Do You Have More In The Back?

I want to dispel a rampant notion that quite a few people seem to have.  You all might want to sit down and brace yourselves because I don’t want anyone passing out and hurting him or herself.  All set?  Okay.
Individual stores – be they retail or grocery – 99% of the time do not make the products they are selling on their shelves.  This means that if they run out of a product, they have to wait for more quantity of that said product to come in.  Let that sink in.  Feel free to get back up and go for a walk around the block.  I’ll be here when you return.
I state the obvious for the simple reason that nobody seems to comprehend this.  Nothing in the store = you get nada/zilch/nothing (is my point made?).  You might be saying, “But anonymous internet blogger, I’m not an idiot.  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.”
Ah, and I say to you that you may THINK you know that, but you must have some sort of Memento-like amnesia because it seems that whenever a product goes out of stock (usually around the holidays), everyone freaks out.  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?  This is America!  The land of plenty!  I demand my Kenny Loggins Christmas CD!
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.  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.  I’m not a wizard disguised as an hourly retail worker.  My usual conversation does NOT go like this:
Customer:  “Do you have the new PS4?”
Me:  “No, I’m sorry, we sold out of them.”
Customer:  “Are you sure?”
Me:  “Yeah, I’m sorry.”
Customer:  “You don’t have any in the back?”
(This, by the way, is my favorite question of all time.  The mysterious backroom that also houses the Ark of the Covenant.)
Me:  “Yes, if we had any, they would be out on the floor.”
Customer:  “Because my son asked for one for Christmas this year and my brother already bought him three games for it.  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.”
(Because, obviously, I didn’t want to sell you one before and make revenue but now that I know your entire life history?  I definitely have ten of them waiting for only the ‘special’ customers.)
Me:  “Well, in THAT case!”  I look around and then magically pull a PS4 out of my sleeve and hand it to the customer.
Actually, now that I think about it, everything up until that last part is how it usually goes.  I have to repeat myself no less than 4 times on average whenever somebody doubts our product quantity.  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.
And no matter how dire the situation or how persistent or demanding you may be, that will not get you a different result.  If we’re out, we’re out.
The same goes for grocery stores.  They’re not attached to a slaughterhouse that can get you a different cut of lamb.  They don’t have banana trees in the produce backroom.  They aren’t canning their own olives.  They just aren’t.  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.  Just deal with it.
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.  The entitlement class isn’t just some bullshit label that some people throw around for one portion of the population.  It’s a label that can apply to anyone be they poor, rich, black, white, young, old – whatever.  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.
The reality – again – is:  you just won’t.  Get over yourself.  Most likely there are hundreds of people who are looking for the same thing you are.  Most likely there are not hundreds of that product available for immediate purchase.  Deal with it.
Shit, now I’M repeating myself.  See what happens when you have to deal with ridiculousness each day?
At least I feel better.  So, just remember – no means no.  Actually, remember that even if you’re not trying to ask for something that’s not in stock.  It’s a pretty good tip to know for everyday life.  Free tips are always in stock here.  You’re welcome.  Please, come again.
More soon from the frontlines...

Let's Be Friends! ...Or Not!

     In my time in retail I’ve had a number of managers that I’ve had to deal with.  I’m not talking about my direct supervisors, but instead, I’m talking about those who run the store.  At my first job I didn’t really have much direct contact with them and that’s the way I liked it.  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.  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.  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.      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.  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.
     Relationships with managers in retail always swing from one extreme to the other.  They either are complete tightwads who think about nothing other than the job or they are really laidback and relatable.  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.

     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.  When I was off in other departments, however, I could find ways to avoid them bothering me.  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).  I typically didn’t have many personal conversations with my managers and I preferred that.  I don’t care if a manager tries to be my best friend as long as they let me do my job.  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.

     In the electronics world, I’ve had more direct contact with the managers since the staff and the store are both smaller.  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.  I’ve had one of the best store managers in electronics retail but also the worst store manager.

     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.  Alex talked to you and seemed to enjoy talking to you.  It wasn’t one of those things where it was forced or awkward.  He could joke around with people but could also put customers in their place when they were being overly obnoxious.  One time, with another manager and a coworker of mine, we had a mini snowball fight toward the end of the night.  How often does one have a snowball fight with their management?  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.

     Sadly, like all the good management people, they don’t last.  They get transferred or a promotion or a better offer from a competitor.  What’s worse is that anyone after that person will pale in comparison.  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.  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.

     The worst manager – let’s just call her Karen – was the opposite of Alex.  It was either her way or the highway on a lot of issues.  If she didn’t like you, she really didn’t like you.  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.  Her tone was almost always set to “condescension”.  She treated longtime employees like they were suspected criminals.  Our store lost quite a few good people under her reign than under any of the other managers at that job.

     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.  And I feel this is a comment more on the American work environment than anything else.  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.  Which is ridiculous because I’ve had a number of male managers who were complete buffoons.  And the higher up you found men in management roles, the more idiotic they seemed to me.  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.

     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.  This is the mental conversation I pictured Karen having as she talked with me:

     “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.  Great!  That’s one conversation down for the day.”

     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.  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.  I understand that most electronics stores hire younger people but that doesn’t mean they’re babies.  So stop treating them as such!  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?  When you talk down to someone who either doesn’t deserve it or is older than you, you come across as a total douchebag.  Then nobody likes you and everyone looks forward to you being fired or transferred.

     Another awkward development of the Internet age is friend requests on Facebook.  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.  No, I’m talking about managers who request to be your friend.  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.  Either way, there’s danger ahead.  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.

     But what do you do when they request your friendship?  Do you accept it and patrol what you say?  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?  Don’t you just hate that?  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.

     If managers are going to go the route of acting like our friends then don’t act like our warden the next minute.  That will just breed resentment and hostility in your workers.  Nobody likes a two-faced manager.

     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.  Because most of them are doing a horrendous job of it.  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.  Otherwise, just go about doing your business and I’ll do mine.  Hey, I’m just here to try and help you managers become better people, is all.  You’re welcome.

More soon from the frontlines...

The Idle Hours

     Now, for something completely different!  During this crazy holiday season I needed a look back at fonder moments I had in the grocery retail world.  I haven’t talked much about my time at a grocery store since I have so much to work with from my current job.  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.
     Working in the grocery world was my first real experience working at a real job.  I met a lot of fun people and a lot of assholes (like any job).  The customers were idiots but different from the kind I have to deal with now.  It showed me that some people take the ridiculous a bit too seriously.  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.  That said, I did have some good times there and these are a few of them from one of those grocery jobs…
     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.  They were mostly 20-30 year olds who got along with one another – a remarkable feat in the retail world.  We worked quickly enough to have the luxury to goof off when time allowed during the lulls of the day.  And goof off we did!
     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.  When this would happen we would head to our backroom past giant swinging doors and find ways to pass the time.  We worked in a department where most of our managers never seemed to go.  It was as if someone had done a magic spell on our department to make us invisible from those in charge.  Not that we minded that, of course.
     Sometimes we just stood around and talked about sports, music, or movies.  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.  A few customers probably overheard the crack of the bat or our shouts and cheers whenever someone hit the ball across the room.  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.  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.
     When the covering was broken after that, we used the fixture as another source of entertainment during our down time.  We took giant rubberbands that we had laying around and tried to launch them at the broken fixture.  Whoever could successfully land their rubberband into the actual light and have it stuck up there would win.  I’m not sure who won, exactly, but there eventually was a winner.
     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.  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.  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.  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.  I honestly have no idea how nobody ever caught us once.
     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?”).  Our department had more freedom in that store than anyone probably ever guessed.  And nobody seemed to question us because we all worked hard when we were there.  Or maybe we were just that good at bullshitting everyone and they never bothered to delve deeper.
     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.  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.  Anyone who can make a crappy job more tolerable is someone you should thank every day you see him/her because they are rare.
     That goes for my current job and any other job I’ve ever had.  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.  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.  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.
     Hmmm… Maybe I should send in an application to a few grocery stores?  This trip down memory lane is making me miss the grocery world!
     More soon from the frontlines...

"I Will Tear Your Head Off The Next Time You Do That! Oh, And Thanks For Coming In Early To Work!"

     One of the biggest apprehensions I have before going into work each day is, “What kind of moods are the managers in today?”  Now, my first big apprehension is, “Am I going to have to deal with customer issues today?” but manager moods run a close second.  Do you ever work at a place where it seems like the managers are suffering from multiple personalities or some severe emotional imbalance?  How fun is that?

     It’s not like there are several insane managers running around my store, there isn’t.  It just feels that way because of the amount of time spent around them.  The crazy people tend to stand out from the calm, fun managers that are at my store.  They can go from pleasant to axe-wielding maniac on the same shift.  The phrase "walking on eggshells" was probably invented because some crazy grocery store manager went berserk one day and threw eggs all over their store.

     One moment the manager will act like he or she is your best friend and the next moment they’ll tear you a new asshole for coming to them with a question.  What’s really frustrating about these managers is when they seem normal for a good month or two, making you think you can get along with them, and then they return to their bitchy attitude.  For the longest time I couldn’t stand one of our head managers when (s)he first began because every interaction was a combative situation.  Everyone (and I do mean everyone) despised having to work with her/him.  (S)he’s been there now for over a year and it is just now that I’m starting to not feel as apprehensive about working around that person.  Yet, I know that given the right circumstances that could change in an instant.  Not that I feel like we’re buds or anything – I still walk in with the same level of unease as I did before – but I don’t dread every interaction.

     When I worked in the grocery retail world, I remember most of the managers being in better moods than the managers at electronic stores.  That kind of strikes me as unusual since, per day, grocery stores tend to see more customers than electronic stores, and there are more employees at grocery stores than electronic stores.  How come management at grocery stores can keep more of a level head than management at electronic stores?  Is there some sort of training they’re going to that we can export to the electronics world?  If so, let’s get on this!  Or is it because customer issues in the electronics world tend to feel like larger headaches than at grocery stores?  I’m probably leaning toward that being the case than anything else.

     Do I expect every manager to be my best friend? No.  I do, however, expect them to not treat me like their five-year-old child and fly off the handle whenever they don’t like something I’ve done or didn’t do.  If every training video or coaching seminar I’ve ever went to for this job expects me to act like everything is all sunshine and rainbows in the world, the same should be expected of our managers.  We’re supposed to give every customer the royal treatment but apparently there is no training video telling managers to give their employees the royal treatment.

     If the frustrations of being a manager are too much for someone, then they shouldn’t be a manager.  If having to deal with customers bitching at you, corporate eyeballing you, and employees coming to you with every little issue is too much for you – then you shouldn’t be a manager.  That’s why I’ve never tried to move up in the retail world.  I know that I’d be like the bitchy managers I’m describing here.  I also don’t expect managers to shoot rainbows out of their eyes and toss candy to all the employees as they walk by, but you can be upset without being insane.  That’s something a few of my managers haven’t learned just yet.

     For all of the nice managers out there, you’ll get your own post, don’t worry.  I think I speak for all retail workers everywhere when we say that you’re presence at our stores make a world of difference.  Never let anyone take whatever place you draw your levelheaded and fun attitudes from away from you.  As hourly employees, we need you there all the more because even though your numbers might be larger than the psycho managers, their presence makes it feel like there are more of them than there are of you.

     More soon from the frontlines...