hotflungwok–you are too funny. Sadly, you speak truth. I have never worked retail, but I am awake when I shop–I’ve seen about all of those behaviors (the kitchen appliance and the CDs amazed me).
Mindfield: the horn. Oh, god, the horn. You should send that in to Dilbert.
Is it going to take them less than 2 minutes to find what they want and make the purchase? When the store closes at 9, I for one do not still want to be inside, either as the customer or as the employee.
Cervaise, don’t forget to tell the glob story!
In a million year I would never waste time looking for an item when there are people who, to my knowledge, are literally being paid to help me find things so I can buy them. Does it bother you when people give their orders to waitresses instead of trying to go back and tell the kitchen themselves?
If everyone who walked into a store requested the floor staff to take them to each of their items - well, shopping would take a hell of a lot longer than it does already. I only ask if I’ve looked in the expected area and not found what I’m looking for; I figure it’s the least I can do to actually walk myself to that area and look. Most stores who encourage “personal shopper” service also charge for the privilege, last I checked (or expect a serious tip for the shopper).
Nah. Stores with personal shoppers make their money on markup. That personal shopper is a salesperson, not a clerk, and is upselling and relationship selling at every opportunity.
For most places, sales associates are there to be personal shoppers. They’re there for advice if you’re not sure what’s popular or good, to help you look for something if you can’t seem to find it yourself, or direct them to the proper department if what they’re looking for isn’t in yours, or answer various other questions technical or otherwise.
Waitressing is an entirely different bag. That’s what they’re there for. Sales associates sell, answer questions, and offer advice – hopefully only on things they’re qualified to give advice on, but let’s not kid ourselves too much, especially if they’re on commission. But on the whole customers are generally expected to do their own legwork so sales associates can assist people with legitimate concerns, and approach one only if they’re having problems finding what they’re after.
Dilbert does Retail?
It would be so great if this was true. It SHOULD be true. Unfortunately, at gigantic discount stores the sales associate’s job is to pick up crap that customers threw around, stock shelves, put things in order by type, color, and size, and so on. No one is trained to do anything but that. And you wouldn’t want to be asking a Walmart employee what’s “good.” They only know what’s in other departments if they’ve been there for awhile and have been perusing the store. And even then, they’re really not the kind of quick-witted crowd who remembers where they saw items last time they were shopping.
It might. 
I mean, I see what you’re getting at and to a certain degree I agree: Customers (who as a group will take a mile any time they’re given an inch) will happily (ab)use whatever leeway a merchant provides concerning Closing Time, and merchants need to decide where they’re going to draw the line and say, “Sorry, come back tomorrow. You need to leave now.” No shopping visit can take zero time.
What it sounds like some are suggesting is that a 9:00 PM posted closing time means that - by 9:00 - the employees expect to have all closing chores completed and be free to leave. Closing out registers and effectively “closing” at some unspecified time before 9:00.
While a store is free to run itself this way, few do in my experience as both an employee and a customer. More commonly, the posted Opening Time is when the public is allowed in, and the posted Closing Time is when new customers are turned away and those already in the store are encouraged to make up their minds and pay for their stuff. Opening prep and closing tasks (and, yes, ringing up those final purchases) are done before and after, respectively. Some fudging is always possible by claiming that “Well, my watch reads 9:01,” of course.
That’s not to say staff can’t begin winding stuff down and performing such wrap-up work as they can if customer traffic is lightening up, but places I worked were firm that we be able to conduct a transaction any time during our posted “Open” times.
I’ve done this plenty of times when I go to an unfamiliar store to get just one thing. Like picking up some olives in a grocery store. I don’t know how that store is layed out or what they group olives with. So taking 10 seconds of your time is better than me spending 10+ minutes wandering around. I don’t expect you to walk me to the item, but I highly regard it if you do.
Dilbert does corporate stupidity. This qualifies.
Since I currently am working full-time retail (I have a college degree and no one will hire me) I am not only agreeing with what everyone is saying, I seem to have it magnified by 100 because of the unabated anger I have at the fact I have to work here (I went to college so I DON"T have to do this goddammit!!)
Since we are told to ask “Can I help you find something” I have never really minded getting questions about where things are located since I am usually the one who incites it. I do however have one big one to add here…
I hate people.
When I worked at World Market I had a lady return some Christmas ornaments on Dec. 26. The receipt was dated the middle of November and all the tags were still on the ornaments. After we completed the return transaction she told us she wanted to repurchase them. At the 75% off clearance price that was effective that day.
Turns out after she bought the ornaments she hung them on the tree with the tags still on with every intention of returning them and rebuying them when they went on clearance. This way she could enjoy the ornaments and get some of her money back.
How do I know this? SHE TOLD ME. I told her she could purchase them immediately at the regular price, but I couldn’t sell them at the clearance price until the next day. See, all returned clearance merchandise had to be logged before it could placed back on the floor, and we couldn’t log anything until after the store closed. Well, not really, but I wasn’t going to let her screw the system.
She came back late the next day. Unfortunately for her the ornaments had already sold.
Are you talking about walking into a store and saying “I’m going to need some pants, let’s get started”, or more like “I’m here for the new widget in silver, I saw you have it on sale, please”? I assume Mindfield meant closer to the later since I don’t believe 99.9% of questions are like the former.
I don’t know if that would really be a bad thing but if retail stores would grind to a halt if everyone were like me I’m glad nobody else is like me. 
True enough. Of course, I was speaking from an ideal – what was supposed to be my job description. But the reality is that discount stores don’t have a monopoly on messy shoppers. The software section was always a bit of a mess by the end of the day – the children’s software was always the worst by a wide margin. It didn’t matter how neat and organized I tried to keep it, it still required the most attention. Fortunately I’ve never worked in a regular department store or discount store; I know from having shopped at them that that’s where the majority of messy shoppers go. Is there something linking lower income and/or frugality to laziness and disrespect?
In certain cases I can understand it. Going to an unfamiliar store, particularly one you’re not likely to return to anytime soon if at all, is a good candidate for just asking so you can grab it and go. Some stores are just damn confusing; the big supermarket by me has the strangest ideas about how to group certain things.
But most of the people who did it in the Future Shop I worked in weren’t just there for the one thing. They’d often ask teh same question multiple times – still having never looked for it themselves – and then head to another department to do the same. Sometimes I think we need to bring back catalog shopping for these people, ala the original Consumers Distributing. (Anyone remember those? Before they went all showroomy, I mean.)
Ah, of course – yes, Slappy would indeed qualify as corporate stupidity. He could be his own stupid corporation with an unlimited supply of stupid to provide.
I have also worked in retail, I learned how clueless most custors are. what really made me laugh-the people who came in 10 minutes before closing-and didn’t know what they wanted to buy.
To add on to what ralph says…
“The time is 9:55, the store will be closing in 5 minutes…”
Customer in isle 2: Humdy dumdy dum…I’m gonna wander up and down a bit, do do do…
When this happens at my store, the customer will find themselves surrounded by 1-3 salespeople, in order to “help” them finish shopping as quickly as possible. I suppose this only works at a small store, however.
Customers sometimes have no concept of safety.
I worked in a large box store once. We had no tornado shelter. A warning was broadcast, and the manager made an announcement that everyone needed to leave to seek shelter. We clerks grabbed the money, threw it in the safe and ran across the street to the restaurant that had a basement.
The manager stayed to check the store one more time and found a customer who wanted to know “where’s the strawberry jam?”
Former specialty retail jockey here. As a matter of fact, I’m a former very good specialty retail jockey.
If you wanted an item, I could tell you whether or not we had it. I could also tell you whether or not it wasn’t produced in the color combination/size/finish you were looking for. Seriously. I’m an expert.
When you told me you used to have a pair like that, I could tell you with complete confidence that it was fake, or you were remembering it wrongly. I had ten years’ worth of the back catalog for primary brand X memorized, including special editions produced in runs of less than a dozen. I wished you the best of luck finding it in “every other store” where it was “bound to be available” while laughing at you behind my hand.
No, you couldn’t have a discount. No, not just because you asked. We weren’t selling used cars.
I didn’t care if you didn’t want to pay full price for the “display model”. Sure, they’d been tried on before. Probably at least a dozen times. No, that didn’t mean you got a discount. 90% of our inventory was “display models”. Did you ask the clerk at K-Mart if you could get a discount on that pair of jeans you were wearing? Of course not- and they were within touching distance of somebody else’s balls.