Super Slave Market



The big box store variation of the crappy fast food McJob or the low level office job.

The Super Slave Market is filled to brim with merchandise reaching up to the fluorescent light ceiling, annoying consumer crazed customers and of course, dozens of overworked, underpaid disgruntled employees. This is where dreams of a successful career go to die, right into the discount bin.

The New Job Episode will often focus on one character working in such an environment (if he doesn't become a Burger Fool) and then subsequently finding out being a grocery store or local Wal-Mart employee is not as easy as it looks. Alternatively, the fiction will sometimes focus on those poor souls that have already been working there for years (Such as in 'Clerks' or 'Employee of the Month') and will give the viewer an inside look at life behind the counter.

Either way, as this is Truth in Television, working at the Super Slave Market is certainly no fun. Between the customers, the horrible music and the tyrannical management, quitting or getting fired is sometimes the only way out.

If the Super Slave Market is making peoples lives miserable outside the store as well, it's a Predatory Business.

Comics

 * Retail is all about the world of the Super Slave Market. Namely, how much it sucks.

Film

 * Clerks was one of the first films to really explore life behind the counter and expose retail life as the godforsaken Crapsack World it's always been.
 * A more comedic upbeat example is the Super Club store in Dane Cook's Employee Of The Month where the employees are still very competitive and haven't completely had their spirits crushed. However the in universe rival chain Maxi-Mart plays this trope straighter than straight.
 * In the movie The Wrestler, Randy the Ram has a miserable day job at a grocery store, complete with a douche bag boss and terrible customers.
 * The main character of Funny People sees his day job in a supermarket deli as one of these. His co-worker, an ex-convict who feels lucky just to have a shot at an honest living, sees it in a much better light.

Live Action TV

 * Sam and his friends on Reaper spend as much time dealing with the incompetent management and obnoxious customers of The Work Bench as they do chasing down escaped damned souls. It's a toss-up which job is worse.
 * Not a huge superstore, but just as soul-numbing to Granville would be Arkwright's little corner store in Open All Hours.
 * Where Eric and Red work for some time in That '70s Show.

Video Games

 * 'Minotaur In A China Shop' has the titular minotaur character trying to fetch breakable china for customers while contesting with clumsy awkward controls. When the minotaur has broken too much merchandise, he goes into an Unstoppable Rage.

Web Original

 * The website '(The Customer is) Not Always Right' has countless tales from retail workers who live this trope

Western Animation

 * Superstore USA from Family Guy certainly qualifies.
 * Also from Family Guy, "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story",