So I'm biting the bullet and applying for retail jobs...advice please!

In My Humble Opinion
41

[QUOTE=Seven]
Give me a break.
Some schmuck doesn’t show to work after you hire him and you want to stalk him and ruin his life? Grow up. No. I hope I never do work for you. It sounds like you run your department like a jr high school.

[/quote]

Don’t you appreciate that simply not turning up after being hired causes several problems for your employer?
They have paid to advertise the position, spent time interviewing and hiring and still don’t have someone to do the work.

Next, clearly you have different definitions of ‘stalk’ and ‘ruin his life’ from me.
If one employer tells the truth about a ‘time and money wasting schmuk’ to another employer, how is this stalking?
If you are an unreliable worker, you are ruining your own life.

[QUOTE=Seven]

As for the rest of you. Answer me this.

You are offered a job. You wait a few days and then accept it. You start work.
A few days later another offer comes in the door that is much better then offer one. Better money, better vacation, doing a job your prefer over the first one. It has more room for advancement and is not as far a communte in the morning.

All you people are saying you wouldn’t take it?

If so, you are liars or fools.
[/QUOTE]

Your original example was walking out a day or two after starting work. Very unwise, as we have discussed.

But if you want to use the above conditions, I can quote you an example from my career.
I had been in one job for nearly a year. Pleasant work, reasonable pay. My boss had given me a glowing annual report. Management called me in for a chat, asked about my future plans and made it clear they saw a fine future for me. :cool:
Then I got headhunted for my perfect job. :eek:
Almost double the salary, head of department, really pleasant town with much cheaper housing. Various perks too.
So I went to my current employers, told them what had happened and explained this was a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity for me. And they let me go and wished me luck.
So I don’t have to lie on my CV - and if the perfect job hadn’t worked out, I could have gone back to my old one.

I’m not a liar and I’m not a fool.
You may like to ponder why I am so successful…

42

[QUOTE=Seven]
I don’t agree with this. If you apply for a tech job only to arrive and find the employer, in an attempt to cut costs, has the IT department cleaning toilets as well. You need to tell them right away.

“I misunderstood about the job duties. I don’t think it is for me. Good luck. Have a nice day.”
[/QUOTE]

This has happened to you?

In any case, you show little knowledge of making money if you think that taking trained IT staff off their work to clean toilets is going to ‘cut costs’. :confused:
Cut revenue, certainly.

43

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
A search of EC’s posting history will reveal a number of… rather unique opinions on the nature of the employer/employee relationship. Including (off the top of my head) a thread where a lot of sympathy was given to a hotel employee that was fired for ignoring her work and instead composing diary entries ridiculing her employer, and another thread where he suggested that it was unfair to fire even an incompetent, unreliable worker whose misbehavior was disruptive to everyone else in the office, because it might negatively impact that person’s future.

So yeah, “very cynical” sounds like a pretty fair assessment, and it doesn’t surprise me in the least to see him advocate taking an adversarial approach toward one’s employer—which, if you intentionally seek it, you will surely achieve.
[/QUOTE]

You misspelled ‘different from mine’ - you spelled it ‘rather unique.’

In your cite on the employee that was fired, you failed to mention that I agreed that it was OK that she should have been fired. You have to read the fine print, Vinyl. And … the print … you have to read that also.

Finally, in regard to the disruptive worker you mentioned, I did say it was unfair to fire the person, but my main rationale for saying so was that in US society, firing has such huge negative consequences for the fired person, in terms of being able to eat, obtain shelter, even obtain health care. I think if we are a going to make the penalties for losing a job so draconian, then firing should be a difficult procedure that is rarely done without first going through a number of steps short of firing. My viewpoint on this might be in part due to the fact that I live in a “right to work” state where employers can fire you for any reason, or for no reason. (One of the great Orwellian phrases of modern times.) Also the thread in question consisted largely of a pile-on of the anonymous workers’ behavior, which was in fact not good, and I thought it would be good to make the opposite point.

“Cynical?” I would say, “experienced.”

Otherwise I agree with everything you said.

44

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
In your cite on the employee that was fired, you failed to mention that I agreed that it was OK that she should have been fired. You have to read the fine print, Vinyl.
[/QUOTE]

Your concession that she deserved to be fired was indeed fine print, as it was dwarfed by the amount of space you devoted (throughout the thread) to wishing the woman success, praising her self-empowering attempt at “mental organization,” suggesting that her facile ramblings might pave the way for a career as a journalist, expressing concern that she might go “homeless and hungry” as a result of her dismissal, et cetera. It was not unclear where your sympathies lay.

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Finally, in regard to the disruptive worker you mentioned, I did say it was unfair to fire the person, but my main rationale for saying so was that in US society, firing has such huge negative consequences for the fired person, in terms of being able to eat, obtain shelter, even obtain health care. I think if we are a going to make the penalties for losing a job so draconian, then firing should be a difficult procedure that is rarely done without first going through a number of steps short of firing. My viewpoint on this might be in part due to the fact that I live in a “right to work” state where employers can fire you for any reason, or for no reason.
[/QUOTE]

This is true, but I would be willing to bet that firings for “no reason” are extremely rare even in right-to-work states. Every company for which I’ve worked has had its own system of graduated reprimands (verbal, then written) to address employee misbehavior or poor performance before firing, for all but the most egregious offenses. In other words, in most cases you have to put some effort into getting fired.

There may be companies out there where you have to walk on eggshells for fear of being struck down senselessly by the capricious gods of management, but I’ve personally seen far more situations where someone who needed to be fired was allowed to continue on and sabotage the work environment for others, than instances where a good worker was tossed out on the curb under dubious circumstances.

45

[QUOTE=glee]
This has happened to you?

In any case, you show little knowledge of making money if you think that taking trained IT staff off their work to clean toilets is going to ‘cut costs’. :confused:
Cut revenue, certainly.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah. It’s not like I was exaggerating to make a simple point. You show little knowledge of Internets based hyperbole if you think I was serious.

That said, I have interviewed for one job where the IT department processed all shipping for the company. Far from cleaning toilets but not really “technical” either.

Once again, where did I say “walk out”? I said:

You can always accept a job and quit a day or two later for a better job.

This is hugely different than leaving unannounced, walking out, or just plain not showing up. When you get your first job you’ll learn more about this.

I still don’t think quitting a job after two days is bad and you haven’t shown me otherwise. The few examples you listed require people to have very LONG memory.

I have interviewed, hired and trained employees who needed to be fired or have quit after only a few days. This isn’t like a romantic breakup. I tell them it’s over, process some paperwork and move on. I don’t go home and cry over these people. I don’t hang their picture on my wall and pine for the days I used to share an office with them.

Six months later I’d be hard pressed to remember their names.

I hired a girl to work in my retail store. A week into her employment I found she was taking money from the register. Not a little here and there, but the entire stack of one dollar bills. Her theft was on the stupid scale because it was VERY obvious what she was doing. I cut my losses and just fired her. I didn’t get into the theft issue because I didn’t want the headache. My business was in a “at will” state in the US. This allows the employer to fire an employee, at any time, for no reason. (It’s easier to just say “I fire you for no reason” than say “I fire you for theft” because the employee could come back and say “Theft? Prove it.”)

For the next few months whenever the register ran dry of ones we’d say “was so-and-so here”? A few years later I don’t remember her name and I don’t think I’d be able to pick it out from a list of names.

The point I’m trying to make is when you run a company you takes risks when you decide to hire employees. When you have several hundred employees you have a department of employees which just handles other employees. Employees and trouble. They always want days off, vacations, and raises. They come in late and leave early. They sit on the internet and post on message boards instead of working. And guess what? Sometimes they quit. Sometimes giving notice and other times just not showing up.

That’s the risk of having employees. It happens everyday in the working world.

It’s not a romantic relationship. You find a replacement and move on.

I never advocated “simply not turning up”.

If you take it personally when an employee quits, and want to seek revenge on them (even if this revenge is making a few phone calls to other employers) then you need to take yourself out of that situation.

If I was your boss and I learned you were phoning other employers of the person who quit in an attempt to “inform them” of this guys actions - we would have words. I’d be tempted to fire you on the spot but I think I would give you a warning and demote you.

Those actions open the company up to a fair amount of ugly legal issues. The guy who quit could come back and sue the company. Wrong or right, it will cost money if he does. On a business aspect, it’s better to cut your losses and move on.

The employer/employee relationship not a romantic relationship. You can’t take it personally. If an employee quits or is fired before he ever shows his face in the office you can’t take it personally. Shrug it off, find a replacement and move on.

46

I worked retail all throughout college and even a little after, and I wish now that I had worked as a waitress instead. I only made about $7 an hour retail, and I could have made much more with tips working as a waitress in a decent restaurant (one that seves alcohol will be a better bet.) Unless you can get a retail job with comission, I would go for a waitressing job.

You have to work with sucky and good customers in both jobs, might as well get paid for it. I I thought I wanted to work retail because at the time it seemed cooler and more fun to work at that trendy store in the mall than as a waitress, but after spending a few weeks there folding sweaters over and over the thrill wore off. I have waitressed before too and I know that both are hard work, but if I had to do it over again, I would go work somewhere that I had some control over how much money I made (commission or tips) rather than depend on a $7-8 an hour set range. YMMV.

47

Oddly, dealing with customers is the least objectionable (except for occasional ones, of course) part of retail for me. Mostly I enjoy it. I had no idea I would, but I do. Bad managers I’ve found to be much, much worse, because the jerk customer will leave. Your manager, though, doesn’t. Good managers will leave, the bad ones stay on, in my experience.

I’m going to be job hunting again in a couple of weeks or so. ulp

48

[QUOTE=Seven]
I cut my losses and just fired her. I didn’t get into the theft issue because I didn’t want the headache. My business was in a “at will” state in the US. This allows the employer to fire an employee, at any time, for no reason. (It’s easier to just say “I fire you for no reason” than say “I fire you for theft” because the employee could come back and say “Theft? Prove it.”)
[/QUOTE]

Out of curiosity, what exactly did you say to her? “At will” or not, I have a hard time picturing an employer saying “I fire you for no reason,” or a fired worker who wouldn’t insist on hearing one.

You just said “you’re FIRED!” with a little Trumplike hand gesture, and she quietly left?

49

I told her her services were no longer needed. She knew why she was getting fired. She didn’t question it or act suprised. Pretty straight forward and easy really.

At the end of the day I’d guess she felt lucky I only fired her.

If she put me down as a reference and I had received a call about her, I wouldn’t have said she was let go for theft. In fact, I wouldn’t have even brought up the theft or hinted at it. All I would have said was “she worked her for X days, showed up on time, left on time. We let her go because her services were no longer needed”. Period.

50

Another perspective for your perusal, Tracy

I’m a retail manager at a specialized place, catering to fine clientele: I just finished my seasonal hire today, and did a working interview with one of several candidates. The one I hired did not have the most knowledge about plants (what we sell), but she just went above and beyond with enthusiasm, and asked how she could learn more, asking for specific books to learn that. I’ve hired her, because of her enthusiasm. I know I can teach her what she wants to know.

This seems to be at odds with some of the posts upthread here. But, working on the feminine cooperative model that I’ve found so successful in my business, as the shopkeepers in Ashland probably,from what I see, subscribe to. Go with that. Be your own self, upbeat, and enthusiastic. It goes a long, long way with dealing with customer, and helping your employer have good business…

51

That’s great advice, elelle – thanks so much! I’ll keep that in mind when I go in for interviews.

So, last Tuesday I walked around downtown like a little resume fairy, smiling a lot, being ENTHUSIATIC! and filling out applications with cheer and vim. It is now Monday. No one has called me.

Is this a bad sign? Am I NEVER GOING TO GET HIRED BY ANYONE EVER? Should I contact them (“Hi, just wanted to drop you a note, I’m really looking forward to the opportunity of working with you! Give me a call if you want to ask me anything, here’s my info again!”) or would that be too much? I’ve really never applied properly for any kind of job before, so I have no idea how to read the signals.

52

You should visit them in person, just like you did last tuesday, a week is long enough. Put in some more applications at other places too. A personal visit is much better than notes and phone calls, unless they tell you they are not hiring anyone else, go back again in another week. If you think it’s a place you’d really like to work, tell them so and why.

53

This may be a slow time for them, so many shops might not hire anyone until the Shakespeare Festival really gears up. The indoor stuff recently opened, but the big outdoor shows don’t open 'til June.