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The General posted:You do realize that brick and mortar literally cannot price match online and stay in business right? I had an elderly customer today tell me "oh, I wish you guys were as cheap as Amazon!" I just told her it was the price of staying in business. I really wish people would stop comparing us to Amazon. That's why all of our other branches are closing, people.
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Mar 29, 2011 04:25
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I've applied for 2 bookstore positions that are closer to home. One pays the same I make now ($9/hr) and one pays $8/hr. Anyone work at a bookstore and have experience to share? I'm willing to take the paycut if it means it's a 10-minute commute instead of 40. Not to mention it will hopefully be far less stressful.
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Mar 29, 2011 06:20
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Raere posted:I've applied for 2 bookstore positions that are closer to home. One pays the same I make now ($9/hr) and one pays $8/hr. Anyone work at a bookstore and have experience to share? I'm willing to take the paycut if it means it's a 10-minute commute instead of 40. Not to mention it will hopefully be far less stressful. Don't expect everyone who walks through the doors (or even some of your co-workers) to be smart enough to warrant being in a book store. When someone comes to the counter that wants to buy something that you find to be absolutely absurd, remember the mantra "No sex, no god, no left, no right." I can't count the times I've had to bite my tongue when someone asked for or purchased a book that I knew was filled with garbage. If you're working the floor, try to get a book in each customer's hand. Even if it's not what they're specifically looking for, there's a higher chance that the person will buy it if they hold a book in their hand. I would always go out of my way to see if another store had a book that we didn't for a customer, so that even if the customer didn't pick the book up at my location, I provided him or her with the info they needed to actually find it. People will always remember Effort and Payoff. If there was no Payoff, at least you made an Effort. If no Effort was made and they didn't find what they were looking for, there's no incentive to return. Always be ready with recommendations for each genre. When someone asked me my opinion about cook books, I pointed to Anthony Bourdaine. Sci-Fi? Ender's Game is a great starter, look under C for Orson Scott Card. Mystery? Here's a bunch of books about a wizard detective. Children's books? Diary of a Wimpy Kid is popular. Also be aware of movie adaptations of popular books that are coming soon. Be aware of where in the store each genre is, because people are impatient or don't want to bother another employee if you have to ask one where X is located.
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Mar 29, 2011 06:48
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I had a grown man call me over to our movie theatre's ice cream counter to inquire whether or not we carried breast milk ice cream. ...
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Mar 29, 2011 08:50
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The Robins Taley posted:I had a grown man call me over to our movie theatre's ice cream counter to inquire whether or not we carried breast milk ice cream. Breast milk is "in" now. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/25/human-milk-ice-cream-sale
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Mar 29, 2011 09:57
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baquerd posted:Breast milk is "in" now.
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Mar 29, 2011 21:41
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Flavor Bear posted:It's "in"ducing vomiting for me. S'matter, you lactose intolerant?
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Mar 29, 2011 21:56
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Milk is milk. Get over yourself. Content: This is more just something that bugged me, but it only happened at work. I got a gash on my forearm about two inches long while on an extended weekend. It was fairly deep but still didn't penetrate to the muscle; looked far worse than it actually was, especially when it filled with blood and scabbed over. Almost an entire week after I got it I was back at work and all day I had people saying poo poo to me about it. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad they all showed concern over my well-being, but they way they went about it was just so rude. Anyone who saw it and mentioned it would just not let it go. The wound is a week old, it's closed, I'm not actively bleeding, it isn't bad enough to need stitches and they wouldn't help this late anyway, covering it with a bandage wouldn't do any good at this point. No one seemed to "get" that if I had something that needed stitches or was a health risk to anyone else, my employers would be seeing to it that I wasn't on the floor waiting to set off a law suit, and that when I say "it's fine" I mean it's fine, not that I need to be badgered about it constantly for the next few minutes of our interaction.
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Mar 29, 2011 22:26
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That's just the general populace being squeamish. For a long time I couldn't get away with having a minor cut that's barely bleeding without having people gush over me and suggest I visit the nurses office. The nurse who isn't a trained nurse. That's a fun lawsuit waiting to happen, oh wait it actually is happening. Hooray! Offer to patch it up yourself, that usually shuts people up. I stitched myself up in the office once after cutting myself on some broken glass then went to the hospital after work to make sure I hadn't screwed up and check some fragments of glass weren't still inside. One chap in the office passed out at the site of me stitching myself up, the rest learned to stop bugging me over minor cuts. The nurse at the hospital said I did awesome home made stitches, but not awesome enough to warrant a lolly pop at the age of twenty-four.
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Mar 29, 2011 23:35
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That's the thing: it wasn't bleeding at all. Only one corner of the gash even bled and it had sealed up days before. Not a shift goes by that I don't get a few cuts and scrapes, but this one was an old scab that everyone insisted I go to the emergency room for, even after my protests. It didn't warrant anything beyond minor first aide when I got it! And one couple that kept telling me to go to a hospital seemed to have no problem with me pulling heavy glass vases off a high shelf for them first...
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Mar 30, 2011 00:29
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My main concern about human breast milk would be making sure it's pasteurized and tested, but wahey. Whatever floats yer boat I guess.
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Mar 30, 2011 01:07
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I manage a small cafe and it always surprises me the amount of people who have no idea what the hell they drink when they visit. "Yeah, hi. A coffee please." "Ok, what sort of coffee would you like?" "Um, a white one." "What kind?" "Dunno, it's one with milk." "Ok.... does it have sprinkles?" "No." "Right, a flat white it is then."(for their simplicity, 'with sprinkles' is a cappuccino.) Size is also an issue.. I went through this with a lady last week, though most people pick after the cup/mug demonstration. "Did you want that in a cup or a mug?" ".. a what?" "A cup. Or a mug." ".. ?" "Small or big?" <holds up a cup and a mug in each hand> "Small" <waggle cup> "Big" <waggle mug> "Medium!" "..Mug! Ok."Also on the stupidity of customers, and how gross they can be. I had a woman a couple of weeks ago ask for a wet cloth because her toddler had just thrown up. I got her one, then while I got a plastic bag for her to put it in when she was done so I could throw it out, she walked back in. I could see where she was heading and ran from the kitchen in a panic saying "No no!! Don't put that...there.. oh god" as she placed it on the coffee making bench.. with my milk jugs, spoons etc. A vomit covered cloth. I washed everything in the area and hit the bench with as much antibacterial crap as I could.
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Mar 30, 2011 02:41
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Dodgeball posted:Don't expect everyone who walks through the doors (or even some of your co-workers) to be smart enough to warrant being in a book store. Be prepared for Oprah and the slew of housewives who will swarm the same day she announces her newest book. You will have no prior warning as to what these books are, so be patient. It also doesn't hurt to learn the sequence order of some popular series even if you don't read them, like A Song of Ice and Fire, Percy Jackson, the Stieg Larsson trilogy, or Maximum Ride. You will be asked this a lot. We keep a binder with series order up at the counter for occasions like this, but it helps to memorize the more popular ones. Similarly, keeping up with the New York Times bestsellers is very helpful if your store doesn't keep a list. I don't know how many stores don't go by the NYT list, but if yours doesn't then it makes things easier to remember the higher-ranking books since they usually stay in their spots for weeks at a time.
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Mar 30, 2011 04:46
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 Alert. I don't think I've ever been happier at work than today.I don't remember if I've officially mentioned her in this thread, but since my store opened these Arab women would come in, load up shopping carts of the same item, pay with about 1000 coupons and get like 1 grand in merchandise for like 10 bucks. And then either return it to the same store or a different one pocketing a lot in cash. When my store first opened, they got away with it way too much, until corporate told us to limit her coupon transactions. Then we started training our cashiers and got better POS software so that it could track expired/incorrect coupons better. So they eventually stopped coming for a while. Then they showed up last summer and got mostly shot down and only one showed up tonight(well I think I saw the other, but she didn't try to gently caress us over). I've had two past interactions with her before tonight. Once when we first opened so she got away with it and during the last summer when I rung everything up knowing what she was going to do to waste her time for wasting mine, but my front end manager gave her 5 coupon/item instead of 1 which we used to do. So onto tonight, I'm breaking my rule and ringing a large order up in Electronics because a woman bought a TV and I kinda pissed her off saying I couldn't hold said TV for longer than 15 minutes. Which is mostly because its a sale TV and I've had people just leave the store. But thats off topic, the one woman comes up, with a large cart of toothpaste. I know this is her, but she wants a DS, so hey, I'll get it, ring it up and warn the front end. Well, I decide to take everything cause I know whats coming and I don't trust our cashiers to know her game. So I ring up about 15 3dollar toothpastes, and a $100dollar gift card along with the DSlite. And then I receive 10 Crest Whitestrips coupons that are like 10-15 dollars off. As soon as I read it, holy poo poo, my face just turned into and the ability to turn down that scam was perfect. Her frustration was almost palpable as she returned everything to the cart, claiming she'd buy it upfront. Which I then told our GSA about, and she got jack poo poo. Thankfully our GSA has had dealings with her too, so she knew exactly what to say to the new cashiers.I know $150 doesn't sound like much when the DSLite & Card are $220, but it was probably a test run to see if we remembered. I sure as hell did, my GSA and LOD all did too. I know that it doesn't sound all that awesome, and I probably sound like a dick for gloating, but I consider it almost insulting for you to try to scam the company through me. I hold no love for my store or company, as I told my AP friend when he told me to just comply with robbers demands, but gently caress if I'm going let someone try to trick me. I consider it insulting to me. Plus she does that at other stores and then comes here and fucks me over with a cart of loving toothpaste reshop filled to the brim. That poo poo sucks to put away. And if there's one thing I hate more than being tricked its doing work. Plus to be able to have the store have your back while you tell a customer to  is such a rare occasion its nice. Since the counterfeit and stolen credit cards stopped coming, I don't get to do my favorite thing of turning them down. However, now that I'm stationed in Electronics, I get to do my second favorite thing of yelling at kids for having fun.
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Mar 30, 2011 05:41
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So about three weeks ago, money started disappearing out of the snack bar register - about $150 over a span a week. I just happened to be working each of the three days that the money was gone. Then I went on vacation, and remarked to my friend that I hoped that the register was short at least once while I was gone so that no one tried to pin it on me. The day after payday - five days after the last of the money was taken - the register was mysteriously over by the exact amount that had been missing. Fast forward to Sunday. One of my coworkers (a cook) confesses that he's going to quit at the end of the week (right after payday). Later, after his shift is over and he's gone home, two of my coworkers inform me that while I was on vacation, he accused me of being the thief. Luckily, my coworkers and managers like me and told him that stealing didn't sound like me at all (managers) and flat-out laughing in his face (coworkers). So do I confront him since I have to work with him on his last two days, or do I just let it be since he's leaving after his shift on Sunday?
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Mar 30, 2011 06:34
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Fury1671 posted:
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Mar 30, 2011 07:11
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Busting fake credit cards was the single best thing about working in high end electronics sales. They always tried to buy the same thing too.
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Mar 30, 2011 07:31
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Fury1671 posted:
I don't really see how anyone would expect to get away with this kind of thing. Who accepts 10-15 dollar-off coupons for three dollar items anywhere, ever?
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Mar 30, 2011 10:58
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And the award for "Nastiest Bathroom" goes to- once again- The Women's Room! Nice job, ladies.. 
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Mar 30, 2011 13:08
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Veterans are almost always the most polite, pleasant customers I have. They seem to have an attitude like, "I've been to war, I'm not going to get upset or complain about petty retail issues". I've even had a few vets offer to buy me a beer for helping them out in the store. The old-timers love to tell war stories which are far more interesting than grandma's stories about how their grandson said "mama" for the first time yesterday. Has anyone else had this experience, or am I just really lucky with getting cool vets?
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Mar 30, 2011 15:23
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Raere posted:Veterans are almost always the most polite, pleasant customers I have. They seem to have an attitude like, "I've been to war, I'm not going to get upset or complain about petty retail issues". I've even had a few vets offer to buy me a beer for helping them out in the store. The old-timers love to tell war stories which are far more interesting than grandma's stories about how their grandson said "mama" for the first time yesterday. I've had both, cool vets that take everything in stride and have a great perspective, and then self-important vets, the kind that think I owe them something because they managed to not die in a war I wasn't around for. You can tell the two apart because the first kind doesn't show up in a hat or shirt that lets you know exactly which branch of service and battalion they served in. The store I worked for didn't have a military discount, but if you were cool, I'd apply the Teachers/Librarian discount of 10% without hesitation.
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Mar 30, 2011 15:53
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TShields posted:And the award for "Nastiest Bathroom" goes to- once again- The Women's Room! Nice job, ladies.. What is up with that anyway? I used to work at a pizza shop and the women's bathroom was always far more horrific than the men's bathroom. Although my worst bathroom experience was at Borders when we were closing up and found a used Playboy magazine in the first floor bathroom. Me and another bookseller wrangled it into a garbage bag using gloves and a broom handle. Oh God, it's all coming back to me. Oh, and I heard co-worker horror stories of finding people OD'ing in the bathrooms at the Center City store in Philly. 
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Mar 30, 2011 16:06
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Raere posted:Veterans are almost always the most polite, pleasant customers I have. They seem to have an attitude like, "I've been to war, I'm not going to get upset or complain about petty retail issues". I've even had a few vets offer to buy me a beer for helping them out in the store. The old-timers love to tell war stories which are far more interesting than grandma's stories about how their grandson said "mama" for the first time yesterday. I used to have self important vets throw shitfits at me because we didn't offer discounts on Veterans/Memorial Day. Dude, I respect your service, and thank you for risking your life to defend our country. No, that does not entitle you to 20% off on a laptop, because I'm not allowed to do that, and if you try to make it into a personal failing of patriotism on my part, I am going to be desperately suppressing the urge to punch you in the face until you leave my store, and will probably not bother to mention various promotions and discounts that I could and would have offered you.
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Mar 30, 2011 16:18
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threnody_grey posted:So about three weeks ago, money started disappearing out of the snack bar register - about $150 over a span a week. I just happened to be working each of the three days that the money was gone. Then I went on vacation, and remarked to my friend that I hoped that the register was short at least once while I was gone so that no one tried to pin it on me. The day after payday - five days after the last of the money was taken - the register was mysteriously over by the exact amount that had been missing. Ask yourself "how important is the issue, how important is the person?" and go from there.
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Mar 30, 2011 16:22
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CaptainPsyko posted:I used to have self important vets throw shitfits at me because we didn't offer discounts on Veterans/Memorial Day. Love the post/avatar combo. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 30, 2011 20:31
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For those of you who don't read GBS or work retail, this is the kind of poo poo that happens to us plebs making minimum wage. http://www.sanduskyregister.com/news/2011/mar/29/o0268bc-us-wal-martgreetercxml Sandusky Register posted:Police said a pregnant woman and her mother were arrested after the older woman choked a 71-year-old Walmart greeter while leaving the store. Its this poo poo that makes me worry about doing my job because you never know whether or not someone is gonna flip out and attack you. Along with casual racism and bigotry it always sticks in the back of your mind, is this guy gonna break my nose for doing my job. Of course, we got approved for 40 hours a week of police presence now and we had a cop back in Electronics all Black Friday, so I should probably be more careful than I am about what I say and what my body language says. But I am amazed that she found someone working at a Walmart, cause I've yet to see a blue shirt outside of the registers.  Oh yea, I always seem to get the cool vets who just want to tell me their life stories, which I'm fine with, as long as I have the time. Which when they come, is generally my busiest time, so I never have a chance to.
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Mar 30, 2011 20:55
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Secret Machine posted:What is up with that anyway? I actually used to work with a custodial company (me and like three other people, not counting the boss) and when I cleaned bathrooms, it was always the mens that was the grossest. Strong stench of urine, gross toilets, etc. Also, there was ALWAYS some douchebag who would hock loogies in the sink. Nasty. The ladies rooms would be dirty, but mostly because of trash. Crumpled paper towels, used cosmetics, etc. There would always be a pile of paper towels behind the doors. Also, did you guys know there's some show on TLC called 'Extreme Couponing'? The previews showed chubby suburban housewives buying carts and carts of things just so they could use their coupons. One woman said she hated to spend money at the grocery store. Just the previews made me rage. Just women toting carts and carts of poo poo they didn't need because they knew they'd get it for pennies or even free.
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Mar 30, 2011 22:24
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An update to my Best Buy situation from a few pages ago. Everything has been sorted out and it's all being delivered/installed tomorrow. I never blew up or even really got angry with anyone because as much as I wanted to, I realized that it was not the person I was talking to's fault and I know I'd hate to be yelled at for something that wasn't my fault. I'm sure I had some sort of tone, but again I had several thousand dollars of stuff I paid for trapped in some sort of logistic limbo and that is frustrating. The warehouse manager that ended up resolving everything thanked me for not being a self-entitled dick (not in those words, of course) because he's had people go ballistic over far less  .
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Mar 30, 2011 22:42
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Magikarpal Tunnel posted:Also, did you guys know there's some show on TLC called 'Extreme Couponing'? The previews showed chubby suburban housewives buying carts and carts of things just so they could use their coupons. One woman said she hated to spend money at the grocery store. Just the previews made me rage. Just women toting carts and carts of poo poo they didn't need because they knew they'd get it for pennies or even free. Oh christ on a stick I have seen the commercials and got I feel sorry for any of the grocery goons after this poo poo goes live. I can see so many horrible encounters stemming from the self entitled bitches who scream "I saw this on tv and the tv never lies gimme my poo poo for freeee!"
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Mar 30, 2011 22:47
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Magikarpal Tunnel posted:Also, did you guys know there's some show on TLC called 'Extreme Couponing'? The previews showed chubby suburban housewives buying carts and carts of things just so they could use their coupons. One woman said she hated to spend money at the grocery store. Just the previews made me rage. Just women toting carts and carts of poo poo they didn't need because they knew they'd get it for pennies or even free. I just heard about this and I got pissed despite not even being in retail anymore. Show's gonna cause at least one retail worker suicide.
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Mar 30, 2011 22:51
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roboshit posted:I just heard about this and I got pissed despite not even being in retail anymore. Oh yeah. Or cost some poor bastard his job because he refuses to honor a particular coupon, it goes on the show...
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Mar 31, 2011 01:06
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God I remember when Oprah would tell people to try to haggle about poo poo. I was selling TVs at Sears and regular employees weren't allowed to do poo poo to adjust prices outside of a advertised promotion bundle thing.
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Mar 31, 2011 01:20
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Re: Vets We probably get a lot more war vets in my store than I think, but the ones that make it really noticeable are usually very mentally ill  .Yesterday I had a little old lady pick out a button that she liked, but she needed 3 of them. I told her that that was the last one, and she says, "Well, you know, that's just my luck! If I had 10 men line up in front of me, wantin' to make out with me, I'd pick the one who's mentally ill! They just flock to me. He'd probably have a personality disorder" It was hilarious. That woman was amazing and made my day. I hope she comes back again.
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Mar 31, 2011 03:01
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Secret Machine posted:Although my worst bathroom experience was at Borders when we were closing up and found a used Playboy magazine in the first floor bathroom. Me and another bookseller wrangled it into a garbage bag using gloves and a broom handle. Oh God, it's all coming back to me. He was a real creep, and later on it hit me that I went to high school with him. He tried to ask me out when I was 14 and he was a senior.I'm so glad the store I'm working for now doesn't have public bathrooms. The first store was disgusting. One time I found a chicken sandwich stuffed in the tampon trashcan in the women's restroom, but that wasn't disgusting, just weird. We had rotating shifts for bathroom duty and the youngest girl (about 16 or so) there ALWAYS had the worst bathrooms when it was her night. I remember her going to clean the men's room one night and came out on the verge of tears because someone had masturbated into the trashcan. I felt so bad for her.
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Mar 31, 2011 04:45
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Fury1671 posted:For those of you who don't read GBS or work retail, this is the kind of poo poo that happens to us plebs making minimum wage. Back when I worked for the Blue Beast, I watched with a mix of shock, amusement, and horror, as a very well-built customer proceeded to whip a CD at one of our Customer Service workers' faces so hard that, even though he (thankfully) missed, he left a dent in the goddamned wall, not to mention shattering the CD and breaking the case. Then he ran off before the cops could be called. Basically what I am saying is that I am glad I now work a job where the customers/users are cut off from me by a very thick security door and a card scanner.
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Mar 31, 2011 05:08
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So I'm working at a Sears and I walk in today to start my night shift as a cashier when one of the managers catches me on the way in and says, "didn't last night's manager tell you not to come in?" (They didn't tell me poo poo.) My first thought is "christonafuckingcross," and I'm pretty much like, "lolwut," to the manager and she simply explains, "REDUCING HOURS KAY SEEYA  " I'm guessing its because they've hired a whole gaggle of new cashiers due to the fact that the prior ones couldn't meet up to the standards of enrolling 60% percent of customers in a loving reward program, but that is a whole other rant...my question that I have now is, do they have to pay me for two hours or anything because they failed to notify me my shift was cancelled?
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Mar 31, 2011 05:14
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e. nothing to see here.
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Mar 31, 2011 05:16
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Krabsworth posted:So I'm working at a Sears and I walk in today to start my night shift as a cashier when one of the managers catches me on the way in and says, "didn't last night's manager tell you not to come in?" Are you part time?
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Mar 31, 2011 06:21
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hawk989s posted:Are you part time? Yes...so I'm guessing I get nothing huh?
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Mar 31, 2011 07:06
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Krabsworth posted:Yes...so I'm guessing I get nothing huh? I'm guessing legally you are entitled, but is it worth the black mark to complain if they're cutting hours?
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Mar 31, 2011 07:12
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