>"He is not forced to work this job, he could leave at any moment (he'd have to give up the salary of course)." A couple points worth mentioning: 1. For most

>"He is not forced to work this job, he could leave at any moment (he'd have to give up the salary of course)." A couple points worth mentioning: 1. For most retail clerks, the choice to leave is often "stay in a shitty job I hate" vs. "become homeless and starve (and potentially my family as well) because there is a lack of other jobs, high competition for them, and I live paycheck-to-paycheck because the jobs I can get pay minimum wage with no benefits." 2. It might be different overseas, but in the US at least the vast majority of retail clerks are paid hourly at the minimum wage. In fact, many retail employers do their best to have managers play games with people's scheduled hours to keep them under the amount that triggers benefits and overtime. So in many (dare I say most?) cases, yes, it is too much to expect some nice disposition by default. That said, I would hope most people, when treated nicely by customers with realistic expectations, would respond in-kind.