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SpartanIV posted:e: also gently caress the "Do you want it all on the card?" screen. That. loving. question. What state are you in? I'm in California and have never been asked this even though I pay with credit card all the time. I started a job at an animation studio this week, but the starting wage is about the same pay as retail. I know I'm being severely underpaid, especially with a 2/3-hour commute, but the benefits of just getting into the industry and working with awesome people outweigh working retail. On a related note, I had sent in 7 applications for cosmetics sales at Nordstrom, including seasonal, and over the course of this week they all got rejected. I have experience from Macy's for the same job, so I'm not sure just how much experience they're looking for!
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May 28, 2011 18:12
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froglet posted:Just heard this, thought of this thread: I would just get a novelty dick pen from an adult store and bring that in. alreadybeen posted:Not in retail but drat do I feel sorry for those who have to put up with it. Believe it or not, if you're a customer, you can say something like "Lady, that is great, but there are other people behind you in line and we'd appreciate it if you just paid for your stuff like a normal person instead of holding everybody up."
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May 28, 2011 18:47
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". The clerk obliges (and based on this thread I'm guessing it's because he'll be written up if he doesn't) and slowly scans each item probably one every 20 seconds while the woman calls out prices. What should have been a two minutes transaction turned into about eight minutes. Then as she is paying, with cash counting out exact change, she starts talking about how her cousin has the same name as the cashier ('Brad' - what a loving exotic name).
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Believe it or not, if you're a customer, you can say something like "Lady, that is great, but there are other people behind you in line and we'd appreciate it if you just paid for your stuff like a normal person instead of holding everybody up." Then she flips out and makes a scene which not only causes the lines to get longer, but the poor cashier to have to deal with some grumpy rear end woman and probably have to get AP.
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May 28, 2011 18:57
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alreadybeen posted:Side note, I love how at Target you can swipe your card prior to the total ringing up. They are the quickest store to check out of if you know what you are doing.
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May 28, 2011 19:10
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What makes swiping and entering your PIN before bagging groceries more convenient than doing so after?
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May 28, 2011 20:39
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Halisnacks posted:What makes swiping and entering your PIN before bagging groceries more convenient than doing so after?
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May 28, 2011 21:06
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Cicero posted:It's faster because then the scanning/bagging and swiping/entering are happening concurrently instead of sequentially. Exactly. You can swipe+pin during the scanning, catch up with bagging, and once everything is scanned and bagged you hit OK.
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May 28, 2011 21:10
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We got in our shipment of product tonight and noticed how we didn't get anymore ad items in even though our busiest day of the week is tomorrow and equally busy holiday, Memorial Day. Chalk up another big blunder by our boss. I used up the last of it earlier today and won't get any more in until Monday night. So now we're hosed for the next two days and we're going to get a bunch of poo poo from everyone. Oh wait, that's right... I'm on vacation now for a week  .Actually I volunteered to work 32 hours at another store. Floating to other stores for extra hours is awesome because I have a lot fewer responsibilities to take care of. So next week I get a vacation paycheck and a regular paycheck. Also there's rumors going about how lot of people getting moved around to different stores. You see, we're all bunch of drat kids who can't get along, so it is normal about every 6 months for people in our department to get transferred. I'm crossing my fingers in hope I'm one of them. I'm sure my boss mentioned to the supervisor that he's like a different assistant.
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May 29, 2011 05:08
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ijii posted:Floating to other stores for extra hours is awesome
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May 29, 2011 05:27
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modeski posted:Are they really going to fire everyone and make them reapply? Surely they'd be relocating you to another store or something. That seems incredibly harsh to lay people off like that for no good reason.
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May 29, 2011 05:39
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drat Bananas posted:Is this a common thing at a lot of stores I've just never heard of? I would do this in a heartbeat but just simply transferring from one store to another was a 2 month pain in the rear end, I don't imagine my managers would be capable of figuring this float-y thing out. I work in division of 120 grocery stores. The parent company and the other divisions make up probably hundreds of other stores nation wide. So overall the company is really big and has come a long way in creating a good network to communicate information for everything in this digital age. When I clock in and clock out, I use a fingerprint machine that matches my personal number that I also put in. All this information is stored in some server/network that gets sent to company office. If I want to help out at another store (floating), I go to that store and put in my store number, personal number, and fingerprint and it will record the time I work and it will show up on my paycheck. Of course I have to make sure I won't get overtime when I do help out other stores or else I'll get bitched out by someone. I don't even have to let my "home store" know that I'm floating unless the other store must use overtime for that help. Communication is the key here. If I want to go to another store for my home store (actual transfer), I have to go through my supervisor and store manager and see if they can swap me directly with another person of the same position. Again there's 20 stores, probably about 10 of them within reasonable driving distance, so it's not like it's hard to find a swap. There are many many reasons why people get transferred, so in the end that's why the company has a simple transfer system. EDIT: Skulduggery posted:Ya we're all getting laid off. The company sold off the leases to three quarters of the stores they have nation wide. All those stores are being converted to a Target or some other chain owned by Target. So there really isn't any store left to get transfered to. ijii fucked around with this message at 07:16 on May 29, 2011 |
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May 29, 2011 07:02
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ijii posted:honored employees' original contracts Willing to bet that this is why they're taking this route. I'll give you ten-to-one odds that whatever number of former employees get rehired will be rehired for less pay and/or benefits (hahaha benefits in retail hahahahahaa), etc, etc.
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May 29, 2011 08:16
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Not sure if this is normal, but the other day I was asked by a customer 'I've lost my car keys, can you look after my kids while I find them?'. I'm the service area supervisor, it was peak time before dinner (supermarket), and I was meant to be on my break already, which I told him. His response was something like 'what, you can't spare a few minutes out of your precious break to help someone? Where's your manager?' I just stared blankly at him then walked away, knowing that if he had the nerve to get someone else to call the duty manager she would pretty much (almost literally) tell him to gently caress off. I'm glad this is my secondary weekend job so I don't have to ever bow to that poo poo. As I walked out of the store to buy some food I saw him having the same argument with the next supervisor at the desk who really didn't seem keen on abandoning the service desk to watch some kids either, strangely.
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May 29, 2011 16:23
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spankmeister posted:Yeah it's pretty great. Most supermarkets here have it nowadays. Swipe card, enter pin, bag up all your groceries, when it's time to pay just hit OK and you're outta there. I've never seen a store where you couldn't do that. You just have to wait for the first item to scan, so the ticket is "open", then you're good to go.
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May 29, 2011 19:58
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Dog Blogs Man posted:Not sure if this is normal, but the other day I was asked by a customer 'I've lost my car keys, can you look after my kids while I find them?'.  )Today's gripe: CUSTOMER. JUST ANSWER MY QUESTION PLEASE.  Hey, someone put a book on hold for me? [We file holds under the customer's last name] Okay, no problem. What's your last name? I think the girl I talked to was named Jennifer. Okay, but may I have YOUR last name? This was at about 10 this morning. Good. It should be here. What's your last name? The book is "The Help". [It's ALWAYS "The Help".] WHAT. IS. YOUR. LAST. NAME. Oh! It's Jones. But the author's last name is Stockett...JESUS spite house fucked around with this message at 20:24 on May 29, 2011 |
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May 29, 2011 20:19
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^ Yes, yes, yes. This a billion times! I have had that conversation *so* many times. Or the other great one is when someone starts on a massive monologue (particularly by phone), which is impossible to interrupt and gives you every single piece of information about themselves which you absolutely do not need. All I ever want in the first 10 seconds of a phonecall is your account number. However, I have learnt that interrupting gets you nowhere, so now I just watch the clock on the phone and work out how many minutes of my day I've spent listening to stories that aren't relevant in any way, shape or form. The record is 4 and 3/4 minutes on one call before I was able to request their account number.
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May 29, 2011 20:35
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Testro posted:However, I have learnt that interrupting gets you nowhere, so now I just watch the clock on the phone and work out how many minutes of my day I've spent listening to stories that aren't relevant in any way, shape or form. The record is 4 and 3/4 minutes on one call before I was able to request their account number. My old manager was the worst about this poo poo. Except I worked fast food, I was under a 4 minute gun all night. I can't let you prattle on about your order because my machine didn't allow skipping around. If I didn't have a size, I couldn't do gently caress all with your order. You know what people hate, especially drunk after last call? Being interrupted. I could rarely do it nicely either because they aren't actually listening to anything, they're just verbal vomiting their order. About half way through once I get them to shut the gently caress up, we get to start over and I'm sitting at 3 1/2 minutes. Then they call and complain because I'm RUDE. The best thing is that grave doesn't get to prep, for the most part, everything is fresh. Fries take something like 2 1/2 minutes to cook. The timer starts when your dumbass pulls up. Four minutes to get you to figure out what you want, shut you up when you don't follow my prompts, cook and prepare the food, bag it, get you to pay (if you can find your money), and get you to LEAVE because the timer doesnt stop till you pull out of the drive completely. I think my blood pressure went up just telling that story
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May 29, 2011 20:49
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Testro posted:^ Yes, yes, yes. This a billion times! I have had that conversation *so* many times. I once had a customer get super-pissed at me because I interrupted her two-minute monologue about the extenuating circumstances surrounding her return. I interrupted her to say "Yes, it's no problem, we can do the return". That was not enough, apparently; she not only wanted a refund, she also wanted to hold me captive and make me listen to her talk about her fascinating life. Because retail establishments exist to make people feel good about themselves in any and all ways, don't you know.
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May 29, 2011 20:49
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spite house posted:Yes. The overshare. The bane of my existence. We've had a guy coming in for at least a year now who regularly spends a good twenty minutes "entertaining" everyone with an almost identical monologue involving paraphrased Oscar Wilde quotes, unsettling sexual comments about his wife and the line "You shouldn't be as big as a house... you should be as big as a row of houses!!!" God forbid anybody else try to buy something when he's busy talking to us, because if I turn away to help them, he barges in and includes them in his audience until he runs out of awful jokes ("My psychiatrist says I'm indecisive, but now I'm not so sure!") or they manage to escape. I can't even begin to count how many potential customers he's driven off. The only thing he ever buys is a single sweet that costs 30p. We've started hiding behind the counters whenever we spot him outside zig-zagging between his gigs at neighbouring shops. I think every retail worker in town runs from him on sight.
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May 29, 2011 21:35
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I hate the people that give me a half hour explanation of why they need a certain medication over the phone at my job. This one woman always calls in and tells us she needs her antidepressants because her husband had died and she always starts crying. Thing is, her husband died almost a decade ago. It's just really awkward and I never know what to say. The customers that ask personal questions get me ticked off the most, though. I get tons of customers that ask about my religion and why I'm not doing more with my college degree. My husband works at a restaurant and people ask him all the time if we are planning to have kids. I guess "no, we both hate kids" doesn't bring him in as many tips.
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May 29, 2011 21:46
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NarwhalParty posted:The customers that ask personal questions get me ticked off the most, though. I get tons of customers that ask about my religion and why I'm not doing more with my college degree. My husband works at a restaurant and people ask him all the time if we are planning to have kids. I guess "no, we both hate kids" doesn't bring him in as many tips. What the gently caress? Not that it's any more acceptable if the answer is "yes," but are you visibly of a different religion/cultural group? Wear a star of David, headscarf, anything? My current gripe is this: H&M does not have a uniform policy, and yet for the entire summer, from Thursday to Sunday, we have to wear these horrible and unflattering staff shirts. One of the main things the company tries to promote is personal style, so this forcing us to wear staff shirts thing is straight up bullshit. Edited to add: We each got two shirts so that we can wash them in between wears. At least there's that silver lining. I'm a student so I'm not used to working 40-hour weeks. I've found that it doesn't make me grumpy, but has given me a take-no-poo poo attitude with customers. Yesterday, when I was in the fitting rooms, a guy and his girlfriend came in with a fair amount of items. We have a limit of 7 in a room at a time, and when I told him this, he actually said "Are you loving kidding me?" I looked at him like he was a complete idiot and said that I wasn't kidding him. He was also being really rude to his girlfriend and just seemed like a hostile rear end in a top hat. Anyways, eventually I get him to his room and start showing other people rooms. I notice that his girlfriend has disappeared, and so I get my coworker who is tall and male to inform them that we can't have two people in the fitting rooms at the same time. After my coworker walks away, I hear rear end in a top hat saying "Wow, you really take your job seriously, huh?" and I just couldn't deal with him being an rear end in a top hat any longer. I knocked on his door and said "Just so you know, if you continue to be hostile towards employees, we can feel free to call our manager and have you removed from the store," at which point he became quiet as a mouse. I just don't understand how people don't understand that retail/foodservice workers are just people doing their jobs. Do I really give a poo poo if he has more than 7 things in his room? No, but my managers sure do. I'd rather not risk my job over some guy being a jerk, and luckily at my store, managers will back us up if someone is being aggressive.
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May 30, 2011 01:36
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spite house posted:Yes. The overshare. The bane of my existence.
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May 30, 2011 03:55
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I hate customers. Phone rings, and I pick it up. "Thanks for calling T-Mobile blah blah blah blah blah my name is Ulysses, how may I help you?" "Are y'all AT&T?  This happens twenty times a day.
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May 30, 2011 06:09
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So my uncle was uncharacteristically a dick to a cashier on Saturday. I had to act extra special nice to the guy to balance him out. Fourth panel.
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May 30, 2011 06:26
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Ulysses S. Grant posted:This happens twenty times a day. Tell me that when they ask you this you simply repeat: "Thanks for calling T-Mobile blah blah blah blah blah my name is Ulysses, how may I help you?" Over and over and over again.
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May 30, 2011 06:51
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uptown posted:
It's the Just-World Fallacy in action. Servers, retail peons, and people working at Mcdonalds are all horrible monsters who are in those jobs for a reason. They did something wrong in life, and are working those jobs to pay for their mistakes... or so the idea goes. Therefore, it is perfectly fine to treat them all like dogshit on the lawn.
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May 30, 2011 09:03
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The thing is, people working in McDs, supermarkets etc here don't get treated like this; I've worked in a supermarket and a bookshop in the past and NO-ONE ever spoke to me in the way that lots of people have described in this thread, and my hometown is a mixture of rough and a bit posh. I've heard it said that one of the bigger protestant sects (can't remember which) in the U.S. managed to associate material success in life with being a good and righteous person and therefore people who "failed" were de facto bad people, and that this attitude managed to spread throughout society. I don't have anything beyond a vague memory of some academic paper I read in the past to back this up.
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May 30, 2011 17:37
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Pookah posted:I've heard it said that one of the bigger protestant sects (can't remember which) in the U.S. managed to associate material success in life with being a good and righteous person and therefore people who "failed" were de facto bad people, and that this attitude managed to spread throughout society.
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May 30, 2011 17:43
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Avalanche posted:It's the Just-World Fallacy in action. Servers, retail peons, and people working at Mcdonalds are all horrible monsters who are in those jobs for a reason. They did something wrong in life, and are working those jobs to pay for their mistakes... or so the idea goes. Caste system anyone? Just swap mistakes in this life for the previous life and ugh I can't finish this sentance
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May 30, 2011 17:57
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Any tips on how to deal with crippling back pain, neck pain, and shoulder pain gained from standing in an upright position for hours on end?
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May 30, 2011 21:08
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silversiren posted:Any tips on how to deal with crippling back pain, neck pain, and shoulder pain gained from standing in an upright position for hours on end? Shoes. Really, really good shoes. I had to pay $150 for some top quality foam ones but the difference paid off almost right away. Especially since I have back/leg problems even when I'm NOT standing up for hours at a time.
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May 30, 2011 21:18
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At last, after three and a half years in my retail job, I got my first performance review. The only mark against me was that I needed to be a little more proactive with customers, but I was an outstanding employee otherwise. I did well enough to earn a raise, at least. Now I've gone from $8 an hour to...$8.25.  I really wish I would hear back from any of the new jobs I've applied to, I'm so sick of selling shoes.
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May 30, 2011 21:29
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Chicken Doodle posted:Shoes. Really, really good shoes. I had to pay $150 for some top quality foam ones but the difference paid off almost right away. Especially since I have back/leg problems even when I'm NOT standing up for hours at a time. I bought some really nice comfortable shoes a few months ago and they worked wonders. It's just in these last two weeks my back has been loving killing me, making it hard to breathe even. Maybe I just have some underlying medical issue.
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May 30, 2011 22:22
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Ulysses S. Grant posted:I hate customers. I'm the rear end in a top hat who stops by the T-Mobile kiosk with quips like this every day (we are friends). Too too much fun. Sometimes if I know my customer is going to at least go talk to them I can give them talking points on it. My personal hate is how many people stop by my kiosk and ask something about the iPhone, "when is sprint getting it," "does sprint have it," and my favorite "do you have otters for iPhones?" No damnit I don't carry iPhone accessories nor do I care about whether it is coming to sprint.
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May 30, 2011 23:54
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I work at a major electronics retailer in the US, I have a blue polo, it's pretty obvious which I work at. I am always super polite whenever I go anywhere where the employees are treated like we are and I happen upon a grocery store almost every morning for a yogurt and OJ before I clock in at 7AM. I'm pretty sure everyone knows me by name and goes out of their way to help me just because I greet people... and you know act decent. Why can't everyone be nice to retail employees Also it is really saddening when I get thank you'd at Taco Bell drive-thru window because I was polite(specfically told me this) and said thank you, and asked how their day was...
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May 31, 2011 04:10
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Ulysses S. Grant posted:"Thanks for calling T-Mobile blah blah blah blah blah my name is Ulysses, how may I help you?" The most entertaining one I had was: "Thank you for calling [blank] Books, can I help you?" "Yeah, is this Grotto Pizza?"  I have an interview coming up Wednesday at Michael's. I'm hoping they'll let me work a couple extra days a week for the summer to help fill out my meager paycheck. I've been at the bookstore for four years this August and I'm still making $8 an hour. Part of me is considering scaling back my hours at the bookstore and taking more on at Michael's if I get the job there instead, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
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May 31, 2011 06:32
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I like "So when is the iPhone 5 coming out?" Because making near minimum wage means I'm privy to the most confidential corporate information
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May 31, 2011 07:03
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SpartanIV posted:I like "So when is the iPhone 5 coming out?"  : So when is the iPhone 5 coming out? : Oh, it's already out. Right over here. <shows iPhone 4>: Uh, whatever. <walks away of his own accord>
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May 31, 2011 07:33
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Part-Time Robot posted:The most entertaining one I had was: My friend works at a garden irrigation store in Australia. Apparently the premise and the telephone number used to be for an electronics lay-by and repairs store in the mid-90s. He knows this because people still keep calling up asking about the television they bought there 15 years ago. Except... he just helps them out with their televisions and whatnot anyway. So they keep calling and asking for him. 
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May 31, 2011 08:35
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SpartanIV posted:I like "So when is the iPhone 5 coming out?" Many casual users who aren't rabid Apple fans probably have no idea if there has been an announcement or not.
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May 31, 2011 18:56
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