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Trickle down?
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Aug 11, 2015 23:53
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Found out the guy the got to replace me for safety captain. I laughed. He's gonna be an interesting captain.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:28
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I can't believe this thread is still here  I posted once or twice, but I had a major breakdown and had to stop working in the frame shop. Apparently, an Anxiety Disorder and untreated PTSD do not a good Frame-Shop-Customer-Service Rep make. I almost miss it now that I work from home doing seamstressing and custom building computers for people... ..I said this to a best friend, they drew a comic for me, and I stopped missing it immediately.  Aaah....memories. I wonder what amazingly stupid complications they've added to the sales//whatever//framing procedures since I left store-that-isn't-hobble-lobble. When I left they had just gotten in projectors, thrown a bunch of new rules at us, and had been in trouble for running 40-60% off sales constantly for about half a year straight. So...all the customers were mad that the sales were only bi-weekly.  it's almost like it's too loving expensive in this economy to frame stuff with california redwood tree frames and museum glass. Hm.
Freakbox fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 11:38
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Closing tonight: : "Attention customers. The time is now 8:50, and the store is closing in 10 minutes."A customer who just entered widens her eyes and looks at me. "Oh my god! What time is it? You guys close at 10, right?"
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Aug 14, 2015 04:17
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AbrahamLincolnLog posted:"Oh my god! What time is it? You guys close at 10, right?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KWdcthRFk4
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Aug 14, 2015 11:51
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AbrahamLincolnLog posted:Closing tonight: Closing time is always fun, a woman came in at 11:56 at night to our store (we close at midnight) wanting to grab a bunch of stuff and recharge a prepaid card. She took until 12:05 despite me frequently calling that the store was closed and we needed her out. And then she paid with $105 in cash. I thought I was going to watch a human being die that day as my manager came out with the (already counted) register's cash drawer when I called it. Good times. UZworm fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 13:52
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Freakbox posted:
customframing.jpg It needs a sequel along the lines of "I have this three-feet-by-four-feet oil painting, can I get framed for less than $20?" My store's thing for the past year or more is having discounts like 50% off, then an additional 25% off after that. People keep asking "Oh, so it's 75% off?" Well, no, it isn't. The 25% comes off of the discounted price so it's actually like 62.5% off total, but I'll be damned if I'm going to explain that in any detail. Our saving grace is that everyone is bad at math and doesn't want to think about it. The latest bullshit, though, is what they're calling "emotional selling" which as it's been described to me sounds like it's just trying to psychologically manipulate the customer into spending more. I won't do it, if only because I lack the emotional awareness and social skills to pull it off. Management can't really complain since I already have the best sales in the store and among the best in the district. Mountaineer fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Aug 14, 2015 |
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Aug 14, 2015 14:23
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I work at a store that sells e-cigarettes. We wrap customers' coils for free (which is necessary maintenance on a rebuildable, which is a pretty popular category of product in this town). If you come in with your three buddies and ask me to wrap all of your coils, at least show some drat appreciation. Say thank you, or pay attention, or something. It takes about 10 minutes for each of them, start to finish, and my attention is entirely occupied during that time. Oh, and you, guy who loves to come in 5 minutes before close with a poo poo-eating grin and wants a custom juice recipe made and a coil wrapped? gently caress you, that adds another 15 minutes to my close, and I know you can come in anytime (the guy works at the barber shop across the street, and gets off 4 hours before we close. I see him walking home after his shift in the part of the day when we have no customers for a solid hour). It's still better than corporate retail.
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Aug 14, 2015 22:16
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:I work at a store that sells e-cigarettes. We wrap customers' coils for free (which is necessary maintenance on a rebuildable, which is a pretty popular category of product in this town). We cut stock blinds for free and there's a contracting group that routinely faxes in orders for 10-20 blinds at once, all cut at weird sizes. I die a little inside when one of those orders comes in on a busy day. Occasionally when people come in 5 minutes to closing I follow them around the store being super-ultra helpful, asking questions about their shopping, and straightening everything in their immediate vicinity. It works about 80% of the time (mostly the "just browsers") and the other 20% of customers are either desperate for a part or completely oblivious to other peoples' needs anyway.
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Aug 15, 2015 02:06
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gently caress fridays. Everybody wants everything for the weekend and nobody prepares for it. It is panic from open to close. Churches are the worst.
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Aug 15, 2015 03:08
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I'm surprised I'm only now finding out about this thread. I work at one of the big pharmacy chains (It rhymes with "Small beans!") as kind of a jack-of-all-trades guy; I can work the register obviously, but I also work photo, cosmetics or even as a pharm tech depending on the day. I'm pretty productive and all the managers love the work I do, so I actually like the job quite a bit... except for the days when I have to work the register, which are far, far too frequent because we keep losing cashiers and hiring established photo and pharm techs, which means they can only ever get me hours at cashier some weeks. My favorite dumb poo poo: 1. A dude shortchanged himself the other day. His total was 9.80 and he paid with a 20 so he was to get 10.20 back. After he handed me the 20 and I started getting his change, he handed me a quarter and said "Here, add this on." I said I didn't think it wouldn't help anything if he did that, and he said "Sure it will, just give me 10.05 back." It was like 7:00 in the morning and I had just woken up so I was only half there, and my mind just blew up when he said that. My brain was too busy exploding trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about so I just stared at him, dumbfounded. Was he trying to pull the world's most clever money-handling scam on me? Had I forgotten the basic tenants of addition and subtraction? Was I so tired that I was misreading numbers on the screen? He pulled up his phone calculator and said "See, 9.80 plus 25 cents is 10.05, learn some math, you idiot." So I gave him 10.05 and he stormed out. It took me several minutes to figure out that the jackass apparently somehow got in his head that 10.20 was his total and not the change he was due, so he shortchanged himself 15 cents while calling me an idiot. --- 2. A woman comes up to the register with a Hallmark card. Hallmark is a separate entity from us, technically, and their stuff never has deals or points or anything. We don't even stock that stuff, a Hallmark lady comes and does it all, so most of us generally don't know or care much about the section. This woman had a $2 card, and when it rang up at $2 she got enraged and started yelling about how it was "In the 99 cent section". The price was listed on the back of the card, like it is on all cards, and I could tell from across the store that the sign said "Starting at 99 cents", not just "99 cents". She gave the usual bait and switch speech, ending it by leaning in close to me (as close as she could, since I was across a counter and also a foot taller than her) and saying, "And you had better keep that in mind before Hallmark gets your little store in big trouble." My manager got a complaint later because I started laughing. --- 3. The store just recently made me put up giant yellow tags (similar to the ones that are used for sales, but that instead just list the regular price and "Smart buy!" on them) on every single cigarette. That means that behind me is an enormous, garish wall of yellow, since we have a tag on every single facing of each cigarette instead of a single tag at the start of each multiple facing. It makes it impossible to stock and count the cigarettes easily, and I have already had to change all of them once because of cigarette price changes. The explanation I was given was that "Corporate says that we've trained people to see sales when they see yellow tags." That's all well and good, but who the gently caress impulse buys cigarettes? --- 4. I had a cosmetics co-worker who was a goddamn nightmare when you were working register. She would find out what items were giving out the 'register rewards' (special in-store coupons for some amount of money under $10 that could be used on any purchase) and bring up like 10 of them to the register, making you ring them up in separate transactions each time so she got a boatload of the coupons. Then she would feign surprise when looking at her phone, realize that she had no money left, and say she needed to return most of them. She also loved buying like 20 things at a time -- it should be noted that we're a somewhat smaller store with only one register always manned and only one other one for long lines to be split -- and making you do them all in separate transactions so that she could use her coupons that only worked one per transaction. Half the time, her card would be declined anyway at some point and she'd leave you with 15 go-backs. I decided to file a complaint with the store manager because she would routinely hold up lines with this bullshit and eventually, the loss prevention manager for the district came in, tore her apart for about 20 minutes, and within a week she had gotten a new job at Walmart because 'They pay better'. Thank loving God. --- 5. The most popular racket at our store is when people go to another store, snatch a receipt from the garbage outside and then go in and steal all the poo poo on that receipt. Then they come to our store to try to return it. Every single time, their explanation is that THEY live near that other store, but they bought all the stuff for their girlfriend who lives in THIS area, and she didn't want it, so they figured it would just be easier to return it here. Seriously, there are like 15 guys who routinely do that at our store and they all use that exact story every single time. This came to a hilarious head when the dude said, without thinking, that he was here to return all of this stuff that he bought for his girlfriend after putting a beard trimmer and like three cases of men's razors down. The manager didn't even bother with the 'go to the back to check inventories' schtick and just kicked him out immediately for that one. --- 6. Guy clearly on drugs came to the photo department asking questions about if the cameras were there to catch copyright infringement and if we told the police about possible copyright problems. He then proceeded to print about 50 pictures of memes from his phone. --- 7. And finally, a "Hell is other retail workers" story. Guy comes in around 11:15, 45 minutes before we close. He is hysterical. He is loud, with crazy eyes, clearly sleep deprived as well. He is looking for a specific anti-itch product for his daughter. We do not carry that anti-itch product, and in fact I had never even heard of that anti-itch product. We showed him many other fine products, some of which even had the same active ingredient, but he was adamant that this and ONLY this product would work for him. He got mad at us for not carrying the product and frantically screamed at us to find him the product because, in his own words, "Time was running out". I called the 24-hour Kroger store a few miles away to see if they had the product and after getting through two associates, I was talking to someone they said was their inventory manager. I asked if they had the product, and she said "Yeah" without hesitation. I confirmed twice with her that it was that exact product and she confidently said yes back both times. I told the gentleman that they had it, and he gleefully left our store to head over there. 20 minutes later, we receive a phone call. Over the intercom, I hear, "UZworm, call on line 101." I never get calls, so I knew instantly that this was bad news. It was the gentleman, who arrived at the store and was told that they had never received such a phone call and that no, they did not have that product. Tears were involved in the 20 minute phone call I had with him as he said that he just wished that someone, anyone could help him heal his poor daughter with this anti-itch product and that I was a fool for believing them so readily when they said they had this product. So basically, gently caress Kroger. UZworm fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 15, 2015 07:53
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Coworkers are the worst. I work in the paint department of a home improvement store. Some days I kind of waft between who I hate more: my coworkers or customers. I'm incredibly envious of all the people who say their co-workers are one of the major reasons they were/are okay with working in retail, because I can't stand anyone I work with. Lazy, confused, or just plain whiny. It's the only thing I miss from working at a department store -- there, I liked my coworkers, they all worked well and I enjoyed talking to them. The job was lovely but I got to have friends. Here, not so much. We have the old guy who will just wander off. Won't see him for 30 minutes, only to see him walking back from the other end of the store towards paint after time. I have no idea where he went or why and whenever I ask I just get a shrug and "I was helping with something". No, dipshit, that isn't your job, because I know your best buddy who got you hired here works over there, and now there's six pissed off people standing in line at paint for over ten minutes because you left me alone and I had to cut blinds. Go talk to him after work. We have the "gangsta" who shows up 15-20 minutes late to literally half of his shifts, and threatens to loving fight customers to show off how tough he is. I have literally watched as he asked a customer he was arguing with if they "wanted to be a real nigga" and asked them to step out front. The customer was an astounding rear end in a top hat (the type that everyone recognizes and hides from when they enter) so, hurray, he didn't get written up for it and is still employed. It's amusing because this guy is actually the best coworker I have and does pretty good work but can't show up on time to save his life. Oh, and there's the whole assault thing, too. We have the 20-something bible thumper who hates his life because he got pressured into marriage at 20 to someone he doesn't love thanks to ultra-conservative parents pressuring them and now works part-time in a paint department. He doesn't want to do anything at work but talk and will just casually drop super offensive poo poo in chat like it's nothing, it's like he has no filter. We'll just be talking about video games or something and out of nowhere he'll drop "and those loving fags went too far" (oh -- of course, he hates gays, btw). All I can do is lure him around (he follows me like a lost puppy) and hope he spouts something in front of a customer sometime. Then finally we have the "crazy guy". Only speaks half english/half spanish sentences and will just flip poo poo at people from other departments -- oh and he can't understand a single direction. I had to show him how to tint loving paint six times because the first five times he watched me do it, went to do it himself, then threw his hands up and went "I don't understand, you talked too fast!!!" which is the excuse he uses for literally everything, including arguing with customers. If I spoke any loving slower I would be speaking individual syllables. So far, my team has accrued four write-ups in my time here. Once for smoking in the parking lot (smoke-free business), and three times for taking off their uniforms and wandering away from the store on their paid 15 minute breaks. You'd think after the first time they did it and got in trouble they'd figure it out but no, of course not. To put it in perspective how bad everyone else is: after working here for three months the other full-time guy left for another company and they gave me the position without even interviewing anyone because they weren't even going to bother considering the others. I can show up on time, stand in one place for longer than 20 minutes, and don't threaten customers with violence so I'm the best employee they've ever seen. And now one about customers: If you aren't braindead, you can probably figure out how tinting paint works. You have white paint, then add color to it. If you aren't an absolute moron you can probably figure out that you can't turn red into blue, or turn it back into white paint -- the color wheel is an integral part of passing kindergarten. And yet, as many of you probably know, hardware stores sell "oops" or "mistint" paint, and customers cannot figure it out. "What color is it?" It is the color that is on the lid. "Are you sure?" Yes. I put it there. "Can you open it to make sure?" I open the can and, to everyone's surprise, it is the color that is on the lid. Then the real fun begins. "Can you make it <color>?" Yes, but then it is a custom color and will be full price. "Why?" Because that can you're holding is a quarter of the usual price because you can't pick the color. "Oh. Do you have any white mistint?" If it's white it can't be a mistint because it hasn't been mistinted. The customer stomps off because they couldn't buy a gallon custom mixed color paint for $6. I then repeat this conversation every 30 minutes until a contractor who doesn't give a poo poo about the color just buys it. AbrahamLincolnLog fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Aug 15, 2015 |
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Aug 15, 2015 16:41
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AbrahamLincolnLog posted:The customer stomps off because they couldn't buy a gallon custom mixed color paint for $6. I then repeat this conversation every 30 minutes until a contractor who doesn't give a poo poo about the color just buys it. Bundle them in packages of four with a five gallon pail and tell them they are getting deal on brown paint.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:09
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Ah, these stories sound so familiar. Reminds me of the year I spent at your store's closest competitor, including returning stolen poo poo without receipts, and buying a bunch of crap for rewards only to return it the next day. I'll have to tell some stories sometime I'm not on my phone.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:48
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Sorry for the double post, but this just happened. A woman and her husband came in looking for something for military ball, which is where a lot of our dress sales come this time of year so that's fine. She has her husband ask if we rent dresses, which we do not, so they start browsing and she exclaims that the prices are "bullshit"and asks for a deal. I tell her that all the non closeout floor length gowns are already half off, and she repeats that that's bullshit, because the gown she's holding was over $400 originally, and she wants a gown under $100, so I direct her tour clearance and closeout rack because, sorry lady, you're not gonna find a new designer gown for that kind of price unless it's damaged or several seasons old. She immediately grabs three gowns, a size six, a 1/2, and a zero, and tries on the six. She can't zip it, her husband can't zip it, and they ask me for help, and I see that I can't pull the gown closed to zip it without damaging it, and tell her so, so she sighs heavily, admires herself in the mirror, and goes back to the dressing room, where the 1/2 gown is hanging. I don't know the size of the second dress, but I check the one waiting on the rack and inform her that it's a zero and I'm going to put it back, and she says, "No you can't, I still gotta try it on!" Lady. A six was too small. A zero will be way too small. I'm not letting you try on a dress that's several sizes too small, possibly damaging it in the process. Its going back. (The other dress, thankfully, was a two piece, and when the top didn't fit, she let me put it back undamaged.) So she's having a bit if a temper tantrum and I ask her what size she wears, and SHE DOESN'T KNOW. How the duck a woman can not know what size she wnd showibgears is beyond me, but that's what she says! What size are her jeans, I ask, and her husband flips back the waistband and informs me that they're a nine, which is junior sizing, so I tell her that between the difference in junior and misses sizing, and the fact that evening gowns tend to run small, to look for a 12 and show her a few options. This... did not go over well. Apparently the act of asking her size, suggesting what size to look for, and showing her options was a horrible insult, because I was saying she's fat, and she's not fat, I'M fat, and she's the right size and should be able to find a dress and how DARE I not be more helpful! She ended with storming out and saying she'll just buy a dress SOMEWHERE ELSE, where they're HELPFUL and don't call her FAT. tl:dr, woman doesn't know her size, gets mad when she can't fit in tiny sizes, gets madder when I ask her size and show her gowns that would fit. *disclaimer: I am fat, working on losing weight, and shrug off weight-related insults pretty easily, I don't know what reaction she was looking for, but since she left, I also don't care.
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Aug 15, 2015 19:55
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Phone call today: "Hello, this is Abraham Lincoln in the paint department, how can I help you?" "Hi, do you have any oops paint?" "Let me check." I go and look and, yes, we have about six gallons of mistinted paint in a variety of colors. "Yes, we have six gallons currently." "Okay, good. Are any of them white?" God drat it. Of course. Here we go again. As I mentioned in my last post, it's very rudimentary logic that untinted paint can't be a mistint. "No... if it's white, it hasn't been tinted, so it can't possibly be oops paint." "Yes it can. You can make it white when you mistint it." "...That's not how that works." "Yes it is! I used to work there." "Oh, good! Tell you what -- come down to the store. If you can make brown and red paint into white paint, I will personally buy you all six gallons." Click. Thought so.
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Aug 16, 2015 04:22
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So starting next week at my closing store all sales are going to be final, returns are not going to happen. I cannot wait to see the fallout from that, I swear more people return poo poo to the store then they actually buy stuff.
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Aug 16, 2015 05:40
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AbrahamLincolnLog posted:Phone call today: I disagree. You need some very basic underlying knowledge to understand your point. I am sure plenty of people have no clue about paint and do not trust retail people. That said, he is an rear end for lying about having worked there. But I get why he *may* have honestly thought there is white oops paint.
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Aug 16, 2015 05:55
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The only thing I miss about any of my retail jobs is mixing paint. That poo poo was wierdly fun to do.
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Aug 16, 2015 07:16
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Sankis posted:The only thing I miss about any of my retail jobs is mixing paint. That poo poo was wierdly fun to do. Was it the vibrating of the machine?
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Aug 16, 2015 07:52
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Kickshaw posted:Ah, these stories sound so familiar. Reminds me of the year I spent at your store's closest competitor, including returning stolen poo poo without receipts, and buying a bunch of crap for rewards only to return it the next day. I'll have to tell some stories sometime I'm not on my phone. The triple-letter? I've heard that they treat their employees way worse than my store every time I've talked to someone who works there, especially Pharm Techs. I'll always be glad that we don't have to deal with having to sign people up for our rewards program or getting a certain % of rewards put in every day or else hours are cut. Also, a really drunk woman came in five minutes before we closed and started flirting with me. Specifically, she said that she was going to forcibly stay in the store after we closed just so that she could have me 'manhandle her out the door'. That probably goes into the books as the weirdest thing I've had happen to me around close, which is probably a good thing.
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Aug 16, 2015 11:56
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UZworm posted:The triple-letter? I've heard that they treat their employees way worse than my store every time I've talked to someone who works there, especially Pharm Techs. I'll always be glad that we don't have to deal with having to sign people up for our rewards program or getting a certain % of rewards put in every day or else hours are cut. So, how was it?
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Aug 16, 2015 15:14
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At my store, one of our self checkouts has difficulty dispensing bills. So occasionally when a customer requests cash back, or needs change for his transaction, they just won't happen. My error screen shows to check for jams/misalignments/etc/whatever, so I call over the front-end leader to fix the issue for me, as she has the keys. She comes over, and her solution is to literally repeatedly kick the bill compartment repeatedly while pressing the on-screen button. It worked, it was quick and easy, but I found it kind of off? Like, our department head was new, and doesn't exactly scream "professional," so to be safe, I took that with a grain of salt and the next time it happened, I called over the head cashier. She immediately went through the same motions, and when it didn't respond, she did it the intended way. Long story short, I've seen the department manager of the front end, two different head cashiers, the department head for a different department, as well as two normal cashiers kick this machine without shame. I finally decide alright, okay, it's pretty rough around the edges but if that's the prescribed solution then whatever. Yesterday I was manning the self checkouts, and number 7 refuses to spit out the bills. I go up, apologize to the customer, and (gently) kick the machine a few times when an assistant manager walks out of the breakroom. She looks absolutely terrified and somewhat frustrated, saying "whoa whoaaa there, that's nottt how we fix that bud. let me get [head cashier] with the keys." Immediately, the department manager who was watching the front end at the time (head cashiers were in a meeting) came over after seeing the assistant manager hurriedly rush off, and immediately goes "oh, here's how you fix this" and starts kicking the machine. Then shortly after, the actual head cashier comes over, unlocks the bin and fixes the issue before whispering "don't let [assistant manager] see you kicking the machine" in a clearly frustrated tone and just. ugh. no. yesterday was already so frustrating for so many reasons and that event made my last hour of the day so incredibly difficult. I looked like a spectacular brand of idiot in front of the assistant manager and the head cashier (who already seems to have a low opinion of me !!), while if I passed blame to anyone else it'd look like I was making excuses or something. Plus the department head of the front end whom I first saw employ this particular method is literally best friends with the assistant manager, so there's absolutely no way that could have worked out, and if I said I saw the other head cashier doing it then I risk getting her in trouble, and she's the only person who I feel trusts my abilities and aa Aa a aAA aAAAAAAA
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Aug 16, 2015 20:20
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Soothe your bosoms. I'm guessing you're not allowed to put a sign on the machine saying NO CASH or disable the cash-back option on the screen or something that would just avoid the whole loving problem, right? Also, don't feel too bad about "getting caught". It's likely that kicking the machine is an open secret and the only person who cares is that one manager. That said, I'd just call your supervisor/dh from now on and sweetly ask THEM to fix it. CYA in case the manager pops up again, and also it's more likely to get fixed (eventually) if the people in charge have to keep dealing with it instead of just letting the cashiers end-run the issue.
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Aug 17, 2015 05:10
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Faerunner posted:I'm guessing you're not allowed to put a sign on the machine saying NO CASH Like that's going to stop anyone? Come on. I have three to four customers per day walk up to the entrance door, read the gigantic, bold, red text that states "NOT AN EXIT", then turn and ask why the door won't open. I wouldn't worry about it. The manager probably knows that's how you fix it and just didn't want the customer to think kicking poo poo to make it work was normal in the store. If that was the only time they brought it up you probably don't have anything to worry about, but I do echo this: Faerunner posted:it's more likely to get fixed (eventually) if the people in charge have to keep dealing with it instead of just letting the cashiers end-run the issue. In most cases the managers don't give a drat if you have to deal with something lovely. But once they are interrupted multiple times a day to do it, that's a big issue and will be resolved.
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Aug 17, 2015 05:51
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AbrahamLincolnLog posted:Like that's going to stop anyone? Eh, it might filter one or two people.  I can be hopeful, right?
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Aug 17, 2015 06:02
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Gotta fire an employee because employees are not allowed to directly or indirectly threaten customers. Long story short the kid said something stupid that was overheard by a troublesome customer who was later kicked out that day and then the next day and the customer's mom called home office and said the employee threatened to assault her little rear end in a top hat. Then she begged us to let this kid come back and not ban him. e: well I'm happy that the employee wasn't really angry about it. He kinda expected it. I told him to just enjoy the rest of the summer he has left before high school and he said he'd just find a new job. Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 21:24
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I work for a big Australian supermarket chain as... well, I wear many hats. I'm a produce assistant, cashier, ex-store safety team leader (current safety team member), run the store social club and to top it all off, I'm the store union representative. I've had a loving gutfull of this job. For a variety of reasons. - I'm over-qualified, but have been straight up told by the store manager that I don't have any "management qualities", and that he didn't see me as a leader. I have 2 bachelor degrees and a Cert 4 in business, that I'm considering turning into a diploma, with prior experience as an Assistant Store Manager. I am treated as a supervisor by all of the department managers and am often asked for advice regarding staff management and other managerial duties by several of them. I was the backup backdock operations manager (filled in for him when he went on holidays/was sick) up until the company decided to remove the pay grade for that role. They still wanted me to fill in for him (as did he; then he could enjoy his time off without worrying about returning to a shitstorm) but as the role was now no longer considered a "specialised position", there would be no corresponding pay increase while working it, so I refused. I honestly don't care if the managers take my ideas, freely given, and don't give me credit. I'm happy to help. I don't even want to be a manager, since I see them get made to work 14-16 hour days for what amounts to less money than I'm on (due to the sheer number of hours and that they are on a salary). I couldn't be a manager these days anyway; the company has removed the annual bonuses they used to get, and any new managers they bring on since about 2 years ago have gotten increasingly worse salary packages, (A person who was promoted 2 years ago could expect around $900-$1000 a week - now the same person could expect $700-$800 a week after tax, with regular shitkickers making $700 before tax) and my personal circumstances have changed due to having kids (my wife works in the medical field and gets a lot of on-call work, so my available hours are pretty much limited to within the 6am-5pm timeframe ie. the hours the kids can be in daycare. What pisses me off is the blatant "Yeah, we'll use you like a manager, ask your opinion and even take your advice, and fully understand and defer to your knowledge and skills, but when asked directly, no, you're absolutely not suitable for any position above what you currently are. No chance." - I generally enjoy my role as a union representative, but gently caress me does it get frustrating when I have a member approach me with a problem, ask my advice, then ignore it. Especially if it's serious. Staff member: "Oh no, *so-and-so* has accused me of theft, and *manager* has taken their side, even though I have reciepts and witnesses that prove my innocence! Also, security cameras prove it! But they've still stripped me of my supervisor priveliges and told everyone I stole! Whatever can I do?" Me: Holy poo poo, you were accused, proven innocent by 2 sets of evidence to the contrary and multiple witnesses, and you were still punished?! Well for starters we can get you your old job back, and backpay, and nail some asses to some walls, that is what we can loving do. Staff member: "I thought so! It is so unfair! Thank you, but nevermind, bye!" The company has something against efficiency, I'm certain of it. I'm positive they want people worked off their feet for the entirety of their shifts. For example, our produce department used to have a refrigerated cabinet that contained all the corn, capscicum, swedes, leafy vegetables and carrots, that sort of thing. The old cabinet allowed 1 crate of capscicum to go up, maybe 1.5 crates if you stacked it properly. You filled that, then maybe you'd have to top it up on a normal day, about 3 or 4 hours later. Spring onion shallots you'd get 2 and a half crates up comfortably, then fill them again in about 3 hours. Broccoli, there is an easy 4 crates, refilled every 1.5-2 hours. Now, after a refit, our new and improved cabinet certainly looks pretty, but you cannot fit more than half a crate of capscicum up. Spring onion shallots will only fit 1 crate up on their stupid refrigerated stairs, and broccoli, you will barely fit 1 crate up. So instead of having 3 employees opening the department in the morning, filling, say, shallots, then filling capscicum, then broccoli, then filling whatever else, and so on, by the time they have finished filling everything, the poo poo they filled first will be empty, so they have to start again. Now that looks great on paper, but that is 3 people doing nothing but filling shelves all day - that doesn't include cutting fruit for display/sale, the ticketing that needs to be done, the price increases and decreases, rostering, putting the load away, rotating, marking down soon to be out of date stock, filling the pre-packed salads and breaks. And the department only employs 6 people - the manager, the 2ic, 2 full timers, 1 part timer and a casual, to cover the stores entire opening ours monday to saturday. But increase the wage budget? Not on your loving life. The icing on the cake is I got called up into the office last week to be told I needed to "pull my weight" and "step up my game" because the store manager had heard - from my peers - that I was lazy and unwilling to work, wasting time and generally being a terrible employee. I flat out told him to speak to my line managers, and review security tapes if he wanted to - both would give more than enough evidence as to my work ethic. Hell, I'm only in produce at the moment covering for the 2ic because he is on holiday - so I'm doing everything he would have normally done during startup, as well as my own work. His reply was that since I was the union rep, the staff look up to me, and I should hold myself to a higher standard. gently caress the place. I need a better job, and I need it 4 years ago.
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Aug 18, 2015 10:42
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UZworm posted:I'll always be glad that we don't have to deal with having to sign people up for our rewards program or getting a certain % of rewards put in every day or else hours are cut. My Gas Station got rewards cards, every loving time I hear "you need to sign more people up for reward cards" I want to spend the next week cutting every last one of those Plastic poo poo waffers into a patriotic eagle art piece and setting it up for display in the middle of the store. Then dare them to fire me for refusing to take apart the "Freedom Eagle" statue I just made. It's a loving gas station you retards, no one wants to spend an extra 5 minutes being talked into taking a rewards card that makes their transaction take an extra minute because our registers are from the 1960s. People want to run in, get their poo poo, and get out. If you want to bring people in how about you price competitively instead of $8 for a box of cereal. Ugh. princecoo posted:gently caress me does it get frustrating when I have a member approach me with a problem, ask my advice, then ignore it. Especially if it's serious. Oh poo poo, this. Thank you for reminding me. So we have a roller grill and coffee. We have to keep X number of coffee pots out each day, X being the number we have in the store, if something is out, we just fill the pot up with something similar, the only exception being decaf, because some people can't have caffeine. Just the other day Red came up and asked me about the coffee, it went like this: Red: Hey, this coffee pot is busted, and we don't have the coffee that goes in it. Me: It's only damaged on the outside, and just fill it up with a different blend. Like Regular, I guess. Red: But this is a _____ blend, won't people notice. Me: Probably, but we have flavorings and stuff, so they can hide the taste if it's not right. Red: But it's not the right flavor. Me: (at this point, I stopped doing what I was doing to just look at her. Also I was trying to come up with a nice way of saying "Just shut the gently caress up and do it, Jesus Christ.") Red: Don't you see a problem with that!? Me: That's just how we do things. It was really at that last line that I realized I have deep seated anger issues, because while I didn't start screaming at her or start punching things, I was now furious. See, I did see a few problems with it, but probably not in the same way she did. I believe her problems were "it's going to taste weird." My Problems were as listed: 1) Why the gently caress are you asking me what to do if you don't want to take my advise? 2) Why the gently caress is this the first time you noticed that we're out of _____ blend when you have spent 5 hours cleaning the coffee pots and their area while I have cleaned the bathrooms and restocked the coolers and shelves, in the same time? 3) Why the gently caress is it the coffee you have this breakdown about (other than it is basically the only thing you work on all night), when you do other things like ignore safety rules, mop right in the middle of the busy part of the shift, and a bunch of other inefficient poo poo that you won't listen to me about? 4) And here's the big one, Why the gently caress do you care if the coffee tastes slightly off when just a few feet away we have a roller grill that people are constantly mislabeling things on. And this is stuff like Pork Products being labeled as Beef, which a few religions are a bit strict about? Anora fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 11:14
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Faerunner posted:Eh, it might filter one or two people. What customers think is the No. 1 rule of retail: The customer is always right. What retail workers know is the real No. 1 rule of retail: The customer is always stupid. thewireguy posted:So, how was it? I usually make it a point not to gently caress drunk Broncos fans UZworm fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Aug 18, 2015 |
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Aug 18, 2015 14:16
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So I'm a little conflicted here.. We're guaranteed two 15 minute breaks and a lunch over an 8 hour shift. The way it worked out today was I finished my lunch, had one more break to take, and had to cover the other guy in the department's last break. I come back from lunch, 8:05ish, and tell the other guy to go on his last break. He says I have to take a poo poo. I said whatever, it's your last break, do whatever you want. In my department we're pretty lenient about "15 minutes". If you take 20, whatever, who cares. This guy went and took a dump and then took his "15". I work nights, I've got poo poo to do. Trucks,stocking, whatever. Come 8:33, after our door is down, I'm looking for this guy. Come to find out, he's on his break still, upstairs. He finally comes back, and I say dude what the gently caress were you doing? He immediately gets defensive saying I've done the same thing and he's timed it and whatnot, and then gets very confrontational about it. Never mind that I'm an eight year employee and he's been there maaaaybe 2. He says I should've understood he was taking a poop break and his regular break, constituting about 30 minutes and putting me back from doing work later. Am I wrong for being salty at this guy? As a caveat to his lovely attitude, the photo lab supervisor asked one of us to take back his two trash bags of trash because he was on OT. I said yeah just to get him to go away. After he left the kid in question said "gently caress that I'm not going back there." He clocked out 10 minutes early. Am I just salty or is this guy a terrible employee?
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Aug 19, 2015 10:16
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Sounds bad to me. Having some wiggle room on time for breaks is good, but taking a half hour break is definitely abusing an informal rule. If you're gonna take a bathroom break that long then it's clearly eating into your regular break time. Leaving early when there's still work to be done is also really rude.
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Aug 19, 2015 15:10
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Perhaps he has a medical problem. Loudly enquire how his bowels are whenever you see him and explain you are concerned following his quarter hour poop breaks and think he should seek medical assistance.
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Aug 19, 2015 15:16
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Buy him some Metamucil, and post a notice in the break room on the importance of fibre to a healthy colon and regular bowel movements. Get a store colonic team together, champion the cause, make work sheets do everyone can track their poops, have prizes for the most regular poops. That is the true spirit of retail.
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Aug 19, 2015 15:22
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Is the 15 minute break off clock? Like do you punch out for it? Ours at work aren't and we get paid for them. When I take mine I do poop before but I would never take so long that it turns into a paid 30 min break. Especially close to closing/being busy I take my break and get back to work because I want to get home more than being paid to poop.
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Aug 19, 2015 15:32
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Pumpy Dumper posted:Is the 15 minute break off clock? Like do you punch out for it? Ours at work aren't and we get paid for them. When I take mine I do poop before but I would never take so long that it turns into a paid 30 min break. Especially close to closing/being busy I take my break and get back to work because I want to get home more than being paid to poop. No, it's on the clock. Technically if you have to go to the bathroom, you can go as needed. It's just that this was 30 minutes before closing and he didn't really say anything to let me know that he planned on making GBS threads and then following that up with his 15 (20+). How I really knew it was bad was when the guys who went upstairs for their breaks after him came down before him. The thing that gets me is that he was closing our sales department. It's the easiest department to close and literally in and of itself is almost like a break. If he had come back at a normal time (8:25) then all he has to do is: A) Wait 10 minutes for the door to come down, possibly feign at folding Some clothes. B) Shut down the TVs, close the laptops C) Find a supervisor or manager and give them the keys on his way to the time clock. Instead he gets stuck on stupid and calls me "nigga" over and over again while I'm trying to figure out how he thought it was cool to take a half hour break. Any time you try to talk to this guy about anything he may be doing wrong he does that and gets really defensive and kind of turtles up. Our shifts overlap today so we'll see if he's still grumpy in a few hours I guess. Oh and for the record,it's not like I never poop on the clock. But when I do it, it's almost always at night when we're stocking and unloading trucks. I always try to finish up with my portion of the work before I do the deed. If I'm doing that during business hours, I'm waiting for that paid 15 and getting it done in that time. Santheb fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 16:13
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He's a lovely employee. (Literally, wa-hey!) Reminds me of a guy where I work who, at least once a day when he's working register, will ask the photo or cosmetics person if they can take the front so he can 'go to the bathroom real quick'. These bathroom breaks have never taken fewer than 15 minutes and often stretch to 20. I've told the manager every single time he's done this and they're apparently just throwing him into the Pharmacy as a tech, where he used to be, so they don't have to deal with his dipshittery any more in the front. Of course, that means more shifts for me at the front because we refuse to hire anyone new 
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Aug 19, 2015 16:16
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I hate when people abuse the leniency of breaks. We work in the back of the store, so there's less supervising going on, and people do indeed take advantage of that. Often times I will make smart rear end comments and become passive aggressive when people pull that poo poo. It wouldn't be so bad if the people in question were half decent workers, but they're not. I leave them alone, they talk talk talk to coworkers. If I micromanage them, they do everything half-assed. So I don't feel guilty or feel like an rear end in a top hat when I do start to get passive aggressive with them about wanting to take a break. Speaking of breaks, I mentioned this in the distant past, but gently caress the people who love smoking or like to drink coffee. In addition to actual breaks, these people feel the need to have a smoke each time they hear a call for someone to receive truck, they go out back when the doors open. Or they will sneak in a quick smoke after hitting the bathroom. I hope this e-cigarette thing catches on because I've seen I few puff on that stuff in the work place and continue on working. Thankfully at the current store I work there are no smokers in our department!! Also our big time coffee drinker was recently transferred to another store. That idiot would take so long to get his coffee. When he got back, he'd chit chat with our seafood manager for a few additional minutes, every time. 1 hour before his shift ends, he'd tell me he'll take his last break and upload the order. Of course I wouldn't see him again unless he felt the need to chit chat would or seafood manager again. It was like clock-work.
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Aug 19, 2015 17:54
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That dude is a terrible employee and should be strictly reminded that it's not cool to inconvenience your coworkers so you can take a 15-minute poo poo and a 15-minute break... you do that when you're working with somebody who doesn't have anything better to do, not when somebody's going out of their way to cover for your lazy ungrateful rear end. Reminds me of a guy who worked with us this summer... he would 1. Station himself in the far corner of the department and stay there all day only helping the customers who directly approached him, 2. Use his phone in full view of other customers/associates 3. Refuse to take initiative on anything that had to be done. 4. Ditch customers when they needed help because it was time for his break/lunch/clock out. 5. Avoid like a pro. One coworker caught him wandering around another department just quietly staring at the shelves when he was supposed to be helping close and pack out freight. Other times we'd ask him to do something and he'd tell us he needed to do one thing first, and disappear and nobody would see him for a solid hour afterwards. He once told me we needed to bring some product out to the front of the store, but failed to do even the 30 second walk around the corner it would have taken to confirm the location and quantity of said product. Because the product was palletized and he THOUGHT it should be already outside, he told me we needed a forklift to move it. I told him (three times over the course of a very busy 30 minutes) that he should call the forklift operator himself and get it done, and he would say nothing, wander back to his corner, and come back ten minutes later to ask me if I'd done it yet. I finally got the poor associate running the fork to come all the way around the building only to discover there was no product where Idiot said it should be. So I sent the forklift back to work, and spent another two minutes finding the product inside (where the fork couldn't be used anyway). Went to get Idiot to flag for me so I could use the other machine to bring him his product, and he said "Oh, we aren't supposed to move that stuff from inside... let's just leave the space empty!" and went back to standing around.  Several times he flat-out told customers approaching him for help that he was going on break and that one of us would help them. He usually failed to tell whichever associate was supposed to help that they actually needed to go cover for him, resulting in the customer standing around helplessly and then getting mad at us because we were busy and took a while to realize that Idiot had disappeared again. Once he did manage to tell us he was "going on break" as he walked away from 3 waiting customers, but didn't specify if it was a paid 15 or an unpaid lunch, thereby guaranteeing we didn't know what time to expect him back. Someone checked the schedule and figured out it was his lunch break... but in the meantime, I ended up loading about 70 bags of wet mulch. By myself. He also liked to casually tell us that he was an app developer  and was working on all these cool things and this was just a job to fund his app development for a little while.I'm really, really glad that he is no longer working at our store. Oh, and smoke breaks/e-cigs... I don't mind smoke breaks but our store had to really crack down on people taking them because they'd go out 4-5 times per day in addition to their 15s and sometimes on their lunch (almost always resulting in them coming back from lunch late). I don't mind the e-cig smell (only a few of the flavors seem to smell at all, which is cool) and I'm fine with people smoking them in the break room or w/e. Faerunner fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 18:29
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AbrahamLincolnLog posted:"No... if it's white, it hasn't been tinted, so it can't possibly be oops paint." Just saying, you can do plenty of tints that are more or less white, but not ultra-white untinted.
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Aug 19, 2015 20:24
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