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CaptainPsyko posted:Sales taxes vary because there is no national sales tax: it's only levied by individual states and municipalities who are free to do as they please, complete with whatever odd little exemptions they come up with (8.5% sales tax except on purchases of clothing valued at under $250 on a Wednesday.). The issue isn't sales tax varying, it's not including it in the price. A store still knows what the tax is (by virtue of it being in a particular city or state), and could still include it in the price - they just choose not to. Also, the US is not like the EU. You can go to New York or San Francisco and still find the same shops, use the same currency, everyone speaks the same language, etc etc. I've heard that argument before, and I'm really not convinced.
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Nov 9, 2011 00:36
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kidhash posted:The issue isn't sales tax varying, it's not including it in the price. A store still knows what the tax is (by virtue of it being in a particular city or state), and could still include it in the price - they just choose not to. It's more of an issue with national advertising. A company would have to custom tailor all its promotional materials for every location of a store, including ones that may be mere minutes from each other. It also just seems understood in American society that a price is going to include some sort of tax unless you live in an area that doesn't have sales tax. I've never been fooled by the idea that I'll have to pay more, and since I almost exclusively shop in one city I always know that it'll be an extra 4% for food, and 8.6% for everything else. They also get the advantage of using psychology. Instead of adjusting prices all over to odd numbers so they'll all come out a nice even denomination, they can just say "yeah, this is $4.99 plus tax" and the customers' brains will interpret that as being less, even though it obviously isn't. Even if they made it come out to a nice, even $5, to the human brain that sounds like significantly more than $4.99, and even if a shop wanted to do that it's such a common thing now that it would just lead to confusion. As is the theme of this thread, confused customers are a nightmare. There are some exceptions, of course. I used to live near a laser tag place that advertised wonky prices that, when tax is applied, come out to even dollar amounts. They had to have a sign displaying what was happening. kidhash posted:Also, the US is not like the EU. You can go to New York or San Francisco and still find the same shops, use the same currency, everyone speaks the same language, etc etc. I've heard that argument before, and I'm really not convinced. I guess you ignored the part where he said the comparison was only in terms of how states are semi-autonomous bodies that set their own taxes. Also, the US isn't entirely comprised of chain stores, surprising though that may be.
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Nov 9, 2011 01:17
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Funnily enough we also have a single currency and chain stores.
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Nov 9, 2011 02:30
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kidhash posted:The issue isn't sales tax varying, it's not including it in the price. A store still knows what the tax is (by virtue of it being in a particular city or state), and could still include it in the price - they just choose not to. My post included a quote. Perhaps you should have read the quote, so that you could see the comment which I was addressing. Specifically, I was responding directly to a (presumably) European who was expressing incredulity *specifically* at the wild variation in local sales tax rates in the US, compared to the flat 20% VAT employed across the pond. I included the comparison between the US and EU, which, you will note, I *specifically limited* to 'in a governmental sense', because of course, there is *substantially* more cultural homogeneity in the USA. However, in the sense that there is significant variation in local laws, in spite of a shared currency, the US is more like the EU as a whole than it is like, for instance, just the UK, where there is very little legal variation between various counties.
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Nov 9, 2011 03:28
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edit: ought to move it.
VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Nov 9, 2011 |
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Nov 9, 2011 04:58
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cobalt impurity posted:They also get the advantage of using psychology. Instead of adjusting prices all over to odd numbers so they'll all come out a nice even denomination, they can just say "yeah, this is $4.99 plus tax" and the customers' brains will interpret that as being less, even though it obviously isn't. Even if they made it come out to a nice, even $5, to the human brain that sounds like significantly more than $4.99 Yeah, that's exactly what we do in the UK, only with our flat tax rate already added. Near enough everything is "X.99" or similar.
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Nov 9, 2011 08:03
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Robzor McFabulous posted:Yeah, that's exactly what we do in the UK, only with our flat tax rate already added. Near enough everything is "X.99" or similar. Don't forget that period we had where they lowered the tax for a year but no one relabelled anything so shopping became a constant pleasant surprise. And then they upped it from 15 to 20% and we all swore at the Tories.
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Nov 9, 2011 08:11
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greazeball posted:Funnily enough we also have a single currency and chain stores. This. I mean for the love of god, I spent 3 months working in India this year and within 1 mile of my apartment was a Subway, a KFC, Dominos and Pizza Hut. I wasn't in one of the 'well known' Indian cities either (not Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, etc). It's downright depressing seeing that to be honest.
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Nov 9, 2011 10:54
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After losing all hope, I finally start bakery training Saturday! So excited I can't even stand it.
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Nov 9, 2011 12:03
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Nov 9, 2011 12:20
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Robzor McFabulous posted:Yeah, that's exactly what we do in the UK, only with our flat tax rate already added. Near enough everything is "X.99" or similar. Precisely. You have a flat tax. Each state in the US has a different tax, and each city could then have more variance. Chain stores both big and small don't want to have to pay for custom advertising for every state/county/city because the other option is losing profit in regions with higher tax rates, and independent shops don't want to change so as to avoid confusion, though I'm sure there are some that do that. It just isn't common at all.
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Nov 9, 2011 12:39
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kidhash posted:The issue isn't sales tax varying, it's not including it in the price. A store still knows what the tax is (by virtue of it being in a particular city or state), and could still include it in the price - they just choose not to. Except when states/cities have tax-free weeks, and everything within a certain guideline isn't taxed. Even individual companies claim to have "tax-free" sales, where they simply discount the the items by the exact amount of whatever tax , so when it gets added back on, you're not paying above the listed price.
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Nov 9, 2011 13:36
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kidhash posted:The issue isn't sales tax varying, it's not including it in the price. A store still knows what the tax is (by virtue of it being in a particular city or state), and could still include it in the price - they just choose not to. Except sometimes it is varying. In Ohio, when you eat in a restaurant, you pay tax because it counts as entertainment and entertainment is taxed. If you get the food to go, though, then it's food, and food isn't taxed in Ohio. So depending on whether you are doing carryout or not, the tax situation differs. That's one example, and I'm sure there others that would apply more directly to retail as well.
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Nov 9, 2011 13:43
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T0MSERV0 posted:Except sometimes it is varying. In Ohio, when you eat in a restaurant, you pay tax because it counts as entertainment and entertainment is taxed. If you get the food to go, though, then it's food, and food isn't taxed in Ohio. So depending on whether you are doing carryout or not, the tax situation differs. That's one example, and I'm sure there others that would apply more directly to retail as well.  Man, did I ever hate explaining that to people when I worked the drive-through.
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Nov 9, 2011 14:14
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Fun times at work yesterday. Had 5 or 6 customer freakouts in the first hour. I was there from about 12:45PM til 12:30AM though so I don't remember all of the fun now. Middle Eastern Guy: I want hand sanitizer. Me: We don't really sell that usually, I think we have some on clearance that I can show you in the cleaning department right now though. Guy: I need a hand sanitizer bottle THIS big *shows size with his hands... something that would probably be at least 3 gallons big* Me: Er.. we only have them in little hand soap sized bottles, nothing in that size that I can ever recall in our store. Guy: You don't have hand sanitizer? Me: We do in a sm- Guy: NO HAND SANITIZER? IN THIS STORE? IN. THIS. STORE?!?!?! At this point he just storms off with his wife, stops five feet later, points at a humidifier and shouts: "WHAT IS THIS I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!!" I looked back, thinking he was yelling at me.. saw him talking to his wife in a more sane voice, and then he walked away. --------- On register for backup, the middle eastern guy shows up in my line with some plates, bowls, and glasses. It's all individual stuff, so there are no boxes. I'm wrapping it all in paper to protect it somewhat in the bag. Some lady comes up next to my register... I'm mid sentence, talking to him about something (he was also completely sane and friendly at this point). Random lady : Sir. SIR. SIR! *starts hitting my register and shouting sir, while I continue trying to finish what I was saying to the guy at my register* Me: Well, now that I've finished talking to my customer who waited in line to be at my register, how can I help you? Lady: Do you have one of your store fliers here I need it. Me: We don't keep those in store, they are mailed out from elsewhere. Lady: Well I need the coupon that is shipped with it. Me: We don't keep any of those in the store. Lady: WHAT? Just give me a coupon. Me: We don't have them in the store, if you text this number we have mobile coupons that- Lady: I WANT A REAL COUPON GIVE ME A COUPON FOR YOUR STORE. Middle Eastern Guy: *Stacks some of the plates* You don't need to wrap these, you can put them in the bag like this and it'll be fine. Me: We don't keep any coupons in store for our customers to take. *back to customer in line* Er, sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear because of her yelling. Lady: I NEED YOU TO GIVE ME A COUPON. WHERE ARE YOUR COUPONS IN STORE I NEED THEM TO SAVE MONEY. Random person in line behind the current guy: They said they don't have any now GO AWAY! The great part is that person had extra coupons, I wish they had mocked her with them. ----- Also I got to have another one of those customers who asked me for an item, and when I say we've never carried that in store, they decided I had no clue what our store had. Customer: Do you have *random thing* Me: Sorry we've never carried that here, I believe we can have it shipped to you if you'd like to order one though. Customer: Oh sorry I thought you worked here. I won't bother you because you don't know anything about what's in this store, I need to go find a real employee now.
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Nov 9, 2011 17:00
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MaxDuo posted:Customer: Do you have *random thing* To be fair, I can understand the frustration as I've been told "we don't have/carry that" a number of times before and lo and behold I find it in the store. How's a person supposed to tell between a lazy/ignorant employee and one who knows their store?
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Nov 9, 2011 17:30
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kidhash posted:The issue isn't sales tax varying, it's not including it in the price. A store still knows what the tax is (by virtue of it being in a particular city or state), and could still include it in the price - they just choose not to. Except every national (and probably regional) chain of stores has all of their pricing labels and sales signs shipped to them from a central location. Which circles back around to the problem of sales tax varying from state so the folks printing the labels and signs do not know what the actual final cost of each item is going to be.
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Nov 9, 2011 20:35
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baquerd posted:To be fair, I can understand the frustration as I've been told "we don't have/carry that" a number of times before and lo and behold I find it in the store. How's a person supposed to tell between a lazy/ignorant employee and one who knows their store? Do you tend to immediately act as if they don't work there, don't know what they are talking about, insult them, etc? That's more of my complaint, that that is usually the thing that happens. Rarely is it that they just quietly go ask someone else. I've been called wrong, and also an incompetent idiot before due to saying we didn't have something in our store that we truly didn't have. I posted something about a situation like this once before and the lady was pretty much screaming that I was wrong, later on she asked someone else, and they called me over, saying I was the one who would know better than the others. When she saw me she pretty much screamed and left.
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Nov 9, 2011 22:09
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VideoTapir posted:I like the Japanese approach to closing time: loud, mildly-annoying music. They also do this during normal shopping hours, but with more directly-annoying music. I want to stab my eardrums out every time I go to Yodobashi Camera in Fukuoka, from their cutesy jingle set to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the multilingual advertising blurbs. The woman they picked for the English one has the most nasal,  voice in the universe, and the Mandarin one is a close second. It's a shame because when I go there by myself I can spend literally hours in the store (and usually wind up spending over $100), but my desire to shop is constantly pitted against how much I'm being annoyed by the soundtrack.My local grocery store has an endlessly-looping, high-pitched 7-second jingle about cheese that was forged in a crucible of pure hate. You can hear it over like half of the store (although oddly enough, not where the good, foreign cheese is located). I guess it must not faze Japanese people and maybe they even like it, but it's baffling to me. I think I'm just going to start wearing headphones when I'm at stores now.
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Nov 10, 2011 14:11
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I imagine half the Japanese population is deaf from Pachinko parlours... jet engines probably sound like a gentle breeze through long grass after an hour in one of them.
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Nov 10, 2011 14:28
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I want to stab my eardrums out every time I go to Yodobashi Camera in Fukuoka, from their cutesy jingle set to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the multilingual advertising blurbs. The woman they picked for the English one has the most nasal,  The quality of service in Japan compared to my old retail job (Australia) is shocking. We're so laid back here the we could fall the gently caress over. My hat goes off to the Japanese. greazeball posted:I imagine half the Japanese population is deaf from Pachinko parlours... jet engines probably sound like a gentle breeze through long grass after an hour in one of them. nyoron fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Nov 10, 2011 |
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Nov 10, 2011 16:20
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I live in Australia, and I have worked in a game store, stacking shelves and fast foodwhile studying at university. I've had terrible customers too, and some failures of bosses at my workplaces, union or non union. But nothing like you guys. Reading all the D&D threads and the Class War threads in GBS, gives me this abstract image of suffering in America. Then reading this thread and the day to day stories of what it's actually like, it brings it into focus just how screwed over the system is for you all. To worry about health care, to worry about corporate being abusive and discriminatory, and most of all legions of assholes who you have to put up with is sad and enraging all at the same time. 8 dollars an hour is loving obscene. What does it take for people to get up and demand more?
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Nov 10, 2011 17:37
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4th Horseman posted:What does it take for people to get up and demand more? Less.
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Nov 10, 2011 18:32
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4th Horseman posted:Not saying that retail doesn't suck, in America or elsewhere, but keep in mind that these kinds of threads bring out the worst there is. Nobody's going to post a thread about how they go to their 9-5 job every day, their colleagues are normal people, and managers are reasonable, even if such people exist.
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Nov 10, 2011 18:58
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Yeah, there are occasionally redeemable factors about retail, but mostly people balance the suck against being unemployed or trying to find a new job (which generally sucks worse than retail hell).
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Nov 10, 2011 20:22
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Also this thread now exists in GBS. I doubt it'll ever grow to page 115 of its third iteration, but it's still nice to have as a resource for restoring your sanity after seeing too many of these stories. To contribute: I'm lucky enough that I only ever had to work retail for one summer -- at Cumberland Farms, a Northeastern gas station / convenience store chain. This was a short enough period of time and I was good enough at smiling and pretending to be nice that I never really had anything really bad and worthy of a horror story happen to me, but I still had a decent taste of being a Servant to the General Public and all that entails. Which I still enjoy bitching about. -While working register, we were not allowed to sit down. Ever. For any reason. One time a coworker of mine tried sitting down on a stepladder during his mandatory half-hour unpaid break (while he ate the crappy in-store food he paid full price for) and the regional manager saw it on the surveillance footage and drove down to our store to yell at him. There was one corner of the store where the camera couldn't see and so was a safe spot to set up our ladderchair, but there were no surfaces there to eat off of anyway. -The store itself was on Cape Cod, which meant that we had no shortage of entitled tourists to cater to, including a couple that called the police when we told them we couldn't refund their non-refundable phone card. I guess the cops had too many actual crimes to investigate, though, because they never showed up and the tourists got bored and left after five minutes. -And yet I still couldn't quite manage to get through a three-month term without being threateningly hit on by a creepy redneck guy (for context, I'm a dude). God bless America. My most favorite customer interaction (unironically, this guy was awesome) was probably the guy who came in looking for trucker pills of questionable legality. After examining our stock and finding none of them to his liking:  : "Nope. Do you guys have <sketchy-sounding drug name>? : (looks through the shelves he was looking at two seconds ago) "Sorry, doesn't seem like we do.": (very enthusiastically) "It's half <other sketchy-sounding drug name> and half speed!": "Uh. Let me... check the back?" (walks into empty 5'x5' room in back of store, counts to 30, comes back out) "Sorry, couldn't find any.": "Bummer. I'll go try CVS. Later brah!"
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Nov 10, 2011 20:48
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mobby_6kl posted:and managers are reasonable, even if such people exist. Actually, ever since starting my new job, my managers have been reasonable, corporate guidelines are fair, the financial schemes I upsell are not bullshit and actually help people, providing they have enough intelligence to sign up for the direct debit to pay the minimum directly, so they don't even have to worry about it. Reasonable retail jobs! (It's really quite nice)
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Nov 10, 2011 23:48
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I wish that the floor people at my store would stop treating us backroom people like dirt.If I have to come out onto the floor to count something I expect a little loving help for 5 goddamn minutes. If you would just do your counts I'd leave you alone and we'd all be that much happier but no I have to spend the last hour of my shift sprinting across the store trying to do YOUR loving JOB. WORK YOUR loving PICKS! STOP MAKING BIN EXCEPTIONS! I hate the grocery side of our store. I literally spend 5 of my 8 hour shift EVERY DAY fixing poo poo over there. Two hours of bin exceptions, two hours of counts, and an hour of picks.
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Nov 11, 2011 04:39
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Might I just express my hatred for towels, both customer's treatment of such (How on earth did you manage to throw three towers over the rails off of the mezzanine, a good 10 metres away from the towel section?) and how goddamn dusty they get when I need to fold them. Inevitably coming away from cleaning that section up with my black uniform half-white is not fun!
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Nov 13, 2011 01:12
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I hear a lot about hating certain songs because they keep playing over and over at work, but does anyone else end up hating an entire genre of music? I don't care how unfair it is, I loving hate country music thanks to my last job playing the same 5 hours of country on loop for a year.
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Nov 13, 2011 01:28
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Well I didn't actually get transferred over to bakery and I probably won't either, since the store manager thinks I'm unreliable and undependable. I was just doing demo today, handing out pieces of cake to people who really didn't need it. But really, I'm very frustrated at this whole thing. I'm thinking that might have been the reason the assistant bakery manager didn't follow up with me, because of what the store manager said about me. The head bakery manager seems get interested in having me back there but the store manager has the final say. I'm not sure what to do now. E: also a "funny" thing a coworker said: "the only reason racism still exists is because of black people." copy of a fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Nov 13, 2011 |
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Nov 13, 2011 01:59
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Retail sales goon checking in. So who here knows their shifts for Black Friday yet? I work 3AM to 3PM! 
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Nov 13, 2011 06:54
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Agatha Crispies posted:Retail sales goon checking in. So who here knows their shifts for Black Friday yet? Do you get overtime?
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Nov 13, 2011 07:00
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silversiren posted:E: also a "funny" thing a coworker said: "the only reason racism still exists is because of black people." All of your posts have shown that you work with a bunch of shitheels, both at the lovely hourly and lovely salary wage levels. I can't imagine working with some of the people that you do, and the fact that you're still trucking is pretty drat awesome. I suggest you buy a voice recorder and take it everywhere with you while you are at work. It probably doesn't have too much bearing on the other wage slaves that you work with, but getting some of those choice comments by your aspiring superiors will be gold . The moment you quit/get a better job, turn it into HR and watch the poo poo hit the fan.
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Nov 13, 2011 12:59
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Agatha Crispies posted:Retail sales goon checking in. So who here knows their shifts for Black Friday yet? I work 11pm(Thanksgiving)-7:30am then apparently 5:00pm-12:00am. I already told them I'm not doing the second half of that shift. I am not working what amounts to a double on black friday and they can kiss my rear end if they expect that.
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Nov 13, 2011 13:15
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VideoTapir posted:Do you get overtime?
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Nov 13, 2011 15:52
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Rick_Hunter posted:I suggest you buy a voice recorder and take it everywhere with you while you are at work. It probably doesn't have too much bearing on the other wage slaves that you work with, but getting some of those choice comments by your aspiring superiors will be gold . The moment you quit/get a better job, turn it into HR and watch the poo poo hit the fan. I thought it was illegal to record someone without their permission? Or did I totally misread/hear that somewhere...
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Nov 13, 2011 17:21
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Robzor McFabulous posted:I thought it was illegal to record someone without their permission? Or did I totally misread/hear that somewhere... It depends on the state. Some states require that only one person know the other is being taped.
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Nov 13, 2011 17:32
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Sigma posted:It depends on the state. Some states require that only one person know the other is being taped. Good point. Let me amend my previous suggestion with "within the confines of the law." I know that in my state I can do that, but I have never needed to do that. Usually, I'm more content with finding another job.
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Nov 13, 2011 18:23
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My department is closed Thanksgiving and the friday after AND I get paid
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Nov 14, 2011 01:34
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