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Don't have any specific stories right now, just that every time I hear the words "bait and switch" used, I want to ram my head into a wall. It's like one time one person used the phrase and it worked, so the memo got sent out to every rear end in a top hat in the world to parrot it as loudly as they can in order to try and get what they want, even if the situation occurring has NEITHER A BAIT NOR A SWITCH INVOLVED. Also, I swear, there should be some sort of test you have to pass before you are allowed to interact with other human beings in society.
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Sep 8, 2010 16:40
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 01:19 |
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Dear Customers: I know that you think you are in a Starbucks. Perhaps it was the Starbucks menu that made you think this- or the fact that we are wearing Starbucks hats and aprons- or maybe it was the million signs up around the cafe that proudly display the Starbucks logo. We even sell Starbucks coffee! Yet, legally, we are not actually a Starbucks. We serve Starbucks coffee. So what? Well, when you come in here and order your Starbucks brand drinks in your Starbucks brand sizes, just like you would at your Starbucks, we are totally on board. But when you pull out your Starbucks gift card, as you inevitably will, HOLD THE PHONE. You see, we cannot honor those. We are not a Starbucks. What's that you say? You are confused by this? You are perhaps angered? You feel as if I am patronizing you by telling you that, against all reason, we are a [store name here] cafe that PROUDLY SERVES Starbucks coffee as opposed to a Starbucks? Sir or Madam, I am on your side here in agreeing with you that it is totally bogus. And I sympathize with your plight utterly. But I can assure you that your glares and your huffy noises and your frowns directed at me, as they are by literally every other person in the line you are standing in will not change the strange chimerical reality of the not-Starbucks you find yourselves trapped in. I promise you this.
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Oct 19, 2010 07:21
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EDIT: Wow, I'm a bitch when I'm angry.
ChirpChirpCheep fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Nov 1, 2010 |
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Oct 25, 2010 20:50
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*While I'm busy making coffee, alone in the cafe* EXCUSE ME!! Hi there, I'll be with you in just a second! ISN'T THERE SOMEONE ELSE HERE WHO CAN HELP ME? I'M JUST STANDING HERE!!She said it like I had turned around, given her the middle finger, and kickflipped a skateboard out of the store- like, no, lady, I'm not just ignoring you, there really is no one else here who can help you and I really can't drop this burning hot urn of coffee to get you your small iced tea (LIGHT ICE!!! MAKE SURE YOU GO LIGHT ON THE ICE!!) Plus, I saw her walk up to the register, she was there for maybe a total of five seconds before she got into a snit. Oh and we've started a contest in the store to see who can sell the most sandwich/soup combos. If we sell more than two we get a sticker, if we sell more than five we get a star with SOOUPER UPSELLER written on it. Disregarding the fact that this is incredibly infantilizing for something that literally determines how many hours we get a week, the metric for if we get a sticker or not is if our register number is in when the sale goes down. Which is BEYOND stupid, because a)our register numbers stay in for an infinite amount of transactions unless we log out, which means if we are busy and Coworker A's number is in the register, Coworker A gets the sale even if I rung it up, and b)When we get busy one person is supposed to take drinks and the other person is supposed to ring people up, which means that unless we are exactingly careful in terms of dividing up people's register time (we won't be, because rushes don't work like that) someone is getting screwed. Blegh. This thread is cheaper than getting another, work stress specific therapist.
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Oct 27, 2010 21:51
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I had an actual good experience in retail today! Somebody spilled their coffee all over the floor and before I could even grab a mop two little girls ran over with napkins and cleaned the whole thing up! (I still had to go over it with a mop and put up the wet floor sign because it would have dried all sticky, but it was still super sweet.) The guy who spilled the coffee was crazy apologetic too. I even offered to get him some more, but he declined.  .That almost made up for that fact that corporate decided randomly that, even though there is nothing in the employee manual that states that it is a problem at all, and that technically it counts as a "lifestyle" which is protected under our non-discrimination policy, we can't have hair that is dyed anything other than a "natural" color. Which means literally half of the cafe has to re-dye their hair, and I can't dye my hair the purple that I was planning. Apparently some customer complained that my co-worker's green hair made her feel "unsafe"  .
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Nov 5, 2010 03:26
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side_burned posted:To continue with the theme of what the gently caress is corporate thinking, I would like to know who writes the scripts for employee training movies. I remember watching my employee training movie with openmouthed horror. It was pretty much "harass people until they buy something because if they don't buy food or a frappacino then YOU HAVE FAILED AS A BARISTA." Literally every single "scenario" they had was someone going up to the register being like "I.." and the worker going "WOULD YOU LIKE A SCONE LET ME GET YOU A SCONE." It was the awkwardest thing anyone could possibly imagine. There was even a whole segment on how if someone explicitly says they don't want food or a frappacino you have to keep trying to sell it to them. And the actors playing the customers, instead of getting angry at the baristas or being seriously freaked out, are like "hahaha you got me! I really do want a scone lol." It's such a terrible message to send. I upsell as part of my job- I have to, after all- but there is a way to do it without making it harassment. No means no, after all.
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Nov 9, 2010 18:58
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Part-Time Robot posted:Ugh, I am getting so sick of our regulars. There is a woman who will bring her kids into the store with her and camp out all over the childrens' section for HOURS. Today is the first day I've seen her come in with less than three kids. She probably has five total, but I think she's been dropping the older ones off at the tae kwan do place across the street and coming in while they're at lessons. They treat the place like it's a library and hardly ever buy anything. Oh, did I mention how they'll take up the whole children's section? They sprawl out in the AISLE right next to our back room despite there being a bench for people to sit on across the store. Do you work in a bookstore? I work in a bookstore cafe and people do stuff like this in our store ALL THE TIME. There have been times where I've seen people in the cafe at the start of my shift and 6 hours later, sure enough, they are still there without having bought anything, not even food or drink. I like magazines as much as the next person, but I can't imagine just sitting at a table for six hours and doing nothing but reading about the latest celeb scandals. Speaking of magazines, something happened a while ago which I thought was funny- a man came up to our register acting kind of shifty. He hands over a stack of magazines, the first two of which were about model trains and the next three or four of which were gay skin mags. I'm still not sure if he thought that we would get distracted by the train magazines and not notice the porn ones, or if he just happened to enjoy both trains and naked dudes. Also, I asked for Black Friday off a while ago because I'm visiting family for thanksgiving and I figured it was worth a shot, and my manager actually gave me off. I'm about 99% sure that there is no way she was supposed to do that, but hey, Black Friday off  .
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Nov 20, 2010 05:46
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Kohls is running a series of ads now that I'm pretty sure were scientifically designed to cause seizures in retail workers. They basically go like this: Store worker:*says something completely reasonable and in a polite way, like "We can't accept this item for a return without a receipt/If you damage this dress you can't return it."* Narrator: "Want returns without the hassle? Come to Kohls!" It really pisses me off because I've seen about three of those ads now and the "evil" store workers don't ever say anything that is particularly draconian or unreasonable, but Kohls seems to be predicating their marketing strategy on people going "My god! Not being able to return a year old dress that I've worn and spilled ink all over? What madness is this?!" It's just this attitude of literally bending over backwards while the customer fucks you in the rear end that I hate about retail. /rant Anyway, I'm slowly moving up the ladder of the bookstore food chain- my boss recommended me to train as a cashier, which basically means I'd be upselling memberships all day. It means more hours though, so I'm pretty excited about that, considering that right now I'm still at ten hours less than what they hired me on as. *sigh*
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Nov 29, 2010 22:07
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A guy today told me I was pulling a bait and switch because I told him he'd have to wait in line again if he wanted to buy something else. Like, if you're going to be an rear end in a top hat and get mad over something reasonable, at least be able to correctly identify what you're getting mad at. Also, this wasn't someone getting mad at me, but it still pissed me off a lot. I'm ringing up a customer, and I ask him to swipe his card. He swipes it and goes, jokingly, "This isn't mine, I just found it on the floor." Since it was about the hundredth time I'd heard that "joke" over the past few days and he was obviously not being serious, I made my normal response, which was to smile and jokingly say "Uh-oh." As soon as I say that, this guy starts cracking up and goes "Oh my god! You believed me! You're so gullible." He then starts getting the attention of people at other registers while pointing at me and going "She believed me! She actually believed me! Can you believe that? Oh man, how gullible is she! Can you believe that?" over and over again. At this point, people in the line and other cashiers are starting to notice this guy, who won't shut up about how I "fell" for his "trick," and I'm just standing there trying to hand him his bag so he can get the hell out there and I can get on with helping the rest of the line. Finally, he gets the attention of the cashier next to me and goes "Is she always this gullible?" to which she angrily replies "Actually she's a very kind, intelligent person" and gives him the cold shoulder. He went away after that but goddamn I wanted to scream at him. I don't know if it comes across in this post, but it was incredibly degrading- he was saying it with this tone like he wanted everyone in line to start pointing and laughing at how much of an idiot I was, which is why my co-worker responded the way she did. It just really sucked. 
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Dec 22, 2010 06:45
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On the subject of clever customers, a kid who looked about 15 or 16 came into the store and paid for something with a $50 bill. The cashier who was helping him held it up check if it was counterfeit and he busted out the "I know it's good, I just printed it myself" chestnut. She gave him an absolutely withering look and he just sort of looked ashamed of himself and said "I only said that because my dad says it a bunch." On the one hand I feel bad that he felt bad, but on the other hand I know 100% that he'll never use that joke again. And for that matter, I hope I never meet his dad.
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Dec 22, 2010 23:51
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Just thought I'd share this little gem- my coworker's birthday is on the 1st. Naturally, my boss decided to have her do a close/open that night/the next morning, with back to back 8 hour shifts. But that's not the kicker- Written next to that day on the schedule is "Happy Birthday, (name)!"
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Dec 30, 2010 05:28
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Yesterday a customer called me "babe." She started to walk away after we finished the transaction and then came back over to apologize- she seemed really embarrassed by it. Apparently I reminded her of her husband so she called me babe without even thinking about it. I'm a girl.
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Jan 1, 2011 03:02
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Flavor Bear posted:Has anyone else ever experienced the really strange phenomenon of a customer looking at your name tag and going "Thanks, *smirk* [yourname]"? Oh my god I hate when people do that. They act like your name is some magic phrase of power which, upon being known, renders you helpless. Also question for the lady retail goons! Which do you hate more- being called "Miss" or being called "Ma'am"? I won't even bring in the "young lady" wildcard.
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Jan 1, 2011 23:59
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MaxDuo posted:
Oh god, I had a woman tell me that she was "never shopping at [store name] again!" because we couldn't use her online only coupon (that said ONLINE ONLY on it about three or four times- she literally took a screecap of the webpage, printed it out, brought it in, and tried to use it.) The weird thing was though, she said it after the entire transaction was complete. Like I was going to call a manager, screaming "SHE'S NEVER GOING TO SHOP HERE AGAIN! GOOD GOD WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!" and she would get all her purchases free for life. The place I worked at before there though was this little mom and pop coffeehouse where the policy was "do whatever the customer asks." I was only there for a month, but I remember on my first day there a woman came up to the counter holding a plate with maybe half a bite of cake left on it and went "I want a refund and a new piece of cake. This one was disgusting." The manager apologizes, and while she is issuing the refund the woman proceeds to explain that she was there the day before, ordered the exact same cake, ate all of it, found it disgusting, got a refund, came back the next day, decided to get it again in case she suddenly liked it, and ate all of it just to make sure she really didn't like it this time for realsies. You know, just in case. She then proceeded to pick out a slice of the EXACT SAME CAKE as her replacement.
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Jan 7, 2011 19:59
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- FINE! CANCEL IT ALL! I'M NEVER COMING HERE AGAIN! I'LL GO SOMEWHERE WHERE THEY'll RESPECT THE DEALS THEY GIVE THEIR CUSTOMERS!!!!!
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Gilyon posted:I don't understand why managers don't do this more often. I mean, when I'm not exaggerating how stupid customers are I'd say that like 99% of people come into the store I work at, buy something, and leave without issue. Why do stores feel the need to humor and put up with an abusive customer so they can make a few dollars off of whatever one item s/he wants to buy? It makes employee moral go down, which costs productivity, which I'm drat sure costs the store more than one jackass's purchases would cost. I agree with this. It's better than the normal situation of the customer getting unreasonable and abusive towards an employee, the employee calling a manager, the manager giving the customer whatever they want and the customer leaving with a sense of entitlement and reinforced in the conviction that if they make enough of a scene they can get whatever the gently caress they want (great news for the next employee they come across!) JamesJBuffalkill posted:If they weren't cowardly losers they wouldn't be retail managers. I want to get this cross stitched on a throw pillow.
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Jan 9, 2011 23:38
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Our espresso machine broke today, rendering us unable to make pretty much every drink on the menu. We put up multiple signs- including one on the register itself and one on the main door to the store- but roughly every other customer tried to order something we couldn't make despite the fact that they had to pass by at least three signs in order to get to the register and were currently standing in front of a sign itself. What really blew my mind were the amount of people who would try to order an espresso based drink, receive an explanation as to why we couldn't do that and what drinks we could do, look at the menu, and ask for another espresso based drink. That and the people who were all "I want a latte/mocha" and when I explained to them that we couldn't do espresso based drinks went "Oh, I didn't know that had espresso in it!" This is 2011- even Dunkin Donuts has espresso machines- how do you not know what goes into a goddamn latte?
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Jan 16, 2011 08:09
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miscellaneous14 posted:People seriously have no loving clue what a latte is, they just started ordering them when it became the stylish thing to do with the rise of Starbucks. I worked at an indie theater once, with a small cafe part of the concessions stand, and I poo poo you not, someone asked for a cappuccino with no foam. Why yes, I'm sure you feel all fancy and smug about ordering a cappuccino, but how about actually loving knowing what a cappuccino is before you actually order it? Ugh, cappuccinos. Whenever anyone orders a cappuccino I always ask them if they want it with a lot of foam or a little foam. This is because more than half the time they say something along the lines of "what's foam" or "what does that mean" and I explain to them what a cappuccino is and what a latte is and they end up ordering a latte instead. Except for the one woman who told me she wanted a nonfat cappuccino with no milk, all foam, with only one shot of espresso. She proceeded to get her drink, complain about how light the cup felt (no poo poo), complain about how little espresso there was in it, ask me multiple times if I "made it right"- and when she finally left the cafe I was told she wandered around the store complaining about the drink to various employees. All of whom, to their credit, told her she got exactly what she ordered. Though honestly if she had asked for a refund I'm sure she would have gotten it.
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Jan 16, 2011 18:30
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A competing store in the area recently closed down, causing business at our store to more than double over the past week. Naturally we are at our most understaffed, but that's neither here nor there. What has been happening is that people seem to not understand that our store and the competing store are not 100% interchangeable. This interaction has happened more times than I can count: Me: *ringing someone's order up* Do you have a member card with [our store]? Customer: No, but I have [competing store's completely different card], will that work? There was also this interaction: Man: *runs in, runs up to counter* Me: Hi there, how can I- Man: Quick question- am I in [other store]? Me: No, this is- Man: Thanks, bye. *runs off* Oh, and I just read the other day that Starbucks is apparently rolling out a whole new drink size that pretty much consists of half of our pitchers. Either we are getting all new urns and pitchers, or spring is going to be super fantastic as we explain to people over and over again that we don't have any more iced coffee as someone ordered two "trentas" in a row.
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Jan 18, 2011 23:30
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minusX posted:I guess no more stores for a bit from me. Fired from GameStop for working off the clock Wait, how does that even work? What defines "working off the clock?" I would think that stores would want their employees to be helpful even if they weren't clocked in, but I might be making assumptions about the big scary world outside of food service. Speaking of which, what the gently caress is it with people coming up to the register, starting to order, and then wandering off? I never know what to do in those situations- is it rude to be like "Ma'am/sir, are you finished ordering?" or should I just be merciless and suspend the transaction? I have no idea.
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Jan 21, 2011 03:10
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Are there any good blogs or whatever about retail bitching that don't have every story boil down to "insane customer walks in, retail worker delivers stunningly witty and biting comment, customer is deeply shamed and walks away?" I'm as big a fan as the next person of retail horror stories but if I wanted fanfiction I'd just write it myself.
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Jan 26, 2011 00:08
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 01:19 |
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SpartanIV posted:
That's hilarious and adorable at the same time. I can imagine the high fives that took place between his friends after he hung up the phone with you.
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Feb 5, 2011 18:10
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: do you want to know my name?