Retail (comic Strip) - Themes

Themes

The strip primarily focuses on the interpersonal relations between the characters and the additional people they are forced to interact with as a result of their profession. These types of relationships are based very much on the real life interactions of retail employees, and are then presented in a humorous light. There are several types of relationships that are explored repeatedly.

Employee-Management Relationship This type of relationship occurs in nearly all types of employment, but there are facets of this relationship that are unique to retail situations. Some of the struggles that take place in retail employment is the issue of scheduling, managing difficult customers, enforcement of store policies, the perception of management incompetence, and so on. Feuti has used the dynamics of the relationship between Stuart and the rest of the staff to illustrate this relationship.

Employee-Customer Relationship While the customer dynamic exists in all types of businesses, in retail stores this dynamic can take on a unique flair. Since retail stores cannot choose who their customers are, retail clerks are forced to wait on anyone who walks through the door. While most customers are polite and understanding, a small percentage can be rude, egocentric, demanding, mentally unstable, emotional, or suffer from any number of other types of undesirable traits. Since all retail stores have a goal of earning repeated business, employees will often sacrifice their better judgement or dignity to meet the demands of such customers. On the other side of the relationship, stores often hire individuals who are not up to the demands of the work placed on them. When customers find themselves dealing with an employee who is incompetent, it can often be a very frustrating experience. Dealing with annoying customers is probably the most frequently recurring theme in the strip. For the flip side of the relationship, the character Courtney is typically used to highlight incompetent retail employees.

Employee-Employee Relationship As with most emplacement situations, retail employees find themselves working with their coworkers for dozens of hours each week. This proximity forces relationships, some of which work well, other don't for a variety of reasons. While for the most part the employees of Grumbel's are shown as a group of friends, there have been exceptions throughout the strip's run.

Individual Store-Corporate Headquarters Relationship Retail stores policies are often set by a corporate headquarters, by people who do not interact with customers on a daily basis. This can create tension between what the employees see as practical and what corporate headquarters views as financially lucrative. This dynamic is most often illustrated in the strip through the relationship between Marla and Jerry.