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froglet posted:I think the what happened was the ferals stealing started crying foul about being 'unfairly targeted' (despite being know to shops and police as serial offenders). This is a problem if the thieves are of any ethnic minority - shops dislike having an image of discriminating. It's probably easier to check everyone's bags than it is to prowl the aisles trying to catch thieves. Very possibly, but even so that's just moving from racial profiling over to an assumption of guilt. Sign with the rules on or no, I'm reasonably sure that policy wouldn't stand up to any sort of legal challenge.
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Jan 7, 2012 08:13
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Fil5000 posted:Very possibly, but even so that's just moving from racial profiling over to an assumption of guilt. Sign with the rules on or no, I'm reasonably sure that policy wouldn't stand up to any sort of legal challenge. you should read my attached link to the bag check code of conduct... it was developed in consultation with various legal bodies. Basically, we can't force you to open your bag, but we can refuse to let you shop at our store if you won't comply. As my law professor explained it to me years ago, if a shopkeeper had a sign saying you can't come in to my store unless you clap your hands and hop on one leg, he would have every legal right to refuse to serve someone who refused. The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 09:14
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Fil5000 posted:Very possibly, but even so that's just moving from racial profiling over to an assumption of guilt. Sign with the rules on or no, I'm reasonably sure that policy wouldn't stand up to any sort of legal challenge. As assumptive as it sounds, that's not the case. When you enter a business (in the United States at least), especially when the rules are written, you have accepted the fact that certain rights are no longer granted in their establishment. They are a private establishment. They can escort you out because you had a unibrow for all you/they/I know. But it's legal. It's terrible treatment of customers, and I'm sure the media would lambaste them for doing it, but it's sadly....legal. It is exactly like you saying to a police officer that you will not allow them to search your car if they just say they want to make sure you're not carrying anything illegal. If you say yes, you have waived your 4th (?) amendment rights to search and seizure. If not, and he does not go through getting a warrant, the officer's search is illegal (in most jurisdictions) and would be thrown out. BUT....since this thread is titled "Reasons I No Longer Desire to Work in Retail", I will say that Lord Bude's company's policies are dickish and do not treat the customer with enough respect. I may not like the way you enforce what you think is standard policy, but I think your company mistreats your customers. I would not shop at a place like that.
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Jan 7, 2012 09:15
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The Lord Bude posted:you should read my attached link to the bag check code of conduct... it was developed in consultation with various legal bodies. Basically, we can't force you to open your bag, but we can refuse to let you shop at our store if you won't comply. I guess this is kind of what I meant - the policy isn't in any way legally enforceable. I suspect the bans aren't that easy to enforce either if the store is of any size. Rick_hunter, I'd be interested to know if the same applies over here in the UK. I'm not certain that your rights can be overridden in the same way over here.
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Jan 7, 2012 09:23
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Rick_Hunter posted:As assumptive as it sounds, that's not the case. When you enter a business (in the United States at least), especially when the rules are written, you have accepted the fact that certain rights are no longer granted in their establishment. They are a private establishment. They can escort you out because you had a unibrow for all you/they/I know. But it's legal. It's terrible treatment of customers, and I'm sure the media would lambaste them for doing it, but it's sadly....legal. And I accept that many Americans have a problem with it because it is unusual from an American perspective; but in Australia every major retailer has a similar policy, and so people are used to it... I'd get maybe half a dozen complaints a year and most of those are tourists who are not used to the policy. This entire debate started when I mentioned that American tourists were generally my most polite customers, except one lady who objected to the bag policy, which was excusable because she would have been unnacustomed to it.
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Jan 7, 2012 09:29
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Fil5000 posted:I guess this is kind of what I meant - the policy isn't in any way legally enforceable. I suspect the bans aren't that easy to enforce either if the store is of any size. I'm not a lawyer, I'm a scientist. But I do serve coffee to a fair amount of lawyers (across from a law school in the US) that would agree with my conclusion on the matter.
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Jan 7, 2012 09:46
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Well, when I visited Australia from Singapore I ended up shopping at Woolworth's and Big W multiple times. I only ever asked to let them see my bag once, and it wasn't a big deal anyway.
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Jan 7, 2012 09:47
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Rick_Hunter posted:I'm not a lawyer, I'm a scientist. But I do serve coffee to a fair amount of lawyers (across from a law school in the US) that would agree with my conclusion on the matter. Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was just wondering about how the legal system over here works in that regard. I'm not a lawyer either, but I know that there's enough differences in the systems that the same might not apply.
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Jan 7, 2012 10:15
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Time for a completely different story There's been a kerfuffle at my store the past week over pay. Basically our payroll manager completely misinterpreted the public holiday regulations for the year and so ended up mispaying everyone. To compound the issue, several deeply ignorant department managers gave staff members completely incorrect advice regarding their entitlements. I should begin by explaining how public holidays work here in Australia at my company: I don't know if american retail differentiates between permanents and casuals: A permanent is either full time or part time, but they have a contract which outlines what hours/days they work each week, so they do the same shifts each week. they also get annual leave and sick leave. Casuals are used to fill in whatever gaps are left over, their shifts fluctuate from week to week, and they don't get paid sick leave or annual leave, but instead they earn 20% more per hour. So, public holidays: When a public holiday falls on a day that you would normally work, you are entitled to get the day off with pay. If you volunteer to come in, you get paid 2.5x normal pay, or if you want you can get normal pay and 1.5x the hours you worked as paid time off at a later date. IF you work 5 days a week and the holiday is on one of the days you don't normally work, then you get an extra day off with pay or an extra days annual leave. the tricky part is this: in our award, when a public holiday falls on a weekend, as was the case with christmas day and new years day this year, the company has to make another weekday a 'replacement holiday'. this means if you work on one of those days, but not the other, that day counts as the public holiday for you, and if you were scheduled to work on both the 'real' public holiday and the 'replacement' public holiday, then you have to pick one or the other to be your public holiday and the other day counts as just a regular day. This year, however, the union petitioned the state government to declare the replacement days as actual holidays, which means all the days were actual real holidays. so we had christmas day on sunday, boxing day on monday, and replacement christmas day on tuesday. (Boxing day is a public holiday in many commonwealth countries, held the day after christmas...it was originally a day when people bought a gift for their servants, but these days it functions as a kind of australian black friday.) The following week we had new years day on sunday and replacement new years day on monday. Our payroll officer and most of management failed to realise that this year, the replacement public holidays counted as real public holidays, despite there being a union notice explaining things in the lunchroom, and the union sending everyone a letter. The result of all this is that many people weren't paid holiday rates for one of the days, and now everyone is very very pissed. Initially management insisted that pay was correct, but our shop stewards corrected them, so now apart from the mass of extra work that payroll has to do to track down everyone who was mispayed and find out how much they are owed, the money will be given to them in next week's pay, which has blown the wage budget for the week all to hell and will result in us being understaffed for the week. what's worse, because people are getting half of last week's pay added to next week's pay, it will end up pushing them into a higher tax bracket for the week. they'll get it back come tax return time, but It's still an annoyance
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Jan 7, 2012 10:43
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We have something like that in America. It's called seasonal work. Instead of +20% pay, you get whatever the lowest wage paid out by the company's policies is (usually the national minimum wage), and you work under the understanding that you are worth less to the company even if you work enough hours to earn full-time benefits (which companies will fight tooth and nail; they may slash your hours to lower the average back down, or fire you spontaneously, which they can, because you're 'seasonal'). It's rapidly becoming the favored hourly position for most companies to hire, because they can, and it means they don't have to worry about paying out for benefits. Fun fact: at a previous job, I worked for a year under lovely conditions for often under twenty hours a week and managers outright pulling me away from learning things to promote into management, giving me busy-work to get rid of me instead. It turns out, I was considered a seasonal employment, so they had no obligation to give me steady hours or anything else. About a week after that revelation, they brought in a new manager because the old one transferred out, and they hosed with my schedule even more, often sending me home as soon as I arrived on days I scheduled, making me waste as much in gas and time as I was making. I quit in about a week after that. I was told I was being fast-tracked for management when I was hired.  Also, some of you have incredibly hostile opinions of your fellow persons. The jobs may be lovely, but try to be calm and nice as both a shopper and an employee; fighting one another just makes a convenient scapegoat for the corporate assholes coming up with lovely policies in the first place.
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Jan 7, 2012 11:22
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Shady Amish Terror posted:
Retail Lesson 1: Anyone on salary is a filthy loving liar, got their job by being a vicious sociopathic oval office, and views you as a disposable diaper. Something to poo poo all over to save them work, then be thrown away once you can't take any more. It might not always be true, but you'll do better in life assuming that it is.
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Jan 7, 2012 11:59
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Shady Amish Terror posted:We have something like that in America. It's called seasonal work. Instead of +20% pay, you get whatever the lowest wage paid out by the company's policies is (usually the national minimum wage), and you work under the understanding that you are worth less to the company even if you work enough hours to earn full-time benefits (which companies will fight tooth and nail; they may slash your hours to lower the average back down, or fire you spontaneously, which they can, because you're 'seasonal'). It's rapidly becoming the favored hourly position for most companies to hire, because they can, and it means they don't have to worry about paying out for benefits. the idea behind casuals getting an extra 20% pay is based on it being compensation for the 8 paid sick days and 4 weeks annual leave they would otherwise get if they were permanents. probably 2/3 of employees at least are permanent, but you can't do without casuals because you need people without a set in stone roster to fill in the gaps and come in when other people are sick fun fact: we get paid 17.5% more per hour when we are on annual leave than we do normally.
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Jan 7, 2012 12:06
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That might be giving them too much credit for maliciousness, but yeah, I was a bit more naive then. And, haw. When you're seasonal here, a single absence, even for illness, is considered an acceptable grey-area reason for dismissal. Being full-time usually doesn't get you more than a week or so of unpaid days off a year. And I've never worked with anyone who has a set-in-stone schedule. Not everyone seems to believe how bad it is, at first, but America has pretty much the worst work culture of any 'first-world' nation. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 12:06
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The Lord Bude posted:the idea behind casuals getting an extra 20% pay is based on it being compensation for the 8 paid sick days and 4 weeks annual leave they would otherwise get if they were permanents. probably 2/3 of employees at least are permanent, but you can't do without casuals because you need people without a set in stone roster to fill in the gaps and come in when other people are sick  I've been working hourly for five years and currently in a position where I have a set schedule every fortnight. I don't get any leave, sick or otherwise, and my store runs on a point system. If I want to get sick and I dare do it on a day that isn't one of my days off then I will accrue a point. 6 points in a rolling 6 month period and I'm fired with no future eligibility for rehire. I would also accrue a half point if I were to clock in or out late and if I leave any earlier than my scheduled time that my manager didn't approve and remember to process the next day, that's a point! Not that I could take any time off anyway. Including myself there are only two people on staff that can even do my job which has to be done every day. If I took even a day off I'd piss off my coworker and whoever was managing that morning. Sure, if I got a note from a doctor that would probably take care of the points, but gently caress if I can afford anything that isn't immediately life-threatening! 
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Jan 7, 2012 12:20
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Shady Amish Terror posted:That might be giving them too much credit for maliciousness, but yeah, I was a bit more naive then. If you're a permanent here, the company isn't allowed to change your roster more than 4 times a year, and there is a grievance procedure you can follow if you don't like your new hours. the company is also required to accommodate any legitimate family, religious, sporting, or academic commitments you have when deciding on your roster. As a casual, you just say 'I'm not available to work on date x' and that is the end of the matter. If they want to cut hours, they have to reduce the hours of casuals before they touch any permanents, and they have to be able to prove that the work you were doing in the hours they want to cut is no longer being done at all and won't be given to any one else. if they need extra hours, they have to offer it to a permanent before they offer it to a casual. If you're a permanent but not working full time (38 hours), you can still be asked to do an extra shift if need be to replace someone, but you can't be forced to work beyond your contracted hours. I dropped back from full time to 10 hours a week during 2011 in order to study, and I told my boss not to waste his time offering me extra shifts until mid November when I finished my diploma. We have a system called youth allowance in Australia: Subject to a means test, full time students under 25 get a fortnightly income (as someone living at home with no dependants it was $255), plus a lump sum of 1100 dollars at the start of each semester, but if you earn more than a certain amount, the extra money you earn is subtracted from your youth allowance. 10 hours a week put me right on the edge of that, so as I told my boss, there is no point in me working more than 10 hours a week because any money I earned at work would be deducted from my youth allowance, and so it would be like working for free. The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 12:40
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Angry Guacamole posted:Management has apparently decided the 'LIVE IN FEAR, PEON' style of management is a good idea. This, coupled with a few other bits of bullshit, have me putting in my two weeks. I'm stressed enough as it is, I don't need to live in fear of forgetting something and getting written up for it. I pray I get a work-study. Or a job at a hotel where this is less likely to happen, one of the two. Anything, anything to get me out of here aside from dropping by as a customer. Anything. I'm not sure if this is an appropriate thread to drop my wacky hotel stories (if there's a better one, by all means point it out to me), but if anyone's interested, working graveyard shifts in a big-city hotel for over half a decade have provided me with a fair amount or material to share.
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Jan 7, 2012 14:01
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I've read some rather amazing hotel related stories on SA over the years, by someone with.. Sushi?/Bee?/pants? in the username. More would be quite welcome. Edit: AngryBeeDance was the provider of the hotel story awesomeness. If you've got stories that are even 5% as amusing as those, please share. Tiny fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 14:42
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Re: plastic vs reusable bags (I haven't caught up on the thread in a while) I always figured it was more related to how much trash goes into the landfills/ocean or whatever. I try to always bring my reusable bags to the grocery store, because those plastic bags are so useless (half of them have a hole in the bottom seam the size of a penny or more, so I can't line trash cans or pick up dog poop) and I get so. many. per trip because baggers like to put two tiny items to a bag then start a new one, and half of them end up thrown away. At department stores I will always opt for a plastic bag because they are better quality and I can reuse them to pick up dog poop and line my trash cans. Re: checking bags How do you know that the chocolate bar in someone's bag was taken from your store or was carried in? Sometimes I carry a snack in my purse. But still I would rather be checked as a customer as standard policy than for one store I worked for where management/LP checked every employee's purse before she left work, no matter how small the purse. I guess the difference in my acceptance was it was being like accused of stealing from your acquaintance/friend's house. My male manager who I see every day has no business seeing my super-jumbo-tampons or kinky-sex-condoms or explosive-diarrhea-meds or whatever that I need to have on me every day. But I'm as good as out of retail, finally! I got an office job, and I really hope this one will stick (as opposed to the last one, a secretary gig that I got fired from 3 weeks in  ). Looking at my pay from working all of 2011, being available "full-time" but still getting cruddy hours sometimes, I made less than 1/4th of my new shiny salary. YAY.
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Jan 7, 2012 15:18
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drat Bananas posted:Re: plastic vs reusable bags (I haven't caught up on the thread in a while) As far as putting a couple of items into a bag goes, you should try to minimise bag usage but minimising bag usage is a distant third priority Priority one is not putting things in the same bag that shouldn't be: packaged food fresh produce meat other cold goods non food hot cooked food each of those categories should never be in the same bag as something in another category. if you have at least 2 loaves of bread I would argue bread should then also be its own category. if you have enough butcher items I would also consider separating chicken from other meat. eggs should be in a bag on their own or at least with a loaf of bread sitting on top. Priority two is weight of bags. Having been a checkout operator for 7 years now, I know exactly how much weight my bags will take, and it is less than many customers would seem to think. also, if you bring your own enviro bags, which can hold considerably more, company policy prohibits me from filling them beyond what I can comfortably lift. regarding bag checks and having items bought elsewhere: In australia at least, if you are bringing an item into the store that we sell, and it isn't obviously old, you have a responsibility to be able to prove you purchased it elsewhere. if you don't have a receipt, you need to go to the customer service counter before you enter the store and show it to them so they can checkseal it. I'd be inclined to give a person the benefit of the doubt on a case by case basis if they didn't do this though...I'd probably caution them that in future they need to either have a reciept or obtain a checkseal; just like if a person came to an express lane with only a couple items over the limit, i'd say 'in future you won't be served at this register if you have more than 15 items' whereas if I saw a person who clearly had well over 15 i'd kick them out of my queue. we are much stricter about searching employees before they leave the store than with customers. I once had a customer who complained about the security cameras in the store, saying he didn't like being watched by faceless people on a computer screen. my response was: 'don't be sillly, the cameras aren't there to watch you, the cameras are there to watch me. watching you is my job.' The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 02:27
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The Lord Bude posted:regarding bag checks and having items bought elsewhere: In australia at least, if you are bringing an item into the store that we sell, and it isn't obviously old, you have a responsibility to be able to prove you purchased it elsewhere. if you don't have a receipt, you need to go to the customer service counter before you enter the store and show it to them so they can checkseal it. What the actual gently caress? I am never moving to Australia.
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Jan 8, 2012 02:57
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Non-Aussie story via a friend who works the fix-it desk at Best Buy ( ) As the lady is handing him a computer: "So what seems to be the problem with this?" As he accepts computer into his hands: "My husband and I got into a fight last night and he peed on it." 
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Jan 8, 2012 03:06
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Baby_Hippo posted:Non-Aussie story via a friend who works the fix-it desk at Best Buy ( warranties don't normally cover liquid damage do they?
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Jan 8, 2012 03:10
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Baby_Hippo posted:Non-Aussie story via a friend who works the fix-it desk at Best Buy ( I hope he handed it back, saying: "Congratulations on your new, urine scented paper-weight."
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Jan 8, 2012 04:43
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marshmallard posted:What the actual gently caress? If it helps, as someone who's moved down to Australia, I've never encountered a checkseal policy in any shops, major chains or small independents, that I've been into. And for the bags, I imagine most places have a policy about it. A lot of places will have signs up saying they reserve the right to search, but it never seems to actually happen. I carry a backpack just about everywhere I go, too. It may vary by store, state (I hear Queensland is... interesting. "Mad as cut snakes" is the phrase that keeps popping up.) or the individual worker, I guess. Or maybe I don't look suspicious. Ockhams Crowbar fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 04:49
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Ockhams Crowbar posted:If it helps, as someone who's moved down to Australia, I've never encountered this policy in any shops, major chains or small independents, that I've been into. I'm not disputing the fact sheets that have been posted, but at the very least, I've never had it enforced on me. I carry a backpack just about everywhere I go, too. Interestingly enough, I've heard from fellow staff members that have worked in other states that queensland bred managers tend to be more laid back, and that the further south you go the more authoritarian managers become. I don't know how these things tend to go in america but we are on first name terms with management, even senior corporate level folk. As I was told when being trained for supervision, a manager is the leader of a team, not the boss. and we do have lots of lazy staff everywhere who don't give a poo poo about security. Everything I have said regarding security in this thread is based on a theoretical 'what should be happening, based on following company policy to the letter', which is the only acceptable way to do your job, in my opinion.
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Jan 8, 2012 05:01
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The Lord Bude posted:Everything I have said regarding security in this thread is based on a theoretical 'what should be happening, based on following company policy to the letter', which is the only acceptable way to do your job, in my opinion. Dude you are so cool and hardcore and above it all, it's almost unbelievable!  Please tell us some stories of how you left customers literally gasping for air because they were laughing at your hilarious and extremely obsequious antics!
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Jan 8, 2012 06:46
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Gilgameshback posted:Dude you are so cool and hardcore and above it all, it's almost unbelievable! well I have an extended comedic sequence which revolves around the premise that despite appearing to be a man in my mid 20s, I am in fact actually a little old lady. nothing cracks elderly folk up faster than a young man launching a back in my day tirade. Sometimes I enjoy anthropomorphising their fresh produce. Other things too: when you greet a customer with the customary 'how are you today sir?' and they respond 'fine thanks, and you?' this is the perfect opportunity to say something like 'I'm always well when I get to be here!' depending on the customer, blunt honesty can be entertaining. Once guy collapsed into hysterical laughter over the following exchange: Customer: So If I don't get points on my rewards card unless I spend over $30, what is the point of me giving it to you to swipe? Me: well it improves my percentage scan rate! I find the best way to manage customers is to talk to them as if they were puppies. Don't speak too quickly, raise the pitch of your voice slightly, speak in soft soothing tones, offering plenty of positive reinforcement, and above all be consistent in establishing a routine with them.
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Jan 8, 2012 08:04
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marshmallard posted:What the actual gently caress? I am a manager at the major supermarket in Australia (woolworths) and every the lord bude says is company policy but its hardly ever enforced in my experience. I will not check bags of customers unless I suspect them of stealing, I will not check bags of people buying stuff though check outs as I feel it is wrong, I will let customers walk around eating and drinking food as most customers do the right thing and buy it at the end, I would never make a customer get a check seal as they are for staff. I stop people from stealing regularly but that is only once they have left the store, most of the time it is alcohol products. Most of the staff in my store and other stores I've worked out (about 5) do the same as me, we are a lot more relaxed than he is making out.
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Jan 8, 2012 10:20
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RobV posted:I am a manager at the major supermarket in Australia (woolworths) and every the lord bude says is company policy but its hardly ever enforced in my experience. I will not check bags of customers unless I suspect them of stealing, I will not check bags of people buying stuff though check outs as I feel it is wrong, I will let customers walk around eating and drinking food as most customers do the right thing and buy it at the end, I would never make a customer get a check seal as they are for staff. I stop people from stealing regularly but that is only once they have left the store, most of the time it is alcohol products. as you sell alcohol, this tells me you are in another state to me... we certainly pursue bag checks very vigorously in my store. we don't make customers get a checkseal, but when they come up to us and say 'hey I bought this elsewhere, is it ok if I bring it in, we generally use a checkseal because it is quick and effective. our store manager recently decided that we would no longer allow customers to leave their property at the customer service desk, or with one of the checkout operators, or at the front of the store, so it became more of a problem. we would also get into a fair amount of trouble if we pursued a customer outside the store, our attitude has always been once they leave it's a problem for the police. are you in south australia by any chance? if so, how much chaos was there when the government banned stores from giving out plastic bags? I've always wanted to know.
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Jan 8, 2012 10:41
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We sell alcohol in an attached store and alcohol can only be purchased there and not in the supermarket. We don't have that big an issue with people bringing things into the store so i guess thats why i never used the checkseals, if a customer tells me they brang something into the store I just say okay and tell them if they have an issue to say I said its alright. We aren't meant to chase people but I and the other managers do, we ask for it back and if they don't then we let them leave, we can't force them to return the stock but we do our best. We would never let a younger staff member chase a customer tho. Western Australia, so we still have bags. I hope for all the checkout staffs sake that they never bring in a no bag policy here. At least I wont have to deal with it as Im only on checkouts for about an hour a week. Most of the things you said would happen if the big bosses were visiting our store as they love company policies tho. Also I am pretty lax in general as I will always reduce stock for customers and give out items cheaper if I cbf walking to the shelf to find the right price. RobV fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 11:07
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RobV posted:We sell alcohol in an attached store and alcohol can only be purchased there and not in the supermarket. our region manager briefly implemented a policy last year, which was kept up for maybe a month before too many people started baying for blood... Don't know if the policy applies in western australia, but in queensland at least when people purchase 3 items or less we can't give them a bag unless they request one... we can't ask them if they want one, we can't even acknowledge the existence of bags untill they say 'I'd like a bag' (or as is more often the case, just plain 'BAAAG!!!!' now the policy our region manager thought would be nice is this: on express lanes, the bag rule was extended so that no matter how many items a person had, you couldn't give them a bag until they asked, which was usually not till they had spent a few moments staring at you in disbelief for stacking their stuff next to the register; to make matters worse, we weren't allowed to keep bags on the bag rack where they were visible to the customers, they had to be kept in the drawer out of sight and pulled out one by one. as you would expect, queues started piling up because all of a sudden it took twice as long to serve a customer, and complaints went sky high. In the end my checkout manager raised the issue that it was a workplace health and safety issue to have cashiers bending down to grab bags every few seconds, and so it was dropped on that pretence.
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Jan 8, 2012 12:16
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I'm a Brit and I got checked in Australia in 2004 in central Melbourne - I think it may have been a Coles. Luckily, I was with another Brit (I'd just met up with him) who quickly explained what was going on...it didn't particularly bother me when I realised it was a policy that applied to everyone and wasn't just them targeting me. (I didn't get aggro, I was just a bit stunned.) I went back to Australia in 2008 and I'd forgotten about this policy until it was brought up here. Granted, I was staying in a slightly more remote part of Victoria but neither Coles nor Woolies showed an interest in checking my bag, and when I went to central Melbourne Christmas shopping, none of the shops there were fussed either. The thing that surprised me most was that the cashiers have to stand in Australian supermarkets. I don't know if that's countrywide, but the ones I went into, everyone was standing.
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Jan 8, 2012 12:26
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Testro posted:The thing that surprised me most was that the cashiers have to stand in Australian supermarkets. I don't know if that's countrywide, but the ones I went into, everyone was standing. That got to me as well. And it took me ages to become comfortable with someone else packing my bags. At least in Aldi I get to do it myself.
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Jan 8, 2012 12:48
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Testro posted:I'm a Brit and I got checked in Australia in 2004 in central Melbourne - I think it may have been a Coles. Luckily, I was with another Brit (I'd just met up with him) who quickly explained what was going on...it didn't particularly bother me when I realised it was a policy that applied to everyone and wasn't just them targeting me. (I didn't get aggro, I was just a bit stunned.) Standing is the norm in Australia, except at aldi. you couldn't possibly pack someone's bags properly if you were sitting, not to mention how unprofessional it looks. I hate it when customers want to pack their own bags, they always make a mess of it. It's like calling a plumber and having him watch while you unblock your toilet...I'm a trained professional, I'm better at it than you are.
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Jan 8, 2012 12:52
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The Lord Bude posted:You couldn't possibly pack someone's bags properly if you were sitting, not to mention how unprofessional it looks. Speak for yourself - cashiers in supermarkets here (Ireland) always get to sit, until the end of the transaction when they might have to stand up to help with the bagging. I did it myself for a year after college.
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Jan 8, 2012 13:19
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The Lord Bude posted:our region manager briefly implemented a policy last year, which was kept up for maybe a month before too many people started baying for blood... That applies in WA as well, but most of the staff just offer a bag anyway. I would say that 50% of the customers say no. That policy that your regional manager implemented is crazy and I'm not surprised its been reversed. Lines build up quick enough now in express without adding that extra time.
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Jan 8, 2012 13:24
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The Lord Bude posted:I hate it when customers want to pack their own bags, they always make a mess of it. It's like calling a plumber and having him watch while you unblock your toilet...I'm a trained professional, I'm better at it than you are. This seems like a bizarre thing to hate to me, but I'm in also the UK and we're all used to packing our own bags here (maybe because our cashiers are sitting down). I realise you are probably better at it than most people but putting groceries in a bag is not brain surgery. If someone wants to stack tins on top of their delicate fresh fruit or whatever it's their own problem.
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Jan 8, 2012 13:28
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Volcano posted:This seems like a bizarre thing to hate to me, but I'm in also the UK and we're all used to packing our own bags here (maybe because our cashiers are sitting down). I realise you are probably better at it than most people but putting groceries in a bag is not brain surgery. If someone wants to stack tins on top of their delicate fresh fruit or whatever it's their own problem. It's too much fun to let the customers do it. It's like a giant game of tetris that never ends. one day I'm going to come up with a scoring system.
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Jan 8, 2012 13:37
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Ahaha Americans would have a shitfit if cashiers started sitting down because it's lazy and unprofessional to not have to stand on your feet for 4 to 12 hours at a time. Most chains have baggers who will also carry your groceries out and load them in your car upon request and I've seen people get really indignant in the stores that don't have them. I really wish people would stop purchasing one small item and, when asked if they want a bag instead of just stuffing it into their laundry bag-sized purse, talking to the cashier like she's an idiot for daring to suggest you wouldn't want an entire plastic bag for your teeny, nonfragile, unmessy item when you are then going to stuff in that hideous monstrosity of a purse anyway "so it won't get lost." Lady, I can see to the bottom when you open it. There are like three things in there not packed away in a matching case of some sort. You aren't going to lose it.
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Jan 8, 2012 13:39
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| # ? May 19, 2024 12:44 |
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Well, I got my retail job back over the winter holidays, and it's still pretty sweet. But guess what? They're baaaack... Via the temp agency that employs me currently, I'm assigned to a major european retailer. Their current promotion involved handing out plastic toys I am going to refer to as 'Zany Peas'. People are eating this poo poo up. You can check my other post in this thread to see how I felt about their predecessors (Marbles); it's pretty much the same. Yesterday, during about two hours or so of my eight hour shift, two little kids stood in our lobby, walking up to people and going (translated) "Excuse me, do you collect the Zanies?" Dear Kid, 1) "Zany" is an english adjective. The thing you're supposed to ask for is "Peas". I know it's a foreign language and you're not a middle schooler, but this isn't rocket science. 2) These things cost like five cents and look like a mangled recreation of those smileys you get in annoying pop-ups. Why would you like them. 3) I actually like kids, but you made me find some perverse glee in trying to keep the customer's attention as you come up and repeat your gramattically incorrect phrase for the hundredth time. I also see you as a twenty-something, in torn clothes and with badly-dyed hair, asking me for a Euro as I try to get into the train station. There was also a even smaller kid, like three years old, coming up to my register three times, asking me if he could have one, and three times I, as kindly as I could, told him that if Mommy and Daddy come and buy something for 15€, he can have one. If I have to suffer for these things, so should you. On the plus side, I had an old lady in a wheelchair yesterday, and I tried to be my nicest, and she seemed happy. 
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Jan 8, 2012 13:53
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