I’m so glad I don’t work in retail anymore.
This one is my personal favorite. No, I will not go look in ''The Back." Well, I’ll go in “The Back,” but I’ll just stand back there for a few minutes. Trust me, it’s all out here on the floor. We are not hiding shit in “The Back.”
Why on Earth would we keep stuff from you? We want to sell this crap, not count it at inventory. :rolleyes:
Okay, THIS one I can understand. And it doesn’t hurt an employee to simply say “we don’t have back of the store inventory”.
Until I had it explained to me by an employee (quite awhile back), who politely said, “we don’t HAVE any inventory in back,” I thought that they (walmarts, etc) were just like other “mart” stores here, who DO have inventory “in back” and can and will check to see if they have items back there (well at least up here, when the only stocking to be done, is done on the night shift), so if they run out in the daytime, our grocery and other “mart” store personnel are happy to look for you, and usually find it.
So, anyway, if they, Stateside Walmarts, don’t have “a back” what the hell is that huge area, IN “the back”? 
Also, to be fair to we “dumb” customers, the Walmarts (at least the ones in my area) DO have inventory that might not be on display on the shelves, many of the departments store extra inventory on the top shelf still boxed up.
Yes, it is your job to load your cart off the carousel. You’re a hell of a lot closer to your cart then the checker is. Don’t like the “workload”? Shop elsewhere. It is obviously your workload, because you’re a helluva lot closer to your cart and there are no baggers. Face it, bud, you’re the bagger. Deal, or go away. I have never made the checker bag my stuff. I never even thought of doing so, frankly. Are you so goddamn lazy that you can’t do it yourself? The checker is busy scanning YOUR items, you could at least show some respect by bagging your own junk while you wait (unless you’re writing a check or all that lovely stuff – then you can bag after you’ve paid.) Your laziness holds up the line, OK? Just wait til you get behind a person with a ton of stuff who refuses to put it in their own damn cart themselves. When you get pissy, don’t come crying to us.
/Shadez
CanvasShoes, yes, big Wal-Mart type stores do have inventory in the back, but I (thankfully) never worked at a place like that; I always worked at mall stores. Any inventory in “The Back” is stuff which just came in that day and is not checked in yet, which can’t be sold or is stuff removed from the sales floor which is being boxed up to be sent back.
There were just always people who assumed there was lots and lots of STUFF in “THE BACK” that was being hidden from them. 
OK, look, I took this job out of fucking desparation, OK? Maybe G Calliope lives in a city where the streets are paved with good-paying jobs, but I live in Las Vegas, where decent jobs are scarce, and workers are a disposable commodity. I’m lucky to be working at all. I don’t have the luxury of being able to pick and choose.
Also, I don’t mind helping an elderly/arthritic/disabled customer load his/her cart, really. For the most part, I enjoy interacting with the customers. But when I’m constantly having to stop ringing purchases to put somebody’s bags in the cart, guess what? It holds up the line. Other people are waiting. I put the stuff in the bags. Is it too much to ask you to put the bags in the carts?
Also, I’m required to run 425 items per hour through my register every day. That’s one every six seconds. Doesn’t seem like much, and it isn’t if all I’m doing is pushing groceries. But Wal-Mart expects me to maintain that average if I’m on an express line, where there are a lot of customers with just a few items, which means more transition time between customers, or if I have large amounts of clothing/towels, etc. that have to be removed from their hangers and folded, or if I’m doing an order of fifty price-matched items, each of which I have to do a price override for. And which also holds up the line, which means a lot of angry customers.
Also, I don’t mind if people want to talk about their cats, or other mundane aspects of their lives. I encourage it. Five years of being a craps dealer has rewired my brain in such fashion that I can chat with a customer and still ring up their purchase quickly and efficently. I thrive in a chaotic envrionment. If you’re purchasing pet supplies, I may ask you about your pets. If your buying craft items, I’ll ask about your project as long as I can do it without slowing down the rate at which I move items and customers through the line. If I find an item that is damaged, and there’s not a line, I’ll ask you if you want to get one that isn’t- I don’t mind waiting. If it’s late at night and we’re not busy, I may even occasionally shut down my register to walk a disabled customer to his/her car and help load their purchases into the trunk. I don’t mind, really, but I did kind of feel silly riding the little indoor ATV back into the store because the thing is just impossible to push.
Also, if you don’t like people who work in the service industry, well, don’t frequent businesses that employ service industry workers. See how long you can go without doing that.
When I worked at Wal*Mart (10 years ago) we had a lot of merchandise in the back. So much inventory that we didn’t actually know what was back there. Our night workers would just throw stuff from the truck into any empty place they could find instead of taking it to the sales floor and stocking the shelves. It took us almost a year to get the back room organized. It took less than three months for the back to return to it’s organized state.
Target had a much better system. As items were taken off the truck they went straight to the sales floor. Anything that could not be stocked went onto a shelf in the back room. These shelves had location numbers on them, so as an item was placed on the shelf it was scanned into the system so any person on the sales floor could find it if needed. On top of this, there was a team on the floor that walked every aisle every day and recorded items that needed to be stocked. The team then went to the back, found the item and stocked it.
Actually, the place I worked retail was wise to this. At BedBath&Beyond we could have our machine print out the check for you, everything except the signature. Then you look it over and sign it.
Of course what struck me as odd was the customers who would sign it first and then hand me a blank check. I used to pretty much force them to look it over afterwards; I’d like to think our shoppers were a bit more responsible with their money than to just hand a stranger a blank check and not make sure he did it right . . .
(Calliope Sheesh! Get another clue, eh?)
As a Retail Customer, I’m right there with the OP. I’m really tired of standing in line behind absolute morons who are wasting my time as well as their own.
mhendo beat me to it with people who want multiple transactions and those Worshipers of Absolute Evil who stand there slackjawed until after the clerk tells them the price, then, acting shocked (as if they thought it would be free), start digging around for their money.
They’re ringing it up, you JACKASS! GET YOUR MONEY OUT NOW!
This was so me. I was always asking customers buying a lot of pet supplies about their pets. If they didn’t seem to want to talk, I just let it go, but a lot of them liked to. I’d share advice too-once I helped a guy find supplies for a brand new kitten, etc.
I don’t think I minded helping people with disabilities or the elderly. They can’t lift heavy bags. What annoyed me was Mr. Joe Gym Fit guy who couldn’t even bother to lift a bag into his cart.
Oh, and not to brag, but people used to complain that I was too FAST for them.
Dang Guin!!
You can move up here. You can be the TI in charge of new cashiers around the area, okay?
I don’t know if it’s the cold, or what, but these cashiers are slOoooOOOOw!
I used to work at a Super K-Mart. God, I hated that job. At times, it seems people come in just so they can make themselves feel better by making a cashier cry.
Management tends to make things worse for the cashier by believing the customer no-matter-what, and punishing the employee. Case in point: a woman accused me of cussing at her children. I had three fellow employees as witnesses who swore that I had not, but yet still got written up. My managers also felt that the best way to instill a lesson in a cashier was public humiliation. I was never treated more poorly in any job than that one.
I hated price checks more than anything. “Oh, that can of soup is supposed to be three cents cheaper.” I would have to call on the loudspeaker for “grocery” to call register 12. Invariably, there would be no response. I would have to call again. And again. And again. Customers would, understandably, get angry, but unfortunately, take it out on me. Ten minute delay for a few cents. Often, I fantasized about bringing a pocketful of change and just handing the people the difference.
That is actually how I dealt with annoying children. I would give them a coin, and invite them to go ride the mechanical horse that was in front of the registers.
Yes, I ignored customers when walking through the store for my break. They began timing the fifteen minute break from the moment you left the register, and god help you if you weren’t back exactly in fifteen minutes. It took at least two minutes to transverse the entire length of the store, leaving 11 minutes to pee, get a drink, and sit down for the first time in six hours. I became remarkably deaf to calls of “Miss? Miss!” as I scurried toward the rear of the building. Should I stop to help you, I would simply lose that time from my break.
I was a cashier and a cashier only, and so people were frustrated when they came to the register to ask where items were located. I could make a good guess based on the type of item, but other than that, I had no clue. I didn’t shop there.
It always annoyed me when people would bring refrigerated or frozen foods to the register and then change their minds. The ice cream would melt as I called again and again for someone from grocery to please come to my register.
I only worked there for eight months, and swore to God I’d never work retail again. People who work in retail or customer service will definitley go to heaven when they die: they’ve already had their hell on earth.
Earlier today, the very first customer I met said, “Can you tell me where the Wal*Mart in the commercials is?”
“What?” was my reply.
“You know, the one where the salesmen are helpful?”, she replied.
“I’m sorry, is there something I can help you with?”
“TELL ME WHERE THE WAL*MART WHERE THEY HELP YOU IS!”
Now, that’s a great way to start the day at work. At that point, I was told by an associate that she wanted someone to help her push her cart to her car and unload a 13" tv she was thinking of buying. No problem! I pick it up, put it in her shopping cart, turn around with a winning smile-- only to see her giving me the finger and stomping away out of the store.
So, if I was a bit curt or rude to anyone shopping at my store tonight, I’m sorry. Those who go shopping planning to pick a fight with the salesfolks make it worse for those sane, normal people shopping here.
The ones who really need to see a movie like “Clerks” never will…
Everyone (and I mean everyone) should be required to work in retail for one year.
One year would cover all the major sales, Christmas and inventory.
Then they’d be a lot nicer to those who chose to stay in that field.
Sounds like the customer was either psychotic or deliberately and knowingly being a bitch.
Darth, i sympathize with your experience here. Having worked in quite a few customer service-type jobs (but not actually in a retail store) i know quite well how many ways people can be arseholes.
I do, however, have a certain amount of sympathy for the lady who asked about the “Wal*Mart in the commercials.” Substitute the words “Best Buy,” “CompUSA,” “Staples,” “Circuit City,” or any one of anumber of other large retail chains, and exactly the same thing applies.
The problem is that these stores want to eat their cake, and have it too. They all try to cultivate a reputation for low prices and good selection, while at the same time trying to convince us that their level of service is also outstanding. Personally, i would prefer if they were honest, and said something like: “The service sucks, but we’re cheap, so whaddaya expect?”
Note that i’m not saying that the staff at all these stores are lazy or unhelpful or whatever. In my experience, the main problem is that there just aren’t enough of them to cope with the volume of customers that such stores attract. I’ve seen poor harried staff members rushing around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to serve about eight people at a time while the lines just keep getting longer.
I know that people should realize that when stuff is cheap, the store is going to cut corners on things like service. But the fact is, people are often dumb or naive or simply don’t think of this sort of thing. All they remember is that the stores’ commercials all promise excellent service from friendly staff, and when they don’t receive that level of service then people get pissed.
Because i know that understaffing is generally the fault of management and that the staff can’t do anything about it if there aren’t enough of them on the floor, i try not to get angry in stores like this. If i have to go to one of these places, i usually resign myself to the fact that getting what i want might take some time. The only time i really get the shits is when, as happened on my last visit to CompUSA, i stand two feet from a pair of chatting floor staff waiting to ask a question, and am totally ignored while they discuss what they did last night. When this happens, it’s not so much the lost time that pisses me off, as the fact that i know the people know that i’m standing there, and they deliberately keep yapping away about the movie or whatever. And when they finally deign to help me out, it’s accompanied by a massive sigh followed by a bunch of unhelpful monosyllabic responses and a complete refusal to move even an inch from where they are standing in order to help me.
One thing i can never work out is whether one gets better service at these places by being nice, or by being a cunt. I’m a perenially nice person, especially to people in shitty, low-paid jobs. And the people on the SDMB who work in customer service constantly assert that you get better service if you’re nice. But many times in these large stores i’ve seen guys acting like total arseholes, ordering people around and treating the staff like shit; and these guys nearly always have two or three or four staff running back and forth and doing everything possible to please the rude customer.
I still much prefer to be polite, but if i see this sort of thing too many more times, i might have to alter my strategy.
I also worked at a Super K-mart. The thing that bothered me the most is having to be polite to my intellectual inferiors while they are acting like the boors and idiots that they are. Don’t get me wrong…I enjoyed interacting with 9 customers out of ten. It was the last one that made me want to reach over the counter and smack them.
For example:
The people who stand there and stare at the bag carosel as it fills up, knowing that common practice is to pick them up, and refusing because they are such superior human beings that lesser lights like myself should wait on them by putting thier bags in the cart.
The ones that can’t tell the difference between brand names or quantities when they pick something up and claim that “the price is wrong” with all the righteous conviction of a preacher denouncing sin when the item rings up. Pay attention to the posted prices, idiots.
Regarding those who haggle over an alleged three cent overcharge…I would also like to keep a pocketful of change to give them to go away. But I would like to throw it at them hard enough for the coins to lodge in their eye sockets.
Oh and one more thing…cashiers are in fact evaluated on how fast they ring people through the line. Read the above posts for tips on how to move things along. And learn how to use the self-scan registers. Have some respect for yourself for gods sake.
I used to work in a large office supply store (OfficeMax). I can tell you from experience that it’s far better to be polite. If a customer was polite and patient with me in spite of having a problem I was much more willing to do what I could to please the customer. If someone was being an asshole, however, my only motivation to do anything for that person at all was just to get that jackass the hell out of the store, hopefully for good. Chances are the 3-4 associates who were helping the rude jerk were only working to get rid of the customer and not to make sure he was happy and would come back.
This made me laugh out loud.
Jeez…you people must live in WalMart hell or something. I really like my “good” WalMart." I have a “crappy” WalMart, which is sort of OK, but gives me a headache usually.
My people are friendly and helpful, I have good prices, the kid in pets always helps me with the big cat food and cat litter, the kids don’t suck too much, and they’re usually stocked up on my favorite products. I’ve got no complaints, generally.