About r/TalesFromRetail
In its own words:
A place to exchange stories about your daily experiences in brick & mortar retail.
Community guide
r/TalesFromRetail (#604, about 1.8 million subscribers) — A place to exchange stories about your daily experiences in brick & mortar retail. A recent sample averaged 1.8 posts a day (~56% text, ~44% link). Its public rules include: Posts must be a tale about working in retail; No flamebait or hot-button issue posts; No workplace grievance or blog posts; No racism, sexism, bigotry or stereotyping; All info MUST be anonymized. It is listed under “Lifestyles”.
What belongs here
Stay inside the room’s stated scope rather than adjacent fandoms or general off-topic dumps.
How it differs from lookalikes
The length of the public rule list is itself a signal: skim all of them once before assuming defaults from similar communities. Submission type is set to “self”—link/text expectations may differ from open “any” rooms.
Practical pointers
Read the current sidebar/rules on Reddit before posting; rules can change. Common flairs include: MODPOST, Long.
The community was created on Nov 9, 2011, which makes it 15 years old. Since Nov 2, 2026, it has gained 73 subscribers (+0.00%). It sits just behind r/japan (#603) and ahead of r/CatastrophicFailure (#605) in our ranking.
What sets r/TalesFromRetail apart
Relative to its huge audience, posting is calm — around 1.0 new posts a day per million members, which puts it in the quietest fifth of the Top 100. A good post has less competition here.
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026, r/TalesFromRetail went up from 1,799,586 to 1,800,335 subscribers (+749, +0.04%). That is about 15 new members per day. The chart shows 10 weekly subscriber counts.
All-time top posts
The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/TalesFromRetail, from 2015 to 2018, ranked by Reddit.
- It's $0.36, no big deal.u/JaniceTheButcher · Jul 23, 2016 · 7,550 points · 530 comments · text post
- "Don't let my wife see."May 8, 2017 · 17,741 points · 382 comments · text post
- The day I pretended to be someone's dadu/whitethundar · May 22, 2017 · 13,151 points · 282 comments · text post
- Diet Coke Ladiesu/Martinwuff · May 9, 2017 · 11,542 points · 179 comments · text post
- They were going to charge £400?u/Salad___Fingers · May 18, 2017 · 11,231 points · 286 comments · text post
- Glory to Arstotzka!u/Tombstone_DK · Feb 17, 2017 · 10,951 points · 313 comments · text post
- Made a grown man cry todayu/kairaharuon · Nov 3, 2015 · 6,051 points · 316 comments · text post
- We can no longer issue cash refunds, so this customer has a unique idea.u/bacon_cake · Aug 29, 2016 · 5,956 points · 277 comments · text post
- "Some idiot put this cake's writing in cursive!"u/rachelmaryl · Jan 31, 2017 · 9,704 points · 476 comments · text post
- A collectible 50p.u/Willy_McBilly · Oct 19, 2017 · 10,095 points · 237 comments · text post
What r/TalesFromRetail talks about
Across 9 recent posts (Oct 30–Nov 4), the words that come up most are “gas”, “station”, “owner”, “shouts” and “bagels”. Recurring phrases include “gas station”, “station owner” and “owner shouts”.
Popular post flairs: MODPOST (1), Long (1).
Activity and best time to post
r/TalesFromRetail gets about 1.8 new posts a day. The public archive holds 102,755 posts and 1,982,509 comments in total, about 19.3 comments per post.
Rules of r/TalesFromRetail
The moderators of r/TalesFromRetail list 9 rules. In short:
- Posts must be a tale about working in retail
- No flamebait or hot-button issue posts
- No workplace grievance or blog posts
- No racism, sexism, bigotry or stereotyping
- All info MUST be anonymized
- No truth policing
- Don't be a jerk
- No Personal Appearance Posts
- No advocating any illegal activity
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/TalesFromRetail and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many members does r/TalesFromRetail have?
r/TalesFromRetail has 1,800,335 subscribers (Nov 9, 2026), which makes it the #604 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 749 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026.
How old is r/TalesFromRetail?
r/TalesFromRetail was created on Nov 9, 2011, so it has been around for 15 years.
How active is r/TalesFromRetail?
Moderately: r/TalesFromRetail gets about 1.8 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 102,755 posts and 1,982,509 comments.
What is r/TalesFromRetail about?
The community describes itself as: “A place to exchange stories about your daily experiences in brick & mortar retail.” Recent post titles often mention gas, station, owner, shouts and bagels.
Is r/TalesFromRetail safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/TalesFromRetail as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/TalesFromRetail?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/TalesFromRetail accepts text posts only. It has 9 posted rules, starting with: “Posts must be a tale about working in retail”; “No flamebait or hot-button issue posts”; “No workplace grievance or blog posts”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/TalesFromRetail?
Communities with similar topics include r/IDontWorkHereLady (1.5M), r/Meditation (3.6M), r/Europetravel (1.9M) and r/solotravel (4.6M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 9, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/TalesFromRetail.