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Pookah posted:Well now, I know a fair few people who have Mams or even Mammys, but I do doubt the Garda thought he was calling her his mammy, maybe she though he was making a thing of her gender - hence the "call me Guard or Officer" Sounds like a mistaken case of gender roles. But at least no one was hurt. Or arrested. So I did the unthinkable today. Not only did I get someone to cover the rest of my shift, but I got someone to cover my shift for tomorrow, because I was sick. I very very rarely use 'sick' as an excuse but this time it was kicking my rear end. But when I went to the prompt care, I found out it was just the cold that was going around. There goes  I feel like repenting and just going to a restaurant, buying an appetizer and tipping my tips for the last 3 weeks 
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Jan 13, 2012 01:38
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Rick_Hunter posted:So I did the unthinkable today. Not only did I get someone to cover the rest of my shift, but I got someone to cover my shift for tomorrow, because I was sick. I very very rarely use 'sick' as an excuse but this time it was kicking my rear end. But when I went to the prompt care, I found out it was just the cold that was going around. There goes Why on earth would you feel guilty about that? If you're sick, you're sick, no shame in that. It happens. Possibly good news, I may, God willing, be getting out of coffee and in to health stuff. I've dropped an application at GNC and am going in tomorrow to see if the manager's there. Seems like a much more relaxed work environment, less physically stressful. And less chance of me burning myself or slicing my hand open again. Fun times, those. I'm hoping me putting the long-winded equivalent of "I've lost a hundred pounds in a year, I know weight loss like the back of my hand" in the why should we hire you box will get my application attention. Especially considering it isn't actually bullshit! Have any of you ever worked at GNC? What's it like there?
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Jan 13, 2012 01:51
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greazeball posted:Mam is the British English equivalent of mom.  Mam is Irish English, it's mum in british english
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Jan 13, 2012 01:52
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Rick_Hunter posted:[quote="Pookah"] If you're sick you're sick. Presenteeism (coming to work when sick) is just as big a problem and just as costly to your company as people who take sick leave when they aren't actually sick. You make yourself worse, so when you do end up taking time off, you end up being gone longer; you work at reduced productivity, compared to whoever would have come in to replace you, so that your employer isn't getting their money's worth; and with cold and flu you end up spreading it to others, costing the company more money. It may just be our Australian non slave driving approach to management, but I've never had a boss that didn't prefer sick people to stay home, rather than be sick at work, and potentially have to go home half way through the shift...Doing that will piss someone off because you shouldn't have been at work in the first place. We have informational posters in the lunch room, that teach you how to tell the difference between cold and flu, and urging people never to work when sick. On the other hand, we also have 11 days paid sick leave a year, so it's less problematic to take a day off.
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Jan 13, 2012 02:36
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I have 0 sick days a year. Also, my manager has flat out told me that he'd rather I came in sick even if I have diarrhea and it's clearly transmissible. My job involves handling food.
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Jan 13, 2012 04:54
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Shady Amish Terror posted:I have 0 sick days a year. Also, my manager has flat out told me that he'd rather I came in sick even if I have diarrhea and it's clearly transmissible. This is why I worry. I'm a student so I'm barely making hours to keep my insurance. Luckily, I have understanding coworkers and managers and 99% of customers wish me well when I say I'm not feeling so well, not, "AW, GAWD GET AWAY FROM MYE COFFEEE!!!" I just feel bad because I almost never leave because I'm sick and I see a fair amount of "I'm sick, no-shows".
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Jan 13, 2012 05:29
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On a tangentially-related note, I still remember the time I sneezed into my hands at the register in front of an approaching customer. Instead of going to wash my hands, I wiped them off on my pants and just gave my usual doofy attempt at a half-smile. Which of course lead to him just going, "Can I get someone else to serve me, please?". I still feel like an idiot on that one, but to be fair, we were practically shackled to those registers during peak hours like that.
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Jan 13, 2012 07:16
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miscellaneous14 posted:On a tangentially-related note, I still remember the time I sneezed into my hands at the register in front of an approaching customer. Instead of going to wash my hands, I wiped them off on my pants and just gave my usual doofy attempt at a half-smile. I completely understand that on both sides. I just hope he wasn't a jerkwad about it. I try my best to wash my hands when I'm at work, moreso when I'm sick because I don't want to be sent home or have a customer have a poo poo fit. Although, I wish customers would realize that if you work in food service, you probably don't want to contaminate the place. I've had customers blow their noses atrociously, drag their cards across their lips and face, and then hand me their card. I'm half tempted to just put a glove on, but I just swipe it, tell the next customer to hold on one moment, and go wash my hands.
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Jan 13, 2012 07:33
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miscellaneous14 posted:On a tangentially-related note, I still remember the time I sneezed into my hands at the register in front of an approaching customer. Instead of going to wash my hands, I wiped them off on my pants and just gave my usual doofy attempt at a half-smile. Which of course lead to him just going, "Can I get someone else to serve me, please?". At least you tried to wipe off your hands instead of ignoring it and keeping on going with snot glistening on your hands.  I wish I was making this up. Some people are disgusting.
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Jan 15, 2012 01:15
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Always. Always I am amazed at how this poo poo works. No one in any of the stores I work at wants to work Saturdays. Because Saturdays are crazy busy and every store is understaffed; if you are super lucky you get two people to man a store that, during the week, has up to six. But most stores have only one employee, and the ones that have two, one usually calls out. Because Saturdays are super busy and no one is staffed properly. So because no store is staffed to deal with the crazy business, no one wants to work it. And those that do call out sick. And all of it could be solved if we were allowed the manhours to have two loving people work in a small store and three in a large store rather than have six people twiddling their thumbs up their asses during the week.
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Jan 15, 2012 06:33
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In every restaurant I've ever worked in, it's always Sundays. There's just something about Sundays that makes people more horrible (both coworkers and customers) and it's downright unbearable some weeks. Also, dear customers, I know I work in an Asian restaurant. That doesn't mean that I enjoy hearing you laugh as you ask for "FLIED LICE??" over and over and over. Every drat day it's at least five people, and we're not allowed to say anything about it per management. Please stop before I shoot myself.
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Jan 17, 2012 07:24
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Am I the only one that doesn't respond when someone whistles at me to get my attention? I find that poo poo atrocious.
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Jan 17, 2012 08:22
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TontoCorazon posted:Am I the only one that doesn't respond when someone whistles at me to get my attention? I find that poo poo atrocious. I straight ignore that poo poo. I am not a dog, god dammit. I hate it when they yell requests without bothering to form an entire sentence, too. "TRASH BAGS!" It's like some incredibly rude form of tourettes.
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Jan 17, 2012 08:56
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TontoCorazon posted:Am I the only one that doesn't respond when someone whistles at me to get my attention? I find that poo poo atrocious. I'm the opposite v  v 100% deaf in both ears, even with the cochlear implant on I can get so focused on the computer or a game or whatever I'm doing that whistling at me is the only way to get my attention.
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Jan 17, 2012 09:08
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spixxor posted:I straight ignore that poo poo. I am not a dog, god dammit. I do the same, I just ignore them. "hi, welcome to [restaurant], how are you doing toda-" "COKE" well okay then!
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Jan 17, 2012 09:21
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spixxor posted:I straight ignore that poo poo. I am not a dog, god dammit. I've gotten a couple of people complain to me and I would tell them straight up that "whistling was rude as hell and pretty horrendous behavior to do in a civilized world" They always go somewhere else like little bitches when I tell them that. Its definitely a lot worse if you're a chick though. My old manager, who admittedly was pretty drat gorgeous, would get that poo poo a ton and would down right refuse to help them. Another annoyance is when a customer waves you over from across the loving store just to ask you a question that they could have answered on there own if they just loving read for once
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Jan 17, 2012 09:27
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My favorite are people who walk into the store and start yelling for help or what they want. Or they get half way through the store and start yelling, "WHERE IS (item right there)" Our store is like 1000sq ft you don't need to yell to get someone to help you
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Jan 17, 2012 11:04
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spixxor posted:I straight ignore that poo poo. I am not a dog, god dammit. I love killing them with kindness here... Me: Hi there, how can I help you today? Customer: Shoe polish Me: (smiling politely) What about shoe polish, sir? Customer: (mildly annoyed) Where is the shoe polish? Me: (gives them directions) I love making them take that extra few seconds to use complete sentences like a big boy/girl.
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Jan 17, 2012 19:54
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TontoCorazon posted:I've gotten a couple of people complain to me and I would tell them straight up that "whistling was rude as hell and pretty horrendous behavior to do in a civilized world" I swear that every retail establishment has some sort of IQ lowering device that saps at least 30 points from every person who walks into the store. Just by looking at the behaviors of the average customer, I'm loving AMAZED we've made it as far as we have as a species. Customers do not read signs. Period. There could be a goddamned 15-foot-high flashing neon sign with huge speakers blaring "THIS ITEM IS $2.99" and there would still be people who dispute the price. Also, when I pulled a few shifts per week back in electronics at Walmart, 90% of customer questions could be solved by READING THE loving BOX. I would always say "Hrmmm.. well let's see right here on this BOX.... yup, it DOES have a USB port, sir. Are there any other questions?" and I'd smile like an idiot while staring at the box. Usually they'd get the hint.
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Jan 17, 2012 19:58
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At one of my jobs, that was 90% of the training. 'Customers will ask you things. You will not always know these things. These things will be on the box. Can you read things off of a box?' This is a good thing to mention to new hires, and should definitely have been in the training process like it was. I didn't expect us to spend more than two hours total covering the simple question of 'can you read from a box', but as it turns out, many people can't! And some still couldn't after being hired.  That job had plenty of strange quirks though. Like the fact that despite being in the southern US, which is to say, not far from Mexico and in a country where a foreign language is a required (albeit minimal) component of schooling, I was our diplomat to foreign language. I know maybe 50 words in Spanish along with some conjugations (again, required, but minimal schooling), and about half that in Portuguese and French. Customers speaking each of these languages were referred to me. So that was fun. 
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Jan 17, 2012 20:20
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Note to self: do not get suckered into mannng a front register when a power surge has just knocked out all the debit machines in the store. Telling people we can only take cash or check is apparently like asking them to sacrifice their first born. Hey lady who wants to know what the gently caress is wrong with me: I do not actually control the weather nor do I give five fucks that you think I am retarded and also I am rather overjoyed that you will never shop here again. Have a great day! spixxor fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 00:16
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Yesterday when I was trying to get lunch, I walked down the freezer aisle to go get some steamer tray veggies. There was a guy stocking some stuff so he had his cart in the middle of the aisle, which was ok, because the frozen section is like 2x wider than all the regular aisles. As I was trying to get to the veggies, some old dude comes up to me, looks straight at me, and runs his cart right into me. I don't say anything, but kind of push the cart away so I can get into the freezer to get my veggies. Then he opens a freezer door in my face. I said "excuse me." and he immediately yelled, "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?!" And I turned heel and bolted. gently caress if I'm going to get in trouble for something I didn't do. Also today another kid broke another pen for the card machines, so I had to have everyone doing credit sign a receipt slip instead of sign on the screen (which is kind of stupid anyway considering we never ever ever verify signatures and all the receipt slips just get thrown away.) I wrote a little note saying "Pen is broken, please ask to sign slip. Thanks.  " and taped it to the machine. I was literally astounded by the amount of people that don't know the difference between PEN and PIN. "What, you mean I can't use my debit card?!"... actually no I take that back, I wasn't astounded. Not at all. It's expected for people around here.  The last time I was on a register and the pen was broken, I made up a little sign that said "MACHINE STILL WORKS, PEN IS BROKEN. ASK FOR RECEIPT SLIP TO SIGN." and almost every single person who came through paying with a card asked me if the machine was broken.
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Jan 18, 2012 03:39
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I'm three months into my job as part of Best Buy's Geek Squad and was officially made Part Time. For the most part I do like it, my co-workers and my Supervisors/Managers are pretty cool. But did anyone ever have that realization that you might be unqualified for your job?
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Jan 18, 2012 06:04
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I guess I was in a mood today. Shortly after I clocked in, the new manager was on my/our case about chit-chatting instead of 'working.' I flat out asked him if he wanted his employees to have good morale. He said yes. I then said "Then you've got to let us say hello to each other and catch up on the gossip for a couple of minutes." He then asked how may people I signed up for our new club card. I mentioned that I signed up 6 or 7 last night (a high amount for us) but under another cashier's login so I wouldn't get credit for it. He said I shouldn't do that, and that I should sign them up under my own login for the credit, and I responded "My priority is to take care of my customers in a timely manner, not to get credit for signing people up for this stupid club card." Hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the rear end. In other news, we caught a shoplifter last night and he was taken away in handcuffs by the cops. That was fun.
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Jan 18, 2012 07:16
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BigRed0427 posted:I'm three months into my job as part of Best Buy's Geek Squad and was officially made Part Time. For the most part I do like it, my co-workers and my Supervisors/Managers are pretty cool. BestBuy's utter lack of training ensures that anyone who hasn't been at BestBuy for 6+ months is guaranteed to be unqualified for their job. I'd estimate that about 80% of my fuckups in the first few months could have easily been avoided by a whopping two days of classroom time to explain the what, where, why and how's of the way things work at that place. Instead it's "go help customers and ask when you need help" from day 1, and any help you get is monkey-see-monkey-do with zero explanation. Remembering key combinations sans context does not do anyone any good, explaining what the gently caress is going on does. Don't feel bad, it's just how they do things. Enjoy the 12 hours total over 3 days a week bullshit, it gives you lots of time to find a real job. Tiny fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jan 18, 2012 |
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Jan 18, 2012 10:33
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uptown posted:"Hi, did you find everything okay today?" This, but I also can't tell you how awkward I feel when someone at a coffee place says "Enjoy" and hands it to me, and I say "you too". I clearly hear them say "Enjoy" but my mind instantly thinks they're talking about my day, not the coffee. I really just hope they go and pour themselves some coffee so they can enjoy it as well. 
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Jan 18, 2012 15:05
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Meow Cadet posted:Hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the rear end. Even if it did, it takes some balls to stick it to him like that. Nice job. 
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Jan 18, 2012 15:55
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silversiren posted:PEN IS BROKEN Try "Signature Pad Broke" next time- always worked for me, plus the less details you give, the less chance to break their brains.
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Jan 18, 2012 20:25
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Coffee Wolf posted:Try "Signature Pad Broke" next time- always worked for me, plus the less details you give, the less chance to break their brains. That's the exact opposite of what I think is good information transfer. Rather than blurting out choice words as loudly and as forcefully as possible, I believe speaking in coherent sentences in a respectful tone and normal cadence gets the message across better. Proper nouns are a plus too. But some people are just dumb.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:56
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You guy's will get a kick out of this. Late last night I was typing a paper for a philosophy course and forgot that I needed paper. I drove over to Walmart, I get my paper and go to get in line for the express register. As I'm walking up to this register a morbidly obese woman in an electric cart honks her horn and nearly runs me down to get to the register ahead of me. She had far to many items for the express lane, the cashier tried to tell her she had to go down to the other lane and that the express lane only takes 20 items or less. A confused and enraged look came upon the woman's face while she began to berate the cashier. The cashier takes the verbal abuse, gives me the "sorry I tried" look and begins checking the order. At the end of the order the cashier begins to ring coupons and informs the woman that she can't use a coupon that expired the year before. What happened next, you'd think the cashier had killed the woman's family in front of her and burned her house down. The woman began to curse and started destroying the candy display. Her face contorted in a purple face of rage as she began shouting at the top of her lungs at the cashier. At this point, I'm already tired, a bit delirious from typing the paper and aggravated because this mountain of a woman nearly ran me over. I told the lady to shut the gently caress up and stop berating the cashier over her own screw up. War were declared, the woman put the cart in reverse and attempted to spin it around as fast as it could move began shouting at me as she backed into the candy rack knocking it over into the next aisle. Apparently now the situation was worthy of the management's attention it's not like the woman had been shouting and destroying store property before hand or anything. The poor bastard comes over and now he's the focus of the fat woman's rage. He took the woman over to customer service, then a police officer accompanied with a lot more shouting occurred. I got my ream of paper and the cashier said nothing, but she was smiling so I think she was happy but trying to avoid any pending abuse. As I was walking out of the store a manager runs up to me and tells me I can no longer shop at that Walmart. Oh well I guess I'll have to find another Walmart to shop at, it's not like there's a shortage of them. I can check tell off an abusive customer off of my to do list now. 
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Jan 19, 2012 03:01
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You should have told the store manager you were nearly assaulted on his company's property, and that you defended his cashier from a verbal assault since clearly he didn't give a poo poo. Ask to see the tapes of the incident, give the cop involved your statement, and watch the manager change his loving tune. Oh, and for bonus points, run the bitch over in the parking lot and claim you were just trying to beat her to a handicapped parking space you weren't entitled to use. See if she even notices the correlation. *sigh*
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Jan 19, 2012 03:19
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Obviously he was doing you a favor, saving you from this crazy place where fat people on scooters run amok destroying displays, hurling abuse, and running people over unchecked.
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Jan 19, 2012 05:45
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Azuth0667 posted:You guy's will get a kick out of this. When I tell a customer they have too many items for an express lane, if they don't leave the queue I would call the person behind them to move forwards and start serving that person, pretending the person with too many items no longer existed. I don't permit my customers to behave like that, if that woman started berating me in an aggressive tone I'd be arranging for a nice man from security to help her take her stuff to the car. Addressing the hygiene topic that has cropped up in the few days since I've checked this thread, my personal pet hate is people who lick their fingers/slobber all over their hands in order to separate notes to give me. I always make a show of vigorously applying hand sanitiser after I take their money, and I put the money under the notes already in the till so I don't have to encounter it again. We have a couple of ladies working at our registers who think it's acceptable to lick fingers in order to separate the bags on the bag rack, another filthy habit. (They get dampened sponges to use for this purpose if they need them.) If I ever see them do it while I am supervising I have words with them.
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Jan 19, 2012 07:16
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We deal in second hand games. We had a customer buy an item, peel off every sticker on the case, and bring it back with a competitor's sticker on it at a lower price than we sold it to him. So we refunded him the dollar fifty difference that it was. We've recently been forced to put up 'YOU HAVE RIGHTS AS CONSUMERS' signs so the entire time that we were trying to tell him that a price sticker from another store which is clearly marked as not being the same business as us is not 'false advertising' he was trying to WELL I HAVE RIGHTS ACCORDING TO THE ACCC AND ALSO aaaagggh. Also recently I've been getting prank calls from people putting on the worst Indian accents and thinking I won't notice that they're on speaker phone and can quite clearly hear their friends in the background. I don't know how it works in the Americas, but here we're allowed to just straight-up hang up on people the moment they get abusive, so it's been quite cathartic to simply drop them. No, stupid teenager, it's not racism when I can't understand your awful fake accent and refuse to answer any questions that I ask you. Working in retail is awful because you lose the ability to distinguish between a genuinely mentally disabled person and a regular person just being a jerk
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Jan 19, 2012 12:20
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Aaronicon posted:
I recall getting a relay chat call once where the caller wanted to know every GBA game we had. This would have been about 2003 so there were literally hundreds. I apologised and explained there were just too many and asked them to narrow it down a bit (were they after platformers, shooters, etc) and just got the same question again. I again apologised and said it would probably be better if they came in to the store (exactly as I would have to a hearing customer who kept asking me the same drat question over and over) and asked if there was anything else I could help with now. I got the same question again, apologised again and said I was not in a position to read 300 titles down the phone and ended the call. They phoned back again twice and got other people and kept asking the same thing. To this day I still don't know whether it was a prank or some grandma that didn't realise that there were that many.
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Jan 19, 2012 12:45
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Here's a protip, customers: When you're about to tell me some dumb coffee joke, just...don't. I've heard them all. Unless you definitely want decaf, then I can oblige.
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Jan 19, 2012 13:25
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The Lord Bude posted:When I tell a customer they have too many items for an express lane, if they don't leave the queue I would call the person behind them to move forwards and start serving that person, pretending the person with too many items no longer existed. If you work someplace like I do, you're not allowed to tell customers who have more than what is permitted to go through another line, and you have to put up with any abuse they throw your way because 99% of the time, the manager will take your side and you'll be the one getting written up.
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Jan 19, 2012 15:32
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silversiren posted:If you work someplace like I do, you're not allowed to tell customers who have more than what is permitted to go through another line, and you have to put up with any abuse they throw your way because 99% of the time, the manager will take your side and you'll be the one getting written up. Come and live in Australia. Company Policy is Company Policy. Period. I count how many items customers have, unless they sneak up on me. Obviously well over 15, I toss them out of the line, a couple over, or people with lots who managed to start unloading before I noticed them, I warn them to use a different line next time. I always make a point of apologising to whoever was after them in the queue, loudly so that Mr Rude gently caress gets embarrassed. Honestly, genuinely abusive customers are very rare here, but anyone in the store has the right to ask someone to leave, and we don't put up with it when customers start yelling. Another time, when the sound of my mechanical keyboard won't wake everyone up, I will recount the saga of Meat Markdown Woman. Also... Thursday is a public holiday in Australia... I get to work 9am to 6pm. It's going to be magnificent. 8 hours pay at holiday rates, on a day when I imagine half an hour will pass between customers. We can finally catch up on the cleaning... Deep cleaning every register, dusting the tops of vending machines, the security camera, even the ceiling. I'm gonna make that front end shine.
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Jan 19, 2012 16:16
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Rick_Hunter posted:That's the exact opposite of what I think is good information transfer. Rather than blurting out choice words as loudly and as forcefully as possible, I believe speaking in coherent sentences in a respectful tone and normal cadence gets the message across better. Proper nouns are a plus too. This is in terms of a piece of paper taped to the device. Not vocalized like a drat idiot.
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Jan 19, 2012 21:06
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Coffee Wolf posted:This is in terms of a piece of paper taped to the device. Not vocalized like a drat idiot. Oh, I got it. The same could be said for notes just without the 'tone' thing. I should clarify, "some customers are dumb." I'm pretty sure silversiren is not going "PEN DON'T WORK" when someone tries to use the broken signature pad.
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Jan 19, 2012 22:10
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