Retail Workers Union

[Shining Raichu]

Oh god that sounds awful. I remember having to work 10 days in a row once, that was terrible enough - I can't imagine having to work 7 days a week on a more permanent basis.

And @AzaleaLightning, I've had customers like that before. They make your blood boil but you have to just smile through it. The thing I love about this club is getting angry on behalf of everybody else haha.

So last night I had my first rude customer for a while. I served him and somehow I managed to charge him for three sixpacks and he only bought one (don't ask me how, I honestly couldn't tell you). So he came back in for a refund and I put it through and gave him his money back and he decided after I'd given him the money that I wasn't apologetic enough and stood there lecturing me about manners. He was talking down to me and being very rude so when he demanded an apology I just looked at him and said "...right." and then moved onto the next customer.

He started to walk out of the store in a huff when my sister (who was at the register next to me) said to him "There's no need to be nasty". So then he turned on his heel and started on her about how I was rude so I just turned to him and said "IT WAS A MISTAKE!" probably a little louder than I should have. Then he left.

The customer I served after him said he needed to take a chill pill, which made me feel better haha. I probably should have apologised, but when he started talking to me that way I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

[Razer302]

At my store we actually can't work with our own family members...

Well I got promoted at my place to team leader... It feels weird to be in charge and locking up the shop on a night. my first official on witll be next tuesday and I'm working with 2 women that talk a lot... going to be a huge effort to get that completed without an argument haha.

[CarefulWetPaint]

I dont think anything beats the old person that comes into your shop as youre about to close and does nothing but talk nonsense for half an hour which cause you to close 30 late and it throws out your whole after work schedule! They make me wanna hit my head against the wall nearly as badly as the idiot telemarketers who call up not realising its a business. GOD DAMN IT! ITS A PLACE OF BUSINESS NOT A PLACE FOR YOU TO BE CALLING! RAWR!
/end rant.

So congratulations on getting a promotion Razer! Pay rise?

[Razer302]

Theres this old mental guy that comes in late and always buys 7 of everything... facing up literally goes out the window with this guy. He drives us all mad.

Not much of a pay rise, but I got what I wanted and am now going to use it to get a new job else where that will give me much more money for the same thing I do now.

I basically run the whole shop at night now. I lock up, handle cash everything. Waiting till they pay for my alcohol license then I plan to jump ship elsewhere.

[EvilSkittles]

'Ello, I'm joining up.

I work at a Salad Creations that just opened in June. I have so many stories to tell since we are just now getting our bearings but I have a particular one from tonight. I wasn't suppose to actually work tonight but I got called in since of the other people couldn't make it. I serving up front and this lady orders a Chipotle BBQ salad, halfway through making the salad she says she didn't order that so I have to throw it away and make a new one. Irritating but not too terrible but right after I make her another salad she orders the Chipotle to go. I wanted to wring her neck and my manager just laughed at me.

[Shining Raichu]

Haha welcome EvilSkittles (love your username btw )

I've found that a lot in my line of work. That's the one thing I do love about my job - whenever there's a *****y customer and I deal with it badly (like in my post a few posts up ) the manager never reprimands me, she always just laughs with me at how much of a ***** the customer was.

The funniest thing is when they make a huge scene and then threaten not to shop at your store anymore. What they don't understand is that the staff don't give a crap lol - they'd rather not have to deal with you anyway.

[LividZephyr]

I don't work in Retail and thus can't join this union, but you all have my utmost sympathies. I read a comic strip called "Retail" which has exposed me to the harsh realities of humanity (even if some of it is exaggerated, it's mostly grounded in reality). It's available online - I suggest you guys check it out

By the way, I've attached a couple of samples for you guys (credit Norm Feuti)

[CarefulWetPaint]

Ive never had people have big issues with me, sometimes they give me super dirty looks if I ask to look in their bags after they go into the change rooms without asking or showing me what they take into it. Seriously! Its policy and the sign on the change room says ask before you go in and leave you bags outside! THESE PEOPLE MAKE ME WANT TO RAGE. I really dislike them so much. They are about as bad as people who just come into the shop look around for 45 minutes then leave without buying anything. :'(

[Shining Raichu]

OMG guys, I forgot to tell you!

Two weeks ago, my store had its very first armed hold-up! I wasn't there, it was my sister working with another guy, but they came in just before closed and pushed the guy around at the counter, telling him to open the safe and taking all the money from the safe and the registers. All in all, he got about $1800.

My sister was pretty shaken up, as was the other guy. The jackass never produced a weapon, but the surveillance camera showed that he had a knife on him. We were the seventh in a spree of seven liquor stores he had robbed in the past few weeks.

Fortunately, the next night they got the guy and he's now back in prison where he belongs. Apparently, so the story goes, he has been in prison since he was 18 years old and he had recently gotten out on parole after 24 years in the slammer. So our theory was that prison life is all he knew and he was looking for a way back in, so started holding up liquor stores to get back there.

It was pretty freaky though. The next day the whole team had to have a counselling session, and we now have an open-to-close security guard and extra flood-lighting to keep the baddies away B]

[Razer302]

I wish my shop would do that after having stuff like this happen. All we get is a guard from 3-11pm for 2 weeks then hes gone again, and they all look so useless, only ever had one good one that I would really say is worth it.

I got promoted finally though. So I now run the night shift however I want to do it.

[Shining Raichu]

I wouldn't particularly mind if we only had the guard at night time, I was expecting they'd only give us a guard from like 4-8pm or something, but he ordered them from open to close so I was stoked with that!

The reason we were held up was that the gas station that my store is attached to is closed for two months so that the gas tanks can be excavated and replaced. All the outdoor lighting is in the gas station and it had to be shut off, so we were basically sitting there alone in the dark waiting to be held up, because there are no other businesses in the vicinity.

So long story short, we only have the security guards til the Shell re-opens, it's not forever .

Your store sounds ridiculous though... it's been held up so many times, and each time you only get two weeks of security? They have to know this is going to keep happening, they need to start working out some more permanent deterrent.

[AzaleaLightning]

I had SUCH a rough day yesterday. The holiday shoppers are really starting to show their colors, and I had to deal with two broads.

We recently fired a complete tool who consistently priced items wrong and put invalid SKUs on everything, not to mention a lot of items have had price changes - pretty confusing atm. We carry some Nintendo toys that are about $5 apiece and one item some kid wanted to buy was ringing up as half that price, so I corrected it to the other Nintendo products, only about $2 more.

He was with two older women, sisters, friends, lesbian couple, idk idc. They were vicious. Middle-aged hags, they freaked out. The product was not even in the computer (it used to be, which makes me think recent price change since they have to re-enter it, I guess). They accused me of violating the law by not honoring the sales floor price multiple times, when I tried to explain the situation with the store's current prices, they accused me of making excuses and said I was horrible, had shi**y customer service, demanded my manager's name and corporate number, wrote down my name, the whole nine. My co-worker who I was training went in the back to call the manager. The product did have a price change (I guess? It's almost never sold and I didn't know the price, tried to explain that to the wenches but they just accused me of more excuses.) so they got two of them with a discounted price.

Whoever came up with "the customer is always right" needs to be freaking shot.

On another note, a superstore (Midwestern version of Walmart) that I frequent has been shoplifted twice in the past week. The first time I saw a woman being escorted into a police car by a cop with handcuffs, and last night I was walking in when two ghetto guys walked out, the alarm went off and they kept walking, and by the time they got outside one guy sprinted like mad across the parking lot. Lazy security literally took his time getting the walkie talkie and going outside, the kid was already out of the lot lol.

[Shining Raichu]

I love that you refer to them as "broads" haha.

In my job, the managers are told to always back up the staff member, no matter what. That makes more sense to me than pandering to the customer. I guess where I work it comes down to things like not serving drunk/underage people and not so much about mispricing, but it still makes more sense to me to show a united front than to back down for fear that the customer will take their business elsewhere. That shows weakness, in my opinion. It shows the customer that their patronage is not only appreciated but required, which doesn't put forth the image of a successful business. It hands the customer too much power.

[AzaleaLightning]

My co-workers are pretty supportive, at the moment though there's only five people staffed in the entire store, including management. Two of the five are completely new people that we're training, and I was training one of them when it happened so I'm sure she was a little side-swept by that ><

Anyway... I put in a two week notice for quitting yesterday. I'm leaving on December 1st as it's my next paycheck, fulfills the two week notice timeline, and that gives me a couple weeks to study. This was my first job and I thought I could do that along with full-time college, but that one blind-sided me. I've already dropped one class and I'm failing two (after starting the semester with four classes... lol).

I'm honestly pretty bummed to leave, I like working and being able to pay for my own things and that independence but school is a lot more important right now, and my manager agrees.

[Newton]

Originally Posted by LividZephyr

I don't work in Retail and thus can't join this union, but you all have my utmost sympathies. I read a comic strip called "Retail" which has exposed me to the harsh realities of humanity (even if some of it is exaggerated, it's mostly grounded in reality). It's available online - I suggest you guys check it out

By the way, I've attached a couple of samples for you guys (credit Norm Feuti)

I read that comic and work in retail. Believe me, they hardly exaggerate.

[Shining Raichu]

I feel really rude but I don't even remember LividZephyr's post so I'm glad you brought my attention to it!

I'll check out that comic :D

Also does this mean you'll be joining our little club, Newton?

And that sucks, Azalea . December 1st has come and gone, so how do you feel now being out of the retail game for a while?

[AzaleaLightning]

Honestly, it's made me unwind so much about everything, even schoolwork (though I don't think that's good, since that was my motive for leaving xD)

But, I think it is good to relax, especially this time of year. I find it really unfortunate how retail workers have to work through holidays, it'd be nice if more stores did seasonal hiring to give their regular employees more time for days off around that time ;u;

[Shining Raichu]

Hahaha time off in retail... you say funny things

We have an email sent around mid-November every year that basically says "ha suckers, no more days off starting NOW until mid January. Good luuuuck!"

If you listen very closely, you can hear them cackling as they send it.

[AzaleaLightning]

I'm wishful for better treatment in retail, yes ;w;

In all seriousness though, I do miss my job! My co-workers were amazing and the job itself was pretty easy, just too time-consuming for a full-time student ^^;

But yikes that's pretty low, my store was really small (only five employees) so everyone knew each other pretty well and such, and my manager did let us take days off, if they were serious, though.

[Shining Raichu]

So, my fellow retailers, how did your Christmas period go? Any interesting tales to tell?

[EvilSkittles]

Well my Christmas sorta sucked. One of my coworkers knocks a stack of bins on my head and gives me a concussion. Then a few days later I'm fired over the phone with no explanation.
The bright spot was that the place ended up going out of business two weeks later.

[Ravenfreak]

Hey guys long time no see! I'm no longer a cashier at Shop N Save (thank god) but I still work in retail as a dairy clerk for Walmart. I still had one or two horrible customers but not nearly as much as I did when I was a cashier. Thank god the hollidays are over with, they were way too stressful for us. But one of the women was looking for half and half, which we ran out of our store brand but had 2 Prarie Farms quarts. She freaked out because we "didn't have any half and half" when we clearly had at least two things of the PF brand. >.< There was an older gentleman that was looking for the same thing but he was nice about it so I apologized for not having it to him and just ignored the stupid woman that complained. Also one day while I was stocking milk this stupid woman came up to me and said that some of the half gallons of Skim Milk had Chocolate milk spilled on them and her words were this "I don't know if you care, but it looks like Chocolate Milk spilled on this." in a snobby voice. I just said okay and took the half gallon back. I was nice to an older woman who had the same problem after that dumb woman, and kindly cleaned the bottle off for her. And finally the last story I have, my Department manager and I were stocking eggs and there was this snobby rich woman who probably never worked in retail her whole life kept picking up cartons of eggs that were broken and kept saying "Oh this is horrible!" I then said i'm sorry ma'm, and she just said in a snobby voice "I'm sure you are." So my department manager found her a decent carton and she left. We have tons of things to stock, we don't have time to go through ever single carton of eggs we have. There's no way we could do that and get everything else done. Those are the only bad customer experiences i've had while working at Walmart so that's good. Now I don't have to deal with customers that much, and some days not at all.

[vaporeon7]

Originally Posted by Shining Raichu

So, my fellow retailers, how did your Christmas period go? Any interesting tales to tell?

They were hell. Everyday my feet swelled up to the point where I could barely walk and I had to ice them every night (stupid new shoes).

(Directed more at Andy) Don't you hate it when people try and scan their Flybuys themselves, IT'S OUR JOB FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

[Landorus]

Oh dear..I work in fast food, I mean, they're kind of similar? Can I still join in? :D

[Shining Raichu]

Of course you can, Landorus! The Retail Workers Union welcomes anybody in a customer service industry (or just really anyone who wants to ***** about their job )

Originally Posted by vaporeon7

(Directed more at Andy) Don't you hate it when people try and scan their Flybuys themselves, IT'S OUR JOB FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

Haha I've heard people *****ing about that before! We don't have that problem at Liquorland though, because we have scanny guns that we're always holding. We don't just swipe it over that pad thing. But it does seem really obnoxious lmao.

Also I have some news about my job that for once isn't *****ing! I... got promoted. I got a call randomly on Thursday from my manager saying that there was an assistant manager position at a neighbouring store and that it was mine if I wanted it. I love my store and I don't want to leave, but the job security and extra money that comes with a full-time job isn't something that you can really pass up. So yeah, I'm really excited! :D