It’s true that the people who work in stores are paid to keep the place looking reasonable. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have anything else to do. Try putting up three or four carts full of returns, picking up the mess, folding the tables, assisting customers in the store, answering the phone, all of this in a screaming busy store, somehow getting it all done at the same time.
It’s crazy-making. People who leave crap everywhere have no idea what it’s like. Have mercy on us, please!
A few years ago, I took a job at H-D. Every night, a really weird guy would come in, and fill up a shopping cart with all kinds of stuff-then leave it.
Why the guy liked doing this is beyond me!
I work in a video store. Working here, I have come to learn that most people are assholes. People will take a DVD off the shelf, carry it around for a while, and then when they see another title they want more, they’ll put the first one on the nearest shelf. Then, when we go to find it, it’s not where it belongs, and it’s “lost” until the staff gets around to going through each section, title by title, looking for exactly such mis-shelved discs. While it’s lost, we can’t rent it, and we lose money. Finding it requires at least one extra staff person, by the time you tabulate all the person-hours we devote every week to “facing” the shelves.
8 year (and counting!) grocery veteran here. My faith in basic, common decency was finally stomped to death in about 2001. You don’t ever know how truly awful people are until you work retail.
I once watched a man poking holes in melons with a fucking pen.
I asked him wtf he was doing, his reply “None of your business but I’m checking for ripeness”
I saw my arse :mad: strolled across to the customer service desk and told 'em what this spunkstain was doing.
2 guys on the desk looked at each other “Jesus, him again” “He’s banned from here” "He’s a total fucking idiot, “He peels leaves off the lettuce and cabbage sometimes”
I asked these guys if the man was perhaps not altogether right in the head, which would have excused his behaviour.
“Not at all, sometimes he’s quite reasonable but other times…”
Yuh. Had a woman tonight–see, we start calling people when their discs are three days late. We don’t have to; we could just let the late fees rack up. It’s a courtesy. So at fourteen days, this woman finally checked that voicemail. It was a new release, which is a buck and a half a day. So the late fees are twenty-one bucks. She goes, “That’s not the best number to reach me at; I don’t usually check the voicemail.”
“Isn’t that the number you gave us when you opened your account?”
“Yes.”
[blink blink blink] " . . . Well, is there a better number for us to reach you?"
“Yes–” and she gives me the number. I change it in the system. She had no excuse for not knowing we had her old number; we use phone numbers as account numbers, so she recited this old number ever time she rented a video.
So I change the account and go, “OK, that’s twenty-one dollars.”
“Aren’t you going to discount it?”
“Discount it? Why?”
“Because I don’t check the voicemail on that number!”
[blink blink blink] “But that’s the only number you gave us!”–not even pointing out that it’s not our job to hunt her down when her videos are late; it’s a courtesy!
“So there’s no discount?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
She pays, sourly, put out.
Cunt.
(Repeat this, or similar, literally a dozen or more times a shift some days.)
Guy picks up frozen pizza in a sealed box; examines outer packaging for a while, then tears open the box and takes out the (plastic-wrapped) pizza; examines this for a second or two and presumably decides it is of acceptable quality for his consumption.
So he puts the pizza back in the box, puts the box back in the freezer cabinet and takes for himself a sealed one of the same kind.
Obnoxious as the Op’s wife’s behaviour might be, she is a peon, an amateur, a mere streamwinner next to the morons (that’s right, plural - more than one person is capable of being this stupid) who use the toy aisles of our local dollar store as a creche while they roam both the dollar store and neighbouring stores doing thier shopping.
Basically, they dump their kids there, give them a licence to play with, smash up, unpackage and trash any toy that catches their eyes, leaving devestation in the aisles. The clerks come and chase them away - big game to the kids - they scatter only to reassemble there and continue throwing the toys all over the aisle until their parents come back to pick 'em up.
Just wanted to share one moron customer story I witnessed:
Shopping at a thrift store, the lady in the aisle opposite me sneezes. Apparently, it was one of those surprise-mucous-out the nose sneezes. Cool and collected, she grabs the corner of the nearest shirt on the rack, wipes and blows her nose into it, and continues browsing.
This behaviour annoys me, but it is kind of understandable if you’re not really bothered to go and put it back. What annoys me more is if a customer stands in front of a display rack, picks something up, looks it over and then puts it back on the wrong shelf. What the hell? It’s right there in front of you!! Put it where is belongs.
That said, it’s not fair on the clerks to always have to check every rack to make sure some lazy tool has put stuff in the wrong spot. They’re people too, they may not have the right to bitch so loudly (company image and so on) but they do have a right to say ‘Can you please make the effort to at least give this to a clerk so we don’t have to search for it?’ if she’s done this so often that she’s a recognised offender.
So your wife needs to be called on this, but she deserves to dealt with cordially because she is a human being. The clerk needs to be called on passive-aggressive hostility because there are more effective ways of dealing with this problem that would not have resulted in upsetting a customer and affecting your company’s image. You are in a position to call her on this behaviour, which would be a better thing to do than be hostile as you were. (Though I can understand how an opening like that would just be too tempting).
Nope. Sorry. I didn’t see that as an excuse before I had a child, and I still don’t see that as an excuse - and I do have an infant. I try to park right next to the cart corral, but if I can’t, I still return the cart to the corral - I take the baby with me, and carry him back to the car when I’ve returned the cart. Pain in the ass? Yeah, it is. Especially since I don’t have keyless entry or power door locks or anything like that in my POS car (although hopefully, I’ll have all of that in another couple of months), but I hate pulling into a spot only to nearly have my car taken out from an errant cart, so why would I do that to anyone else?
Yeah, it’s a hassle to drag the cart and baby all over kingdom come, but I do it because returning the cart is the considerate thing to do. Granted, I typically toss my baby in a sling now because it’s just easier than dragging the heavy carrier around (my kid’s a horse, so add his weight to the carrier, and it hurts), but even so, if I bring the cart out, it’s my responsibility to return it to a cart corral.
As far as not returning it because you just can’t make that one last trip to the cart corral, why can’t you ask a store worker to help you out to your car? All leaving the cart in the spot does is make it difficult for the next person trying to pull in your parking spot. Most stores do have workers who can help you to your car, all you have to do is ask.
It seems like a lot of people think there are NO excuses for not returning a cart unless it’s their excuse.
[Giant hijack]Look into something called the Ergo Carrier - they’re great from infant up to 40 lbs (used to be 65, but someone must have had an accident, because though it still works for most of our customers up to 65, we have to say 40). Fantasic on your back, the kids back, and can be used front, hip, or back. The child can’t be facing outward, but it’s so worth it on your back. We carry them new at our store, and we have to order new ones in every couple of weeks because they fly off of our shelves. Supposed to come with a free instructional DVD. You can order them online from the Ergo page (not from us, so this isn’t a plug for my store ) - a touch expensive, but better than a Baby Bjorn or Moby Wrap (and slings in general) and lasts until you don’t want/need to carry your child anymore. And if you have more children… you see where I’m going with this. These things are awesome. I just sold one to my landlady last week, and when I saw her yesterday she was using it and told me she loved it. It’s going to be my first purchase the moment I find out I’m pregnant.[/giant hijack]
The Ergo is on my short list of carriers I want :D. I have about 4 of them right now (2 pouch slings, a mei tai, and a front carrier), but the Ergo is like my dream carrier right now…hehehe. It will be my birthday gift to myself in January ;).
I agree with most of what’s been posted here, and generally I will put something back if I change my mind.
However, there is one situation where I won’t. Sometimes when I go to the grocery store, I’ll go to the aisle where the item I want is located and I’ll select one and put it in my basket. Then…seven aisles away at the front of the store I’ll find a display with a competing brand of the same item that’s on sale.
If the store can’t be bothered to put all of the same kinds of things in the same place, then you’re darn right I will take the item I already selected out of my cart and leave it there.
I suspect most people aren’t actually aware of this. I’d have assumed the cashiers would look at me like I was an idiot or some poor person who didn’t have enough money for the groceries I wanted if I handed her that box of lasagna I just realized I didn’t need.
I’m trying to talk my boss into buying a library cart, so I can put a sign on it saying, “Please don’t reshelve the videos. Let us put them back in their proper place,” or something. His objection? “Where will we put it?”
He’s retarded. It’s got fucking wheels! You can put it any place! I’m gonna go to work on him again soon, after I keep track for a while on the titles we lose so much revenue on when they’re lost that it’s easier to just order new ones. Titles like Princess Bride and Texas Chainsaw; you lose money every day they’re lost, so now when they turn up we’ll have a backup copy.
Imagine the sag potential of something that size and you’ll understand why.
By way of transition, it’s appropiate to note that a poster called Freudian Push Up Bra has stolen some of the thunder from my own rant. I, too, am befuddled by the inability of people correctly to replace an item they just pulled from the shelf. Hardware stores seem to be the worst place for this, both in terms of frequency of occurance and in the problems it causes for subsequent shoppers trying to find the right Mack washer in an intermingled lot. I once spent ten minutes sorting out quarts of paint so I could tell if the color I wanted was in stock.
) - a touch expensive, but better than a Baby Bjorn or Moby Wrap (and slings in general) and lasts until you don’t want/need to carry your child anymore. And if you have more children… you see where I’m going with this. These things are awesome. I just sold one to my landlady last week, and when I saw her yesterday she was using it and told me she loved it. It’s going to be my first purchase the moment I find out I’m pregnant.[/giant hijack]