"I'm new here" A great idea for this store and new employees

In My Humble Opinion
1

I went to the grocery store tonight after a very long ten hour day at work. I didn’t remember that the 1st day of the month is a bad day to go to the store. It is also payday Friday, so that added to the large number of people at the store.

The checkout clerk wasn’t dressed in the ordinary company polo and khakis, he was wearing a long sleeve shirt, tie, and dress pants. I assumed he was a manager so I picked his line to check out in. When it was finally my turn, I realized he was wearing a nametag with a ribbon saying, “I’m new here, please be patient.”

What a great idea! Sure, I was stressed tonight. I didn’t like the crowds at the store after a long day at work. But, reading that the employee was new helped me relax and not feel frustrated when he had difficulty with some of my coupons.

I still don’t know if this employee was a manager in training who was working at the cash register to gain some experience or was someone who had recently taken a cashier job.

I think this is a great idea for those who are starting at retail jobs. I really try hard to be civil to retail employees. If I see that you’re new, I’ll forgive just about anything.

I’d suggest this for any company which hires new retail employees.

2

I’ve seen that nearly every where I’ve ever shopped. New employees have some tag saying that they are in training. Wait-staff too.

3

I had one at Wal-Mart when I worked there as a teen in the nineties. I wore it for months to stave off the customers’ inherent grumpiness.

4

I’d say far more stores do this than don’t. The exceptions would be the places which don’t have the employees wear nametags or uniforms of any kind.

5

I’ve never seen this in my entire life ever. I’m 40 years old and have worked plenty of customer service jobs and shopped in plenty of stores/restaurants. I’m curious as to where people are seeing this?

6

At the bank today, they had a sign “teller in training.” I’ve also seen it in other stores. It makes tons of sense: customers can make allowances for the inevitable slow service the learning curve causes.

7

I’ve seen something like that before. I’ve also had the situation where my waitress was new, so she had someone else with her, presumably to help out in case the situation went south. We’d be informed of this before being served, and she herself would have a “trainee” badge on.

I’ve never seen the “please be patient” bit before, though.

8

It was on Malcolm in the Middle when Lois got put on probation at Lucky Aide.

9

My nametag at JCPenny could be flipped from “Sales Associate” to “Associate in Training.” Which I would flip back on busy days, or when they would move stuff around, or if I was just in a bad mood…

I was “In Training” for a very long time.

10

I’ve seen it all over too, most recently at a cell phone store.

11

This can actually backfire on stores/employees.

When i worked at a grocery store scammers (like quickchange artists) would target new employees because of their inexperience. I saw a quickchanger get almost $200 off a new kid once.

12

Only seen it a few times but it seems like a good idea.

13

They also need a “I’m a pissed off teenager who only has this job because my loser parents have stopped buying everything I tell them I need after I got caught drinking at that party last month, so I don’t give a shit about helping the customer” badge.

(Note: I’m quite aware that most teenagers are actually reasonably competent at their crappy retail jobs.)

14

I’ve seen a few “in training” style tags in retail stores. Even more interesting, one cashier had a tag that notified customers she is hearing impaired.