Retail Workers Union

[Shining Raichu]

Hey botanicas, welcome!

You certainly have a... unique problem haha. I've been into shops before that sell amethysts and other kinds of crystals that are meant to enhance your life in different ways, and I've had the staff there try to explain to me how they affect your aura and how they change your aura to draw different things to you as if by magnetic force, but I've never actually been accosted out of the blue lol.

I've perfected the 'smile and nod' technique at work where if somebody keeps prattling on for too long, I just pretend to be intensely interested in what they're saying while beckoning the next customer to me and slowly turning my attention to them so they have no choice but to shut the hell up and leave

[CarefulWetPaint]

The most annoying group of girls have been coming into my shop basically daily and just annoying me so much. They come in make loud noises touch everything act like idiots and just be pest. I swear theyve even scared of customers ugh.

How should I deal with them? I just give them a blank stare and a monotone voice to say "Please leave as fast as possible." Good idea?

[Impo]

I served a lady who smelt like manure today. It's hard to smile when your eyelids start twitching in reaction to the stench.

And I served people from school and almost dropped their bags yay great impressions I make on people

[R a c h e l]

I work at a Sainsbury's and when I get shoved on checkouts I'm determined to chat to every single customer I serve - last week I had a grumpy middle-aged lady whose shopping consisted mostly of carrots, and the only thing I could think of to say was "So, are you a fan of carrots?"

Straight afterwards I was like oh wow, I actually just said that aloud to another human being... but she just sort of shrugged and moved on! Figured this was a decent place to share that story

[Razer302]

ewwwwwwwwwwwww Sainsbury's... CO op is better... :P

That reminds me of last week. They had me on tills and this regular customer noticed my name was dan. So when she goes "oh your names dan" I replied. "Yep and yours is (name removed) I stalk people" after I was like... oh god I hope she took that as a joke... Thankfully she did or I was in serious trouble haha

[Jorah]

I work at Sainsbury's, too. Working on self-serve >>>>> working on tills. I just hate talking to random people. Also, I just like being able to walk around rather than being stuck in a little cage for hours :P I feel like I can be more helpful to customers since I can find products/offers myself, rather than calling supervisors because we aren't allowed off tills.

I've had those odd people who seriously bulk-stock up on the most random things. I've had one guy spend about £30 only on Galaxy Ripples, someone buying 10 bottles of 2L Coca Cola, 20 packets of Sainsbury's basics noodles (mostly by students...), a couple buying 50 single bottles of beer, someone buying soley 20 loaves of bread, an amusing groups of students who bought £100 worth of alcohol. The people that scare me though are the posh old people that spend about £200/£300 on purely wine, bread rolls and burgers. It's obvious they're having a party and are well-off, but seriously. Seriously.

[Ravenfreak]

I would love to join, as I share your pain in retail as well. Infact I had to work today. I work at a grocery store, as a checker so yes I deal with bad customers. Sometimes they can be back to back, other times I won't have a bad one, etc. Today I had a horribly rude woman. I always say "Hi how are you today?" I hope to get a response, well a good one at least. When they say "Okay" I don't like it. Honestly, I would love for them to ask how i'm doing. So I thought whatever, and I checked her out. She only had 2 items a 20 case of beer and creme horns. So I scanned the beer and the creme horns and told her the total. She pays, and then as I give her the receipt I said "Here you go" which is what I normally do. I wait for the customer to either say "thank you, have a nice day" or just "thank you" but no, this b*tch yanks the reciept from my hands and just moved the cart away. Now the woman before her had left her cart, but she moved it so I could scan her beer. That cart she moved was in my way and of course she just left it there when she left. So I didn't tell her "Have a nice day" because she didn't deserve it. >.< On a positive note, last Thursday a regular customer who's usually really crabby towards me apologized for how he treated me and even said "You seem like a nice person, and I hated how I treated you. I'm sorry, i'm going through a divorce right now." I felt sorry for the guy and I was shocked to see that a customer actually apologized for being rude. It finally made me realize that not all people suck. :D

[Shining Raichu]

Yay, welcome Ravenfreak!

Retail (and probably waitressing) are definitely where you'd lose most of your faith in humanity, so it always makes me hapy when people show they're not always horrible like that man in your story

Originally Posted by Jorah

a couple buying 50 single bottles of beer

OK as a liquor store worker this just makes me angry. Do people not understand that that is the most expensive way you can buy it?! They put beer in sixpacks and cartons so that it becomes cheaper as you buy more! Idiots!

Unless of course it was fifty different types of beer and they were buying taste testers for all of them. In which case that's kind of cool

[Ravenfreak]

Thank you for the warm welcome! :D Anyway, I won't be working at Shop N Save anymore, since they weren't giving me enough hours. :\ But i'll be working at Walmart in the dairy department so I don't have to deal with people that much anymore. :V Now I get to see the people of Walmart in real life. xD

[CarefulWetPaint]

Oh how I would love to experience some of the things you're going to see at Walmart. I am positive you'll see at least 1 funny thing happen and youll just watch it and be like... wtf is going on?

In other news I had a crazy gypsy lady come into work at the start of the week and she got two coffees and talked to me for an hour about things I didnt want to know about like her trip to bali and her husband and the couple she knew which apparently one of them got beheaded in bali for a gold necklace. It was all way to intense and crazy for me to even care about but she wouldn't leave! How was I suppose to deal with that!?

[Shining Raichu]

That's awesome Ravenfreak! You'll have to see if you can get some sneaky pictures for us

And uh, CWP... her trip to barely? XD

[CarefulWetPaint]

Leave me alone Andy I clearly wrote Bali >.>

Have you had any drunks want to have an hour long conversation with you or do you kick them out if they try talking to you like a big meany?

[Impo]

I had an old lady who just wanted to talk. It was near closing and no one was waiting so I just placated her. Then she mentioned that a lovely man who used to work at Coles now left. She shed a tear and then told me "I've got his address though, so I'm just going to hope I'm lucky, gorgeous."

I'm not giving her my address.

[Drakow]

Originally Posted by R a c h e l

I work at a Sainsbury's and when I get shoved on checkouts I'm determined to chat to every single customer I serve - last week I had a grumpy middle-aged lady whose shopping consisted mostly of carrots, and the only thing I could think of to say was "So, are you a fan of carrots?"

Straight afterwards I was like oh wow, I actually just said that aloud to another human being... but she just sort of shrugged and moved on! Figured this was a decent place to share that story

You were supposed to say "What's up doc?"


A few weeks ago I was at Mc Donalds and there were a bunch of kids who were aggravating the staff and eventually the police came and dealt with them lol.

[Shining Raichu]

OH MY GOD RACHEL I'M SO SORRY I TOTALLY MISSED YOUR POST! WELCOME TO THE CLUB!

Originally Posted by CarefulWetPaint

Have you had any drunks want to have an hour long conversation with you or do you kick them out if they try talking to you like a big meany?

I'm very nice to my customers I'll have you know; they love me to pieces. I've never had any drunk ones that wanted to talk to me however. Usually when they're drunk they just want to get drunker

And Impo, I think the cutest part of your story was when she called you gorgeous . I get that sometimes and I'm just like "d'awwww you are so sweet to notice".

[CarefulWetPaint]

I never get called gorgeous :'( You guys are so lucky! I only have old people hitting on me its awkward as hell!

Why are you two the gorgeous ones! Wait, maybe for Andy its because its a liquor store and the girls are already frisky! Or boys in his case

[Impo]

Originally Posted by Shining Raichu

And Impo, I think the cutest part of your story was when she called you gorgeous :P. I get that sometimes and I'm just like "d'awwww you are so sweet to notice".

Originally Posted by CarefulWetPaint

I never get called gorgeous :'( You guys are so lucky! I only have old people hitting on me its awkward as hell!

DID YOU NOT SEE SHE WAS A STALKER WHAT IF SHE COMES TO MY HOUSE AND TRIES TO TALK TO ME I DON'T WANT TO BE NICE I DON'T GET PAID TO TALK TO HER IN MY OWN TIME

ASDFGHJKL AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Shining Raichu]

LOL she's not going to find out your address unless you give it to her; just lap up the compliments while you can get them! One day you will be old and your boyish good looks will be gone!

I do love it when the ladies flirt with me at work though. Obviously I'm not interested but it gives me a huge confidence boost

The nicknames I've been called at work are: gorgeous, tiger, champ, boss, chief, and on one particularly odd occasion, "sweet boy". Then there was that time I was called a 'saint' twice in the same shift by two completely separate customers. That was the biggest ego-boost I've ever had lmao.

[Sector Revenge]

Alright so recently, my mom tried to get me into a job where she works at. In Meijer. No different than what Walmart treated me, after I spent 10 minutes in an interview with the hire-director (Or whatever you call them these days lol). It was July 14th. She said I would get a call back from another person (Suppose to do 3 interviews before deciding a person is hired) on the 26th of July. My mom said when she went to work, there was an orientation for the new employees on like the 27th. That's when we realized that I just got screwed from being told wither or not I was the person for the job or not. Aren't they suppose to call you up & let you know what's going on rather than just leave you hanging in the dust like that? No wonder the unemployment rate is sky high in this era.

Oh yeah, it was a "phone interview" I had with the woman. I've never had or heard of an interview done over the phone. Strange to me. I rather prefer going to the actual interview, being all dressed up & all.

You owe me one Andy

[Drakow]

Originally Posted by Sector Revenge

Alright so recently, my mom tried to get me into a job where she works at. In Meijer. No different than what Walmart treated me, after I spent 10 minutes in an interview with the hire-director (Or whatever you call them these days lol). It was July 14th. She said I would get a call back from another person (Suppose to do 3 interviews before deciding a person is hired) on the 26th of July. My mom said when she went to work, there was an orientation for the new employees on like the 27th. That's when we realized that I just got screwed from being told wither or not I was the person for the job or not. Aren't they suppose to call you up & let you know what's going on rather than just leave you hanging in the dust like that? No wonder the unemployment rate is sky high in this era.

Oh yeah, it was a "phone interview" I had with the woman. I've never had or heard of an interview done over the phone. Strange to me. I rather prefer going to the actual interview, being all dressed up & all.

You owe me one Andy

Well the thing is that there are probably loads and loads of people who apply for the same jobs so a lot of the time the employer just doesn't have the time / just cannot be bothered to get back to unsuccessful applicants. Some of the better employers would probably send a quick generic E-mail out though.

Yeah the concept of a phone interview was alien to me too at first but loads of companies do them nowadays and I've been to my fair share of them during my period of job seeking. The basic structure of employment procedures nowadays is as follows.

1) Resume screening.

An employer will get a whole bunch of applications and they have to do an initial sorting to choose candidates to follow up on. This is done by screening all of the applications against each other and comparing which ones stand out the most, usually by screening for key competencies the role requires and such.

2) Telephone interview / Online testing

I have found that companies usually do one or the other, but some do both. Employers use telephone interviews because it is cheaper and easier for them to do so. They are usually quicker too. It can cost a fair bit of money for an employer to undertake a formal interview with applicants especially if there are a lot of potential candidates to choose between, so a telephone interview is a preliminary interview used as a secondary sorting to gather candidates that the employer would like to interview face to face. You should use the fact that it is a telephone interview to your advantage though. Unlike a face to face interview, you can have notes to hand to utilize during the telephone interview and you also have the advantage of choosing where to take the interview too - preferably in a nice quiet room.

Some employers utilize something called Psychometric Testing which is in a nutshell used to measure the potential of candidates. These tests come in different forms but the main two are Numerical Reasoning tests and Verbal Reasoning tests. A third common test is known as a Logical Reasoning test. If an employer asks you to take one of these, be sure to familiarize yourself with what you are up against - there is plenty of material on the internet to so researching is easy.

3) Interview / Assessment Centre.

Congratulations if you are invited to a final stage interview or an assessment centre. In both cases, you will be given a briefing of the structure that will take place for the final selection process. Be sure to study this carefully and ensure you fully understand what to expect on the day. A face to face interview is pretty similar to a telephone interview though you should be weary that if you did do a telephone interview prior to a final stage interview, then you should expect the employer to go into more details on areas that you may have had difficulty in answering in the telephone interview. Usually when I've completed a telephone interview, I have an idea of which questions I struggled more on, so make sure you get those tougher questions ironed out for the final interview. Another thing to note is that a final stage interview is not always one on one. I've been to my fair share of interviews where I've had two people alternating questions to me. Usually one person is a manager of some nature and the other is a technical person. If you do get multiple people interviewing you, be sure you give each person a good amount of attention.

Assessment centres are where an employer invites a certain number of candidates to assess them all simultaneously throughout the day. There is usually a combination of group activities as well as individual assessments. The former tests how well you can work together with other people in a dynamic environment and the latter is usually an interview but they like asking candidates to do an individual presentation as well. You will be told in advance if you have to prepare for one of these, it's usually not a spontaneous task. The company will also give out a couple of presentations to tell you more about who they are and what they do and so on. It's very important to be active and engaging during these assessment centres and be sure to ask questions throughout the day as this shows the employer that you are interested.

I might expand on this and make a blog entry actually.

[Shining Raichu]

I find that really, really dumb. Long and complicated processes like this for something as trivial and menial as a retail job are probably one of the reasons nepotism exists. Nepotism is just way faster and more convenient. It's much easier to say "hey, you know anybody looking for work?" than to go through this laborious process just to find a 'best applicant' that will probably be equally as competent as the worst applicant anyway.

[AzaleaLightning]

I was redirected here :o

I work at a candy store in a mall, double whammy.

[Shining Raichu]

Hey there, welcome to our little group!

We have a candy store in my mall, it's one of those international ones where they bring in all the stuff from America and England and overcharge massively for it . You got any stories for us?

[AzaleaLightning]

For the sake of laziness, I'll c/p from the thread I made that redirected me here :p

So, I work in a bulk candy store. The one with the bins where you get a bag and fill up with whatever candy you want. I get one customer, I'd guess she was early 20s (with the attitude of a 12 year old) with her little sister. They had a $5 budget, and of course they fill their bag up with like $11 worth of candy.

I tell her, "That's fine, we'll sort this candy out later and you can fill a new bag; we've got scales at the register for you to check the weight and price."

So, she's all "Oh I don't want that. Take out a little bit of each candy."

She has five different kinds of (very similar looking) candy, and the line's building up. "Ma'am, you can just start a new bag."

She tells me again (more like she commands me) that she wants that bag and tells me to take a little bit of each candy out. After she promptly reaches inside the second bag with her bare hands to pull out a candy necklace (which I had to throw away).

So I get the gloves and start returning the candy (half of it was sour, so now the non-sour candy has the little sour powder crystals on it) and get back to the register, and it's $8 now. She screams at her little sister to get money from their dad who's in a different store, so I have to stand there with this hugely inconsiderate wench while my manager at the register next to me is flying through the customers trying to get the line down.

Long story short, I hate people who don't treat retail workers like people and expect us to be their slaves just because we're getting paid.

[Razer302]

I hate customers like that. I get ones come in all the time like it. Come to the till and forget stuff then think they can go get it... Yeh sure back of the que you go.

And foriegn customers damn... drive me mad think thy can just walk to the front... get to the back or get out...

ATM my shop is terrible. We only have 1 manager and 1 supervisor... everyone else is off sick or AWOL. and the staff have gone awol to so... my shop is soooo bad I' on 7 days a week and its stressing me out.