I pit shoppers who leave shit all over the stores.

The BBQ Pit
81

That’s a good point. I notice this with stores alot, they’ll have an item out of place in the store on sale. It may even be the same brand as the one you have in your cart but a different size, or it may be part of a ‘meal deal’ where they bundle three to five different items together for a special price. You generally see this after you’ve picked up all kinds of other items though.

What really pisses me off about food stores is they run so many specials and sales that they can’t even keep track of their own prices. I’d be willing to bet that three out of five times we go shopping we have at least one item mis-priced. Then you have to wait in line at the courtesy counter to get the correction since the cashiers can’t help you once you’ve paid.
And you can’t possibly have the time to scan the reciept 'till after you’ve paid and bagged up so you can’t possibly catch the error in time.

82

[hijack]

tdn - yay I found you (ok, maybe I wasn’t looking super hard).

I finally remembered to look for the elevators at Porter Square, but don’t want to resurrect the escalator thread to post this:
To get from the street level to the turnstile level, the elevators are to the left of the escalators. You’ll come out right by the coffee stand. To get from the turnstile level to either of the track levels, take a very sharp left as soon as you go through the turnstiles - they’re tucked into that corner.

[/hijack]

83

Hate? Hate? WTF? You can hate Adolf Hitler, you can hate the guy who abuses children, you can hate the ex who cleans you out financially, but that’s a pretty strong word to use for a complete stranger you heard about on the internet who put a packet of corn flakes with the insect repellent. Time for a bit of perspective, yeah?

Now that’s out of the way, I reckon both the wife and the clerk were in the wrong, but the clerk moreso. The way I see it is putting something back in the wrong spot is indeed jerkish behaviour. If everybody does it, it means the store has to hire more help to return things properly, and then prices go up for everyone. I try my best to avoid putting something back in the wrong spot, and I might have done so maybe three or four times in my life. But then when I have done so, it’s because I’ve decided I don’t want that non-perishable whatever-it-is right at the last minute, there’s a checkout with no queue right there, and the gizmo I want to return belongs about ten aisles away. That, IMHO, isn’t the end of the world. If supermarket employees have to put away items at the rate of “count 'em on one hand in each shopper’s entire shopping career”, then they ain’t gonna bust a nut doing it.

On the other hand, the clerk was rude and unprofessional, and shouldn’t be working there. The clerk’s actions are ten times worse than the wife’s. Yes I have worked in retail, and yes customers suck, but the situation with customers is that they have the right to suck, but the social obligation not to. With clerks, they have neither. They have to suck it up.

84

:rolleyes: Whatever. Yes, I hate inconsiderate assholes. She is one. Therefore, connect the dots. Sure, I’m using a more colloquial and informal sense of “hate”. I really don’t give a shit. I’m sure that you’re just as critical of people who say, “I love cornflakes”, since a deep passion cannot describe someone’s opinion of a breakfast cereal, right?

85

Whatever-y rolleyes indeed. Just remind me to steer clear of you in traffic. I’d probably best not mention that overdue library book, either.

86

It seems like a store in China has solved that pesky shopping cart problem.

Check it out

87

The worst was when you’d find a perishable item that had been left there for hours-like the time I found an expensive cut of beef sitting with the canned goods-it was completely dried out and worthless.

88

I walk in the building and head to the time clock. I hear on the loudspeaker, “Flooring, call on 853”. I get to the time clock and start to punch in. I hear on the loudspeaker, “Associate from flooring, please come to front for returns.” I finish punching in and put on my apron. I hear on the loudspeaker, “Flooring, calls on 853 and 854”, followed immediately by, “Flooring Associate, please report to ceramic aisle for customer assistance.” I head to the showroom since I’m a specialist and my job is centered around the showroom. I try to check my notes in the computer (notes which keep me updated on problems or just changes in my installs). I attempt to build or fix quotes for my customers. I attempt to call my customers for follow up on problems or just regular quotes. I attempt to keep the showroom clean and neat so my customers can maneuver their carts around the tight carpet displays.

However…

I am inturrupted at least 5 times an hour to take calls from customers who have very vague descriptions of product they KNOW we well and want to make sure I know what they’re talking about. Once I figure out what the hell they’re talking about, I don’t mind this because it helps people to know if we have what they need before they get to the store - which keeps them from blaming me when we don’t have it.

I am inturrupted at least 5 times every hour because either a cashier, or the service desk, or one of my less experienced coworkers needs my help (I don’t have a problem with this because my helping them means fewer fuckups I have to fix later).

I am inturrupted at least once every hour because some assistant manager (never mine as he understands why my job is different from a general merchandiser), wants me to go pick up my department. This is because there is grout with the ceiling tiles, hardwood mixed in with the laminate, shelving with the shades, carpet samples in the ceramic aisle, paint samples in the carpet samples and carpet samples in the paint. There is also the plethora of tape measures (still in packaging) in the ceramic aisle instead of hardware, where they belong. Or, conduit mixed in with the ceramic or carpet trim. How about the light bulb someone dropped on the floor and kicked under the racking, not realizing that someone trying to get a box of ceramic will likely cut themselves on the glass. All this cleaning takes me away from my actual job of qualifying customers (helping them to find the right product), setting up measures, closing installs, special ordering stuff, helping the merchandisers with the regular (non install) shoppers (when I have no install shoppers), and downstocking so there’s actually product on the floor.

I have to stop what I’m doing to clean the area rug displays because customers like to take various sizes and styles, lay them out on the floor, swing open the rug displays and leave them open (sometimes running the wheels over the rugs they put on the floor) - but they never clean up after themselves. They leave the rugs all over the floor and the racks open, blocking the whole aisle. These are the same customers who tell me they don’t need help because they’re just browsing.

I have to take time to mark down packages because someone thought the ceramic tile in box A was better than the stuff in box B but some of C was good too, so they opened all 3 boxes and left the tile all over the floor only to be broken by the customer who likes to KICK the ceramic tile out of their way instead of just moving around it.

Now, I try to spend most of my time helping customers. I like helping them. I enjoy selling flooring and I love the feeling I get when very confused customer starts to see the benefits and features of different kinds of flooring.

I do not like to see a customer take a box of tile from the ceramic aisle, leave it in the shelving aisle and then bitch to a manager that there’s no one available to help them (because we’re all cleaning or helping other customers)

So, ask your wife if she gets pissed when there’s no CSR’s to help her. If she does, tell her to look around and see if the associates are cleaning and helping other customers. If I’m aisle 5 cleaning a ceramic explosion (because a manager sent me there), then I am unaware that a customer is in the showroom needing help. If I’m in the wood aisle separating wood from laminate trim, then I can’t walk the aisles to find that person who needs tile cut or needs help picking a ceiling tile.
In some stores, misplaced items are mainly an annoyance (not to mention a shrink problem). In other stores (like mine) misplaced items frequently mean safety hazard first, then shrink problem, then minor annoyance.
HOWEVER, that associate was rude and unprofessional. I don’t care how little you are making. Do not treat the customers like shit just because they annoy you. So many of the people I have worked with get pissed off when customers treat them like shit but they don’t realize that they are rude an condescending to the customers (frequently first). I am rarely treated poorly by my customers, because I treat them well. I force myself to maintain my composure even with the rare customer who acts like a douchebag - for one reason…

If a customer treats you like shit and you reciprocate, you will still get in trouble with management for being unprofessional - even if you may have been correct in theory. Why risk it?
Just for the record - I actually like the returns because organizing relaxes me (one more reason why I chose to work in this type of store). Most associates are not like me, which is why there are so many pissy associates out there, and which is why I shop online.

89

Today’s:
[ul][li]Kid had a copy of *Little Man * out for 14 days, but in order to avoid trouble with his dad, told him that he had bought * it from us. We don’t sell new releases till they come off the new releases wall. So the kid lied. The dad wants us to waive the late fees.[/li]
[]Woman comes in, her account shows she has a disc that’s almost three weeks late. She says she returned the empty box accidentally one day (when this happens we put them in a box, and try to track down the renter to get the disc; the late fees continue to accrue because we can’t rent it out until both box and disc are one). She says she returned the disc a few days later, slipped into another box. She doesn’t remember which one. So until I get a chance to track down all her previous rentals, match the inventory number with the actual copy she rented, and track down the disc, her fees will continue to accrue. She thought this unreasonable. I jammed a pen in her neck. Dang, dreaming for a second there.[/ul]

90

As someone who used to work as a supermarket Nightfiller (Stock Ninjas, if you will), I completely sympathise with the OP and the shop assistant.

Customers need to do two things: Recognise that the world does not revolve around them, and mind their own fucking business.

Now, if the shop assistant had come up the OP’s wife and said “Listen, Bitch, were you born in a fucking cave or something? If you don’t want this stuff then put it back in the right place, you lazy cow!” then that would be out of line. But a comment to another staff member, which the OP’s wife happened to overhear? Tough shit if it offended her.

At the supermarket I worked at, though, giving stuff to the check-out girls didn’t always guarantee it would end up back on the shelf. One of the reasons they were rather glad when I started doing some work at the front end was that I was the only person there who had any idea where any of the dumped stock was supposed to go!

91

More from tonight:

Guy came in with a movie. The late fees were around $10. He wanted to “pay the difference” and buy the movie. Riiiiight; just keep it long enough, till the late fees exceed the value of the movie, and we’ll reward you . . . with a free movie! Had a hard time explaining that a rental video produces revenue–that’s the business model for such a place–by being available to rent. Over time, the video (ideally) produces more revenue than we spent to buy it. So it’s that missed revenue–while it’s sitting in your player for two weeks and we can’t continue to rent it to other customers–that the late fee addresses. That’s our money, in other words; why would you think we would give you that money back, to buy a movie with?

People seem to think that late fees are purely punitive, and not about lost revenue. It’s a daily struggle to explain this to people. They think if they tell me they’re a “good customer,” I’ll waive their late fees. My new motto is gonna be, “No; a good customer is the one who pays their late fees without making a federal case out of it.”

Then I’m gonna jam a pen in their throat.

92

I’m going to send lissener a box of pens for Christmas! :slight_smile:

93

Only in the sense that it is possible to solve the pesky problem of athlete’s foot by means of amputation. That looks like a really painfully inconvenient way to shop.

94

So lissener, if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re upset about people who believe they’re above the rules that an orderly society abides by? That established systems and procedures don’t apply to them because they’re special?

95

That, and he can’t find the pretty glitter pens he likes so much.

Susan

96

I’ve paid video rental fees that I did not owe. I’ve not paid fees that I did owe. Both of these situations have occurred often enough that I have been able to do a statistically significant “half-assed regression analysis,” which should be familiar to anybody who ever went to college or worked for a lawyer or a city, county, state, or national government. My findings are that the nicer I am to the people I deal with the less I pay and the more I get. The nicer everybody is, the less everybody pays and the more they get. The species will eventually come around to this. On an individual basis, there is still room for the theory that the worse one behaves the better s/he will be treated, and it is a sad thing that such a crack-brained belief will often be validated. Oops. Meanwhile, I require tolerance from others frequently enough (and more so every year as I get older) that I have learned better. Screw the rules: even a minimum-wage clerk is smart enough to know how someone should be treated, based on how they treat others.

97

That’s exactly what Blockbuster does, so it seems to be a reasonable business practice, and it isn’t unreasonable that a customer might think that if it is profitable for the Biggest Video Rental chain in the Whole Fucking World to do it that way- that your’s might just consider it. :dubious:

And, that money that “our money that missed revenue”= that’s only valid if every vidoe in your store is rented out every day. Which you know isn’t true. In fact, many of your older movies will sit for a month or more without being rented. Now sure, a brand-new film usually is a pretty hot ticket.

98

Oh yeah. Messy shoppers have been the bane of my retail-working existence.

The best are the people who break stuff and then casually put it back like nothing happened. Years ago I used to work at a Michaels art store, where around Xmas time they sold a bunch of very fragile glass ornaments. I was working when a lady down the aisle from me dropped a bulb on the floor and it shattered. She looked around briefly, then sloppily kicked the shards under a shelf and hurried away. Nice. All we’d have needed would be some other customer’s toddler to be sitting on the floor playing with the rubber dinosaur figurines sold there, and slice his little hands up. Nice, lady. Would it have killed her to tell someone? That location never had a “you break it, you buy it” policy, and even if there had been one, the ornament would have set her back a whole $1.50.

99

There must be some kind of economy of scale involved, or certainly some restrictions on it. Because if we did that across the board we’d be out of business.

A. This was a newer title, an active rental. B., We can’t stop and do that analysis for every title: “Let’s see; how many times did a customer privately consider renting this title when it was out?” before we figure the figure the fees. That’s just absolutely retarded. There are two possibilities for ever title: either someone wants to rent it, or someone does not want to rent it. Obviously we have to be prepared for someone wanting to rent it; we have to have it available. (I can’t believe I’m even having to explain this. Do you even think “I’ll bet no one even wanted to rent it” is a valid argument against paying late fees? Especially since whoever would be making this argument has, in fact, rented it?)

You, DrDeth, are stilll thinking of the late fees as punitive, rather than practical. FACT: New releases rent for $4.50 for three days. FACT: their late fee is $1.50 a day. Do the math: You can have the movie for $1.50 a day, no matter how long you keep it. 3 days? $4.50. 10 days? $15.00: Buck fifty a day, down the line. How hard is that?

P.S. DrDeth: please don’t come to my video store. Thanks.

100

Is that honestly what you expect the cashier to think? It truly didn’t occur to you that we might be able to handle it if a customer hands us a product and says “Never mind”? Trust me, the cashier wouldn’t think you’re poor or stupid or anything else. Given the stuff that we see in a regular day, you deciding you don’t want something wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar.

And in what way is it better to just shove it somewhere? If one of us sees you doing that, we will form an opinion of you and it won’t be very flattering.