|
Santheb posted:LP is funny. We don't have a true LP person at my warehouse, it's usually just "take your nametag off and follow this person around for a while" because we don't have uniforms at Costco. However sometimes it's this giant lady (she's a really big woman) with heels on and a radio following them and its pretty funny because she still has her walkie talkie on and will give status updates of the suspected shoplifter from time to time, or our geriatric night manager who screams into the radio will just constantly blow whatever cover she had. Oh and she speaks with a Russian or some type of eastern Euro accent. Fluent English, just with the accent. Or they'll have the guy who is legally a midget follow them. Pretty funny. Our LP guy at my store is a fat lazy guy that loves to walk around without his name badge on so he can just do nothing all day while casually keeping an eye out for people stealing. Lately though he's just been working in the electronic section so I guess we technically don't have an LP guy right now. Last year some people came into my store and did a smash and grab on our jewelry case and I was disappointed that I wasn't there to experience all the crazy that day. That disappointment turned to furious anger when I came in the next morning and saw that the night crew didn't stock anything at all because of the smash and grab, so I had to spend my entire 8 hour shift doing their job instead of mine. I still don't know why it kept them from getting anything done that night but I didn't ask because they would just tell me to stop whining about it.
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 00:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 15:01 |
|
|
Wowsers, they smashed up your stores jewelry case? That's hardcore. Hopefully they caught em. There's a lot of really expensive stuff in there. For example I've never seen anybody buy one of the $7000 watches but we consistently have new ones in there and that means people must buy em... But drat, I've never heard of anything like that. Majors is right up front near the entrance door though so...I guess I could see it happening? Still nuts to think about. You guys got your Apple products in yet? Oh and night crew owns. At least ours does. I'm sure it varies from store to store but ours gets a fair amount of work done with the amount of people we're given. Santheb fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Jul 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 09:29
|
|
|
I believe the guys who did it got caught when they tried to do the same thing at a nearby store. For a while after it happened they had one of the Majors guys stand there at all times but eventually they were allowed to be more productive. I think we got the Apple products in but I'm not 100% sure on that, we do have the Apple table all set up for it though (which apparently was a huge pain in the rear end and I'm glad I didn't have to do it). And for your last point, considering that I am night crew now I'd like to think that we do own. We usually have 4-6 guys every night and can get a bunch done most nights. The only significant issue is that I work in a small store with a really small dock, so every day we have to bust rear end to get enough stocked off of there just to have room to unload a truck.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 13:20
|
|
|
When I started in retail I was working in an inner city store frequented by a substantial number of gang members, convicts, drug addicts and crazy bums. The store had cameras and the manager kept a loaded gun in the office, but most of the time loss prevention consisted of the manager standing up in his office (which was simply an enclosed, elevated corner of the sales floor), pointing at me on the sales floor and loudly instructing me to follow the group of six gang members/deranged bum/convict on work release who just came into the store.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 14:09
|
|
|
Kmart laid off most of it's LP workers a couple years ago. Along with most assistant managers last year. Just another tip that the company is dying out. That and they're officially closing my old store. Glad I'm not there to have to experience it, I'd be getting all sentimental and poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 15:39
|
|
|
The guy in line in front of me at the Cub Foods was fussing with a giant cyst or something on his neck, and he popped it to the tune of sending a giant geyser of pus and blood across the conveyor belt  He then just walked out like nothing had happened, leaving the poor guy behind the register to clean it up. (the entire rest of the line backed up en masse and went to a different register because  )
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 00:16
|
|
|
Santheb posted:LP is funny. We don't have a true LP person at my warehouse, it's usually just "take your nametag off and follow this person around for a while" because we don't have uniforms at Costco. However sometimes it's this giant lady (she's a really big woman) with heels on and a radio following them and its pretty funny because she still has her walkie talkie on and will give status updates of the suspected shoplifter from time to time, or our geriatric night manager who screams into the radio will just constantly blow whatever cover she had. Oh and she speaks with a Russian or some type of eastern Euro accent. Fluent English, just with the accent. Or they'll have the guy who is legally a midget follow them. Pretty funny. I think you possibly work in the Costco in my town, but there could be many Costcos with midgets? The idea of Costco selling Apple stuff now makes me glad I no longer do vendor rep work. It was hard enough trying to pawn my stuff in Best Buy going against Apple, I can imagine it being hell in Costco. And on the topic of Walmart and their relationship with third party, that is why I was glad my company stopped having us cover Walmart's weekly like we did other stores. Most of the times I would just walk in and stand in my aisle, didn't even bother checking in with employees or management because they didn't give a poo poo, they wouldn't do any of the things I asked for, etc. Even when bribed with free stuff, they didn't care. But who could blame them, their job sucks. And my company offered only their shittiest of poo poo in Walmarts, and even that didn't sell.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 09:53
|
|
|
That seems to be fairly common with Walmart. A friend of mine worked for a tire company that supplies Walmart AutoCenter, and they have an entire line of tires that are exclusive to Walmart. Those tires are so crap no legit mechanic would recommend them for any car you intend to own for any significant length of time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 10:58
|
|
|
So I work retail for a DIY store as a Store Manager (yes I'm one of those people) and I'm what most people would term a "lifer". I started at the bottom, and have dragged my way up kick and screaming, working for two very different companies in my time. If anyone would like any stories or just thoughts in general, especially from a management point of view then please ask away. I started working for video games retail, which really quite soured me on humanity in general, until I walked out and got a job where I now work. One for starters, which is very recent. I've just transferred stores, and I'm literally in the middle of an "open store" refit. For people who don't know what this is, it's basically a complete re-model of the store, but while we are still open! Anyone who works retail will be able to tell you that the most important aspect of selling is being able to communicate, which at present is very very difficult due to various bits of machinery and lovely builders working in the store. Not only that, but my targets have not been altered. Yes I am still expected to hit the same targets that I would have had, only with half a store to sell from. Genius idea, but anyway this is only setting the scene. As you can imagine this is quite stressful. One of my guys takes a phone call from a very disgruntled customer, who is unhappy that a product we sent from this store to another branch has not arrived in ideal condition. In fact, half of the product is completely smashed, and to make matters worse, this product is now discontinued and we had the last stock in the company (that bit is true). The guy is literally holding the phone as if it were a comedy sketch, about two feet from his ear, because this woman is exploding with rage down the phone at him. So much so, that I take over the call from him. At this point, I ask what the problem is and being a "good" manager what we can do to fix it, but I want to know what has happened first. I am literally met with a barrage of abuse from a woman who not only knows how our entire companys stock system works, but also tells me that outlook exchange is apparently psychic, and can tell who read an email on a shared email address accessible by any one of four people, and she wants that information now! (What she was planning on doing with it, god only knows) At this point, I apologise and tell her that information doesn't exist only to be told that I am trying to cover for my staff and that we should take some responsibility because we just don't care about what we are doing. I'm kind of blindsided by this because how do you respond to that?. If I responded truthfully and told her that "No madam, I couldn't give a flying gently caress about your problem because this store didn't deal with you" that could kind of get me into trouble. So I respond with what is the truth of the matter, that we sent them the best way we could and someone in our distribution network has mishandled them resulting in damages. Not a good idea, because she seems to think that we are to blame. Apparently the other store (who have not informed us about these items being damaged btw) have blamed us for our "shoddy packaging" even though we sent them pretty much how we received them from the supplier, in exactly the same packaging, etc (Just opened to check for damages). Apparently she was told by the other store manager that we should have individually wrapped each item in bubble wrap (60 items btw) before we sent them, even though in my six plus years of transferring stock between branches this has never once happened. I tell her this, and that the staff member she also seems to think promised to do this would not have promised this and then she brings out the age old "I work in customer service and I wouldn't treat my customers this badly". I loving hate this, because for one thing you can pretty much guarantee that they don't, and two, if she did, then she would know the best way to get anything when complaining is to do it as nicely and politely as possible. Anyway, this woman is furious and I literally cannot get a word in edgeways, so I interrupt her mid spiel and state the honest facts. What has happened, has happened. I cannot undo it and unfortunately I cannot make it right because there is no more of this item available. At this point she says to me that "you wont make it far in this industry" and hangs up the phone. I'm a bit stunned because it literally seems all this woman wanted to do was vent, and also because she didn't get anything out of the phone call. It was literally five minutes of ranting, an insult and hangup. Utterly loving pointless. So I contact my boss to let her know about it (protip - any customer complaints, always let your boss know about it first) and she literally says to me "what does she want, it's human error and mistakes happen. Let her complain because she won't get anything". Did I mention I have a good boss? 
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 22:31
|
|
|
lorddazron posted:At this point, I ask what the problem is and being a "good" manager what we can do to fix it, but I want to know what has happened first. I am literally met with a barrage of abuse from a woman who not only knows how our entire companys stock system works, but also tells me that outlook exchange is apparently psychic, and can tell who read an email on a shared email address accessible by any one of four people, and she wants that information now! (What she was planning on doing with it, god only knows) Protip: give fake names and the customer comes off looking even more crazy when they follow-up  I talked with Phil yesterday and he was very rude There's no one named Phil here, ma'am WHAT DO YOU MEAN
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 06:42
|
|
|
Someone once gave my name over the phone to a customer; since he wouldn't be around when they called back, he figured it would be easier, I guess? Anyway, said customer calls back, asks for me personally, I pick up, have absolutely no idea what the conversation is about, get yelled at by the customer for being an rear end in a top hat, then wind up with a manager talking to me about my customer service skills 
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 12:48
|
|
|
There's nothing better than receiving a tepid secret shopper report where the secret shopper got every detail wrong. "Who's Todd? Did we ever have a Todd here?" *blank stares* "Says he was tall and lanky. That could describe you, John. Are you Todd?" *John shrugs his shoulders* *throws secret shopper report in trash*
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 15:50
|
|
|
We just had a secret shopper trash our department on their report, and of course there's no one named Nick anywhere near our department. The description of said person wasn't really close to any of us back there. I wish companies would just do away with secret shoppers, they're useless, especially when we're a company that sells volumes more than our competitors. Of course we're not going to be able to greet every loving customer, unlike Safeway where there are more employees than customers at any given time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 01:09
|
|
|
For whatever reason my company was hired to do secret shopping. So I would secret shop in a store that I literally show up in uniform and do work at. Hello sir, I'm interested in DSLR cameras, any recommendations? Aren't you the guy who installed the display for the DSLRs?Yeah, I ended up going gently caress it and just gave them good reviews cause seriously, what the gently caress. EDIT: It wasn't helped when I bullshit with the employees and bring up my money woes. Now all of a sudden I want to talk about buying 300+ dollar speakers.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 03:49
|
|
|
ijii posted:We just had a secret shopper trash our department on their report, and of course there's no one named Nick anywhere near our department. The description of said person wasn't really close to any of us back there. I wish companies would just do away with secret shoppers, they're useless, especially when we're a company that sells volumes more than our competitors. Of course we're not going to be able to greet every loving customer, unlike Safeway where there are more employees than customers at any given time. After handing in my two weeks I remember a meeting held one morning where we were told our secret shopper program was switching companies. It was found that the five or six shoppers we got every 3 months were not correlating to our metrics well enough so a new company was being hired which would involve more interacting with the employee and thus give better metrics on how the stores were doing. The old company had shoppers rate us from 0-100 on six different categories plus a comment section at the end. Now the new company was doing a 0-100 on twelve categories, adding my favorites such as did everyone greet you while you were there and how friendly were the associates. Also there was a checklist the shopper was supposed to accomplish in at least one interaction such as did the associate offer the store credit card, the store rewards program, or help you get a cart if you did not have one with you. That last one just seemed too stupid to be true. Now I hear from a friend who works there that the department I left which had one full-time, three part-timers, plus a department manager is down two part-timers. The store in general lost most of the summer seasonal part-time workers and is at a level of being understaffed that workers might be in two departments for a few hours to cover the missing people.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 04:45
|
|
|
Good god, whose responsibility would it be to suggest getting a cart? Just a clerk stocking general stuff on the sales floor? I bet anything that the idea behind suggesting a cart is: cart = more stuff = more $$$!
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 06:06
|
|
|
How the gently caress do you rate something on a scale of 0-100 without a tedious and exhausting criteria for the rating? Jesus I find 1-10 scales annoying. Oh, I don't know if I was "slightly disappointed" than a 43 or if i was actually "more or less slightly disappointed" as a 44 so I gave them a 45 which is "more so slightly underwhelmed but not so much disappointed per se".
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 12:56
|
|
|
ijii posted:Good god, whose responsibility would it be to suggest getting a cart? Just a clerk stocking general stuff on the sales floor? I bet anything that the idea behind suggesting a cart is: cart = more stuff = more $$$! You got it. I'm supposed to ask customers who do not have a hand basket if they would like one. This was pitched to me as a way to encourage customers to buy more, because if they have a basket they will want to fill it with goods. That's idiotic. Instead, I offer people baskets if I see them struggling to carry a dozen loving things in the crook of their arm because they didn't think to grab one on their way in. Because that's what a considerate person does.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 13:19
|
|
|
Blade_of_tyshalle posted:You got it. I'm supposed to ask customers who do not have a hand basket if they would like one. This was pitched to me as a way to encourage customers to buy more, because if they have a basket they will want to fill it with goods. Someone looked at the data and decided that customers that spend the most money usually have carts. Ergo if you give everyone a cart, everyone will spend more money. If this fails its just because you didn't give out enough carts.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 16:06
|
|
|
I never shop with a cart, they're way too unwieldy, I always use the basket.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 16:14
|
|
|
I always use a hand basket too. I consistently see pet dogs sitting their rear end in carts. I see older children and young adults taking a ride with their nasty shoes inside. A nearby chinese restaurant uses them to haul grease around. Employees use it to haul trash. At least hand baskets are considerably cleaner.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 17:19
|
|
|
Cast_No_Shadow posted:Someone looked at the data and decided that customers that spend the most money usually have carts. Yes, the Supply-Side Retail theorum. If you give everyone the biggest cart you can, they will be compelled to fill it with as much random poo poo as possible. As well, if your store isn't selling as many t-shirts as it used to? Jam the shelves full of t-shirts until they're falling off, this will encourage customers to buy them, obviously. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 17:29
|
|
|
I remember Walmart used to have their greeters hand out carts years ago, but now the greeters are all physically disabled employees and they can't really do much of anything. It's kind of sad.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 19:13
|
|
|
I thought they had actually killed off the greeter position, which was mostly a form of half-assed asset protection. I had to do greeting for like a half-hour once when they had a gap in coverage and I wanted to kill myself.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 19:16
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I thought they had actually killed off the greeter position, which was mostly a form of half-assed asset protection. Whenever I go into a Walmart there's always a different disabled employee in a wheelchair or scooter just kind of chilling by the front door and looking depressed. I always say hello. I'm guessing they realized the old system of "our greeters are retirees" didn't work since Grandma can still run a cash register and gently caress that old woman for just standing around and getting paid! Maybe the greeter position now is "can't fire due to disability - just shove them over there and hope they quit".
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2014 19:24
|
|
|
I work in a hospital 5 days a week in a skilled position requiring a masters degree and a license. I deal with altered old people on a daily basis who often die 3 hours after I have a conversation with them with their faces permanently etched into my brain for the rest of my life. I also have to interact with the crying families of the dying, patients pulling tubes out of themselves, occasional threats of violence, and going home at the end of the day hoping to god that a call I had to make didn't end up hurting/killing someone. I also used to work retail while going through school, and still work a shift on Saturdays for beer money. Guess which job is more tiring? GOONS JUST GET THE gently caress OUT OF RETAIL. FOR FUCKS SAKE JUST DO ANYTHING ELSE! loving ANYTHING ELSE!
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2014 07:28
|
|
|
Avalanche posted:I work in a hospital 5 days a week in a skilled position requiring a masters degree and a license. I deal with altered old people on a daily basis who often die 3 hours after I have a conversation with them with their faces permanently etched into my brain for the rest of my life. I also have to interact with the crying families of the dying, patients pulling tubes out of themselves, occasional threats of violence, and going home at the end of the day hoping to god that a call I had to make didn't end up hurting/killing someone. For a minute I thought you were going to launch into "the least happy old people are always the ones with retail stories on their deathbeds."
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2014 07:36
|
|
|
I just registered for school yesterday, doing prereq classes. If I get into the program I'm hoping to it means that I only have 18 more months of working retail. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! It's funny too because they just did my yearly evaluation at work, and they asked me what my long-term goals in the company were. I wish I could have said that my only goal is to walk out the door screaming "GO gently caress YOURSELVES" but that probably would not reflect well on my evaluation. Instead I just made up some bullshit about expanding into the knitting instructor position or something. Luckily it was my ASM going over the evaluation, and she's cool, so she knew I had no desire to stay and didn't care that I was bullshitting. On the subject of evaluations- I was told that this year corporate had some new system that basically meant the SM's had no control over your pay raise. They had to enter info into this online evaluation form rating us on different qualities from 1-4 and the system would then assign a category and pay raise based on whatever arbitrary math it's programmed to do. The company maximum is 3% raise per year, which I always got under my old SM (she was a bitch to work for but even she felt that less than 3% was bullshit). This year I got a 1.4% raise based on whatever poo poo the computer spewed out. Yet another reason I'm ready to get the gently caress out.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2014 12:34
|
|
|
lorddazron posted:she brings out the age old "I work in customer service and I wouldn't treat my customers this badly". I loving hate this, because for one thing you can pretty much guarantee that they don't, and two, if she did, then she would know the best way to get anything when complaining is to do it as nicely and politely as possible. Handling customer complaints for a big box, I get this weekly. It's almost always attached to the dumbest complaints about innocuous issues like being out of stock or the store not being able to fulfill a clearly impossible request that the person claims is "the worst customer service ever". My experience is that the people most likely to use this line often work for a 3rd party call center not related to the actual retail operation they answer calls for. That said, some of the most ridiculous complaints come from people that also work in retail, who deal with terrible people all day, and then seem like they can't wait to toss the same terrible behavior on a worker somewhere else. As a manager, have you gotten to the point where you find yourself having to not automatically associate complaints about your employees as being "rude" as an instant sign that the complaint is likely about the staff not giving into an unreasonable request?
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2014 18:54
|
|
|
Is anyone aware of some sort of alternate, illicit or drug-related use for RV Antifreeze (mainly propylene glycol and de-ionized water)? We care and sell a shitload of this stuff in the winter months because its main use is winterizing pipes. In the summer whatever we have left over is put up in our overheads and forgotten because, hey, who loving winterizes poo poo in July? Apparently these two sketchy looking people who came in tonight. After finding out that the stuff wasnt available for sale IMMEDIATELY and insisting that no they did not need regular antifreeze, they flipped out when they were told we'd have to hunt down where exactly we put it 4 months ago and stormed out, even after our manager offered to call them as soon as we found it. Once found, the manager called them, but by then they'd already called our customer care hotline to insist that they were told we wouldn't lift a finger to help them and basically told them to gently caress off. Ain't customers great? Anyway considering these two were setting off some warning bells with how they were acting, aside from just being jerks - distracting one person while the other eyeballed expensive merchandise, generally acting very nervous - I have to believe they needed this stuff for something fun. The one guy was also looking for some sort of water gauge or something but that comes to me secondhand.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 04:07
|
|
|
Apparently Antifreeze is commonly used in Meth production so they probably wanted to make Meth or they're just super particular about their RV maintenance.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 04:49
|
|
|
Propelyne Glycol is also used for e-cig juice and can be found in foods, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. There's really quite a lot that they might have wanted to do with it besides winterizing pipes, but it might just be the case that they're assholes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 08:42
|
|
|
Rang a customer up, total came to $9 and a bit. They pull out a sealed roll of quarters, open it, quickly take a couple out and hand the rest to me. So now my options are either 'count out 37 quarters to make sure they're all there' or 'ask to see how much they took off the roll'. I do the latter, and the total's correct, but she then gets angry at me and demands an apology for not trusting her. Come on, lady, I've only been here a month and I've had people attempt fraud on me twice. I haven't even met you before! I'm just doing my job!
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 17:10
|
|
|
The Lord of Hats posted:Rang a customer up, total came to $9 and a bit. They pull out a sealed roll of quarters, open it, quickly take a couple out and hand the rest to me. So now my options are either 'count out 37 quarters to make sure they're all there' or 'ask to see how much they took off the roll'. I do the latter, and the total's correct, but she then gets angry at me and demands an apology for not trusting her. Personally I would have told her to take her change to a bank and come back. There is no way on the face of the earth I'd tolerate being given 37 coins.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 17:13
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:Personally I would have told her to take her change to a bank and come back. There is no way on the face of the earth I'd tolerate being given 37 coins. I'd tolerate 37 coins in a roll. They'll come out easy, and count even easier. It's when somebody gives you 50 coins in a giant pile of various denominations that's a no go.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:Personally I would have told her to take her change to a bank and come back. There is no way on the face of the earth I'd tolerate being given 37 coins. Of course, in Australia the checkout clerk is always right, including refusing legal tender! I wish I could live there too
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 20:13
|
|
|
kidhash posted:Of course, in Australia the checkout clerk is always right, including refusing legal tender! I wish I could live there too *pays for groceries with a pile of nickels and pennies* You have to accept it, it's legal tender!
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 20:47
|
|
|
If I've ever needed to pay for anything in a clusterfuck of different coins I've always made sure poo poo is at least grouped up in a way that makes things quick and easy to count.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 21:18
|
|
|
I once had an old lady come in one night and buy ~$40 of toys with a gallon sized ziplock bag of assorted coins. It was a dead slow day and of course at our place the customer is always right so I stood there for a good long while helping her count it. As least the two of us together it wasn't as long as it could have been. it's still obnoxious though. What's worse is when a parent comes in with their kid and they say "Ok, Pay the lady" and he reaches in his pocket and pulls out a mangled wad of crumpled allowance dollars without even counting them. And the parent stands there and doesn't correct the child. And they both look at me like "ok he paid, change please"
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 21:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 15:01 |
|
|
In Canada there is a legal maximum amount of coins that you have to accept and the amount is fairly low. One of the greatest joys in working retail is being able to tell customers no when they are being a pain.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2014 22:15
|
|