Retail employees will not complete tasks

I don't think I'll ever bother hiring employees for a retail lot from everything I've read and seen in playthroughs. Even my own controlled Sims won't ring up customers reliably unless I pause and first cancel the socializing action (which they are always doing when other Sims are around, whether I direct them to or not). And even then, they often stand there for a few minutes before heading over to ring up the customer. I've lost sales this way, and this is with my own directed Sims!! It's really frustrating how the game is so aggressively tuned to talking talking talking TALKING (oh and joking) taking precedence over absolutely everything else.