tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79442645125524791192024-03-07T22:11:05.924-06:00Stuck In RetailService With An Empty SmileStuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-77147634791107623852015-09-04T22:05:00.000-05:002015-09-04T22:05:37.815-05:00LA-LA-LA I Can’t Hear You!!!<div class="MsoNormal">
Another
entry in under a month! Not that I’m
looking for people to pat me on the back, but if you want to I won’t stop you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
made this blog with the intention of solving retail problems when and where I
could. I try to cure all of life’s ills
for those of you who are reading this (probably people with insomnia).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today’s
lesson is a discussion on regression.
As a person who may or may not be somewhere in the age range of 18 to 75
(hey, I have to keep this anonymous, after all), I like to think that I have
achieved some measure of maturity. I
say this in the humblest of ways because as someone with said maturity, I see
an awful lot of other people who are supposedly considered adults come into my
store with zero maturity. Perhaps I
fell into a sort of inverse universe where the older you get, the more immature
you are? Those that are born infants
are regarded as wise sages (which, if you look at any random parent’s Facebook
page isn’t that far off from the truth)?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
point being, I – at whatever age I may be, should not act like more of an adult
than those who are the same age or older than I am. Those who come in wearing business attire should not seem less
mature than the guy wearing a work uniform with their name embroidered on
it. You’re the one who has supposedly
gotten farther in life (further? Hold
on, I have to go check… I’ve returned and it appears that it doesn’t matter
according to <a href="http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/further-versus-farther" target="_blank">Grammar Girl</a>. So suck it!)
and as someone who has gotten farther in life, you shouldn’t be acting like
you’re still in grade school.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“An
example, please,” you say? Okay then.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just
the other day a customer came into the store.
This customer had a product of hers worked on by our company but then
called us and accused us of doing something we didn’t. Trust me when I say that we didn’t do
anything. I’m not someone who blindly
follows the company I work for for no reason.
If we fucked up I’d be the first to admit it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
customer made some ridiculous claim and wanted to speak to the manager that was
on duty. By this point, everyone in the
store knew what the manager was walking into on this phone call and everyone
had some sort of quip at the ready. Oh, to be a fly on that wall during that
conversation! Wait, that doesn’t work
in this context. Oh, to be the NSA
listening in on that conversation!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
phone call did not go the way the customer wanted because the manager, while
being pretty restrained at the ridiculous accusations the customer was
slinging, didn’t have the answers he was looking for. With the conversation coming to a close, we figured that that was
that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fast-forward
a short time later in the day when a lady enters the store. She was probably in her 40s and had the
stature of someone who probably got what they wanted in most aspects of her
daily life, and when that didn’t happen, she probably demanded she get her
way. I was nearby and caught the vague
conversation she was having with our cashier.
She wanted to speak to the actual manager of the store but he was not in
for the day. In the absence of the
store manager, I got the only other manager we had at the time – the one that
had taken the call earlier (I shall call this person Aaron).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If
there is anyone you want to handle your issue if you are a customer that comes
into our store, it is Aaron. He is that
one employee that will generally listen to your stupid issues or complaints
with the patience of Buddha. As long as
you’re not swearing, being physically violent, or demeaning his workers, Aaron
will talk to you until the store closes.
I truly do not know how he does it.
If I didn’t know him any better, I’d swear it was a heavy combination of
alcohol and drugs. Patience of the
Buddha.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aaron
came up to the customer and almost immediately the two of them realized who the
other person standing in front of them was.
This did not please the customer at all. Aaron couldn’t even attempt to talk to her or to ask her any
questions at all about her interaction with our employees because the woman
kept saying that she didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. To be clear, up to this point, he had barely
said anything other than his name and asked what he could do for her. She refused to talk to him, shook her head,
turned around, and repeated something along the lines of, “You’re still
talking!” By now, she had clasped both
hands over her ears while shouting the same, “You’re still talking!” line until
she was squarely out of the store.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Really? You don’t like the fact that your issue was
ludicrous, and when we tried to politely tell you that the complaint you had
had no merit, your solution is to storm off like a child with your ears
covered?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do
you see what I mean? I wish this was a
single instance of infantile behavior that our customers have displayed. This is a reoccurring theme it feels like
and while I could go on, I think this is enough for one entry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since
I am trying to solve the ills of the retail world, this one is probably pretty
straightforward. If you’re a customer,
be a little less of an overgrown infant.
It won’t get you what you want and all it will do will embarrass you in
the eyes of every single employee in the store. I hate looking like a fool in front of 1 person let alone a store
full of people. Who knows? You might just get what you wanted in the first place. And if you’re an
employee, you should do what I sometimes do:
picture the customer’s head superimposed on a baby’s body. It will make having to listen to their
insanity a bit more tolerable. Good
luck!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Does
anyone else have a favorite example of customers acting like children? Please feel free to share!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More soon from the
frontlines…</div>
Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-310645448931748252015-08-13T23:25:00.000-05:002015-08-13T23:25:47.575-05:00If You Have A Group Of Friends And No One Is An Asshole, Chances Are You’re The Asshole<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Wow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over a year since my last post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those of you who find my rambling
stories amusing, I apologize for the absence, but you know what they say about
absences and the heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just have not
been feeling very creatively inspired for a very long time and that needs to
stop right here and right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So,
let’s get into it, shall we?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> One
topic I wanted to bring up is the amazing ability customers possess to shoot
themselves in the foot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does this ever
happen where you work?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A customer has
an issue that needs resolution but before anyone can even attempt to fix it,
they erupt into a ball of rage at anyone they feel is to blame for their
predicament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It happens at least once a
week where I work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know how
much of an exaggeration that is, but if it is an exaggeration, it’s not by
much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thankfully, since I’ve been in
the warehouse and haven’t had to deal with many customer issues, I haven’t had
to have anyone flip out on me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just
get the benefit of watching grown adults whine about first world problems like
little children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good times.</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> This
scenario usually plays out thusly:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
customer comes in because of some issue with something they purchased.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
customer explains said issue to lowly employee (poor sap #1).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is usually followed by a statement
about what they would like to see happen to keep them happy.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
lowly employee has to explain why the issue happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this point, the lowly employee has to either tell the customer
they can’t do anything for them under the rules of their company OR presents a
resolution that the customer doesn’t like.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
customer’s frustration – and the frequency with which they huff and shift their
weight from leg to leg and back again – increases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The customer then repeats the only acceptable resolution to their
situation (the one that won’t happen).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
lowly employee repeats their options.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
customer requests to speak to their supervisor (poor sap #2).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really, they want the CEO of the company but
barring that, they’ll settle for the store GM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They really get someone one or two steps below the GM.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
lowly employee walks off to get their supervisor (probably someone just
slightly higher up on the food chain whose work life can be summed up with the
equation: “shit I have to deal with > the money I’m paid”).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
supervisor might have to first explain that they’re either a direct supervisor
or “one of the managers” when the customer asks if they are THE manager.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carrying on, the supervisor repeats the
options, backing up what lowly employee #1 said, which only infuriates the
customer further.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
customer gets worked up and now demands the GM so the supervisor pages for a
manager (sometimes the actual GM, buuuuuut sometimes not) to come over.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
manager (whose work life can be summed up with the equation: “shit I have to
deal with < the money I’m paid < complaining I’ll do about how the money
isn’t THAT much better than the lowly employee #1”) comes over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NOW, this manager might be open-minded and
might be willing to listen to the customer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe the manager isn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
point is, the customer probably won’t ever find out which way this manager is
leaning toward because once the manager walks up and says, “Is there something
I can help with?” the customer starts to dig into him/her.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> This
explosion will probably include expletives about the other two poor saps that
wouldn’t help them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Insider tip:
calling employees that work for that manager “idiots” or “fuckers” or the like <i>probably
</i>won’t go over well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
manager will then either ask the customer to step off to the side (a mark of a
very calm & collected person in the retail world!) or to leave the building
(a.k.a.: “get the fuck out of my sight you worthless piece of crap, I don’t
have time to deal with you trying to return a remote control from a year
ago.”).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> This
is where it can diverge into very different outcomes.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Rarely,
the customer will pick the option to go with the manager to calm down long
enough for the two parties to come to an understanding and maybe a resolution
can be reached or maybe not.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Generally,
the more entertaining of the two options will occur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The customer will tell the manager that they won’t go anywhere
followed by an even more expletive-laced diatribe about everyone they ever had
to talk to at the store and how they will never shop their again and why the
company is destined to go out of business and go fuck yourselves while you’re
at it, thank you very much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep in
mind, this all happens before the manager can even decide if they want to
override whatever his employees told this customer before he/she even showed
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The manager can’t even hear the
customer’s side of the story and only hears how the customer believes the
manager should go fuck himself/herself.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> At
this point, they’re either ushered out by security or by the police depending
on how long and how loud the expletives lasted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re lucky, the customer will throw whatever they were
trying to return across the building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One time, I saw a guy punch a stop sign as he stormed out of the
store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True story!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps he thought the stop sign was telling
him to stop being a d-bag?</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Moral
of the story?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t be a d-bag because
you might just get what you wanted in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess this moral can be applied to nearly
anything you do in life if you think about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hey, what do you want from me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not all of my stories have profound solutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This IS my first entry in over a year, after all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Give me a break.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> More soon from the frontlines...</span></div>
Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-1624935707401430672014-04-08T14:33:00.000-05:002014-04-08T14:33:38.988-05:00Welcome To The Warehouse... Hope You Survive!<div class="MsoNormal">
Since
my last post, I’ve been relocated into our store’s warehouse and I must say
that it is FANTASTIC! I don’t know why
I never tried to apply for a spot there sooner. I have seen the light and it is warehouse, ladies and gentlemen!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
all began when I went into work one day to work in my old department but before
I could even punch in to start, I was pulled aside by one of my store’s
managers. He asked if I had picked a
department to switch into and after telling him I preferred the warehouse, that
department’s supervisor approached me and told me to ignore the following
week’s schedule that was already made.
I was quite surprised since this was on a Thursday and the new schedule
was to start on Sunday. Not a whole lot
of time to get myself into the mindset that this was the end. My coworker, Victor, who had been working
with me for years in that same department and who had also gotten the assistant
supervisor spot, was standing next to me at the time and we both were left
somewhat speechless. We figured we had
at least another week to work together.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My
new supervisor came back and handed me a new schedule and ran down a list of
things I was going to be doing the first week.
It was all becoming real, really quickly. That Thursday was also the last day Victor and I were going to
work together in the same department.
At the end of his shift we said some rushed ‘good luck’s and that was
that. An end of an era in our
department. It was odd. I’ll still see Victor around the store since
he was relocated to a different department, too, but it won’t be the same.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then,
on my last day in my department, I was hit with nearly every possible issue and
every possible grumpy customer. Do you
ever have one of those days? It’s like
everyone just waits for that one particular day to bitch and moan. It’s amazing. You can go days without running into problems and then BAM – it
hits you all at once. The day when the
world says, “Sucks to be you,” and laughs.
When I came in to work that day I had been a bit bummed out that I was
going to be leaving for the warehouse but by the end of my shift, I couldn’t
have been happier. I was reminded about
all the perks that went along with getting off the sale’s floor, which is,
mainly dealing with assholes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
was a bit disappointed, however, that my last day wasn’t greeted with a bit
more fanfare from my coworkers. I have
to admit, I figured that since I had been in the same department for several
years and had outlasted most of our employees and managers I would’ve had a
free lunch or something. Not that I
deserve one because I’m awesome or anything, but my work rewards people for
just showing up and doing their job. Oh
well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then
Sunday rolls around and it’s my first day in the warehouse. And holy shit is it a sweet gig. Granted, nothing in retail is rocket science
but warehouse is so laidback and fun thanks to the relative freedom you have
back there. There are no customers to
really deal with and most management won’t bother me unless they need something
done around the store, so right off the bat it already rocks. Plus, I was out early that first shift and
had the rest of the day to enjoy while most of my coworkers were just showing
up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since
there are more people working in warehouse than my old department, a lot of the
work was also divided up a lot more than it would’ve been. I’m also enjoying the fact that I can now
give the salespeople shit just because I can.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For
example, if somebody comes into the warehouse for no apparent reason, I now
typically say something like, “Hey, who said you could come into <i>my</i>
warehouse?” To which a warehouse
associate would normally go, “<i>YOU’RE</i> warehouse? You’ve been here for less than a week!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Apparently,
being a dick suits me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
also don’t go into work dreading what possible issues I might have to
face. That was always the worst. The work isn’t hard but when you have people
who complicate it with issues and complaints for no real reason, it’s the
pits. There’s nothing like that – so far
– in the warehouse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now,
I’m sure that the warehouse will have its drawbacks. It’s retail. However, all
I’m going to do is remind myself of that very last day in my old department and
all of the bullshit I had to deal with and I’ll know that I’ll have it so much
easier than I ever had.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll
go into the changes in-depth in a later entry.
I just thought I’d update on the change and my initial reactions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More soon from the frontlines...</div>
Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-39369750244301538522014-03-09T21:27:00.000-05:002014-03-09T21:27:41.208-05:00“If You Could Reapply For A Second Time For The Same Position… That’d Be Grrrreat.”<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
know! Another gap in posting. But I am back… again!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
past few weeks have been quite the interesting experience at my job. I’ll have to break this down into two posts
perhaps but I’ll just write about what’s affecting me directly in this entry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It
actually began several months ago. My
company has decided to change the layout of my department and because of that,
I had to reapply for the same exact position I’ve been in for the previous few
years. Nothing was changing about the
position but because they were redoing the structure of that aspect of the
business, I had to prove my worthiness to stay on (I guess). That was kind of insulting, in my opinion,
but whatever. My supervisor was a good
guy and his manager had known me for most of my career there so it wasn’t as if
I was overly worried about getting hired.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
go for the interview and a short while later, the manager – let’s call this
person Lester – contacted me to tell me that I would be staying on in the
department but since the reorganization was taking place, there was only one
full-time position available. Doesn’t
sound too bad but there were two full-timers vying for the position – a
coworker and myself. We had been under
the impression that there were two full-time positions but it turns out we were
wrong. Long story short, my coworker
took an assistant supervisor position that was available in the reorganized
department and I took the full-time spot.
That was last August.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My
supervisor, meanwhile, was told he wouldn’t be staying on when they redid the
department and so we got a new supervisor around September of 2013. Besides the changing of the supervisors,
however, nothing changed. My coworker
who got the promotion experienced no change in duties and pay (as far as I
know). It was basically all paperwork.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Fast-forward
to around January and we were told that we would have to re-apply AGAIN for our
spots. Our department would be finally
making the real reorganized structure they had been laying out since last fall:
now there would be different pay structures, different bonuses, different
uniforms, etc., etc. Now our interviews
would be with our new supervisor (who we had only known for a few months and
who came in with his own way of doing things).
There was nothing wrong with the new supervisor but he had more of a
used car salesman mentality and that was different from how we had been trained
to interact with our customers, which seemed to be good enough for our
department to hit our revenue goals for most of my time in the store.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Our
newest part-timer was determined to stay on in the department and began
memorizing everything he/she could. In
just a few short weeks, he/she had absorbed as much product knowledge as he/she
could. It was quite impressive and
he/she blew me away. I, however, had
more of a blasé attitude about the whole thing. I had been there for years and if I got the spot, great. If I didn’t, whatever. I kind of was looking for an excuse to do
something else, I guess.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
mean, I knew my products and I knew how to talk to customers and I knew how to
fix most of my own issues. In my time
at this job, I even had managers who didn’t want to deal with my department’s
customer issues come to me to resolve problems. I wasn’t the best but I seemed to be fairly relied upon and
looked upon favorably by most of my store’s managers through the years. So, I was probably the most relaxed person
going into these new interviews out of everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">(I
should point out that I did need a job but I wouldn’t have been devastated if I
didn’t get hired on.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
new interviews were quickly approaching.
Things were getting serious now.
However, even before we were supposed to interview with our supervisor,
my newest part-timer was told that he/she was going to have a second interview
at another store with other department managers and corporate managers. He/she was the only one who was told about
such a meeting. The other full-timer
and myself were not. When we went in
for our first interview nothing was mentioned about a second interview. Other than that, my interview went
swimmingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A
week passed with no word on if I got the spot.
I was leaving on a vacation the following week and just before I left
the part-timer told me that he/she got a spot on the new team (which was
awesome for him/her. I was totally
excited for him/her because he/she deserved it.). Yet, no word still about my situation, but I wasn’t completely
stupid. I knew as soon as the
part-timer got their second interview BEFORE even having their first and the
rest of us didn’t receive the same that we didn’t get on the new team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
wasn’t upset about the situation but I felt more insulted than anything. For one thing, my supervisor knew I was
going on vacation but I still hadn’t heard any word about the application. Then you schedule a secondary interview with
our coworker before their first interview and you don’t think it’d look
suspicious to the rest of us? Plus,
like I said, we were doing pretty good as a team month after month. We were part of the reason the company felt
they should reorganize the department structure thanks to how good we were
doing. So we’re good enough to warrant
a restructure but not good enough to stay on?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
go on vacation and while I’m on vacation, I hear that the part-timer was the
only one who got hired on to stay in the department. Not that anyone knew if <i>I</i> got a spot but I was 99% sure I
hadn’t. I came back from vacation and
even though I had been back for three days and the first day of training for
the part-timer was the following day, I still hadn’t heard anything from my
supervisor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Finally,
I had to TEXT my supervisor to find out.
He told me to call him and <i>over the phone</i> he told me that there
was a lot of talented competition and that I wouldn’t be staying on in the
department. I guess I handled it better
than most since, like I’ve said again and again, I knew this was happening for
weeks by this point and I’m not stupid.
I had been thinking about what I wanted to say to my supervisor but when
the time came to actually receive the news, I thought, “What’s the point?” The decision had been made and my coworker
who hadn’t received a spot had been sticking it to the supervisor enough for
the both of us. It was best to just
move on. And that was that. It was pretty disappointing that my
supervisor couldn’t have the spine to tell me to my face if I got the spot or
not but HEY, that’s the kind of new management my company wanted for the
reorganization. Hope that works out for
them (since that probably didn’t come across in text – that was supposed to be
sarcasm).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Since
then I’ve actually never been happier going into work. There’s a great freedom in knowing I won’t
have to deal with the same issues and the same people and the same questions
day after day. I can handle the grumpy
customers better and I just go in and do what I can but I don’t stress about
stupid bullshit any more. I do have
options other than termination but I’ll get into that in another entry. I’ll also get more into how I’m feeling as
my time in the department is coming to a close in another entry. I’ll also talk about the fallout from the
shake-up in another entry. This has
been long enough. Suffice it to say,
the bumbling rollout of this transition – from last fall to now – is pretty
typical of my company’s rollouts. They
seem incapable of doing anything coherently.
It’s truly an amazing feat for such a large company.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span></div>
Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-33383809787190155542014-01-18T02:11:00.000-06:002014-01-18T02:11:38.214-06:00The Universal Retail Constant<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">How
about a quick observation?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">On
my last trip to get a haircut, I entered the establishment to find that besides
the two workers and one older lady getting her hair done, I was the only other
person there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After being seated, I
mentioned how I had been worried I was going to have to wait in a long line
since I was coming in after most people were getting out of work.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
lady who was cutting my hair said that even though she would like more people
coming in, it did afford her the time to do school work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that’s when I stumbled upon it – the one
universal constant amongst retail workers (and barbers).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love of down time!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The greatest thing one in the world of retail can look forward
to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those brief moments where you find
yourself not having to rush around doing three things at once or having to look
busy so management leaves you alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The time where you can just stand around and shoot the shit with
coworkers or skim the internet or glance at your homework or a book that you
had stashed away.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Whatever
it is, we can all agree that it’s better than what we are actually getting paid
to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’d rather be bored or doing
other things than having customers come in and bother us – even if it meant
giving us their money.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">You
tend to savor those fleeting moments like you were a parent looking forward to
the five minutes your baby decides to nap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We become inconvenienced even if a customer looks as if they’re
approaching our department.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“I
have to do my job now?” we all whine and huff, before dragging ourselves over
to the customer(s).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">You
– okay, <i>I</i> – can’t even get through an entire six-hour shift without
wistfully daydreaming of when I can get five seconds of down time.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Take
this entry, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should’ve
taken me just ten minutes to write but I stopped numerous times to go online or
to daydream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A half hour later and here
I am!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">[Another
two minutes elapse.]<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
guess I’ll just end this now.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-37376052297164343022014-01-16T01:36:00.000-06:002014-01-16T01:36:04.508-06:00"Do You Work Here?"<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">One
of my favorite questions I get when I work is, “Do you work here?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
know the question is meant to imply “Do you work here… in this department?” but
I always have to resist the urge to look down at my uniform that has the
company logo on it and my name tag on it, before looking back up at the
customer and asking, “What do you think?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t know about you, but I don’t go around wearing the work uniforms
of places I don’t work at just so I can get stopped and asked ridiculous
questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is that a thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do some of you out there dress up in retail
uniforms just to fuck with customers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because that would be HILARIOUS!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Maybe,
like Jennifer Aniston in <b>Office Space</b>, I’m not wearing enough
flair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I should probably just wear
multiple buttons that say, “Yes, I work here!” or “Ask me a question!” or “Hey,
I’m not wearing this uniform for shits and giggles!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That could cut down on the confusion.<br />
Regardless, the obvious question shouldn’t be, “Do you work here?” it should
be, “Can you help me?” or “Do you know somebody who can help me here?” or
something along those lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, the
English language and all of its quirks.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">There
is also a flipside to this scenario & that occurs whenever I wear my work
uniform into another company’s store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oddly enough, whenever that happens I never get asked if I work
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s always just assumed I do.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Can
you tell me where you keep the cayenne pepper in jars?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Uh,
I don’t work here.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At
this point the customer looks at your uniform a little closer – a uniform that
is unbuttoned & un-tucked, mind you – and has a shocked look on their face.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Oh,
I’M sorry!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just saw your uniform and
thought you worked here.”<br />
Yeah, I already got that part.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">First,
what if I was just a guy wearing a collared shirt that was unbuttoned and the
same color as the store’s employees?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whenever you go into a store where all the workers wear black shirts, do
you ask anyone who wears a black shirt where something is?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Second,
you’re too lazy to observe what somebody’s wearing and too rude to avoid asking
somebody who would have to be off the clock to wear their uniform unbuttoned
and un-tucked.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ve
always been tempted to tell people the wrong answer if they ask me a question
whenever this happens.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Do
you know what aisle the fabric softener is in?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Oh,
yes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s down aisle 56 on your left,”
and then watch them scurry away down fifty-plus aisles to get to the one
they’re looking for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, the laughs I’d
have… if I had the knowledge that that same customer would never come into my
job and remember what a dick I had been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I might not have the spine for it but I sure hope someone out there
tries this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>HAS anyone tried this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, let me know how that went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Now
if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find my pieces of flair.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-89821254940748230122014-01-08T22:10:00.000-06:002014-01-08T22:10:41.196-06:00The Sound Of Silence<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Look
at me!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m posting on a fairly regular
basis!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Onto the entry…<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">First
off, only my humblest respect is meant to Simon & Garfunkel for the title
of this entry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, it is quite
fitting.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
latest installment features another customer interaction that I learned about
during my stint in appliances the other day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was just too good to pass up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do you want to feel better about your life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, then read on!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A
customer had recently purchased a refrigerator from our store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This refrigerator was a floor display that
was sold to him at some dirt-cheap price – nearly a thousand dollars off of the
original price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The customer called the
department later that day saying he wanted to cancel the refrigerator because
he was reading reviews that it was a bit loud.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Okay,
I get that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you live in a small home
and noise is an issue, you don’t want it sounding like a freight train coming
through, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there are a few
directions you can go with this scenario.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a high chance that it was plugged in
when he purchased it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a demo
unit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did he hear noise in the store?<br />
2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why cancel it before you even got it
into the home?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you saved over a
thousand dollars for a great refrigerator, wouldn’t you want to try to at least
<i>see</i> if it sounds fine?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if
it is loud, you can still either return the item with no restocking fee or you
could ask yourself, “Is this noise not worth the hundreds of dollars I saved?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Whoever
took the call was able to talk the guy out of it (mainly because they told the guy
that they’d be able to sell a great fridge at dirt-cheap to a less picky
customer on that same day.) but that wasn’t the end of it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
guy called the next day and told the supervisor that he wanted to come into the
store and listen to the refrigerator for two hours to see how it runs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted us to get the refrigerator that
somebody had already wrapped up and placed off the floor, bring it back onto
the floor, unwrap it, and then plug it in just so he could sit around and
listen to it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
don’t know about you, but I sure as hell wish I could have two hours to kill
just sitting around some electronics store doing nothing else other than
listening to how a refrigerator sounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even when I’m home, I have things to keep me busy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to give it up to the guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did find the one thing that sounds more
boring than actually selling appliances:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>listening to them run.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">According
to the appliance team, the guy came in just the other day, listened to it for
less than a half hour, talked with the appliance crew about all the customer
reviews he read online (UGH!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a
whole other blog post alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wait have
I already done one of those?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See, this is what happens when you don’t
update regularly.), and ended up canceling it anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went up to the refrigerator that he was sold, stood around the
item with another coworker for several minutes, and didn’t hear a damn
thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just heard the sounds of his
parents weeping at the wasted time their son wasted in our store.<br />More soon from the frontline...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-16067007209651746722014-01-07T23:54:00.000-06:002014-01-07T23:54:12.711-06:00Can You Read This For Me?<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ve
mentioned before how lazy I think humans have become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, I don’t even intend to edit this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then again, why start now, right?
(ba-doom-cha)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
think, however, that the next story takes the cake.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
was working in our store’s appliance section for the day and had a customer
approach me with a look that was equal parts apprehension and hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He proceeds to tell me that he purchased a
gas stove about a month ago and had a few questions about how to use it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought, “Oh, great, a product I’m not too
familiar with and this guy is going to ask some oddball questions that not even
the manufacturer has thought up.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Once
we walked up to the gas stove that he said looked identical to the one he
purchased – besides the fact he bought one with five burners instead of the
four that were on this one and the fact that the electronic displays were
completely different, but other than that they were identical – and I braced
myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, it was to my surprise when
he told me he wanted to know how to start the oven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first, I thought he was kind of fucking with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do you start the oven?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even I knew that one!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Uh,
well, let’s say you want to bake something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You just hit the bake button and hit this button to increase the temperature.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Holy
shit, that was easy!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“That’s
it?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Yeah,
genius!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Welcome to ‘Things I Learned When I Was
Ten’.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Yep,”
I replied.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Do
I need to hit this ‘Bake Time’ button?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Okay,
a bit harder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s when I stumbled
upon an obvious solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The owner’s
manual!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew that most of the
appliances the store had on display had their manuals somewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I first opened the oven door but came up
empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I then opened the broiler drawer
and – A-HA! – found what I was looking for.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“I’m
not sure but the manual should say what to do.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
made sure that that sounded as obvious as it should’ve been to anyone who has
purchased anything in the past and had to consult an owner’s manual for an
answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He could’ve saved himself a
trip to the store if he just broke open the manual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was this guy thinking?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Ah,
yeah, I know we could’ve looked through it but it’s so long and confusing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can never figure those things out.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Sure,
if you were looking up how to bring a space shuttle back down to Earth but
we’re talking about a stove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The manual
was less than 25 pages long and it’s not like it was in four-point font.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you cut out the small print at the end
that nobody pays attention to, the pertinent information only account for about
20 pages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you cut out all the
pictures, then you’re down to about half that of actual instructions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found the answer in less than thirty
seconds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that was too confusing?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">See
what I mean?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">You
have to spoon-feed people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody seems
to want to do anything for themselves any more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I’m going to rent myself out for reading services.<br />
“WILL READ FOR MONEY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WILL READ
INSTRUCTION MANUALS, CHILDREN’S BOOKS, NOVELS, NEWSPAPERS, BLOGS, I-TUNES FINE
PRINT, STREET SIGNS, ETC., ETC…”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In
a world of lazy fucks, I’d be rich!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rich I tells ya!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Feel
free to use this idea for your own monetary pursuits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, if I see any advertisement like that in my area, I’m
asking for 10% commission.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-45465753984164189562014-01-04T20:58:00.000-06:002014-01-04T20:58:15.769-06:00Why Can’t Your Competitor Match Your Price? Answer Me!
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ve
been in retail long enough to be on the receiving end of my fair share of
oddball complaints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know the
ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people who complain that you
won’t give him or her a specific television even though you don’t have any in
your store and there’s nothing you can do about it yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people who complain that the grapefruit
your store received is of mediocre quality and want to know why you,
personally, brought them in (despite having nothing to do with the
shipments).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people who complain
just for the sake of complaining.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kind
of like bloggers!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Hey, wait a second…)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A
few days ago, during the winter storm that nearly three-fourths of the country
went through, I was helping a woman with a television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was looking for the cheapest product you
could find and despite finding a cheap television set, she wanted to “look
around” just because we didn’t have that exact one in stock to give her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to prevent myself from giving a
dumbfounded glance outside the doors as the falling snow turned everything
white outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hey, if she wanted to
drive around in THAT, be my guest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
must’ve REALLY needed to watch TV.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
went back to helping the other people who were also crazy enough to go shopping
for non-essentials during a winter storm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fast-forward several minutes when we received a phone call on the
department phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just happened to be
the one nearby and reluctantly answered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The same woman who was “just looking” was calling from a competitor of
ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wanted to know why the price
of the television online was different from the price of the television in the
store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went online but noticed that she was wrong
about the price being different – she was just looking at a different model.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">For
some reason, this wasn’t good enough because this competitor of ours had the TV
in-stock and was going to match our price for the same model but because the
website was supposedly not showing the right price – which it was – they
weren’t going to give her the price. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needless to say, at this point I was confused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I apologized for the supposed lack of
information needed for <i>our competitor</i> to steal our sale away but what
else could I do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously, this
apology was not enough for her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
not like it was <i>my</i> responsibility for them to sell her a product at the
price she wanted.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In
all of my years, I’ve never had anyone complain that another company I didn’t
even work for wouldn’t give the customer the price we were offering them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that a thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone out there have something similar happen to them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Has anyone gone to a Ford dealership, asked
for a product at a price, then gone to a VW dealership, asked for a product at
a price, and then called the Ford dealership because the VW dealership wouldn’t
give you the same price as the Ford dealership?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are people really in need to bitch that much that they have
nothing better to do than to complain when it won’t even solve a thing?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">If
any of the answers to those questions was a “yes”, then in the words of Bill
Engvall, “Here’s your sign…”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Does
anyone have a particularly amazing complaint that had nothing to do with
anything you had control over?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Please,
if you could top this, I’d love to hear how hilariously stupid it is.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-75910685691818782662013-12-21T03:18:00.000-06:002013-12-21T03:18:55.491-06:00Do You Have More In The Back?<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
want to dispel a rampant notion that quite a few people seem to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You all might want to sit down and brace
yourselves because I don’t want anyone passing out and hurting him or
herself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All set?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Individual
stores – be they retail or grocery – 99% of the time do not make the products
they are selling on their shelves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
means that if they run out of a product, they have to wait for more quantity of
that said product to come in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let that
sink in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Feel free to get back up and
go for a walk around the block.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll be
here when you return.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
state the obvious for the simple reason that nobody seems to comprehend this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing in the store = you get nada/zilch/nothing
(is my point made?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might be
saying, “But anonymous internet blogger, I’m not an idiot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know you don’t have dozens of workers in the
back assembling multiple brands of televisions, DVD players, refrigerators,
CDs, laptops, gaming systems, and whatever the hell a Roku is.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ah,
and I say to you that you may THINK you know that, but you must have some sort
of <b>Memento</b>-like amnesia because it seems that whenever a product goes
out of stock (usually around the holidays), everyone freaks out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could a retailer that exists in reality
in a finite amount of space, carrying dozens upon dozens of products at any one
time, run out of something?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
America!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The land of plenty!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I demand my Kenny Loggins Christmas CD!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So,
I feel it is important to remind you all that if a place runs out of something,
they usually don’t have direct and immediate access to more of that thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no matter how many times you repeat the
fact that you desperately need this product otherwise your loved one(s) will
never love you again, it will not change a thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not a wizard disguised as an hourly retail worker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My usual conversation does NOT go like this:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Customer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Do you have the new PS4?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No, I’m sorry, we sold out of them.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Customer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Are you <i>sure</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Yeah, I’m sorry.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Customer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You don’t have any in the back?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">(This,
by the way, is my favorite question of all time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mysterious backroom that also houses the Ark of the Covenant.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Yes, if we had any, they would be out on
the floor.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Customer:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Because my son asked for one for Christmas
this year and my brother already bought him three games for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only reason we’re getting it is because
my wife and I told him we’d get him one if he got straight A’s this semester
and he did.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">(Because,
obviously, I didn’t want to sell you one before and make revenue but now that I
know your entire life history?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
definitely have ten of them waiting for only the ‘special’ customers.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Well, in THAT case!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I look around and then magically pull a PS4
out of my sleeve and hand it to the customer.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Actually,
now that I think about it, everything up until that last part is how it usually
goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to repeat myself no less
than 4 times on average whenever somebody doubts our product quantity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This isn’t some riddle where asking me the
right combination of words to see if we have something will solve things and
get you what you’re looking for.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">And
no matter how dire the situation or how persistent or demanding you may be,
that will not get you a different result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If we’re out, we’re out.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
same goes for grocery stores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re
not attached to a slaughterhouse that can get you a different cut of lamb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t have banana trees in the produce
backroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They aren’t canning their own
olives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They just aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So stop repeating your question because
unless you want to drive to a different store or wait, you’re not going to get
what you’re looking for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just deal with
it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
think it’s part of that culture where everyone is expecting to be able to get
whatever they want just because they get their way in every other aspect of
life by just bitching a little louder than the other person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entitlement class isn’t just some
bullshit label that some people throw around for one portion of the
population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a label that can apply
to anyone be they poor, rich, black, white, young, old – whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you were raised spoiled or raised to feel
overly special when you just aren’t – if you were raised to believe you were
owed something, then naturally you’re going to feel like if you just talked
louder or pleaded your case harder, you’ll get your way.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
reality – again – is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you just
won’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get over yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most likely there are hundreds of people who
are looking for the same thing you are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most likely there are not hundreds of that product available for
immediate purchase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deal with it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Shit,
now I’M repeating myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See what
happens when you have to deal with ridiculousness each day?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">At
least I feel better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, just remember –
no means no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, remember that
even if you’re not trying to ask for something that’s not in stock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a pretty good tip to know for everyday
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Free tips are always in stock
here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re welcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Please, come again.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-1038748370898634502013-12-19T13:13:00.001-06:002013-12-19T13:18:57.794-06:00The Only Way Out Of Retail<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That
line, “The only way out of here is in a box,” – or some variation of it – is
used in movies all the time but I think that it could easily be placed at the
top of every application for every retail job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And that’s because, for an alarming amount of people, that seems to be
the only way out of retail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that
sounds like a joke but I don’t mean it to be.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In
the last year alone I’ve heard about somebody who worked at several of our
stores dying from a heart attack either while on the clock or as he was leaving
from work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not 100% sure on the
particulars surrounding the event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everyone in the store who knew about it kept talking about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was our greatest fear – to die wearing a
shirt with a nametag on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few of us
even joked about how we would rip our shirts off if we ever felt a heart attack
coming while on the job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t want
the last minutes of our lives to be with our job’s invisible collar around our
neck.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Then
just recently, our own store had a near scare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One of our own employees suffered a heart attack outside of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thankfully, the guy is doing okay so
far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tough bastard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But to think that this guy had a family and
suffered a heart attack during the holidays really gives you the willies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is somebody I’ve seen on a near daily
basis and have spent countless hours shooting the shit and griping about the
stresses of work with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t
comprehend it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My brain could not wrap
itself around the idea of somebody around my own age lying in a hospital bed
from a heart attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t believe in
Christmas miracles but I’m damn glad he’s recovering because not everyone is as
lucky.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This
all seems like a running theme in the world of retail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that’s just life and everyone dies –
don’t get me wrong, but it just seems like something about working in retail is
conducive to heart attacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stress is a
natural part of the retail world and everyone feels it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the customers complaining just for the
sake of complaining to the customers who are too lazy to read the print on the
tags so they come to interrupt your work so you can read it for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s the irregular schedules for most
of the hourly employees, who are thus unable to plan anything else in their
lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the schedules that change at
the last minute without any notification – plans be damned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps, it’s the long and demanding hours
during the holidays that simultaneously put even more stress on employees who have
to miss out on family time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
seemingly increasing amount of work placed on a smaller and smaller workforce
as companies try to squeak by without having to increase their payroll.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or how about having the smarter employees
having to pick up the slack from the idiot employees that the management deemed
worthy of hiring?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That one is my
personal favorite.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This
doesn’t even take into account the poor eating and drinking habits most of the
workforce partakes in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Energy drink
companies should give each employee a free case of their products at the
holidays for all the business we generate for their companies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How else are most employees supposed to stay
awake on Thanksgiving night when they have to work from ten o’clock to six
o’clock the next morning, only to return at noon to start another eight hour
shift?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then there are the late night
inventory shifts that end at two in the morning but see some employees return
seven hours later to open the store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The needle full of adrenaline to the heart in <b>Pulp Fiction</b> likely
got its inspiration from retail workers.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Then
there are the endless amounts of fast food joints conveniently located around
my job that almost everyone goes to for lunch breaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel like I’m one of the few who brings their own food from
home as much as I can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see what all
that fast food is doing to the bodies of many coworkers and I want to avoid
health issues as much as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
convenience is typically the way most people lean and when you only get a half
hour lunch break – if you’re lucky – then fast food it is!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All that fatty food clogging your arteries
while the stresses of your job slowly build and build and build cannot be good
for the body.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Sure,
I know we don’t perform brain surgery at our jobs, but when you’re getting paid
the amount of money we get while doing all the work expected of you by no fewer
than five different people on a daily basis, it can feel like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, I’m still being a bit hyperbolic, but
you catch my drift.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So,
in my ever-constant attempt to come up with solutions to my daily rants, where
do we go from here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I doubt companies
are going to hire enough staff to do the work that they think we can
accomplish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I doubt our pay will all
magically increase and I doubt the hours will change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also highly doubt customers will start thinking for themselves
and solve their easy questions on their own or keep their petty complaints to
themselves without raising a ruckus.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So,
I ask again, where do we go from here?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">No,
seriously, where do we go from here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because I’m actually at a loss for ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just hope we can all make it out of here alive and not in a
box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully I’ll be able to come up
with something by the next post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
you’ll excuse me, I have to go make a cup of coffee before work.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-62709704181174186992013-12-15T12:59:00.000-06:002013-12-15T12:59:25.855-06:00Black Thursday, A.K.A. Thanksgiving
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It
has been way too long since my last update but I’ve no excuse other than my own
lack of motivation to write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, after
cleaning up the place, let’s begin, shall we?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">One
thing I’ve come to notice about holiday shoppers is the fact that they always
think a better sale is somewhere off in the distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like they’re Dorothy wishing upon a rainbow for some giant
tornado to come and take them to Oz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oz, obviously, is the local electronics store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hey, sometimes you have to take what you can get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This last Black Friday – which, thanks to
greedy corporations, was more like Black Thursday – saw some really good
deals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deals on nothing I really would
care about but deals, nonetheless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
that was a few weeks ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, I still
get customers coming in who are confused about why the prices have gone back up
since then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As if everything is
supposed to remain constant through the passage of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why I’m still a young 20-year-old whippersnapper
instead of the old, dilapidated age that I am.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Me:
“Well… they were on sale for Black Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Those were really good prices.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Super
Genius Customer: “Oh… so they’re no longer on sale?”<br />
Me: ”No, they are, but Black Friday had some REALLY good sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Better than what they are now.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
tend to repeat myself when I’m talking to customers because most customers are
like five-year-olds with ADHD.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
never pay attention.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Then
the inevitable question follows:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Do
you see them going back down that low?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Uh…”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Some
times I’m not a hundred percent sure they’re not joking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, people spent the previous two to
three months just waiting to buy that big purchase because of the possibility
of a Black Friday deal. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not even the
guarantee – just the possibility!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then,
when Black Friday comes and goes, but while the customer is still under the
impression that Black Friday means every day until New Year’s Day, they finally
decide to stroll in and check things out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When they see the prices have changed, they want to know when the next
Black Friday-type sale will be.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Uh,
next Black Friday would be my guess, but what do I know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just work here.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">They
then ask when the next holiday sale might take place.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When
I shrug my shoulders and shake my head in dumbfounded confusion, they throw out
possible options.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Labor
Day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President’s Day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin Luther King Jr. Day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">MLK
Jr. Day threw me for another loop because I usually associate it with solemn
reflection, but I suppose we should thank corporations for ruining that for
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas, however, knocked me back
out of my haze.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Black
Friday kind of was our Christmas,” is finally my response.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
sad look of disappointment when they hear that is then followed by, “Well, I
guess I’ll just wait and hope for the best!”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ah,
there’s that American spirit!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
can-do I-can-wait-for-better attitude!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>HOO-RAH!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Wait
for another holiday to roll around just in the nick of time as your fridge
finally gives up the ghost and dies?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s Russian Roulette that I wouldn’t want to play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yikes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Those are the same people who come in and are upset that they can’t get
next-day delivery because all their food is spoiling because they waited until
the last minute to buy something.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But,
I suppose that is the American spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You just keep waiting and hoping for a better tomorrow that may or may
not come in the hopes of saving an extra ten dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never lose out hope, shoppers!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s always 300 odd days left until next Black Friday!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps that 25-year-old stove that won’t
heat on two of the four burners will make it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or you could just suck it up and buy something and be done with it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">…Nah!</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-48572780640401899812013-04-04T23:30:00.000-05:002013-04-04T23:30:41.055-05:00"Training - HUH! What Is It Good For? Absolutely NOTHING, Say It Again!"
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My apologies
to Edwin Starr for that terrible rip-off of ‘War’ in the subject line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now that that’s out of the way, onto the
entry!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It
is always nice when your job can manage to surprise you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s very easy to become skeptical when
you’ve been with the same company for several years or so, and sometimes this
leads you to think that you’ve seen and heard it all when it comes to your
company or, at the very least, your position within the company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is especially true for me when it comes
to all the trainings I have been apart of with my current job.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Let
me begin by saying that I appreciate a job that’ll train their employees so
they know what they’re talking about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are places where you go in and you feel like you might as well
just look up the info on your smartphone instead of ask the employees for help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not the fault of the employees, but
the employers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, it is cool that my
job decides to actually try to train us in the stuff we’re selling.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">However,
there’s a fine line between being well trained and training harder than a
surgeon would be trained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes my
job goes a bit overboard with all the trainings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between the computer-based training, the one-on-one trainings
with managers, the department trainings every other month, the larger corporate
trainings we get sent to, and the one-on-one vendor trainings, it’s all a bit
much and it often feels like everyone’s tripping over each other’s feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You get all the information drilled into
your head again and again and it’s hard to resist the urge to just tell the
trainer, “I GOT IT THE FIRST TEN TIMES I WAS TAUGHT THIS!”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
mean, really, it’s not like we’re training to go deep undercover to infiltrate
the mafia.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Everything
becomes very repetitive and it’s amazing how certain trainings might change
ever so slightly, but the managers – who must be used to working with some
truly dumb as hell people – feel the need to go over the same things again and
again in excruciating detail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
always have this worried look on their face like, “Oh, dear lord, I hope this
is sinking in for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looks so lost
as I’m explaining this to him!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When,
in reality, I’m not lost – just amused at their ridiculous repetition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not the world’s smartest guy but I can
grasp simple facts and instructions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
I don’t have a sarcastic smile on my face when somebody tries to ‘train’ me on
something, then in my mind I’m going into autopilot and I only hear a
“wah-wah-wah-wah” sound.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That’s
why, when I get sent to a training and I’m not bored and the trainer is cool,
funny, and laidback, I’m genuinely pleasantly surprised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the case earlier in the year when I
was sent to one such training for a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve been to one or two similar trainings and it’s always torture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only bright spot is that I get away from
customers for a few days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
training, however, was fast-paced and totally laidback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trainer still seemed to spout the
company line and praised everything our company did, which I somehow refrained
from rolling my eyes, but she was easy-going and funny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, I didn’t learn anything new, per say,
during the entire week that I hadn’t already known, but it was still enjoyable.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Not
since when I was first hired was I as impressed with anything this company had
to show me in the way of training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just
hope we don’t go backward and revert to the old style of training within a year.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So,
nameless trainer, thank you!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ll
never know how much you alleviated my apprehension about that week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I had to be stuck relearning everything I
already knew, I’m glad it was with your class.<br />More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-22922954905297041302013-03-31T23:45:00.000-05:002013-03-31T23:45:13.064-05:00Time Off For Good Behavior<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">There’s
nothing quite like having two days off in a row from your job, is there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, most normal jobs might always give you
two days off in a row, especially if you’re working a Monday to Friday job, but
in retail, finding yourself with two days off in a row is an exciting event.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So
you can imagine my surprise when I found myself with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three</i> days off in a row.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was almost as good as hitting the lottery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s an amazing feeling to walk out of your job’s front doors and know
that you won’t have to be back until the fourth days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that moment, you have the greatest amount of free time you’ll
ever have for the next three days before you have to walk back through those
same doors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The possibilities for your
future are wide open!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could do
anything you want!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sky is the limit
(or at least, so you tell yourself)!<br />
Need to clean the entire house (or, if you are a lowly hourly drone, an
apartment)?<br />
Have to finish editing all seven hundred pictures from that vacation you took a
year ago - the one that everyone is still hounding you about putting up
pictures for?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Have
to make several shopping trips to buy things you hate wasting your time
shopping for?<br />
Want to go to the movies and watch six new releases??<br />
Want to finally do a real nice detailing of your car?<br />
Well, now you can!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you can’t get
to something the first day, YOU STILL HAVE TWO DAYS LEFT!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That’s
how the thinking goes when you first leave the office, or the store, or
whatever jail happens to be your workspace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’re going to work on that story you’ve wanted to do justice in those
three days instead of churn out one mediocre blog entry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hell YEAH, you are!<br />
But, oh, how quickly that feeling of invincibility fades!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That
first day might feel pretty damn good, no doubt about it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re still getting lots done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re relaxing, not even thinking about
work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And hey, the weather is
perfect!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was as if Mother Nature was
giving you this perfect day to go out and get things done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s okay if you haven’t started that
story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You still have two days left!!!<br />
That second day is still enjoyable because you still have that last day
off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is still a day where anything
can happen!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps you’ll mix some
real housework during the day with a quiet stroll around the neighborhood with
your spouse and dog(s).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, it’s
still okay if you haven’t started that story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You still have that last day to stay up all night working on!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t need sleep that first day
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a short shift, anyway!<br />
Then that last day hits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You wake up,
and despite not drinking the previous night, you have a heavy feeling in your
gut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s that, “Oh, god, why did I do
what I did last night?” feeling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
feeling of completely wasting your previous two days and realizing you don’t
have enough time to do all the things you wanted to do in the remaining time
you have left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That dread of having to
deal with customers whose life stories you have long stopped caring about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That dread of having to fix issues your
superiors hand to you because shit rolls downhill and they put it all off for
three days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soon, it becomes all you
can think about and now, instead of enjoying that beautiful day Mother Nature
is giving you on your last day off, you silently curse her because it’s as if
Mother Nature’s mocking you.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Have
to go back to work?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a bummer!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I plan on giving everyone else sunshine and
75 degrees for another day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then
when you have your next day off, I’m planning on unleashing a typhoon all day
long, SUCKER!!”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">So,
instead of writing that story and getting something done (and feeling pretty
good about it until you start to question the writing quality of it), you just
churn out that mediocre blog entry.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
hope this has been more than mediocre for you all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really need to focus and push myself to write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been slacking way too long on this
shit.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
seriously don’t know where the three days went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just know that it doesn’t make going back to work any easier
knowing I had three days away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s
hoping my next day off arrives quickly!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-54351084502381149612013-02-04T22:41:00.000-06:002013-02-04T22:42:12.381-06:00Take This Survey And Win A Supermodel Wife And Ten Million Dollars!! PLEASE!!<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Recently,
my job has been focusing heavily on trying to get customers to take the survey
on the bottom of the receipts they get from us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see them all the time – it’s that thing located way at the
bottom of the receipt you don’t even think twice about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But really, who could blame you?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Past
the list of products, the money you spent, and the information about how long
you can return something, who cares about a survey?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our time is already filled to the brim with other time-wasters as
it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can’t afford to sit in front
of our computer to rate how we enjoyed our visit into Flo’s House Of Doilies
for our three dollar purchase!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have
to get home so we can see the newest <i>American Idol</i>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s trials week and everybody knows how
those are the best part!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then after
that, it’s Facebook time to look at all the links our coworkers post and to
creep every single photograph that someone special we’ve had our eye on for
some time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SURVEY? Pfft!!<br />
And it doesn’t matter if the person who helped you out at the store – even if
all they did was ring out your three dollar purchase – was the most amazing
person in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not just
talking about somebody who smiled as he or she thanked you for coming in
today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m talking about somebody who somehow
resisted the urge to spit in your face despite the maniacal ranting you did
when you couldn’t find that doily you were looking for (he/she found it five
feet from where you were looking).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just
forget to take it or we just don’t want to fill out a ten minute survey about
every tiny detail about your trip into Flo’s store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forget the fact that it’d probably take closer to three minutes
to complete and not ten.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
can’t tell you how many people have told me that they’d fill out the survey
because I was, “so helpful, and not like any other salesperson I’ve talked to
at other places,” or some similar platitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then, days or weeks later when I decide to look at our store’s comments that
people leave on those surveys, I don’t see anything with my name in it or even
the department I work in.<br />
I’m guilty of it, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even tell the
person who mentions the survey to me that I’ll take the survey because they
were so nice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I never do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel bad – it’s certainly not something I
mean to lie about, but it just happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, I guess I can’t get <i>too</i> mad at my customers that do the exact
same thing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
fact that so many companies try to entice you with hopes of winning gift cards
or other cash prizes if you would just take their surveys seems to not even
matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You could promise them a chance
at winning a million dollars (and since the odds are better of winning that
than winning a million dollars if you played the Lotto, those odds are pretty
favorable) and you still won’t get people to fill out a ten question survey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It makes me wonder who exactly wins these
prizes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve certainly never heard of
anyone winning these amazing shopping sprees or gift cards at any store other
than one time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was first hired
by my company, I saw a video proving somebody supposedly won, but other than
that ONE time, nada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zilch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What’s up with that?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Well,
how about the two of us – you and me – change all of that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From here on out, I promise to try <i>really</i>
hard to fill out every single goddamn survey I get on every single goddamn
receipt, no matter how small my purchase was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How about you all do the same?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Up for the challenge?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Let’s
leave a little positive feedback for people who are in the shittiest of shitty
jobs, because maybe something nice will happen for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe they’ll see the comments and it’ll
cheer them up from an otherwise dismal day at work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps they’ll win something nice for impacting their customers’
experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps karma will even be
kind to <i>us</i> and we’ll get something nice for our troubles like, say, a
shopping spree for hundreds of dollars???<br />
What say you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s put out the
challenge to everyone we know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s go
forth and do something wonderfully small acts of kindness for the sake of our
fellow man or woman.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Right
after I catch up on my Facebooking.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-67249038509031341202013-01-31T23:29:00.000-06:002013-01-31T23:30:39.294-06:00What’s A Little Hypothermia If I Can Save Eight Dollars?<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Today,
a mini-story that shows the mindset I have about retail employment and how I
want to save you the same erroneous train-of-thought.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ve
been employed at my current job for over five years now and each winter, it is
almost assured that the store will only be about ten degrees warmer than what
it is outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since I live in an area
where winters can get pretty damn cold, that is not a good thing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">There
are a number of reasons why this might occur, but the simplest one is because
of the giant sliding doors that never seem to remain shut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With each customer that comes stumbling
through our front doors – braving howling winds, torrential downpours, or
blinding snowfalls for a TV on sale for 10% – allows all the accumulated heat
to be zapped from the air.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Another
common reason why the temperatures indoors are so wacky is the fact that the
thermostat isn’t accurately adjusted from day-to-day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there’s an unusually cold spring day, the A/C might still be
on, and there’s not much the store workers can do about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time anything is fixed and you notice
the difference, most of the day is already done with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reverse is true in the winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A working A/C and heating unit is almost useless in a large
retail building that is as open as most electronics stores.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This,
finally, gets to my mini-story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each
year, most employees, knowing how cold the store can be during winter, start to
wear long-sleeved undershirts below their work uniforms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smart, huh?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yeah, I thought so, too.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">However,
the first year I worked at my job, I had only short-sleeved shirts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outside of work I never really needed
long-sleeved undershirts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, if I
was cold outside of work, I always had hoodies or jackets or I just wrapped
myself up in blankets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first time I
experienced how cold it could get in my store during the winter, I suppose I
should’ve gone right out and purchased a pack of undershirts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, but that’s when my superior intellect
kicked in.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
started thinking to myself, “Hey, you don’t plan on working here for more than
a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why waste your money on shirts
you’ll never wear again?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just tough it
out!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not <i>that</i> bad, after
all.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That’s
how I spent my first winter there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Then
there was a second.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Then
a third.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Then
a fourth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">And
so on and so on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">You
would think that by the second year, I would have just decided to say, “fuck
it!” and by myself a pack of long-sleeved shirts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, let me tell you, my friend, you are completely mistaken.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Each
year I kept thinking, “Well, this is my last year here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m <i>definitely</i> not working here for
another year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I made it <i>this </i>far,
after all, I might as well just stick it out until warm weather returns.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So, yes, super genius that I am, I have been freezing
myself out on an annual basis on the misguided and self-delusional belief that
I’ll finally be out of my job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess
the moral of this story is, if keeping yourself warm or dry or safe is ever a
matter of a few dollars – even if you think you’re not going to be there for
very long – just spend the damn money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or risk being as foolish as a man who decides to freeze himself to death
for a one-year-only job that turns into a 5-year-plus job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just a little piece of free advice.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
More soon from the frontlines...</div>
Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-24919363157556498872012-11-14T23:03:00.001-06:002012-11-14T23:03:18.818-06:00Black Friday Deals... On Thursday!<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It’s
that time of year again!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The time where
you spend a day of thanks to remember all that you have and all you should be
happy about… just a month before you receive things you desired and probably
didn’t even need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve experienced way
too many holiday seasons working in retail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Far more than I ever intended to experience.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This
will be a quick post since I’ve mentioned before how pointless I find people
lining up as early as Wednesday for some piece of crappy technology that’ll be
obsolete within the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I
did want to point out something I heard at my job recently.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">One
of my coworkers, trying to look on the bright side of <i>only </i>opening at
midnight on Thanksgiving, said something along the lines like, “At least we
don’t have to open at 10pm or 8pm like [some of our competitors].”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">To
which I say, “Buuuuulllllshiiiiiiit.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">You
see, do customers think the store just magically looks the way it does when
they walk into the stores?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you see
those displays set-up around the store?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do you see how there are stacks of flyers or ads or pamphlets laid about
in certain parts of the stores?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well,
the places you shop don’t magically look like that because a jolly fat man in a
red suit makes it look that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re
not elves selling toys made in Santa’s workshop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no fairy dust that magically turns stores into winter
wonderlands.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Since
the stores are “closed” on Thanksgiving, everyone has to run around after our
store closes for the day on Wednesday like their heads are chopped off trying
to set everything up for Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the
2-3 times I’ve done this, I’ve stayed to at least 1am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then what do you do when you get home?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re me, you have to eat something
& then you’re too awake to fall asleep right away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, typically, I’m not asleep until around
3am.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Then,
since the store now opens at midnight, if one has an opening shift, we’re
scheduled an hour or two before the store actually opens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve started as early as 10pm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So from midnight on Wednesday to – let’s say
– 2am on Thursday, and then again from 10pm to midnight, I’m most definitely
working on Thanksgiving.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It’s
that kind of thinking that retail companies want you to have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first it was, “I’m working 4am but at
least I’m not working at midnight.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then, when everyone started to open at midnight, we all thought, “I’m
working at midnight but at least it’s not ON Thanksgiving.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To which stores like Target have decided to
start opening their doors at 9pm or so ON Thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s time we all got together & realized
that sales aren’t worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>EVERYONE
deserves a day – 24 FULL hours – off from work to see the people we don’t get
to see very often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is something
customers AND employees should agree on and need to work together to fix.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Customers
need to refuse to shop at stores that open at midnight (or earlier). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Employees, well, I guess the only thing we
can do is to keep getting the word out to people we know and tell them to hold
off on sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My parents never stood in
line at 4am for a toy and if I was ever upset that I didn’t get something for
Christmas, I quickly got over it because I always got more than I probably
deserved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so will your kids,
relatives, friends, and whoever else you’re in line for.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Incase
I don’t get the chance to update before it arrives I wanted to wish everyone a
very happy Thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thank you
all for taking time out to read my rants and ramblings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is just a little project I decided to
do as an outlet but it means a lot that you all are reading it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re living outside the States… Count
yourself lucky you’re not apart of the crazy bull that is associated with the
Christmas season here in the States.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Moor soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-30734090720678306742012-07-13T14:42:00.000-05:002012-07-13T14:42:27.595-05:00What Do You MEAN The Store’s Closed? It’s Only 6pm And I Need My New I-Pod!<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.<o:p></o:p></span>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I’ve
recently been abroad to the Old World and I must say that there are some things
that America could learn from Europe about work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was enough to almost make me not get on that plane back to the
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, what was so great about
it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose the major point is the
fact that the hours seem to be better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now, granted, this is a statement about the places I explored while in
Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know not every country in
Europe is the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So take this info
with a grain of salt.<br />
Nearly every single store seems to close no later than 7pm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only that but a lot of stores (that
aren’t bakeries) don’t even open until 9am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I know a lot of coworkers who wouldn’t mind getting out by 7pm on a
Friday night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t tell you how many
family gatherings that would’ve allowed me to catch the last few hours of, at
the very least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when you think
about it, what store – other than pharmacies or convenience stores – need to be
open past 7pm, anyway?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you can’t buy
your 50” TV by 7pm then maybe it wasn’t meant to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your washer broke down just take your clothes to a
Laundromat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your cellphone died on
you then enjoy the silence and pick up a book.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">And
forget about finding anything open on a Sunday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good GOD!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forget the
point if you’re religious or not but if God could rest on the 7<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>
day, why can’t retail workers?<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Do
you know what people in Europe do on Sundays?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They spend the day relaxing and enjoying the world around them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Novel concept, I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parks were filled with people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cafés were bustling with friends catching up
with one another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Streets were more
jam-packed with bicyclists than motorists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People. Just. Slowed. Down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
they had a 40” TV, they don’t seem to need to rush right out when the 60”
version comes out three months later.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It
seems like everyone is in such a rush in the States to go from 1 store to the
other and by the end of the day, how many of you actually feel like you’ve
accomplished a lot for the time you spent running around?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve said it before but whenever I hear
customers say that they’re just shopping around and plan to go to 4-5 other
stores on their Sunday, I just think, “Why?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the day and age of the Internet, just go home, sit out in the
backyard, enjoy a cup of lemonade, and look up what you want to buy
online.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if you don’t want to buy
it online and insist on going into a store, at least you know what’s out there
before you go out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This way, instead of
going to five million stores, you can just go to 1-2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus, nowadays, it seems like every store is so desperate for
your business that they’ll offer price-match guarantees on their items so even
if you don’t think you got the best deal, you can still go in after you buy it
and get the difference back if it goes down.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I
never want to spend a whole day at stores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If a store has what I want and I know it’s within what I want to spend,
I get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not going to spend my
time and gasoline on trying to save $10.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Life’s too short for that bullshit.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Another
bonus of working in Europe – and I know this has its drawbacks, too – is the
amount of vacations one can get at many places of employment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You hear it in jokes on late night comedy
talk shows about how they get 6 months vacation out of the year and how even
the slightest hint of taking away 1 day from their vacation times will insight
massive riots throughout Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
what I want to know is, when life IS so short and when most people work
themselves to death and have to deal with mounds of bullshit in their everyday
life, why NOT have 6 weeks – HELL, even 4 weeks – of vacation time?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">People
need to unwind and 2-3 weeks vacation time and a few personal days spattered
throughout the year isn’t always enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Especially if you work in retail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Imagine what you can see and do with 4-6 weeks of vacation time!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, this goes hand-in-hand with
pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People in retail jobs in the
States need to be paid a <i>living</i> wage and not the bullshit most hourly
workers get in order to do something useful with those vacation hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hear a lot of stories from people who just
take vacation hours to sit around the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But why??<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if it’s just to
go into the city or visit family in the next state, that’s still being able to
get out and explore the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least
do something useful with your time at home (like start a blog! Ha).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">There
are a lot of things wrong with Europe – as there is with any place on the globe
– but recognizing people need time to get away from work isn’t one of
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for those who say that
despite the fact many jobs pay more than their U.S. counterparts they get taxed
more, I say, “So what?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They might get
taxed more but, generally speaking, those taxes go toward universal health coverage
in many countries (look out, it’s “socialism”!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It goes towards better roads and other infrastructure projects
(without being labeled wasted government jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yeah, I hate driving on smooth roads and having bridges not collapse).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It goes towards renewable energy sources (“Oh,
look at those UGLY windmills!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d
rather have those power plants that churn out the billowing smoke in my
backyard.” – some random U.S. politician).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Okay,
I shall leave it there for now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will
probably pick back up on this topic when I have more time to delve deeper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just needed to get out of my writing
slump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hey look, I’m up to 1750 page
views!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks to everyone reading this
rambling mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope you’ve found it
amusing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tell your friends and family!</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-17845924474447272802012-02-29T16:10:00.000-06:002012-02-29T16:10:25.847-06:00"You Have An Idiot On Line One... Idiot, Line One."<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My apologies for the delay, everyone, but life has been busy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will be a brief one but I figured it was amusing enough to share with the rest of you and hopefully it’ll tide you all over until a real entry can be written.<o:p></o:p></span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The other day I had the opening shift in my department and received a call practically first thing in the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually, whenever that happens, it’s a pretty big issue that is waiting to be resolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I generally prefer not opening right away for that exact reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time the 2<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>nd</sup> person comes in, or the closing person comes in, all of the issues are resolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I approached the phone with a bit of trepidation.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I picked up the phone and here is how the conversation went (with a few modifications, of course):<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Hello, Home Electronics, Parker speaking.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Hi, I need to talk to somebody in Home Electronics.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">D’uh, way to pay attention.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s me.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Oh, okay, well I had a special order TV that was supposed to be delivered today and I never received a call telling me when it was going to be here.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Ah, they didn’t call you last night?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today <i>is</i> the 29<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>, isn’t it?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">He said this last part with a bit of condescension in his voice.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I looked at my watch.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“No, actually, it’s the 28<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A brief pause, presumably to insert his foot into his mouth.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Oh, well, no wonder they haven’t called!” he laughed.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“Yep.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That was basically it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, just remember, when you think you have an issue with a retail store and are getting yourself jazzed up to pick a fight with them, always make sure you have your facts straight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise, you’re going to look like a moron like the guy who decided to call without looking at his phone or a calendar or a watch or a newspaper for the date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s just a little piece of advice from your friendly retail associate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needless to say, after a brief laugh after I hung up, it helped to make the day start off on the right foot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good times!</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-90058603495954611492012-01-19T13:26:00.000-06:002012-01-19T13:26:21.961-06:00Let's Be Friends! ...Or Not!<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> In my time in retail I’ve had a number of managers that I’ve had to deal with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not talking about my direct supervisors, but instead, I’m talking about those who run the store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At my first job I didn’t really have much direct contact with them and that’s the way I liked it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were just these generic (usually male) figures in suits that could’ve been replaced with anyone else and I really wouldn’t have noticed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not to say some of them weren’t nice but I was a teenager and they were typically older with little in common with myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They – probably – only saw me as one in a long line of faceless workers that might not be at that job longer than a year.<o:p></o:p></span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">As I worked at that same job longer and I grew out of my teenager’s shell, I made more and more friends with most of the workers there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The supervisors that came and went were usually easy to get along with but I also came into more contact with the store managers since I had been there so long.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Relationships with managers in retail always swing from one extreme to the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They either are complete tightwads who think about nothing other than the job or they are really laidback and relatable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You get the ones who are only focused on moving up in the business or those who are just cashing in the nice paychecks until something better comes along.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> In the grocery world, I’ve had more of the former than the latter, but that only really affected me when I was a cashier and nearly constantly surrounded by them as they went into and out of their office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was off in other departments, however, I could find ways to avoid them bothering me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then again, you would get one or two managers who couldn’t leave you alone because they always had something extra for you to do (you know, besides the 4-5 other things you were trying to get accomplished).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I typically didn’t have many personal conversations with my managers and I preferred that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t care if a manager tries to be my best friend as long as they let me do my job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my years in the grocery retail world, I think I knew 1-2 facts in total about the several store managers I’ve had.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> In the electronics world, I’ve had more direct contact with the managers since the staff and the store are both smaller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You not only have your supervisor to watch over you but you have several other supervisors who patrol the stores and then there are 3-4 managers who are in charge of everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve had one of the best store managers in electronics retail but also the worst store manager.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The best – let’s just call him Alex – was laidback but also knew how to talk to people as if they were people instead of five-year-olds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alex talked to you and seemed to enjoy talking to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t one of those things where it was forced or awkward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He could joke around with people but could also put customers in their place when they were being overly obnoxious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One time, with another manager and a coworker of mine, we had a mini snowball fight toward the end of the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How often does one have a snowball fight with their management?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alex seemed like a pretty straightforward type of guy who, at the very least, presented the image of a person you could talk to about things and felt like he was taking your concerns to heart.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Sadly, like all the good management people, they don’t last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They get transferred or a promotion or a better offer from a competitor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s worse is that anyone after that person will pale in comparison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s even worse than that is when that next person isn’t just a letdown but is also truly the worst manager you’ve ever had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you go from a nice environment as that to an environment where you dread coming into work each and everyday, things seem truly depressing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The worst manager – let’s just call her Karen – was the opposite of Alex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was either her way or the highway on a lot of issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If she didn’t like you, she <i>really</i> didn’t like you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it came to rallying the troops to have “fun”, every word she said felt so forced, as if she was a robot created in a lab with no contact with humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her tone was almost always set to “condescension”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She treated longtime employees like they were suspected criminals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our store lost quite a few good people under her reign than under any of the other managers at that job.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I hate to say this but I’ve noticed a lot of women managers who seem to take their authority to their heads and act like dictators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I feel this is a comment more on the American work environment than anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if they feel like they have to be harder, stricter, and ruder than their male counterparts just so they can prove themselves capable managers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is ridiculous because I’ve had a number of male managers who were complete buffoons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the higher up you found men in management roles, the more idiotic they seemed to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the pay scale was better in women’s favor and more roles of management were opened up to them – not to mention a whole host of different social/economic changes that could take place – I think they wouldn’t feel the need to go mad with power.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> But as it was, whenever Karen tried to have a friendly chat with me about my family or my schooling, I felt like she was mentally ticking off the seconds that the conversation lasted so she would know when she could end it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the mental conversation I pictured Karen having as she talked with me:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> “Okay… now smile as he talks… thirty seconds… nod… forty seconds… say something as a follow-up… okay, now raise your eyebrows in surprise… good, good… almost there… say ‘that sounds nice’… perrrrfect… laugh and then thank him for all his hard work today… and now walk away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s one conversation down for the day.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The only thing I hate more than the fake attempts at being friendly is the fact a lot of managers talk down to their employees like they were all children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This fact is especially amusing since most of the managers I’ve had in retail were either around my age or younger than I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I understand that most electronics stores hire younger people but that doesn’t mean they’re babies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So stop treating them as such!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of my coworkers, while young, are still smart enough to do their jobs, and if you’re hiring them, why don’t you trust them to know what to do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you talk down to someone who either doesn’t deserve it or is older than you, you come across as a total douchebag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then nobody likes you and everyone looks forward to you being fired or transferred.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Another awkward development of the Internet age is friend requests on Facebook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I’m not talking about every person you’ve ever worked with requesting to be your friend despite only saying 3 words to you in over a year of working together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, I’m talking about managers who request to be your friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get the fact that some just want to spy on their workers to see what they say about their jobs (and if that’s the case, do they really think we don’t know what they’re trying to do?) but others just either want to keep an eye on people’s behaviors outside of work or truly want to be their friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either way, there’s danger ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve friended a few managers on Facebook but I try to keep that number low – only those who I think are genuine in their request – or I wait for them to have left the store before doing so.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> But what do you do when they request your friendship?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you accept it and patrol what you say?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you ignore it and then constantly wonder if that manager is going to bring up the fact you haven’t added them on Facebook yet?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t you just hate that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t do a very good job of patrolling my own thoughts but I’ve learned to deal with the fact that if managers want to judge me on what I say on some stupid social site then that’s their prerogative and I can always find another job doing something else.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> If managers are going to go the route of acting like our friends then don’t act like our warden the next minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That will just breed resentment and hostility in your workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody likes a two-faced manager.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I just wish that if all of these managers are forced to attend the same brainwashing training seminar, the seminar instructors teach them how to fake being relatable better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because most of them are doing a horrendous job of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I don’t think managers have to be our best friends but if they’re going to try and be friendly then look up what the word “friendly” means in the dictionary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise, just go about doing your business and I’ll do mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hey, I’m just here to try and help you managers become better people, is all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re welcome.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span></div>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-68353873510990687432011-12-14T21:54:00.000-06:002011-12-14T21:54:41.105-06:00The Idle Hours <span style="font-size: small;">Now, for something completely different!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During this crazy holiday season I needed a look back at fonder moments I had in the grocery retail world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t talked much about my time at a grocery store since I have so much to work with from my current job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent quite a long time, off and on, working at grocery stores and in some aspects, that world is a lot crazier than electronics.</span><br />
Working in the grocery world was my first real experience working at a real job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I met a lot of fun people and a lot of assholes (like any job).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The customers were idiots but different from the kind I have to deal with now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It showed me that some people take the ridiculous a bit too seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I look back on my time there with warm thoughts, generally, but I know that if I worked at a grocery store again, I would wonder why I ever wanted to go back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That said, I did have some good times there and these are a few of them from one of those grocery jobs…<br />
In the department I worked in, we had a crew of 5-6 main workers (not including our supervisor) that got the work done and did it well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were mostly 20-30 year olds who got along with one another – a remarkable feat in the retail world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We worked quickly enough to have the luxury to goof off when time allowed during the lulls of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And goof off we did!<br />
There would be a few occasions when we would have 2-3 guys in the department at the same time with zero customers and no pressing work to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When this would happen we would head to our backroom past giant swinging doors and find ways to pass the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We worked in a department where most of our managers never seemed to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was as if someone had done a magic spell on our department to make us invisible from those in charge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that we minded that, of course.<br />
Sometimes we just stood around and talked about sports, music, or movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other times, 1 of us would roll up a big ball of shrink-wrap while another coworker would break a piece off of a long cardboard stick and we would play a little baseball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few customers probably overheard the crack of the bat or our shouts and cheers whenever someone hit the ball across the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surprisingly, we never were caught, and that was even after one of our coworkers broke part of the light fixture covering when he hit the ball at the ceiling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The covering ended up having a small round hole in it for as long as I worked there (which ended up being another year or so) without much acknowledgement from anyone about it.<br />
When the covering was broken after that, we used the fixture as another source of entertainment during our down time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We took giant rubberbands that we had laying around and tried to launch them at the broken fixture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whoever could successfully land their rubberband into the actual light and have it stuck up there would win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure who won, exactly, but there eventually was a winner.<br />
Other times, we would sneak out onto our receiving dock that was separate from the main receiving dock of our store, close the sliding dock door behind us, and chill on the little edge for several minutes just enjoying the warm summer days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was one or two customers, sometimes elderly people who couldn’t find a product on our tables, who would peak their head into our backroom to find someone but they would walk back out empty-handed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through the main backroom, which was separated from the receiving dock by a large cooler, we could see a few people through the sliding dock door’s small window as they looked around the backroom for help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of our managers even said he had tried to find us but we just told him we were off doing something in another part of the store and we got off with a shrug of the shoulders and a laugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I honestly have no idea how nobody ever caught us once.<br />
The best part, however, came when we had 4 workers scheduled at the same time and we were all able to go on lunch at the same time to Taco Bell for over a half-hour without anyone asking us many questions when we returned (like, “Why was your department empty of employees for a half-hour when we had customers coming in?”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our department had more freedom in that store than anyone probably ever guessed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And nobody seemed to question us because we all worked hard when we were there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe we were just that good at bullshitting everyone and they never bothered to delve deeper.<br />
Either way, the group of guys I worked with in that department for a year or so helped to make my time there one that I’ll never forget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a lot of crap I had to deal with while working there but those coworkers were some of the coolest people I had the fortune of working with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who can make a crappy job more tolerable is someone you should thank every day you see him/her because they are rare.<br />
That goes for my current job and any other job I’ve ever had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These memories of mine might not seem all that crazy or insane but the breaks from the otherwise monotonous routines at these jobs and the crabby customers were welcomed breaks, indeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s so hard to find joy in the everyday routine and it’s those who are around us that either make or break a day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So next time you’re at your job and someone makes you laugh that always makes you laugh or someone suggests you all sneak out for an extra break, make sure you thank them for making a stressful or a depressing job more tolerable.<br />
Hmmm… Maybe I should send in an application to a few grocery stores?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This trip down memory lane is making me miss the grocery world!<br />
More soon from the frontlines...Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-70693440956654503182011-12-05T12:59:00.000-06:002011-12-05T12:59:08.737-06:00It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas... In July<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> One of the most common anecdotal stories you hear in the retail world is the slow creep into November that Christmas has made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’ve ever seen all the commercials that air for Christmas in the first week of November, you understand what I mean by this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems like hyperbole to suggest that at some point, retail giants will force us to start watching Christmas commercials in January, but at the rate things are going, we may be at that point in another 10 to 12 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year seems to be one of the worst ones out there for retail life – and I’ve seen several.</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> For the most part, I’m spared some of the early Christmas displays for awhile but why do places like Macy’s feel the need to put up their Christmas trees no later than September?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is just plain sickening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My job usually waits until at least November to roll out holiday-themed gift cards but this year was the first time they brought them out before Halloween. Halloween!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in October 31<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>st</sup>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should’ve been at that point that I realized this year wasn’t going to be like the others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love Christmas and all, but let’s leave Christmas for December.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Then came word that there were a few retailers who were going to open on midnight on Thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One or two others were going to be opening up even before that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some, this would be the first time they’d have to work on Thanksgiving at their jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those of you outside of the U.S., this caused quite a commotion among employees and shoppers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Shoppers were upset because they’d have to get up even earlier or leave Thanksgiving earlier to get the good “doorbuster” deals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me start out by saying that if you’re standing in line for a $5 coffeemaker, it’s probably a shitty coffeemaker and not worth missing time with your family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your family members are upset because they can’t receive every single gift on their list or they don’t get a certain amount of gifts, just tell them to be one of the millions of homeless people who don’t get a proper Christmas at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’ll shut their ungrateful mouths up, huh?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you’re complaining about getting up even earlier to get the deals, well, you’re already up at 12-1am to get to the stores and in line anyway, is getting there earlier going to kill you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a few articles, some shoppers that were interviewed said they felt bad for the employees that would have to miss their holiday meals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bet you that they were still waiting at midnight to be let in for their special sales despite their sympathy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Some employers said they felt really bad about changing the hours and making their employees work these crappy hours but that the ‘demand’ for earlier hours was there and that to remain competitive with others, they had no choice but to open earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the old saying goes, “If your friend jumped off a bridge, would you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bet these CEOs are really bummed their employees will have to cut into their family time but somehow they’ll be able to overcome that grief – perhaps on their yacht or their vacation home in the Bahamas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any way you cut it, it is just simply greed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m all for making a profit and I hope people spend tons of money at my job because that means I keep making money but there has to be a line drawn somewhere.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> In retail, most of us only get 3 holidays off:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s something in exchange for the crappy wages and the generally crappy conditions we have to put up with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the insanity of holiday shopping and the demands of working at stores, we already get family time cut into as it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if someone has more than 1 family they celebrate a holiday with and they spread their time out over 2 days?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re already missing that 2<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>nd</sup> family celebration and now you’re asking them to miss the other?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I’d like to experience a Christmas season overseas just to see how they act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do they trample over each other to get a pair of $5 jeans before Christmas?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is blind, hungry consumerism as rampant overseas as it is here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something tells me it’s not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder why that is?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Again, I’m all for making a profit, and I knew what I was getting into as far as working long holiday hours, but there has to be a line drawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think as retail workers some common courtesy is too much to ask for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You should have major holidays off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You should be able to request a day off of work during the holiday months if you need to spend it with family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You shouldn’t be made to feel like a criminal if you come down with the flu and have to call off of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These things happen quite often at my job and others that I’ve heard about.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I figured with all the Occupy Wall Street and the ninety-nine-percenters out there that the midnight open that some companies did would create a bigger backlash but I was sorely disappointed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the looks of it, idiots, instead of staying inside and just going on Amazon like sane people, ended up showing up at midnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s called the internet, people!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Use it for more than porn, okay?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not just Wall Street and the government that needs to be taught a lesson about capitalism run amok.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also the retail giants that treat their workers only slightly better than slave labor and their customers like cattle that can be manipulated into buying anything as long as they call it a “holiday sale”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I’ll have more to say on another post about holidays but this rant is long enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to hurry out the door – there’s a great sale going on at JCPenny!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I buy 4 sweaters, I get 5% off the fifth one! Sweet!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span></div>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-16578578628068774602011-09-23T21:00:00.000-05:002011-09-23T21:00:43.696-05:00Let's Go Back In Time<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> O</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">ne of the first things you’re taught when you enter the retail world is that you have to learn to work with all different types of human beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That goes for coworkers, supervisors, and customers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re taught to appreciate everyone’s background and to respect the differences we may hold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether that person is a snobby trophy wife with bleach blonde hair or someone who thinks going to the dentist once every ten years is asking too much, we have to treat everyone the same.</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The hardest thing I have to overlook, however, is the fact that some people still use, let us say, outdated terminology when discussing other groups of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, just a week ago, I was assisting a white, (probably) lower-middle class family look for a new TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything seemed to be going pleasantly enough when the husband, in his 40s or so, points to the TV and asks, “Who made this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Japs?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> He went on to repeat the word 3-4 times within a five-minute conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t really recall hearing anyone who wasn’t in a TV show or movie use the word “Japs” before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the kind of thing you would hear in a John Wayne movie from the Forties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when I corrected the guy and said it was made by a company based in South Korea, he just shrugged and said, “Yeah, right, same thing.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right, because Canada and the U.S. are the same, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To just use such an antiquated, <i>offensive</i> word like that was kind of surprising to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that I haven’t heard people I’ve worked with or been friends with sling words that most wouldn’t deem politically correct, but to hear someone who I didn’t know just feel so casual as to use it caught me off guard.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Then, on the same day, an older middle-class white woman (who probably never met a Crate & Barrel she didn’t like) was looking at our store’s laptops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After assisting her for a few minutes, she noticed another woman with a few kids struggling to find help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She nodded at the woman and said to me, “I’m still just looking so if you want, you can go help that… dark-colored woman – she’s been waiting for awhile.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Now <i>that</i> was more surprising than the Japanese comment from earlier but I’m not quite sure why that is, even now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m used to white people, especially those living in the suburbs or places with low numbers of black people, in the States feeling awkward when having to describe someone they don’t know who happens to be of a different skin color, but to use “dark-colored”? Wow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t know it was 1950s day at my work!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> It’s not like she couldn’t have just said, “that other woman” and I wouldn’t have known who she meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was slowing down at that point and there weren’t that many women in the electronics store at that point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also seemed to know what she was saying might’ve been inappropriate because she talked quieter when she said the words “dark-colored woman”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just say, “that other woman” and be done with it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I remember 1 time when I was working in a grocery store and a customer asked where a certain melon was brought in from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked on the box that the product was shipped in and it said “Mexico”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told the elderly woman and she just shook her head and scoffed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She told me that she didn’t buy anything from Mexico because she didn’t trust the food coming in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She believed that the food might not be cleaned properly and that she might get sick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How a person might’ve gotten sick from a melon not being properly washed is beyond me, since you don’t even eat the skin of melons to begin with, but I digress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never really thought about it until after the conversation, but that woman was probably complaining about Mexico’s food when who knows what’s been done to the food made right here in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the amount of chemicals and genetic-modification that’s been done to the food supply and the unclean and unsafe conditions at farms, to name a few, we don’t need to worry about Mexico killing us with dirty produce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, she didn’t use any offensive terminology when talking about Mexicans but the topic was still quite odd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, with the globalization of most industries, I doubt most of what she owned was truly made in America, anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why worry about origins of melons?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> All this brings me back to having to treat everyone the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do I do when I have to deal with people who make me feel awkward – not for myself but for them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I ignore the phrasing people use and let them carry on using antiquated terminology in an increasingly global world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ignorance is bliss but maybe people should be called out when they’re caught living in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They might’ve grown up using words they picked up from family, friends, and the media, but that’s no excuse for them to still use them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to shit in a diaper but that doesn’t mean I should still be doing it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I’m also not a complete prude as to let language alone dictate how I should feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>George Carlin – a hero of mine – would go on about how words are just words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They only hold power over us as long as we let them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I was surprised by people still using words many have long since left by the wayside, and while I often wish I could openly criticize people for sounding stupid and uneducated by using certain words, I know that words <i>are</i> just words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The flipside of that is that I don’t want some random customer walking by as a customer uses some offensive term and sees me, unable to criticize that customer and suggest using other language in public, standing there with an awkward expression on my face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want me saying nothing to imply that I condone stupidity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> It also makes me wonder if all of this is mainly an American issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been abroad but I’ve never really had to interact with people treating other people of different ethnic background differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does a random Englishman go up to another Englishman in a store and ask if their wool coats were made by some drunk mick?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder what common interactions are like elsewhere where origins of products is an issue for people. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do people still cling to offensive words as much as it seems people in the States do? Hmm…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> More soon from the frontlines...</span></div>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-30644753231819430682011-09-02T19:08:00.000-05:002011-09-02T19:08:55.184-05:00Curveballs<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> There are times when customers can really surprise you and for the better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s rare, to be sure, but it happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m used to the customer that flips out on me for a problem that isn’t even related to something I’ve done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m used to the customer saying or doing something stupid because they can’t read something or find something that’s easy enough for them to find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But a customer who actually goes out of their way to do something nice for you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many of us has that happened to?</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> A few months ago I was assisting a couple that came in looking to buy several products.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the course of assisting them, we talked and joked around about every random thing under the sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A more relaxed couple I have not met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was one of those interactions you almost wished wouldn’t end because you knew the type of customers you might have to deal with (assholes) after such a pleasant transaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The husband was even showing me several pictures of the house he was redoing and even the people who were helping him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought they were going to adopt me at the end of the interaction – that’s how friendly they seemed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> And w/ the money they were dropping, I almost wouldn’t have minded another family to celebrate my birthday with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> But time passed and I eventually put the couple out of my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that I wouldn’t have recognized the pair but it’s not like I went around feeling nostalgic about the interaction we had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a sale and they went on their way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know our business promotes the friendly salespeople they have and how it’s because of us that they end up buying from our store and not some other store, but it always felt like a lot of bullshit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, I’ve found people to only care about one thing and one thing only: price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t blame them, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve had people come back to the store looking specifically for me but that’s generally because they knew my store would bend over and take whatever price the customer wanted to pay for a product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was just the salesperson to facilitate the transaction.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> So, it was kind of surprising when the husband came back into the store a few months later and talked to me about what brought them in and other random things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wasn’t sure if I remembered him but it was kind of hard to forget this guy if you had seen him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said he had to finish up in another part of the store but that he had something for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t sure if I had heard him correctly and thought he had some sort of issue with his purchase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t in the mood to deal with an issue, even an issue from a customer who had a happy-go-lucky attitude.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Several minutes go by and he returns carrying a plastic bag that looked pretty heavy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought his wife and him had brought me some fruit that they had picked or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That enough was enough to surprise me and want to thank the guy for the touching thought.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> He came up to me and said how it was just a “little something” that they had seen <i>while on vacation</i> and they just had to get it for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They even remembered my name!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I thanked him and shook his hand as he walked away, leaving me to open the bag by myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gently placed the bag on a table and looked inside to find a gift from Europe they picked up that had my name inscribed in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as I lifted it up out of the bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was easily the coolest thing I’ve ever gotten while working in retail because it came from a customer who didn’t have to do that at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was just some shmuck who sold them some electronics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But to remember my name and pay money to get some salesperson a gift while you were on vacation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I should be so lucky to receive such kindness from relative strangers in the future!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> It was something that won’t be forgotten about any time soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was quite an amazing thing to experience in a life where you’re used to being treated like a servant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose being nice and helpful really does make a difference for some customers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A very select few recognize the good you do for a shitty pay.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> I hope all of you out there get to experience something like that with a customer you’ve helped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether it’s something that cost them a dollar or a hundred dollars, a gift is a gift, and we retail employees should appreciate anything we’re given.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope those of you who’ve had someone who has gone out of their way to do something nice to make your shopping experience a bit better will remember that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, there might be an incentive for them to get you back into the store down the line (I mean, how else will we get paid?) but that incentive isn’t that great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I could tell 90% of the people I run into at my jobs to bugger off, I would - repeat business be damned!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’m nice to you it’s because I was raised to be nice and to treat you with respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not because my job did a great job in convincing me that I should be nice because they haven’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So show those hard workers some respect and maybe show your gratitude in some way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Corporations may say it’s not good to accept something from a customer but how can one say no to a personally inscribed gift?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">More soon from the frontlines...</span></div>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7944264512552479119.post-80878335410776394532011-08-19T00:17:00.000-05:002011-08-19T00:17:23.766-05:00Competition Comes Knocking<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Throughout both my years in grocery and electronics retail I’ve had to deal with new stores that vie for your customer base.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some tend to have a bigger impact on the scene than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some fizzle out quicker than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the same reaction to news of an upcoming competitor always takes place each time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The complete and total meltdown.</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s not that bad, in reality, but the people running the store, the district, the company, tend to make you feel that way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can generally start with the company devising ways to find out what this newcomer is all about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People get sent into their stores to do a little snooping around and see what’s working for them and what’s not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This can sometimes lead to the, “Oh, shit, that’s what we should be doing!” response that most management people have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This can be a disastrous scenario because in some cases, the established store that feels threatened by the newcomer will sometimes drastically change things about themselves to mimic the newcomer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can understand the instinct to do this but it’s a terrible idea, in my opinion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>First of all, people are shopping at your store because you’re obviously doing something right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this economy, if you haven’t gone into bankruptcy or closed down completely, it’s a miracle and you should keep on keepin’ on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are changing key things about yourself to steal someone else’s thunder, then you’re changing the reasons people come into your store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they wanted to shop at store X, then they’ll shop at store X instead of trying to get the exact experience at store Y.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you go into a Target and think, “Man, this is a pleasant place to shop but why isn’t it more like K-Mart?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you wanted to shop at K-Mart, shop at K-Mart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a pretty well-known store that closed their doors a few years back and people at my company credited to the fact that they were playing catch-up to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They changed different aspects about themselves but just couldn’t get traction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I don’t know if they’d still be in business had they just amplified the things they do well instead of trying to be like us, but at least they could close down knowing they played the game on their terms.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now comes the part where the store you work at implements the changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, the things they’re trying to change are the things that nobody cares about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll worry about too much signage when they should really worry about adequate staffing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll see workers’ desks and just see clutter when they should focus on making sure the products on their shelves are in stock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ll remove tile flooring and lay carpeting down to make things look more elegant when they should fix the leaking roof or the bathroom that constantly smells like crap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, they want to take the easy way out of improving their company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we all know, the cheap and easy way out is <i>always</i> the best option, right?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Good luck trying to convince management in your store that they’re focused on the wrong things, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I totally understand that some changes are out of their hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t control the amount of money they have to hire people for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, people just seem content to not question anything and just continue to go along to get along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s maddening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So all you can do, as an employee, is stand by and watch as the gong show plays out all around you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For months in advance, the sentiment of management about the approaching doom that is a new business coming into town can be a bit disappointing, to say the least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In private, the management, which should be rallying the morale of the workers, will look at you with wide-eyed horror as they say to you how worried they are about the new competitor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if they think we’re all going to be out of jobs within six months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To me, this worriment is just proof that they don’t have faith in their own company’s ability to compete and also their employees’ ability to compete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only those who worry about a competitor coming in are those who think that something is wrong with the way they’re doing things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why else be so nervous about 1 new store being added to the mix?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not like ours is the only company in the city that sells the products that are on our shelves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you think this competitor is such a threat and you say things like, “I don’t know what we’re going to do…,” (which I’ve heard from management in the past) then why hire the people you’ve hired?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what’s annoying to me about the messages being spread from management when new competitors arrive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the workers they project confidence in the staffing they have but in private a lot of them seem to have no faith in their people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Personally, I don’t worry at all whenever a new store opens in the area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have faith in my coworkers and the company I work for to know that we’ll be fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our business might hurt but that’s the nature of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve stolen customers away from multiple competitors for years and we’ll continue to do so, just like they’ll do with our customers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the nature of retail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you can’t handle the other kids on the block, you might as well pack up your shit and go home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that’s life, really – you can either hold firm and believe in yourself and know that you can handle challenge or you can just give up and never get anywhere in life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> More soon from the frontlines...</span></div>Stuck In Retailhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04536103767790935418noreply@blogger.com0