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I learned to run the front end today and I feel all hollowed out on the inside.
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Aug 6, 2016 22:41
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 05:55 |
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Getting off an hour or so early on the easy days.  I could milk it for time, but I'd rather go home anyways.flavor effigy posted:I learned to run the front end today and I feel all hollowed out on the inside. You still feel? 
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Aug 7, 2016 02:44
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Running the front end is fun, what's wrong with you guys?
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Aug 7, 2016 03:02
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The Lord Bude posted:Running the front end is fun, what's wrong with you guys? We get it, you're a broken person who actually loves retail. Why are you so shocked when people complain about it in the thread made for complaining about retail?
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Aug 7, 2016 03:30
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Front end is okay except for lottery tickets It crushed my spirit to watch people spend hundreds a day on scratch off lottery tickets
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Aug 7, 2016 03:54
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We sell carpet remnants. They vary in size and quality. They are all supposed to be tagged with their size and price via a unique identifier code. Someone accidentally swapped the tags when putting them up. Customer bought one of the mismarked ones, nobody noticed the mistake, everybody got shafted. We can not solve his problem cleanly and even if we could, he isn't happy with the "how". So tomorrow he's coming in and I get to listen to him whine about how awful the situation is and make sympathetic noises for god knows how long... Meanwhile the solutions have been presented and are not going to change. Some people just can't accept failure. Goddamnit.
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Aug 7, 2016 04:15
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WampaLord posted:We get it, you're a broken person who actually loves retail. Why are you so shocked when people complain about it in the thread made for complaining about retail? There are plenty of unpleasant jobs associated with being in retail, and plenty of reasons to complain about retail. I just think that if you have to have a retail job, running the front end is a pretty good one. You get independence, it's less labour intensive than being a checkout operator, you get to catch shoplifters and fraudulent refunders. You can't seriously tell me you'd rather be in say the deli, up to your elbows in chicken blood, or in the meat department cleaning drains?
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Aug 7, 2016 04:17
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Shugojin posted:Front end is okay except for lottery tickets Thank god I get to pawn those people off on the 7-11 down the street because we don't sell them.
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Aug 7, 2016 07:08
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Yesterday I had three $500+ sales, $950 laptop on the first, furniture on the second, and desktop computer + MS Office on the third. On a related note, we have a fun policy that all transactions over $500 need a managers approval. We were a manager short yesterday.
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Aug 7, 2016 13:35
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Oh, and I found out what caused this whole idiotic facial hair thing the long story short is that neckbeards are abhorrent and ruin everything
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Aug 7, 2016 16:31
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Kilonum posted:Yesterday I had three $500+ sales, $950 laptop on the first, furniture on the second, and desktop computer + MS Office on the third. I could see that for returns? But for sales? As a previous retail manager, I'd just say "Nice job. Did you offer the warranty?" And I really only cared about the last part because I had to. Frankly, I'd rather not have to.
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Aug 7, 2016 16:36
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Shugojin posted:Oh, and I found out what caused this whole idiotic facial hair thing Ok now I need the long story long.
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Aug 7, 2016 16:38
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Well basically some disgusting motherfucker with a long, unwashed, matted, and generally just goony as gently caress neckbeard was at another store. The manager there didn't enforce beard nets or anything, and so they got in poo poo with health inspection so corporate went nuclear option. CEO was kind of down on all facial hair to begin with but this killed all chance of a sensible resolution where facial hair of a reasonable length is permitted So it's not really that long it's just stupid
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Aug 7, 2016 16:42
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Somehow we're managing to sell $15,000 to $20,000 of gifts and trinkets a day and not have a complete meltdown. I can't wait for August to be over.
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Aug 7, 2016 19:25
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Today, I started on register duty. Today, I waited on a crackhead. Code memorization has begun. 4011. 4024.
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Aug 7, 2016 21:14
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As unhappy as I am in my current department, I thank the retail gods every day that I'm no longer on the front end and will never, ever go back. I will starve, I will beg in the streets, I will apply for jobs at Rent-A-Center before I willingly go back to the front end.
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Aug 8, 2016 01:38
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Today, I started on register duty. Today, I waited on a crackhead. I know bananas, what's 4024?
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Aug 8, 2016 01:48
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Faerunner posted:As unhappy as I am in my current department, I thank the retail gods every day that I'm no longer on the front end and will never, ever go back. I will starve, I will beg in the streets, I will apply for jobs at Rent-A-Center before I willingly go back to the front end. It is some real bullshit when you've got some dinosaur registers. The ones I've got? They're new, they've got a solid OS, and they process very fast. We've even got cordless scan guns. Can't complain so far, crackhead aside. Zeth posted:I know bananas, what's 4024? Grapes or cherries, I forget which.
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Aug 8, 2016 01:56
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blackmet posted:I could see that for returns? But for sales? Sales over $500 and returns/exchanges that result in a refund of $25 or more need a manager's approval. And I did get warranties sold on the furniture and laptop. Closing shifts this week  Edit: it's me, I'm the weirdo that enjoys working front end. Edit 2: code memorization: 725137 printer ink/toner recycling Only took 5 shifts on register. Edit 3: oh right also yesterday I had some exec from corporate doing school supply shopping for her kids go through my line and I didn't know who she was until manager told me as she was leaving (I knew she was an employee). Exec was impressed. Kilonum fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Aug 8, 2016 |
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Aug 8, 2016 02:06
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Well some headbutting is happening and delaying the time until my night shift quits and I have to be miserable
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Aug 8, 2016 03:46
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I am feel like the only person in the store who knows the entire store's aisle/bay numbering scheme, aside from the merchandising team who sets the bays. In the last week I've had 3 associates ask me where "E5" was. It's at the front end of the garden aisles, duh. Also I can think up at least 3 product codes off the top of my head, plus several model numbers, plus a hundred model names, sizes and costs in flooring and decor without even breaking a sweat. I can look at a tile and tell you if we've sold it in the last 5 years, whether we sold any other sizes in that collection, its approximate location on the shelf when we did sell it, the price range it was in, and who made it. (I still can't order it for you, it's discontinued, sorry about your luck!). I still remember stuff from garden, and I was only officially in that department for about a month total over the course of three years. This knowledge is taking up room in my brain that should be occupied by more worthy things.  Nobody called me back after the last two job applications. Time to try again.
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Aug 8, 2016 04:39
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Three years in produce and I could only tell you a couple PLUs. But I know all the valid ones are 4-digit beginning with 4 or 5-digit beginning with 94 (organic). I also know that individual types of grapes or stone fruit (other things too, but especially those) will come in with any of a dozen different codes, and for some reason it's not trivial for Systems to alias new PLUs to an existing item.
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Aug 8, 2016 06:45
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I knew it was happening, I was mentally ready. Too bad our backstock wasn't so we were out of everything people's WIC checks needed because everyone decided to shop today :iamafag: I wonder how many times I need to tell people to not shop on Sundays before they get it through their loving skulls.
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Aug 8, 2016 07:05
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Whelp... Just had the cops called on me. For not taking an ID. You see, Kansas has been upping the age to buy cigarettes to 21, not own/have/use, just buy. A guy walked in and asked for cigarettes and I asked for ID as he looked in that 18 to 21 year range, and definately looked under 35, which is my stores "Card them" age. That is a policy. He gave me a West Virginia ID, which is fine, but I've personally seen a lot of fakes in the area from out of state, I thought I'd seen him before, something just felt wrong so I told him no. He flipped out. He pulled all the arguments I've heard every day out of his rear end. Stuff Like: you sold to me yesterday, it's illegal to not take my ID, I don't have time to go anywhere else, where's your manager? And he kept going for like two minutes before he told me, "You sold to me two days," I was off two days ago. I was kind of in clerk drone mode at that point, just going through the policy responses, which are stuff like say it's the law, tell them you'll get fired, blame the company, etc. Hearing him lie just snapped me out of it, and I just screamed, "Get the gently caress out of my store." Shocking the other two customers and my coworker, and actually silencing the arguments of the guy. For about 5 seconds. Then it was insults. While he left. So the guy went out and called the cops. Who came, 20 minutes later, with 3 cars. After talking to the kid for another 5 minutes, one came in and asked me my side. Not in a typical cop sorta "What's going on here?" way, it had a very "The hell is up with this kid?" vibe. After a few more minutes two of the officers came in and confirmed it was real, and asked if I would let him come back in and buy his cigarettes. I told them, since they confirmed it was real, it was fine, and I figured it would get the kid out of the parking lot faster. While they were headed out, I heard one of the cops ask the other one, "do we want to press charges on the kid?" He had used 911 to make the call. One of the cops escorted the kid back into the store, and out of pure luck, the stupid little gently caress managed to get back into my lane. So with the cop standing right next to him, instead of asking for cigarettes, he asked for my manager's name, number, and my name. The cop and I shared a look that just said "can you believe this mother-fucker?" and I went and got him the info. I'm going to start looking for a new job, I'm done with this one.
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Aug 8, 2016 08:45
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Yikes, what an incredibly lovely day. I've gotten close to telling a customer to "get the gently caress out" after pissing me off real bad. We had pork shoulder roast in stock and for whatever the gently caress reason my manager made a deal with a customer over the phone that he could have three for a cheaper price. When I got to work and this customer came to pick up three pork shoulder roasts, I went out to the sales floor where we kept the roasts in stock, grabbed 3 of the roasts, repriced them, and handed it over to shitbag customer. This is where poo poo goes down. Customer immediately gets irate because I didn't "go back there" (backroom) to get his roasts. I said that the ones on the sales floor would be exactly the same as the roasts in the back room. He then demanded that I go back to the backroom and get three from there. Sure enough, we didn't have any more and went and told him about it. He gets even more mad telling me "Your manager said he'd save 3 for me to pick up!!!!" I asked him "What's wrong with these 3 shoulder roasts? They wouldn't be any different had we had some in the back." He replied "That's not the point, you were supposed to have 3 in the back for me." We went in circles with these arguments for like 5 minutes. I was so visibly pissed that he actually backed off and apologized. I didn't say anything, I just turned around and did something else.
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Aug 8, 2016 09:16
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I told a customer to get out once. I am not a manager. I was working groceries and the deli was getting absolutely slammed, when the deli manager went to serve a female customer. There are 3 staff plus the manager, all busy as gently caress with a gazillion customers. It's Christmas week. Manager: Good morning, what can I get you today? Woman: I want somebody else to serve me, I don't want your filthy human being hands anywhere near my food. Yes, the manager is gay. It's a small town, it's no big secret. Manager: I'm sorry? Woman: You're a filthy loving human being and you can gently caress off and get me somebody else. The deli manager is a pretty good guy and a decent manager. He's got lines all along the deli 5 or 6 people deep and zero additional staff. He smiles and shifts his attention to the dude behind the enormous oval office and asks "Can I help you today sir?" Woman: Uh, no. I was here first, you will have me served first, and not by some no good human being lover. I was walking past and snapped. I strode up to her and said "Get out. Get out, we're not serving you today." Woman: "You can't talk to me like that!" Me: You can't walk in here and talk to my staff like that and expect to be served. We have the right to refuse to serve certain people and right now, all the deli staff are refusing to serve you. Now GET OUT OF MY STORE. Manager: Leave. She hurled a few insults and walked out. The manager told me I didn't have to do that and I told him that nobody should have to put up with that kind of bullshit. The surrounding customers just kind of minded their own business, even though I was pretty much shouting at the end. She returned the next day to report me and the deli manager and got banned from the store. Store manager never said anything to me about it, but then the SM at the time and I hated each other. I'm sure he would have liked to talk to me about acting above my station or something like that, but he himself is gay. I may not be a manager, and I may not really like most of my co-workers, but they're still my co-workers and gently caress you if you're going to treat them like poo poo when they're just doing their job.
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Aug 8, 2016 11:24
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I'd do the exact same thing. People like that have no place in civilised society and they certainly won't have a place in my store. I'm really happy tonight because a girl called in to say that she'd decided not to be available on Wednesday (public holiday in Brisbane) after all so I scored a 4 hour shift on a public holiday. ($55/hr).
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Aug 8, 2016 12:22
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When I worked at the copy store, one of my worst coworkers, other than the girl who stole everything that wasn't nailed down, was Rick. Rick was not a Customer Service person. He built computers and did graphic design but needed something to pay the bills. He had no interest in learning the basics of copying poo poo or packing poo poo or mailing poo poo, but he was great at Photoshop. To the point he made a very nice looking NEXT REGISTER PLEASE sign he put up at our sole computer to direct the line to my smaller one. He called out all the time, he made deals on the side with customers to make them poo poo at $60 an hour, he was rude, and generally I hated working with him. So one night he was on break in the back, I was alone up front, and I can't remember what the customer's issue was, but I couldn't do something for him, and this middle-aged man started screaming like I was his dog that pissed on the carpet. Lots of gently caress yous and useless bitch and generally things like that. The line of customers said poo poo. They stood there and did nothing, and it was getting to the point of tears rising because the dude was good, he wasn't going to stop till he either got off or I started to cry. And Rick, who couldn't be moved from a smoke break (he always took several during a bare 6 hour shift) with a nuclear holocaust or a lunch break with the same, was suddenly right behind me. And he tore into the customer in that pissed booming voice only James Earl Jones and maybe a few lucky others are blessed with. "YOU don't talk to her that way, you don't talk to anyone like that, GET THE gently caress OUT OF MY STORE." The customer was barely pausing to digest this when Rick screamed at him again, telling him to call the loving cops; he slapped a business card in the customer's hand, screaming in that booming voice that this was the DM's number, call him if you want to cry, now get the gently caress out of my store. Customer left. Rick ignored the rest of the line, and told me very quietly not to let people talk to me like that. He went back to his break, the next customer came up, and I had to bite back the feeling of yelling at every one of those apathetic fuckers for standing there and watching some man scream at me like it was a viral video. These days I tend to bite back. Especially if I'm waiting in line and some fucker is screaming at the poor register jockey who can't do something and it's clearly worth screaming about. Only because once, only once, some rear end in a top hat decided he didn't want to hear more screaming on his lunch break. Rick, I hate your guts still, but you know what, even assholes have standards.
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Aug 8, 2016 15:03
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A bunch of my co-workers apparently decided that we NEED to have Walkie-Talkies in the store because they don't think the intercoms are good enough. (If the goddamn shift leads aren't going to come when you call them on the intercom, why do you think they'll actually show up just because you use a Walkie-Talkie?!) I've apparently been put in charge of teaching people the Walkie-Talkie etiquette and usage by tomorrow. God damnit this is stupid.
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Aug 8, 2016 20:07
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UZworm posted:A bunch of my co-workers apparently decided that we NEED to have Walkie-Talkies in the store because they don't think the intercoms are good enough. (If the goddamn shift leads aren't going to come when you call them on the intercom, why do you think they'll actually show up just because you use a Walkie-Talkie?!) At least they won't have the excuse of "I didn't hear the intercom" or whatever. That happens in our store quite a bit. It's an older building and there are spots where it's softer than others, and when they're unloading a truck in the back they don't hear ANYTHING back there.
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Aug 8, 2016 20:08
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Retail Slave posted:At least they won't have the excuse of "I didn't hear the intercom" or whatever. That happens in our store quite a bit. It's an older building and there are spots where it's softer than others, and when they're unloading a truck in the back they don't hear ANYTHING back there. I have about 0% faith that these people will even keep the Walkie-Talkies ON them at all times like they're supposed to.
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Aug 8, 2016 20:12
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UZworm posted:I have about 0% faith that these people will even keep the Walkie-Talkies ON them at all times like they're supposed to. But then the responsibility shifts to them, instead of "not hearing the intercom" which if true is something beyond their control. I'm not saying it'll work. I'm just saying now they don't have any excuses.
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Aug 8, 2016 20:15
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If it's anything like our store, the guys with the walkie-talkies will use them to have full conversations, which are echoed through every phone/walkie/scanner in the building. It's really awkward overhearing the lot guys talking about breaks and lunches when you're 2 hours into a specialist consultation with a customer and at least an hour late for your own lunch.
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Aug 8, 2016 20:29
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Corporate has decided to try to cram another store onto our delivery route. This route runs twice a week, Wednesday and Sunday, and the Wednesday deliveries are usually larger. The difference is usually a skid or two per store. Problem is, they had added another store to the route 8 months ago, and with the increased order volume in the summer months, they're already having to send that new store on a separate truck. Corporate wants us to lower the difference between shipments to 30 pieces or less. I don't think they realise that means that it's not going to split the difference: both shipments will just be slightly smaller than the larger shipments are right now. If they can't even fit all the stores on the route as it is, how do they possibly expect to put another one? Also the store they're wanting to add was originally on an overnight run, and all the drivers are going to hate it. The route takes 12 hours to drive, and this store will add at least two hours to the route, and 14 hours is the hard cap per day. They want the impossible, as corporate always does.
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Aug 8, 2016 21:19
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Heh. Walkie-Talkies. Our store is rolling out ear piece sets and portable microphones. It isn't at our particular location just yet, but it's in the pipe. Every single employee is going to be wired like the secret service.
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Aug 8, 2016 23:06
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The Lord Bude posted:I'd do the exact same thing. People like that have no place in civilised society and they certainly won't have a place in my store. Statistically, around 1 in 20 customers has an IQ less than 80. You have to account some for the people who can't take care of themselves and are therefore not shopping, but I'd bet at any given time a decent sized store there's at least one borderline retarded customer who isn't obviously impaired but can't be reliably trusted to act civilized.
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Aug 9, 2016 00:35
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I find walkie talkies amusing. When it's slow we use them to BS back and forth without having to shout. That said, I got the word today that the last week this month is going to be max hours 
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Aug 9, 2016 01:44
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Retail Slave posted:At least they won't have the excuse of "I didn't hear the intercom" or whatever. No, they definitely still find excuses. I worked at Target for two and a half years, and we weren't allowed to use the Intercom for anything other than announcements to customers or lost children. All inter-employee conversations had to be on radio. Daily: "Oh, I didn't hear it." "My battery was dead." "I couldn't find one." "I was on the wrong channel." "It turned itself off, I don't know how." "I thought you were talking to someone else." Etc., etc. Faerunner posted:If it's anything like our store, the guys with the walkie-talkies will use them to have full conversations, which are echoed through every phone/walkie/scanner in the building. It's really awkward overhearing the lot guys talking about breaks and lunches when you're 2 hours into a specialist consultation with a customer and at least an hour late for your own lunch. Ugh, this. They would use the radios for credit card ads from management. As in, we were supposed to turn our radio up to full volume, stand next to a customer while pretending to do something, and blast them with the manager rambling on about "save five percent, ask the sales associate you see!!!" It never worked. Not once. And this was one of the biggest stores in the company.
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Aug 9, 2016 01:57
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baquerd posted:but I'd bet at any given time a decent sized store there's at least one borderline retarded customer who isn't obviously impaired but can't be reliably trusted to act civilized. Yeah, all of them
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Aug 9, 2016 04:49
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Saw this at work the other day. Retail is a good industry with fair wages and hours that people are able to live off
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Aug 9, 2016 04:55
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