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Here's another theft-related quickie: Last weekend, one of our AP was walking the store when he noticed a guy putting two of a large item that people normally only buy one of on a cart. He kept an eye on this guy as he went several aisles over and stashed one of the items in an out-of-the-way spot, then went up front and paid for the remaining one he had. The guy wheeled it out to his car and put it away, then came back inside and grabbed the other one and sneakily wheeled it up to returns to try and return it on the receipt he had. As soon as he tried, he got busted. Having competent AP personnel that know how to do their job well really makes a world of difference.
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Oct 26, 2013 14:07
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One of our cashiers got done by a shoplifter a year ago. A guy bought a lawn mower that was on a really good special and a bit later on we found the same lawn mower in the aisle without it's box. Turns out the guy took the mower out of the box and had a little spree filling the box with a whole bunch of stuff and sealing it back up and just paying for the lawn mower. I think he got away with a couple of grands worth of electronics.
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Oct 26, 2013 14:22
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Curiosity posted:Caught at the store? As in stopped? I can't imagine how this would go. Maybe it's because I worked in small retail but both the stores I worked for said if I saw someone steal then I can go after them and stop them from leaving the store.
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Oct 26, 2013 14:43
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We're out of most of our best-selling products indefinitely right now because I work for a sole proprietorship and the owner gambled away the money he was gonna pay that supplier with. Staff morale's pretty low right now.
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Oct 26, 2013 15:03
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Nearly our entire night crew got into it with a "gang" because one of them was trying to walk out with razor cartridges. It was his second attempt that night (he realized he was being tailed earlier in the night, ditched them, and left) and he saw our LP person before she saw him so pushed her down. Things escalated from there, but in the end, they got taken by the cops and our LP being pushed down is the worst of what happened. Surprisingly nothing happened to anyone on the night crew especially since everything went down outside and there was physical contact between the two groups.
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Oct 26, 2013 15:31
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bowmore posted:One of our cashiers got done by a shoplifter a year ago. A guy bought a lawn mower that was on a really good special and a bit later on we found the same lawn mower in the aisle without it's box. Turns out the guy took the mower out of the box and had a little spree filling the box with a whole bunch of stuff and sealing it back up and just paying for the lawn mower. I think he got away with a couple of grands worth of electronics. Classic box stuff, something we have to keep an eye out for, too. Also, barcode switching. But that's generally prevented by the fact that 80% plus of our products have the barcode printed on rather than stickered on. Corkscrew posted:Shrink's one of our big metrics but isn't counted towards or against our bonus except as it pertains to an overall picture of profitability. As a department head, I have to complete weekly shrink reports on a variety of topics, everything from associate and cashier knowledge to cycle counts, markdowns, schedule adherence, and so on. It's a lot of stuff to keep track of. Fortunately, in addition to our store smashing sales plans on a weekly basis, we also came in way under last year's shrink at our most recent inventory, so we're doing pretty well overall. Yeah, we still keep a pretty heavy tab on shrink, too. It's fun coming in 2 hours before the store opens on a Sunday morning to do cycle counts.
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Oct 26, 2013 16:19
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YF19pilot posted:Ours is similar to this, but I suppose a tad more proactive (not by much). We also do the "prevent shoplifting by using Super Excellent A-1 Double Plus Good Top Customer Service!" We still can't accuse anyone of shoplifting, or actually physically touch them, but the cashiers, head cashier, MoD, or whoever is in position to, can attempt to "block" the shoplifter from leaving. It basically boils down to the cashier stands at the exit and asks the person attempting to leave if they (the cashier) could verify their purchase by reviewing the person's receipt, and then offer to ring up any merchandise which there is no receipt for. If the person hands over any unpaid merchandise, we're not allowed to detain them, but the person can basically pay for the items or is free to leave (the incident gets logged either way). However, if the person ignores the cashier's request and pushes out anyways, the only thing we can do at that point is to watch (from the store, not actually follow the person) and get a description of the vehicle so we can inform the cops and our sister stores in the area. We did have a similar policy, mainly only if the customer set off the EAS alarm at the door. We were basically supposed to play it dumb and just be like "Oh did you mean to purchase this? Let me ring that up for you." But we weren't allowed to block anyone, so it mainly relied on people stopping willingly. Most people (even the ones who weren't thieves and just didn't get a tag deactivated) wouldn't stop at all. Our biggest problem was shoes. People would routinely find ways to snap security tags off expensive shoes, put them on (hiding their old shoes) and just walk out of the store with them. They would do the same with clothing, by trying it on and ripping off all the tags. The thing was, we were constantly understaffed so I was generally the one expected to watch the shoe department (that was behind me as I checked people out and blocked by shelving), dressing rooms (also behind me) and check out customers at the same time. And I guess somehow memorize customers shoes as they walked in? We had two employees that witnessed some kids stealing trading cards and stopped them, which in their eyes made them king poo poo of store basically because they bragged about it constantly. 
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Oct 26, 2013 17:03
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Kimmalah posted:We did have a similar policy, mainly only if the customer set off the EAS alarm at the door. We were basically supposed to play it dumb and just be like "Oh did you mean to purchase this? Let me ring that up for you." But we weren't allowed to block anyone, so it mainly relied on people stopping willingly. Most people (even the ones who weren't thieves and just didn't get a tag deactivated) wouldn't stop at all. I suppose 'block' isn't too accurate. Basically, if we were in position to do so (already standing at the EAS/exit) we could stand in the way, but not actually actively attempt to prevent the person from leaving (as that falls into unlawful detention). We can't rush over and try to stop someone who has already passed the EAS gate, but there is usually a Head Cashier standing by the main exit, and the cashier at the Lawn & Garden is able to step into the path of the exit if need be. But again, it's that we're making ourselves to be another inconvenient obstacle rather than actually preventing anyone from leaving. But yeah, we play that whole "Oh, I'm sorry we forgot to ring this up for you! Would you like me to ring that up for you now?"
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Oct 26, 2013 17:50
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I hate my co-workers. There's a ton of lovely attitude to go around, but that's part of the "retail work culture" experience. And then there's the sour grapes bitter whining that comes when people at our store actually get promoted. One of our dairy guys was recently promoted to a full time receiving position. It's out of the union, but it's also part of LP/security so they really only put trustworthy people there so as long as he doesn't do anything stupid, he'll be fine. The problem is, everyone's griping that he only got it by constantly harassing our HR guy and store manager about wanting a full-time position. But that tends to ignore the fact that he's a good, reliable worker that doesn't need to be constantly prodded back to work and isn't a consummate shitstarter on the shift. We'll also ignore the recent availability of the biannual bidsheets for full-time consideration and/or any open management positions in area. And everyone that was complaining also loudly proclaimed that they weren't filling those out because they didn't want to be stuck there forever. The biggest complainer is someone who had been promoted earlier this year, but wasn't considered because he didn't fill out the sheets. He already has a full-time position there, but doesn't want full-time hours. And the position the other guy got is a job that has a ton of hours and is routinely leaned on to stay over and help out when a lot of people call out, so it's not like the guy who refuses to take the hours given to him would be better suited to a busier job that has a higher hour requirement. My co-workers are seriously the worst part of my job and I'm thankful that I can listen to music for a large part of my shift.
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Oct 27, 2013 17:28
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Over the summer our store had a child sized man try to push a thousand dollar pool out a fire exit. Dude could barely move it. We called the cops after taking a pallet jack from him. That wasn't enough to stop him though. He proceeded to try to push it on the floor like a tackle sled. Cops showed up threw him in the back of the car and informed us he had warrants for assault out on him and a 9 inch hunting knife. Fun times.
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Oct 27, 2013 17:34
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a big fat bunny posted:I hate my co-workers. There's a ton of lovely attitude to go around, but that's part of the "retail work culture" experience. And then there's the sour grapes bitter whining that comes when people at our store actually get promoted. There's "lovely attitudes" about working retail, and then there's spite. It's one thing to be "I don't like working here/our customers suck" and to bitch about coworkers over nothing and be a bunch of back-biters. Your coworkers need an attitude adjustment if they're going to get pissy because someone went an extra step to get a better job and got it. I could understand if people gripe about coworkers who don't pull their weight (one member in particular of our WE team seems to avoid work altogether). But to gripe about someone who does work receiving recognition for his work is stupid.
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Oct 27, 2013 17:43
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I've got a quick question for the folks here, maybe someone can help me on this. I've noticed in the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland Ohio) area, the shelves at Target are getting bare. They're not just bare, but brands that I used to buy (food products) have basically disappeared. Is this an issue of demand outpacing supply, Target not hiring enough people, supply chain problems, or what? My understanding is that WalMart had issues where they didn't have enough people staffed to get products out on the shelves. At my local store I know cashiers by name, as well as some of the pharmacy people. But it seems like recently some of the better workers have been driven away and replaced by people who aren't that great at what they do.
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Oct 27, 2013 21:25
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Three-Phase posted:I've got a quick question for the folks here, maybe someone can help me on this. I'll blame it on you being in the snow belt. I'm down here in the Canton area and haven't noticed any issues (but I don't shop at Target either). Unless there is some unknown issue with the DC. I know most big boxes tend to have Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake in their own district, so it's possible it's an issue only affecting your area and not down here in CAK. Sometimes retail management can be slow to replace people period, and maybe your store is just dealing with a seasonal lull or unusual exodus of employees. I know my store right now is having trouble retaining and replacing cashiers (some, like myself, have transferred to departments on the floor and at least one to another store, but we've had a few quit or fired).
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Oct 28, 2013 02:03
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This is a post I made in this thread back in June.Buggiezor posted:An Assistant manager in one of our stores in New York was murdered Monday morning. It's a terrible tragedy. He had a family and kids. The rear end in a top hat broke in through the front door while the AM and some other employees were doing some opening duties. He managed to go unseen until he got to the Manager's office where he ran into the AM. Nobody knows exactly what happened aside from the AM being stabbed and the intruder running back out of the store. The AM died on the way to the hospital. I just heard of a new development in the story. The Regional manager is now the prime suspect. I'll leave this link here for anyone interested. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/york-toys-us-manager-caught-stealing-allegedly-killed-20609506 What a terrible thing.
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Oct 28, 2013 04:17
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Buggiezor posted:This is a post I made in this thread back in June. That is super hosed up.
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Oct 28, 2013 07:05
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YF19pilot posted:There's "lovely attitudes" about working retail, and then there's spite. It's one thing to be "I don't like working here/our customers suck" and to bitch about coworkers over nothing and be a bunch of back-biters. Your coworkers need an attitude adjustment if they're going to get pissy because someone went an extra step to get a better job and got it. Yea I don't know if that's retail so much as just having terrible immature coworkers (which I realize tends to be common in retail). I currently have an office job and people bitch constantly about things like that. Sometimes to the point that their complaints contradict each other - like complaining about having to work overtime and then complaining about it when overtime stops. Some people are just big whiny babies about everything.
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Oct 28, 2013 11:08
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This may be more a California Retail thing, but this has been frustrating the hell out of me. So California Redemption Value(CRV) is a tax on recyclable containers. As a retail establishment, if you are selling CRV goods (basically any drink), and there isn't already another establishment that pays out CRV within so many square miles, you have to, by law, accept empty recyclables and pay out the CRV. My store has to do this. So this is the situation. 5 homeless guys, spend all day biking circles around my store's neighborhood and dig out recyclable cans from every trashcan/dumpster they see. When they get enough cans for our cheapest bottle of wine, about 60 cans worth of CRV, they come in and demand we pay them the CRV value. Then they buy a bottle, go behind the store and chug the bottle, and start collecting more cans. Again, they do this all day. Between the 5 of them, there is someone approx every 30 minutes asking for CRV redemption. Every time, we have to count/confirm the number of cans, go back into the office, open the safe, pull out the measly 3$, and bring it up to them. The whole process takes anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes depending on the can haul. Every 30 minutes. If we take care of their CRV right away, that means work essentially stops for a supervisor. If we make them wait, then we have homeless guys pacing around the store and making customers uncomfortable. they are basically taking over our store. We've filed a petition to be exempt from paying out CRV, but the process takes months and is usually denied. We've called the cops when the guys get restless and the cops think its hilarious how well the homeless guys have managed to play us.  Typical sight, a fleet of shopping carts with smelly dumpster juice cans reeking up the whole store. Talk about retail bullshit.
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Oct 28, 2013 21:43
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99% of grocery stores in Finland have machines that handle this automatically. You feed the bottles/cans into the machine and it spits out a receipt that you redeem for cash at the register (or deduct the amount from your purchases).
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Oct 28, 2013 21:58
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We have specific depots here in Newfoundland, Canada. Last I checked they're also partially staffed by the handicapped so they get work experience. The only thing that can be returned to stores are domestic beer bottles, and thats only where they're sold, and generally each store will have their own policy on accepting returns. Mostly that only so many can be taken, they need to be clean, and the money usually needs to be spent in store.
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Oct 28, 2013 22:43
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You've triggered my PTSD of working the empty room on a long weekend at The Beer Store when I lived in Ontario.
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Oct 29, 2013 03:37
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I live in California and never knew about the within a certain distance law with CRV. The grocery store near my house is trying to get the recycle trailer in their parking lot shut down and there isn't another redemption place nearby, so I wonder what will happen to them with that law. They aren't even the store that pays out either. The trailer has the self service machines which the homeless can collectors use. The real problem is the people with truck loads of mixed stuff who hog all the weight barrels to separate.
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Oct 29, 2013 19:16
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BrainToad posted:I live in California and never knew about the within a certain distance law with CRV. The grocery store near my house is trying to get the recycle trailer in their parking lot shut down and there isn't another redemption place nearby, so I wonder what will happen to them with that law. They aren't even the store that pays out either. Then that store would be required by law to begin redeeming for anyone who brings in cans. "the department establishes “convenience zones” in a one-half mile radius around each store that sells beverages. If there is a recycling center in a convenience zone, stores in that zone do not have to take returns. Since many zones overlap, multiple zones are served by a single recycling center in some cases. However, in “unserved zones” with no recycling center, stores that sell beverages must accept container returns or pay a $100 per day fine." Furthermore, these poo poo-out-of-luck stores in "unserved zones" have to fork out cash rather than in-store vouchers or anything else I believe.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:42
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Baldbeard posted:This may be more a California Retail thing, but this has been frustrating the hell out of me. Only three freaking dollars for a bottle of wine!?  I'm Canadian and I never saw a bottle of wine cheaper than $10. I know in america you can get booze so much cheaper than in Canada, but sometimes it seems staggering how much cheaper. Also, California Redemption Value tax seems like an excessively long way just to say deposit. Unless that's something different? I used to work at a drug store which accepted pop bottles for deposit, back when my province still had glass bottles. When we finally got can's and 2 liter plastic bottles (only had those for juice, not pop), stores (with recycle depots near by anyways) could no longer accept glass bottles,and also wouldn't accept cans or plastic bottles. When this happened we had signs up months in advance stating the store would no longer accept bottles. Then one day months after we officially switched over to plastic and cans a guy shows up with a shopping cart full of glass bottles. I walked over to him and tried to explain the situation to him, went about as well as expected. Went to get my supervisor, I think she ended up taking the bottles from him in the end. The worst part was there was a bottle deposit place just a couple blocks away, the guy was just being a lazy prick. Back when I was younger I used to see can's of pop as a great novelty that could only be bought off Island, but after a short time I realized plastic bottles and can's leave a after taste. And plastic bottle go flat almost the moment you opened them, glass bottles kept their fizz as long as you closed to the bottle tight. After being out of retail for over two years I had a interview today at a chain book store. Man I wish my province had better job prospects for degree holders 
Shnag fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 22:46
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I love when, instead of asking if you can stay late, your boss gets pissy and snaps 'What, you can't stay late today? Why the gently caress not?" It is no business of yours. I work till 1pm, I am out the door at 1pm. You know what the old boss did? He'd ASK me about two hours before my shift was over if maybe I could stay an hour late. And I'd say yes. Almost every drat time. Asking me at 1230 to stay late to work on something that isn't due until 5pm, that will take me 40 minutes to do, and getting mad when I say no again, isn't going to change my mind.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:48
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^^^ Yeah I hate that. If I decline a request to stay late, my boss always asks what I'm doing. Even my scheduled days off are like an attack on him or something. "oh you're off tomorrow. How fortunate for you." Yes. That's how employment works, you occasionally are not working. Re:wine. Our cheapest bottle was $1.99 for about 5 years running. We just recently raised it to $2.99. Crazy that a dude can walk around town and be drunk 24/7 by casually picking up garbage and trading it in for wine. The worst is that most of these guys dig through our dumpster and make a huge mess in their search for cans. Baldbeard fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 23:33
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Baldbeard posted:^^^ Woohoo trader joes! For the goon in Canada pirate joes can get you that 2 buck chuck probably!
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Oct 30, 2013 04:15
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For when you want to drink wine that'll probably give you a headache.
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Oct 30, 2013 05:28
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Shnag posted:Only three freaking dollars for a bottle of wine!? Calling it wine is stretching the term. Its things like Maddog 20/20, Boones Farm and such.
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Oct 30, 2013 07:26
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Baldbeard posted:^^^ This used to drive me insane. They would cut my hours from 32 a week to 16 and be like OMG WE HAVE SO MANY COMPUTERS DUE TOMORROW  can you stay late? When I say no. They are like BUT WHO IS GONNA DO ALL THIS WORK? I just shrug. how about give me enough hours to do my job and I will do it.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:52
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Merica posted:This used to drive me insane. They would cut my hours from 32 a week to 16 and be like OMG WE HAVE SO MANY COMPUTERS DUE TOMORROW I know at my job, they used to cut my hours to punish me. Then when there inevitably weren't enough people to cover a shift, they'd always assume I was just desperate enough for more hours to help out.
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Oct 30, 2013 23:51
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Eh, my scheduling goes through the worst form of bureaucracy. I actually want more hours, but I'm not getting them. Basically, my supervisor (the Zone Manager) makes up the schedule. I'm suppose to cover flooring for the shifts/hours the Specialists (full timers) have off, but there's suppose to be an overlap built into place to allow communication and proper coverage during busy hours. The schedule then gets passed to "my boss", which is one of the ASMs. He can change the schedule if he sees fit. He then passes this onto the HR manager who can (and usually does) further edit the schedule for reasons. This leads to things like, in response to giving in to my supervisor's request for me to come in last week for cycle counts, I've had 3 hours taken off my schedule this week by having me come in later. In the mornings. When I need to do time critical and important tasks such as daily safety walks, inventory reviews, and stocking freight, all of which has to be done by a certain time, and preferably before customers start flooding the store. Personally, I feel the HR manager has too much pull in some decisions, and often makes decisions contrary to our business needs, but that's a lengthy discussion full of too much speculation and the ASM is probably equally to blame on those decisions.
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Oct 31, 2013 01:30
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Our store's schedule is actually done as a collaboration between the HR supervisor and the store manager, reason being we have quite a few more people than we're budgeted for. We have like 8 people on overnight freight when a store of our size (as of last fiscal year) is supposed to have ~3. We also have a couple contractor-related personnel that we wouldn't normally have. This is because our sales compared to last year are significantly up. The downside is, those hours have to come from somewhere, and they tend to come from whatever departments they think can spare it. It ends up being mine a lot of the time. Add to that the fact that whoever's putting the schedule together doesn't always account for offsite training, like the 4 Tuesdays of training I have to attend at another store. I'm still listed as on the schedule despite the fact that I won't be there, which means someone's not getting lunch coverage that day. It sucks, but it's supposed to get better next year once we round out our fiscal year and our labor budget goes up. Theoretically, anyway.
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Oct 31, 2013 05:29
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Can I just pop in to say that it's October 31 and I am already tired of christmas? Most of our xmas products must be out and perfectly arranged as per schematics by Friday. We have approximately 500 boxes of xmas stuff so far. I am covered head to toe in glitter and this will be a daily occurrence until mid-January. I wear so much glitter during xmas that complete strangers will stop me and ask why I have so much glitter on me. I usually say I was at the strip club or that there was an explosion at the glitter factory. There is so much work to do and they still expect us to get it done absolutely perfectly with one person working from 8 am until around noon, and then just two people from noon to 9. It is incredibly stressful. PLUS all last week was preparing for our first inventory audit since opening last October. We have a huge shoplifting problem and thought for sure we would all be fired due to major discrepancies but we did great. We have ~$900k in merch and our acceptable loss was 2.7%. I think we were only missing 1.5%? Which is still crazy when you realize that a corporate retail store would rather (and expects to!) lose $25k to theft than actually address the theft in the first place. Heaven forbid they have more employees on the floor that could actually work and help deter theft just by being present!
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Oct 31, 2013 20:03
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ThreeFish posted:Can I just pop in to say that it's October 31 and I am already tired of christmas? Most of our xmas products must be out and perfectly arranged as per schematics by Friday. We have approximately 500 boxes of xmas stuff so far. I am covered head to toe in glitter and this will be a daily occurrence until mid-January. I wear so much glitter during xmas that complete strangers will stop me and ask why I have so much glitter on me. I usually say I was at the strip club or that there was an explosion at the glitter factory. Retail has made me hate Christmas. The music and smells does it for me every year, and every year it starts earlier and earlier. It's around the 3rd consecutive version of White Christmas I hear where I have a sensory overload and can't handle the pine-scented fake pine trees and cinnamon brooms. And crank that loving heater up, I want it to be a sweltering 98 degrees all day long, so the christmas glitter chemically bonds with my sweat and becomes semi-permanent. Ugggggh!
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Oct 31, 2013 20:55
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It took me about two years to stop hating Christmas after i got out of retail. My brain had to be rewired to comprehend a work environment where it was rare to have to work over that period at all, and working Christmas Eve or Boxing Day was unthinkable. gently caress retail.
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Oct 31, 2013 20:58
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Retail is of course entirely dependent on Christmas to survive, it's at least 20% of their yearly take and probably much more. One holiday. http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=Pages&sp_id=1140
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Oct 31, 2013 21:56
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Kimmalah posted:I know at my job, they used to cut my hours to punish me. Then when there inevitably weren't enough people to cover a shift, they'd always assume I was just desperate enough for more hours to help out. That was the original reason. I got punished for having the audacity to be sick for 3 days in a row. Que me never getting 30 hours a week again.
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Oct 31, 2013 22:30
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Retail is of course entirely dependent on Christmas to survive, it's at least 20% of their yearly take and probably much more. One holiday. If you went to the bank for a loan with a business plan that said you'd get a fifth of your revenue over 30 days and then just kinda cruise the rest of the year, they'd laugh at you. And yet here we have an entire industry based around that idea.
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Oct 31, 2013 22:51
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Fil5000 posted:If you went to the bank for a loan with a business plan that said you'd get a fifth of your revenue over 30 days and then just kinda cruise the rest of the year, they'd laugh at you. And yet here we have an entire industry based around that idea. Pretty much the entire American economy at the end of the day, it's madness.
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Oct 31, 2013 23:28
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 14:39 |
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Christmas and its related sales last for like a quarter of the year now, so I'm surprised it's only 20%.
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Oct 31, 2013 23:42
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