possess no regard for their fellow Costco members. Whatever the case may be, employees have raised issue with customer expectations, especially when they are clearly already helping someone. Sure, staffing can sometimes be short — an issue in its own right — but that doesn't mean the help one customer wants is necessarily more a priority than that of one already being assisted. Similarly, even if other employees are preoccupied, some on Costco's payroll have remarked how frustrating it can be to face questions from departments unrelated to the one they work in. As much as an employee would love to help you pick out your tires, the smock, gloves, and hair net — not to mention presence around all the chilled cases of meat — should be a clue that they likely have a different expertise.

As it happens, the one universal in all department's at Costco is the expectations around customer service. While some employees recall having no formal training on addressing the needs of customers, the skills tend to get passed down. That doesn't stop troubles from cropping up with customers digging through piles of clothes looking for a specific style or size rather than asking for help, as well as disputes that crop up about availability. Costco employees have faced arguments with members about out of stock merchandise simply because the customer had seen it the last time they visited the store.

On any given day, the checkout lines at Costco have all the makings of a powder keg needing only a little spark to set a customer off. With lines sometimes stretching back into the warehouse, exacerbated by a layout-induced bottleneck that keeps customers from evenly distributing across the registers, employees are routinely met with some sort of dispute at the point of sale. As a result, the littlest things seen often enough become frustrating — like not being prepared to present a membership card at checkout.

Anyone who has shopped at Costco more than once should be familiar with the routine, and yet members still forget to play their part in keeping the line moving. Though it may seem a trivial slight, members explain that the rate of their scanning is measured and supervisors offer frequent reminders about the need to keep positive metrics. More fiery dustups can arise when those who opt for the self-checkout fail to recognize that alternative forms of payment like cash or the redemption of membership rewards are not acceptable in that line. Additionally, unlike one of the things that Sam's Club does better, Costco only accepts Visa credit cards, prompting issues for those unfamiliar with the policy.

Those who've worked customer service, especially retail, understand that there are some things that just come with the territory. While challenging days are to be expected and leveraged into growth opportunities, some shoppers can cross the line and Costco employees aren't shy about sharing stories of disrespect. Beyond those that are simply rude or belligerent for no obvious reason, one employee recounted an altercation that became physical. When a customer was questioned about whose membership she had brought with her to shop, the dispute allegedly resulted in the employee getting slapped.

Less violent examples of disrespect tend to feature assumptions about the level of education that Costco employees may or may not have. The manner in which the topic comes up certainly varies, but the end result is the same. Despite completion of undergraduate and graduate level degrees, customers with superiority complexes have openly treated cashiers and stockers as cautionary tales for their children should they themselves fail to complete a higher education. Emboldened by entitlement, some arguments have led to threats of lawsuits, a point of amusement for one Costco veteran who, while working his way through law school, would advise against taking such frivolous suits to court knowing full well the customers would lose.

When taking into account all the things listed that Costco employees can't stand, there is one more they can agree that makes everything worse: staff shortages. Though not necessarily true of all warehouses, many employees tell of plummeting morale increasingly outweighing the benefits that once made the company thrive with longterm loyalty. Seen as a primary source of dwindling desires to continue working for Costco, employees can't square an increased workload with pressure for optimal performance when corporate and management could readily schedule more workers on a given shift.

Some employees offer a little more grace to their management team than others as they see the rampant desire to operate with skeleton crews with diminishing returns as the norm for today's corporate climate. It also remains that stores find fun ways to celebrate employee anniversaries with cakes and special IDs. No matter the impetus for broader changes, some of those closing in on retirement have expressed a lack of confidence in holding out, suggesting a need for reform to maintain a warehouse ecosystem of rewarded employees seeing to the needs of satisfied customers.