Carted Off....

When I worked retail I used to go out and sloooowwwwly gather the carts. Bo-Po-Mo-Fo

Haha did this too. Nobody else in the store would get carts so I had an excuse of saying "Hey, at least I did it." AtticusNari

In the Fold. 

Folding.

I got so good at folding (without a board) so would spend hours perfecting stacks of shirts.

Also, dusting, organizing, and cleaning things that people never see. As long as I had decent music it could really help the shift go by fast

But if anyone told me to clean I would get annoyed lol. johnmcdracula

I organized.

I organized. My last retail job had a long-standing policy of no one was allowed to be doing nothing behind the counter because a significant amount of merchandise was behind the counter (which was so stupid) so customers could shop while we were working. I made sure the shelves and pegs were organized, clean and shop able. aliveinjoburg2

It's not just retail.

Chatting with co-workers mostly, that and imagining a different reality in my head. NicolasaDownes

It's not just retail. Office workers do it regularly, sometimes literally since I do know some aspiring writers that just take the downtime to draft things. I can always tell which ones are the fanfic writers. CompetitiveProject4

Piece of advice to some of you.

I had a friend that worked at a Walmart in college and he was convinced that a employee that "looked" like they were working was invisible to the management staff. So he took a big broom and walked around the same set of isles for an entire 8 hour shift and did nothing else to see if they would notice. The same manager walked by him 22 times and never said a word to him.

Piece of advice to some of you. TollinginPolitics

Clocked...

I work as a grocery cashier and it gets boring fast scanning items and standing for hours and time goes by VERY slow. I play a game with myself where I choose look for/count for one specific thing like bad tattoos so every 10 people I see who I consider to have a bad tattoo I check the clock, every 20 people who come in with their dog in a stroller (very common in my store) I check the clock etc. ch0r1

So Blue....

I used to draw sad clowns on the back of receipt paper The sadder the better Edit: picture somewhere in the thread of what a sad clown and teen melancholy looks like. Pengusta

Eyes Shut...

Do NOT look at the time. Big mistake. Lyrawen

I worked with a guy who checked his phone non-stop and would just whine all day like "damn it's only 10:15." I wanted to slap him so bad, holy shit man, just let me zone out. He was useless in general, so it made it all the worse being with him. Best part of the day was when he'd just disappear. Sure I had to do the work alone, but whatever, that was preferable. MomentarySpark

I hate this.

Dissociate. UrsaMinorNinth

I hate this.

But its the best way to deal with it. You don't want to live in this reality so you separate yourself from it. But it just results in you being dead inside for that time.

And the worst part is you know you spend that time every week being dead inside with only the chatter with your co workers to fill it up. You want to think you are different and you have hobbies and you do other things but the reality is that you spend your days waiting for work to be over.

A soulless living. Existential dread.

Edit - dw people I'm done with that crap. Im working in education right now. Retail sucked but a combination of that and working for lyft helped me pay my way through college. PossiblyAsian

The Sound of Sanity.

I worked at Party City for 4 years and would not have been able to do it without Bluetooth headphones!!! My hair goes past my ears, so I'd put one head phone in one ear and hide it with my hair, then have the other ear free if people needed me! Podcasts and audio books saved my sanity. -jellybrobro