Rampant Unprofessionalism

The BBQ Pit
1

I work retail. While I realize that griping about retail is at best cliche, and at worst repetitive, I think I’ve really come up with something new here. I’m not going to complain about consumers (although sometimes I hate them too, but that’s just because I’m antisocial), but instead about my coworkers. Specifically, the supervisor of my department.

She hired me as full time; I get about 20 hours per week instead of the 30+ I was promised.

She plays extreme favorites, giving my hours to the part-timers instead.

She does not follow any of the procedures herself, but I get lynched every time I deviate by so much as a pico.

I am not only a salesperson, I am a data-entry clerk (for which I am supposed to get extra shifts, but do not), and part-time receptionist because the full time receptionist likes to take advantage of the fact that I also know how to answer phones.

The schedule is never the same from one week to the next. I actually went to the store manager about this, as it is the only issue that complicates my life outside of work. Her response was a vague answer about how ‘things change every day, especially in the retail industry’. What things change every day? How is it only the salespeople change every day? The stock people and the cashiers have the same schedule every week. Why can’t I? We’re all adults here; why can’t we plan our lives one measly week in advance? I had assumed that having the same weekly schedule would make it easier to do so, but apparently I was in error. :confused:

This is just what they’re doing to me. I don’t even want to get started on how the cashiers, rather than serve customers, hover around the order counter and chat (which is admittedly only ten feet away from the cash, but once they get talking it’s damn-near impossible to get their attention), or in the stock room (no excuses here). Or how we recieve boxes from warehouse that weigh more than I do, and are not provided with safety equipment. I could be here all day.

2

One of many reasons that everyone we know who works/worked there hates/hated it.

Well, either you’ll find a better job or your supervisor’ll be replaced.

P.S.: Love the sig :slight_smile:

3

True 'dat. But my question is, shouldn’t we at least be trying to maintain the illusion of a workplace rather than a mental asylum?

4

Ah, young grasshopper, you have much to learn about the art of retail. Sit awhile and learn some about the way.

*** Corn grows in the field. It is eaten by the mouth. It is digested by the stomach. It is turned into feces by the intestines. It is evacuated by the anus. You, grasshopper, are the piece of corn that passes through the digestive system, yet is not digested. The end product is called “former retail worker.” ***

*** In your passage, you will learn how to do many things. Still more illuminating, you will learn how not to do a great many things. Even more illuminating, you will learn to avoid doing many things. ***

*** The true follower of the way will learn quickly to feign incompetence when entrusted with the jobs noone else cares to do. All mental effort must be focused upon avoidance, anonymity, and eventual escape to a better way. This is the way. ***

*** Followers of the way know that there are four grandmothers and four grandfathers in every nuclear family. They will conveniently die the night before inventory is taken. Vacations must only be scheduled before terms of employment are discussed, with a week at Christmas being non-negotiable due to prior plans to visit sensitive ethnic roots in far away places at that time. ***

*** Like the tenacious kernel of corn in the body of The Man, your meaning in life is to avoid being absorbed. You must instead concentrate upon evacuation, and life beyond. Those who have successfully negotiated the way find themselves enshrouded in the fragrant fertilizer that will allow the kernel to sprout into a new and better way of life. So says the way. ***

Go, now, grasshopper, accidentally drop the expensive retail package, delete the data file just prior to the deadline because you worked a double shift, refer the customer to your superior constantly, enjoy your free time and be completely unavailable when not on the premises, and find the way.

5

Master!!

6

God damn, Sofa King, that was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Where the fuck were you when I was working retail?!

“Look, Mr. Manager, I’m competent! I can do these things!”

“OK, young Olentzero, just sit right on down here and smile while I get the other managers to come over and shit on you. Oh, you don’t need Saturdays off for the next ten years, do you? Good, I knew you wouldn’t.”

I love how retail managers look at you like you’ve just murdered a dozen puppies if you buck for weekends off.

7

If it’s so horrible, why would you want to stay there longer hours?

8

Sofa King, you are truly the master. In my retail career, I strayed from the way. When my grandmother actually died a day before inventory, worked till 3am anyway, and went to the wake the next day. :wally

I am not worthy to clean the schmutz off of your cash register, nor the grime off of your barcode reader, I am so ashamed…

By the way, Daerlyn, if you ever find a good manager in retail, consider yourself very, very lucky.

9

Simple, if banal answer: Money.

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Master Sofa King, you are truly the enlightened one.

Pray tell me, can this wisdom also be applied to craps dealers?

11

SofaKing, you truly are the master. I bow to you. :cool: Former retail worker is right. I’m currently searching for an office job. And matt_mcl, whilst I agree with you (pulling the 11 hour shift two days in row bites the big one), LaurAnge is right. I’d be a starving student, if only I was a student. Cash is a necessity for rent and the other luxuries of life.