retail stories Archives - Page 19 of 24 - I Hate Working In Retail

Aug
22

By

Jokes That Make Customer Service People Hate You

Category: Life as a Barista, Life as a Cashier, Life as a Server, Retail Stories Tags: , Leave a Comment

Last month, I wrote a column about all the good men and women working service industry jobs and suffering under the tired “jokes” of customers who don’t have the vaguest conception of either comedy or things employees enjoy hearing while working. The column did pretty well, and I slept soundly that night, knowing hundreds of thousands of earnest workers had found a new hero.


Did I mention I dreamed hundreds of thousands of earnest workers called me a hero?

But some were not so pleased. Some said it is a small, bad man who takes offense to customers cracking harmless jokes. How could I suggest murdering such customers, they asked, and then they explained how they lived their lives like Zen masters, undeterred by the passing indignities of manual labor. In response, I did the only thing I could:


I had a dream where those mean commenters were processed into hamburger and eaten by an angry giant

Then I woke up and wrote this sequel. Here are five more horrible, cliched jokes that workers have to hear every day, and how I think those workers should be allowed to react in a just world.

#5. Saying “It’s Good. I Printed It This Morning” to a Cashier Checking Large-Denomination Bills

Even in today’s world of automatic debits and swiping money chips lodged in your urethra (I’m beta-testing that right now), people still pay for things in cash. And sometimes that cash comes in large denominations: $20s, $50s, and even $100s. Now, I’m not sure if you know this, but if you’re a cashier and your drawer doesn’t add up at the end of your shift, some employers take the difference out of your pay. Other employers fire you. That’s why accepting a counterfeit $100 in place of a real one would be a bit problematic for cashiers. And beyond that, some businesses have trained their employees to always check for the various official markings of higher-denomination bills, so cashiers do it because, y’know, it’s their job.

Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images
“Yes, a picture of Nicolas Cage giving Benjamin Franklin a reach-around … this one’s good!”

But don’t let that stop you from making a great joke! If you’re an exceptionally funny person, when this happens to you, you’ll wait until the moment the cashier inspects your bill and say …

“Don’t worry. It’s good. I printed it this morning!”

Get it? No, he’s not saying he works for the United States Treasury Department; he means it’s fake. It’s a counterfeit bill. So actually when he’s saying “don’t worry,” if it were true, the cashier should totally be worrying. So it’s funny because it’s true. Wait, I mean it’s funny because it’s not true. Wait a minute. It’s not in any way funny, and if you do it, I hope that cashier drops the bill in alarm and instantly has security restrain you while she calls the police, advising that she caught the fake-$50 bandit and obtained a full confession.

#4. Telling Your Server, “Oh, That’s Just What I Wanted!” After Being Informed What the Restaurant Is Out Of

Brand X Pictures/Stockbyte/Getty 

So have you ever gone to a restaurant and, instead of getting the specials, the server tells you what they actually don’t have? Yeah, it’s a bit of a drag, but I think that’s a pretty stand-up policy. Better than letting you get your hopes up. But y’know, whether it’s a good policy or not, your server sure as hell is not the one who made it. He or she just works for a place that says “Tell the customers up front when the kitchen has taken some things off the menu.”

But again, a good consumer is always on the lookout for the perfect opportunity to deliver a top quality zinger out of a mundane situation. So once your server says, “Sorry, but we’re not serving pork chops today,” the perfect thing for you to say is …

“Oh, great! That’s just what I was gonna order!”

George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty 
“Get it? You’re a huge disappointment to me!”

This punchline is a little more subtle than our first one. See, the joke here is: “Feel like a dick, you shitty server. You’ve let me down!” Yeah, when you write it out, it kind of doesn’t seem that hilarious, and yet that’s the joke. This is not to be mistaken for when you actually were going to order an item they’re out of and you mumble something like “Oh, that’s what I was going to order, I think I need another minute.” That’s just a normal thing to say. This is just, man, I don’t know, but it happens. So if your server replies, “Really? But I think you’d better order a sense of humor or, I don’t know, functional genitalia,” then you kind of had it coming.

#3. Ordering a “Tall Blonde” at Starbucks and Then Adding … Anything

Kris Connor/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Have you been to Starbucks? Of course you have. No one’s strong enough to resist their subliminal advertising messages encoded into the Norah Jones and Arcade Fire CDs. So as you well know, Starbucks does this thing where they call a “small” a “tall.” This shouldn’t be too surprising to you because they also call a cup of “charred, burned axle grease” a cup of “coffee.”

Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images
Starts your morning right and helps the gears in your industrial generator fire smoothly!

What you might not know about Starbucks, though, is that they make a coffee referred to as a “blonde.” You can see where this is going. All over this great land of ours, there are men craving an overpriced and decidedly mellow small cup of coffee who can’t wait to proclaim …

“Give me a tall blonde!!!”

And then they wink or say “hubba hubba” or do absolutely anything to indicate they’re talking about a sexy lady!

This isn’t funny. It will never be funny. If you think this is funny, there’s an excellent chance no woman will ever want to talk to you, tall, short, blonde, or otherwise. Say “tall blonde, please,” and nothing else, or learn to drink a stronger coffee instead of one made from the tears of dewinged fairies.

 

#2. Saying “Hey, I Didn’t Order This!” When Your Check Comes

 

Jupiterimages/Creatas/Getty Images

 

The fun thing about this list is that if you are a very talented “restaurant comic,” you can conceivably use two of these jokes on the same person. So let’s set the scene: You started your meal with entry #4, where you made your server feel silly for telling you they were out of pork chops. Then what? Well, I’m guessing you spent the next 40 minutes using the ketchup to make some great blood-based joke or arranged your food in the shape of a face and made it talk while you did silly voices. You were a pretty cool customer, but unfortunately your server really missed some of your best material. Fear not, because even if your server is desperately avoiding you while shivering from third degree douche chills in the kitchen, he or she has to come back to you at least one more time. That’s right. They have to give you the check. And when they do, you can say …

 

“What? I didn’t order this!”

 

Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com
And be sure to make the appropriately horrified face so you can really sell it.

 

If you’re this customer’s server, may I suggest you pull up a chair and explain in detail that he has entered an establishment where food is exchanged for money.

 

“No, no, I know,” he’ll say.

 

“But then why are you talking about ‘ordering’ something that comes as evidence of the amount you owe for what you’ve already ordered?”

 

“Well, it was a joke,” he’ll say.

 

“A joke? Oh, I see. So in your ‘joke’ you’re playing a pretend game where the check is also like a food item you could order?”

 

“I guess …”

 

“And you’re saying you didn’t order this, because you don’t want to pay it.”

 

“Right.”

 

“OK,” you’ll say. “Thank you for explaining that joke to me. I get it now, because it was a check and not food, but you pretended it was sort of like food and, therefore, should have only been brought to you if you had ordered it. OK. Very good.”

 

And that is how you deliver the old reverse douche chill!

 

#1. Asking for Awesome Absurd Items When Asked “Anything Else I Can Get You?”

 

David De Lossy/Photodisc/Getty Images

 

Very often, when you’re dealing with a considerate employee, they will do more than the bare minimum. That’s why, after they answer your question or bring you your check or provide the service you requested, they’ll ask, “Can I get you anything else?” But just because they’re being polite and considerate, don’t let that stop you from making a shitty joke. It’s just too good, y’know? I mean, you can reply …

 

“Yeah, a million dollars!” or

 

“How about a date with a Playboy playmate!” or

 

“Some functional genitalia!” (if they’re Cracked’s Felix Clay)

 

And of course, if a hot waitress is asking the question, then how can you not say …

 

“Yeah, how about your phone number.”….this joke is actually so overdone that I stuck it in my forthcoming novel just as an example of a character’s cringeworthy behavior.

 

Digital Vision/Photodisc/Getty Images
And then you can watch a little more of her life essence slip away.

 

It might be tempting to make an easy joke, but you should find a way to make new things sound tempting. Things like not being a humorless clod wasting everyone’s time. And don’t give me that “Oh, I’m just trying to brighten their day” bullshit. If you really wanted to do that, you’d say, “Nope. I’m all good here. Thank you very much.” That works much better.

Sourced from: http://www.cracked.com

Fb-Button

Aug
22

By

What it is Really Like Working at a Convenience Store

Category: Life as a Cashier, Retail Stories Tags: Leave a Comment

I don’t think I’ll be alienating too many people when I say, speaking purely from personal experience, that working at a convenience store kind of sucks. At the very least, it’s not a “career path” that most follow willingly. I was no exception. I wanted to be a psychologist after college, a fact I only remember because that’s what it says on the worthless degree I earned, but those plans were foiled when I realized that I dislike the average person way too much to devote a lifetime to helping them sort out their emotional bullshit.

Jason Iannone
The type of smile that can only be achieved by graduates upon realizing they may have to play eBay Sophie’s Choice
with their kidneys to cover their student loan payment.

So, with few other job options available, I found myself mired in the drudgery of managing a convenience store for six damn years. Thankfully, about a year ago, my freelance writing and editing work picked up and I was finally able to make my escape. It was one of the happiest days of my life. Here are five reasons why …

#5. Customers Don’t Appreciate Nice Things

Louis du Mont/iStock/Getty Images

In the convenience store universe, leaving a little bit of a mess behind while hurriedly assembling the fountain sodas and faux cappuccinos that will power you through the first quarter of your awful work day is perfectly acceptable. The problem is, everyone knows that, and like any other “luxury” in life, some people can’t help but abuse it. No matter how pristine the place may be when you arrive, within minutes, expect an army of slobs to leave napkins, cups, lids, straws, and any other sort of snack food debris you can imagine all over the place. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to pull a pint of ice cream out of the freezer, decide midway through their shopping excursion that they were no longer in the mood for it, and then just leave it on the shelf to melt. Who in the hell behaves this way? I’m afraid the answer is “You do, convenience store customers of America.”

IngaNielsen/iStock/Getty Images
We had a Native-American guy on retainer to keep coming in to do the tear thing.

An especially egregious example of the public’s tendency to destroy anything shiny and new happened during the “grand reopening” of a store I worked at. In case you’re wondering, “grand reopening” is convenience store slang for “We have a new slushie machine and self-service DVD rental kiosk.” It’s exciting stuff, so naturally the big corporate heads came down to cut the ribbon and throw the customers a big party, with free food, free drinks, and photo-ready happiness available to all.

Zoonar RF/Zoonar/Getty Images
“Yes, thanks for coming, and please don’t touch me.”

It was apparent almost immediately that this was an awful idea. Customers did not respond well to a nice-looking, nice-smelling store in their proud town, and they would take us to hell to show it. They DESTROYED THE PLACE. The brunt of the damage was absorbed by that aforementioned slushie machine, which became an altar of discarded paper cups as customers fervently sampled all of the exotic flavors we stupidly labeled “new” even though we’d been serving them for years. It’s just that the machine they were housed in was so filthy after years of customer wear and tear that the roving hordes barely realized it was there until we replaced it with a prettier model.

How bad did things get? Well, even those corporate bigwigs, whose only role in this endeavor was to smile at customers and watch the happiness spread in waves, fast became too disgusted to carry on. The planned three-hour event was shut down after just one hour. Did the trashers get the point? Of course not! They were coming in for over a week afterward asking if we were still giving out “free stuff.”

Their chicanery wasn’t contained to the shopping areas, though.

#4. No One Respects a Public Restroom

Jeremy Swinborne/iStock/Getty Images

It should come as no surprise that, during Operation Total Annihilation, the store bathrooms were also completely annihilated. It wasn’t because we were giving away free stuff, though; that’s what happens to a convenience store bathroom every single day.

If somebody used the toilet for toilet purposes, it was a small miracle. On several occasions, I saw people lock themselves in the bathroom for 30 minutes at a time, not because they had just eaten 5 pounds of Taco Bell, but because they needed a nice, private place to get high. Of course, none of them would ever admit it, but when a skinny and disheveled person with glassy eyes and slurred speech comes in, spends an eternity on the john, and then leaves without buying anything, we’re guessing they weren’t just scouting for the best bargain on milk.

Scott Olson/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Spoiler alert: You’re not finding it at a convenience store.

The best part was when they’d leave behind evidence of what they were doing. One time, one of my workers (I’ll call him Biff) found a hypodermic needle stashed in the ceiling, along with the drugs it was to be used in conjunction with. So we weren’t so much a store as we were a storage place for criminal activity. Biff, by the way, was initially suspected of planting the drugs, because the average convenience store worker is so bad at cleaning that paying enough attention to notice something in the ceiling sets off all sorts of store security alarms.

Jupiterimages/BananaStock/Getty Images
“That clerk gave exact change and kept a smile the entire time … I want a blood and urine sample.”

Once the higher-ups realized that only someone with an IQ in the single digits would plant drugs and then say “HEY BOSS, LOOKIT THE DRUGS!” they set out to find the real culprit. As far as I know, they failed, because drugs were more common there than air and water, so catching one random junkie likely proved fruitless.

But drugs and needles were nothing compared to the time we found a bunch of shit in the sink. That’s not a random curse word, by the way; somebody took a giant shit in the sink. The owner of the company (I’ll call him Biff) happened to be in the store at the time, saw it, and did what any Fearless Leader would do: He immediately ran away so the hired help had to handle it. Whatever important issues he had come there to tend to were quickly forgotten about in the face of possibly having to clean the poo-poo himself. I can’t say I blame him one bit.

#3. Health Codes Are Optional if the Alternative Is Not Making Money

monkeybusinessimages/iStock/Getty Images

The last store I worked at had fast food: roller grill, pizza, hot dogs, nachos, and other stuff with more calories than the world’s biggest cheeseburger. There were rules out the ass regarding how long stuff could stay out before getting tossed. We had to wear gloves and change them after we touched anything but food. We had to wear hats so our filthy greaseball hair didn’t sully the chow. We had to wash our arms up to our elbows after literally every activity. We had to clean the oven every night until it was spotless.

Violations meant that the Health Department would have every right to shut our ass down. They should have done that within a week, because the second obeying these rules meant that we would sell less stuff or customers would get inconvenienced for any reason, everything went out the window. It became food anarchy. Slices of pizza and warm breakfast items stayed on the shelf way past their expiration time — sometimes by hours, because the people in charge preferred to record sales than waste.

wael hamdan/iStock/Getty Images, Joe Gough/iStock/Getty Images
“Just call it ‘premium aged cheese'; some drunk’ll buy it.”

Arm washing? Glove changing? Both only happened if there were no customers waiting. In an ultra-busy, ultra-understaffed store, this almost never happened. So the same gloves usually touched multiple food items, the register, and packs of cigarettes. This was preferable, in the eyes of both customers and management, to making anybody wait ever.

Ovens would get a half-assed cleaning at best. Cleaning them took a long time, and the customers tended to bitch whenever our cleaning duties meant they had to wait in line for even one second. Even without customer influence, corners were cut on the daily. The ovens had filters in the back that needed to be scrubbed every night. One of them got stuck in its pouch and was never removed. Oh, the manager knew about it, but filters cost money, so there it stayed. As far as I know, it’s still there, gathering filth to this very day.

 

#2. Lottery Addicts + Solo Shifts = Nothing Gets Done, Ever

 

Steve Snowden/iStock/Getty Images

 

Despite being hotbeds of bad customers and bad situations, the majority of convenience store shifts are handled solo because it’s cheaper that way. The solo worker handles customers and then takes care of other tasks (cleaning, organizing, updating their resume) in between. The second another customer arrives, though, all floor work stops, and it’s time to ring once again.

 

Now, when it was somebody just buying soda, then I wouldn’t care. However, when a lottery addict showed up, forget it; I might as well have crumpled up my to-do list and set it on fire, because I wasn’t getting anything done for the rest of the day. This is everything I did when a lottery addict was in my store:

 

— sell tickets

 

— wait 10 seconds

 

— confirm they lost; sell more tickets

 

— wait 10 more seconds

 

— inform them they won two bucks; sell more tickets

 

— pray I win the lottery so I never have to deal with the lottery ever again

 

moodboard/moodboard/Getty Images
“Thanks for the life-changing fortune; now please choke to death on scratch-off dust.”

 

Not one bit of this is exaggerated; the second I would turn my back to stock cigarettes, organize shelves, or do anything, really, they’d come right at me, demanding more scratchies. Until they finally had enough and walked away (which took forever, since they were addicted and all), my productivity was shot.

 

Probably the worst case of all was when one full-time lottery addict (I’ll call her Biff) came into my store and stayed for three hours, just scratching and buying, over and over again. That in itself would have been infuriating, but at various points in her marathon, she was joined by OTHER addicts, all throwing an impromptu worst party in recorded history. It was a revolving door of buy-scratch-buy-scratch-buy-scratch, and I was at their mercy.

 

I was also at the mercy of management, who gave me heat for not finishing my work. And yet I wasn’t allowed to throw all the scratchies in the shredder so those scratching psychopaths would skedaddle sooner. They never liked my great ideas.

 

#1. The Customer Is Always Weird

 

Wavebreakmedia Ltd/Wavebreak Media/Getty Images

 

Want to be the ideal bad-store customer? Come in, buy your stuff, and then go elsewhere. It’s simple, it’s fast, and it will make us love you forever. Well, it would, except our career path has completely sucked us of our ability to love.

 

Many customers do not observe these simple guidelines and tend to make things more interesting, even when nobody asked them to. Usually, it was just them bitching and swearing because they didn’t bring their ID, and how dare I ask for one before selling them tobacco. Then they’d get in their car and drive off in a huff.

 

Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
“ID.”
“What, you too?”

 

But others got more innovative with their strangeness, and I’m able to giggle about them now, after years of therapy. I’ve had old men pay for their purchases entirely in coins. That in itself wasn’t strange, except they stored said coins in old, wet, dirty sweat socks. More than one old man did this, mind you, so this is apparently an old man thing. When I get to be that age, I’m forcing my family to confiscate all my socks, simply so I’m never tempted to travel down that wretched road.

 

But at least they used quarters and half dollars. I had another woman (I’ll call her Biff) pay for a pack of cigarettes with a bag filled with nothing but pennies. They weren’t wrapped or anything, which would’ve been helpful. She then dumped them all on the counter, which was fine because I had nothing better to do than manually count 650 pennies.

 

Photos.com
“Hi, irate people in line! I’ll be with you in roughly 20 minutes. Please put down your knives.”

 

Oh, and when I pointed all this out to her, her response was pure “the customer is always right” narcissism. She simply looked at me like I couldn’t possibly be any dumber and exclaimed, “Hey, it’s money, honey!” She then took her cigarettes and left, because it’s shockingly easy to win an argument when you run away before anybody can retort.

 

But that’s nothing compared to the time I was working the counter and got catcalled. It’s not like a bachelorette party had just sauntered in; no, this was a group of very thuggish dudes (I’ll call them all Biff). They weren’t gay or anything, but I was sporting long, thick, wavy red hair at the time and had my back turned to them. I’m not big or muscular either, so evidently I looked feminine, and quite fetching, from behind.

 

Jason Iannone
I don’t see it.

 

I turned to look at them, and they immediately realized I was a guy. They turned beet red, made their purchases in record time, and then sped away. I guess they don’t require their women to have sexy arms, because mine being hairier than the average ape did not deter them from calling me “baby” and inviting me home with them.

 

I still look like that, by the way, except you’ll never see me double-fisting Budweisers again. Going forward, it’s better beer or nothing. Talk about the foibles of youth.

 

Sourced from: http://www.cracked.com

Fb-Button

Aug
22

By

A Walmart Manager Describes Walmart’s Mismanagement

Category: Retail Stories, Walmart Tags: , , 1 Comment

A Walmart Manager Describes Walmart's MismanagementEXPAND

Last week, we received an email from a current Walmart manager in Oklahoma asking to share his story. Below is his description of the policies that America’s largest employer uses to pit managers against low-level employees, for the benefit of the richest family in America.

Walmart, a $245 billion company with two million employees and a harsh record of union-busting, has been the subject of nationwide protests by its own workers, who seek higher wages and better working conditions. Today’s Walmart manager describes—in emails published below—how the company incentivizes its managers to keep employees from getting enough hours to make a decent living. The company does this even at the expense of understaffing its stores. These issues ring true—

This is an illustration of why a large portion of the American work force will never achieve economic independence no matter how hard they try.

I’ve witnessed so many Labor Violations I couldn’t even remember them all. At Walmart I am in charge of the front end—basically all of the registers and self checkouts. Recently I’ve had to cut many of my Cashiers hours and as a result less registers have been open which means longer lines. We’ve even had to make many cashiers not take their 15 minute break. I’ve also had to work 60 hour weeks while not receiving any overtime pay. I don’t think Walmart should be able to use the lack of overtime laws to exploit their low paid salaried managers.

I started at Walmart about a year ago. I have previously been a manager at [different store] and Walmart seemed like it would be a nice change of pace. I was hired on as an Assistant Manager(AM) where I had to undergo an 8 week training course to learn the job. I ended up being assigned to a Walmart Store in Oklahoma. I quickly found out my jobs duties were going to be different than I expected. Management decided that I was going to be the Assistant Manager over Electronics which was an area I was familiar with and enjoyed. The job I thought would mostly be doing paperwork, providing guidance for associates and overseeing major projects. I ended up working 65 hour weeks (which has been hard on my family) doing tasks such as stocking shelves, running a register, while also being responsible for electronics. Since I make more than $23,000 a year Walmart was not required to pay me overtime.

It’s become obvious to me that Walmart purposefully does this to make up for the chronic under-staffing. I’ve often had to cut associates hours in order to ensure that all of the salaried managers would receive our annual bonuses. This practice is one of the most corrupt Walmart uses—they tie the payroll costs to salaried managers bonuses. Mine is $20,000 while a store manager’s is $100,000.

Many people would be surprised by Walmart’s pay structure. A store manager makes a salary of about 80,000 to 110,000 a year. Which might sound good to average people but is peanuts to them. Their pay can get doubled if they meet certain criteria. A huge part of it is keeping your payroll costs down. Which means gradually forcing the long time employees out. And replacing them with temporary workers, who are not eligible for healthcare, time off, or even a discount card. Most of these people start off at $7.90 an hour and are already on public assistance. That ends up backfiring because the new hires most of them end up quitting within a month. The whole culture of Walmart rewards people who know the unwritten rules of Walmart. Some of these rules are: managers can almost never eat in the breakroom, never socialize too much with a lower level employee, and keep most things secret from them.

Eventually I was transferred to be an [assistant manager] over the front end which includes all of the registers, Self Checkouts, Customer Service Desk, and the Jewelry counter. At this job I’ve had to disproportionately cut the hours of the elderly who often make $15 an hour in order to preserve the hours of the others who make $8 an hour. I’ve recently witnessed with the recent decline in same-store sales Walmart has become increasingly desperate and in-denial about how to fix the issue. We’ve basically been forced to be ultra strict with associates and if they get caught stealing time by goofing off for 5 minutes, it’s an automatic written reprimand. Turnover has been increasing at my store at an alarming rate which is by design because Walmart has decided that they want you to stay for 1 year and become a manager or leave. Due to this turnover we’ve had to accept some less than satisfactory candidates. I’ve decided that the best way to solve these problems is to bring in 3rd party representation (Our Walmart) [an organized labor group for Walmart employees] and my hope is that Our Walmart will be able to persuade Walmart Corporate to agree to a living wage and more hours for Walmart Associates.

Sourced from Gawker.com

Fb-Button
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »