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.
And that’s because, for an alarming amount of people, that seems to be
the only way out of retail. I know that
sounds like a joke but I don’t mean it to be.
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. I’m not 100% sure on the
particulars surrounding the event.
Everyone in the store who knew about it kept talking about that. It was our greatest fear – to die wearing a
shirt with a nametag on it. 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. We didn’t want
the last minutes of our lives to be with our job’s invisible collar around our
neck.
Then
just recently, our own store had a near scare.
One of our own employees suffered a heart attack outside of work. Thankfully, the guy is doing okay so
far. Tough bastard. But to think that this guy had a family and
suffered a heart attack during the holidays really gives you the willies. 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. I couldn’t
comprehend it. My brain could not wrap
itself around the idea of somebody around my own age lying in a hospital bed
from a heart attack. I don’t believe in
Christmas miracles but I’m damn glad he’s recovering because not everyone is as
lucky.
This
all seems like a running theme in the world of retail. 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. Stress is a
natural part of the retail world and everyone feels it. 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. Maybe it’s the irregular schedules for most
of the hourly employees, who are thus unable to plan anything else in their
lives. Or the schedules that change at
the last minute without any notification – plans be damned. 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. 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. Or how about having the smarter employees
having to pick up the slack from the idiot employees that the management deemed
worthy of hiring? That one is my
personal favorite.
This
doesn’t even take into account the poor eating and drinking habits most of the
workforce partakes in. 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. 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? 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.
The needle full of adrenaline to the heart in Pulp Fiction likely
got its inspiration from retail workers.
Then
there are the endless amounts of fast food joints conveniently located around
my job that almost everyone goes to for lunch breaks. I feel like I’m one of the few who brings their own food from
home as much as I can. 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. 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! 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.
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. Okay, I’m still being a bit hyperbolic, but
you catch my drift.
So,
in my ever-constant attempt to come up with solutions to my daily rants, where
do we go from here? I doubt companies
are going to hire enough staff to do the work that they think we can
accomplish. I doubt our pay will all
magically increase and I doubt the hours will change. 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.
So,
I ask again, where do we go from here?
No,
seriously, where do we go from here?
Because I’m actually at a loss for ideas. I just hope we can all make it out of here alive and not in a
box. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up
with something by the next post. If
you’ll excuse me, I have to go make a cup of coffee before work.
More soon from the frontlines...
The
reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
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. It was enough to almost make me not get on that plane back to the
States. So, what was so great about
it? I suppose the major point is the
fact that the hours seem to be better.
Now, granted, this is a statement about the places I explored while in
Europe. I know not every country in
Europe is the same. So take this info
with a grain of salt.
Nearly every single store seems to close no later than 7pm. Not only that but a lot of stores (that
aren’t bakeries) don’t even open until 9am.
I know a lot of coworkers who wouldn’t mind getting out by 7pm on a
Friday night. 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. And when you think
about it, what store – other than pharmacies or convenience stores – need to be
open past 7pm, anyway? If you can’t buy
your 50” TV by 7pm then maybe it wasn’t meant to be. If your washer broke down just take your clothes to a
Laundromat. If your cellphone died on
you then enjoy the silence and pick up a book.
And
forget about finding anything open on a Sunday. Good GOD! Forget the
point if you’re religious or not but if God could rest on the 7th
day, why can’t retail workers?
Do
you know what people in Europe do on Sundays?
They spend the day relaxing and enjoying the world around them. Novel concept, I know. Parks were filled with people. Cafés were bustling with friends catching up
with one another. Streets were more
jam-packed with bicyclists than motorists.
People. Just. Slowed. Down. 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.
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? 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?”
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. 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. This way, instead of
going to five million stores, you can just go to 1-2. 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.
I
never want to spend a whole day at stores.
If a store has what I want and I know it’s within what I want to spend,
I get it. I’m not going to spend my
time and gasoline on trying to save $10.
Life’s too short for that bullshit.
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. 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. 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?
People
need to unwind and 2-3 weeks vacation time and a few personal days spattered
throughout the year isn’t always enough.
Especially if you work in retail.
Imagine what you can see and do with 4-6 weeks of vacation time! However, this goes hand-in-hand with
pay. People in retail jobs in the
States need to be paid a living wage and not the bullshit most hourly
workers get in order to do something useful with those vacation hours. I hear a lot of stories from people who just
take vacation hours to sit around the house.
But why?? 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. Or at least
do something useful with your time at home (like start a blog! Ha).
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. 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?” They might get
taxed more but, generally speaking, those taxes go toward universal health coverage
in many countries (look out, it’s “socialism”!). It goes towards better roads and other infrastructure projects
(without being labeled wasted government jobs.
Yeah, I hate driving on smooth roads and having bridges not collapse). It goes towards renewable energy sources (“Oh,
look at those UGLY windmills! I’d
rather have those power plants that churn out the billowing smoke in my
backyard.” – some random U.S. politician).
Okay,
I shall leave it there for now. I will
probably pick back up on this topic when I have more time to delve deeper. I just needed to get out of my writing
slump. Hey look, I’m up to 1750 page
views! Thanks to everyone reading this
rambling mess. Hope you’ve found it
amusing. Tell your friends and family!
More soon from the frontlines...