You’re projecting your employment experience onto other situations.
I guarantee you in a comfortable majority of retail establishments (expecially when you get away from the Wal-Marts and K-Marts), doing something along the lines of that Hilarity received just isn’t a problem at all for the employee. Any place where it would be has to be considered an abysmal workplace on its face.
At places like Office Depot, Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc, doing what is reasonable* towards customer satisfaction is very much a part of the job. In some ways, those jobs are more like being a waiter, say.
“reasonable”, BTW, is defined here by a combination of company policy, good faith, and employee discretion … not by customer desires.
I think many shoppers haven’t really figured out what they want in a store.
If you want cheap, go to a store that can afford to lower their prices because they have less floor space (stuff on high shelves=less rent to pay), fewer employees (nobody wandering the floor to help customers=less wages to pay), and less selection (fewer inventory items means higher quantities when purchasing the ones you do stock which means better profit margins).
If you want customer service, go to a higher-end place that charges a little bit more so that they can afford to hire employees that actually know something about the products they’re selling.
Expecting Nordstrom service at K-Mart (or K-Mart prices at Nordstrom) is just setting yourself up for disappointment.
I think the reason that so many people expect outstanding service is because that’s what the retailer advertises. Take Walmart…sure, the focus is low prices. But I’ve seen them mention great customer service as a feature of shopping there. Ever been to a Walmart? Their version of service is making sure you don’t die before you reach a register. Everything else is gravy.
When I have an experience like that, it haunts me. I feel embarassed and ashamed and I feel like some rude person has got the best of me. It will literally ruin my day. Maybe I’m way oversensitive, but it matters to me. Rude people need to know that they may be doing more emotional damage than they can imagine. All over something insignificant.
Well, that’s not right, either. Instead of just “I don’t know,” I would usually reply, “Hmmm, I’m not sure where that is, but I can help you find someone who does know.”
I agree with the OP 100%. Take my money, don’t be rude, maybe a hello at the beginning and a thank you at the end. I don’t go to a store to make friends with the staff, and I don’t need a self-esteem boost by having a teenage clerk kiss my ass or call me sir or whatever. I don’t think I am “better than” a store clerk and don’t expect a teenager whose been in school all day to be perky and energetic, especially making minimum wage. Plus I don’t even think stores expect that- if they did, they would pay more.
Amazingly, no. We don’t have them in Australia (Big W, despite their association with Wal-Mart, is just K-Mart with different signs out front). And despite the fact I’ve been the US several times, I’ve never actually set foot in a Big W- and that’s not for any moral or philosophical objections to Wal-Mart, there just weren’t any that I could get at without taking a taxi or getting run over trying to cross a 6 lane road with no footpaths or pedestrian crossings…
I don’t understand why some of you think the Office Depot staple remover guy did something wrong. You’re assuming two things: 1. He just gave it away without accounting for it somehow, and 2. that he had no authority to do so. He probably did it knowing full well that “someone might be watching,” because he knew that he was doing the right thing.
For example, in my old retail job, every salesperson had the authority to do something like that. We would just fill out an MOS (marked out of stock) card with an explanation and so the inventory could be manually adjusted. For something like that, I’d just write “customer appeasement” on the MOS card and that would be that. Or if it wasn’t considered “in stock” because we were using it ourselves, I’d just tell the manager what happened, and she’d order a new one. No problem.
In any retail establishment, a small amount of shrinkage due to this kind of situation should be expected and included in the overall projected shrinkage figure.
