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Retail Workers Union

Shining Raichu

Shining Raichu

Expect me like you expect Jesus.
    • 8,959
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    [PokeCommunity.com] Retail Workers Union

    [PokeCommunity.com] Retail Workers Union


    What is the Retail Worker's Union?

    Do you have to deal with rude customers, funny co-workers or a surly manager breathing down your neck? Well I have good news for you: you are not alone!

    This club is a place for you to come and talk about your jobs with a bunch of people who can empathise. If you had any particularly annoying customers today, or your boss said something especially infuriating – or even if you had a great day and just have a funny story to share – that's the sort of stuff we want to hear and talk about!

    Rules and Guidelines

    All forum-wide rules apply.

    This is going to be a more free-form group than Other Clubs is generally used to, in the sense that it will feed off the material we provide it rather than using formal discussion questions and outside resources like internet articles to generate discussion. But 'free-form' doesn't mean 'spam pit', so please keep that in mind.

    "The Retail Workers Union" is just a name; anybody can join this club. While it is geared toward people who work in retail because PC has a younger memberbase, if you have another type of job you want to talk about – or even if you just feel like you have something to contribute – feel free to join in!

    No trolling other club members – this is meant to be a fun group but if somebody does have a serious issue they want to talk about, the last thing they need is people making fun of them.

    Any questions? PM or VM me!

    How to Sign Up

    I'll make it really easy for you; no silly sign-up forms. Just say you want to join and start talking; I'll take care of the rest :)

    Member List

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    A
    aRedMoon
    AzaleaLightning

    B
    Barrels
    BlahISuck
    botanicas

    C
    Captain Fabio
    CarefulWetPaint

    E
    EvilSkittles

    H
    Harlequin

    I
    Izanagi.
    Impo

    J
    Jellicent[Female]
    Jorah

    P
    Patchisou Yutohru
    PhantomX0990

    R
    R a c h e l
    Razer302
    Ravenfreak

    S
    Sector Revenge
    Shanghai Alice
    Shining Raichu
    Shiny Celebi

    V
    vaporeon7

    Y
    Yusshin

     
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    Retail is one of the worst businesses to work in because you have to deal with a lot of people who think they know more about you than the product you are selling.

    :3​
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    YAY people! Welcome guys :D

    Ironically it's taken me so long to reply because I've been busy with extra hours at work lol - there has been some crazy **** going on there recently thanks to the corporate offices; it's just so stupid and it needs to be made public just how stupid it is.

    The liquor store chain I work for, Liquorland, is part of Coles - a larger supermarket chain that also owns Target and K Mart in Australia. We have this loyalty reward scheme called Flybuys where you scan your Flybuys card at the check out (this is for the benefit of the non-Australians) and earn points which you can exchange for Coles Group gift cards and other stuff. Anyway the whole Flybuys thing is getting a huge overhaul; they're making it better and way more worthwhile for the customers, they've got Dawn French doing TV ads for it, it's a whole big thing. Which is fantastic except that they of course have to make it a nightmare for the staff. They've given us these horrible light blue shirts with "flybuys" written on them to wear instead of our nice red ones and we have to put out an endless stack of promotional crap around the stores to promote it.

    But here is the real kicker: the new scheme has this "My5" system where you go online and tell Coles the five products you buy the most and then whenever you scan your card you get 10% off those particular items. Which again is fantastic except that their way to promote it is that at 12 noon today we had to stop what we were doing and go around high-fiving people. They want us to go and high five each other and the customers in the store and make this huge goddamn scene out of nowhere... I have no idea what they're trying to accomplish but they're frikkin' insane.

    And to prove that we did it, we had to take photos on our phones and e-mail them to head office. The staff members just basically staged a couple of photo shots with each other and the rest can bugger off but can you imagine the goddamn mayhem that would have caused in the supermarkets? Holy frikkin crap.
     
    Here is a good story for you guys.

    I was working, obviously, in House of Fraser and a woman came up to me who I sold a pair of jeans a couple of weeks ago; she didn't remember me which was amusing. Anyway, she came up to me and said she had been sold the wrong pair of jeans, that they were last seasons style and she paid full price for them. I remember serving her, because she was a dick, so I checked the receipt and the jeans. The jeans were the right season, the receipt was for those jeans, but she bought them 6 weeks ago and our return policy was 4 weeks.

    SO, she started kicking off, saying they are wrong. I showed her the same jeans that were out on the rack, showing it was this seasons, she still didn't believe me. I then said as a part of our uniform, we have to wear the current seasons clothes; I was wearing the exact same jeans. She called me a liar, which I laughed at and just called over my manager. Explained what happened and what she said, manager turned around saying:

    "I remember Will serving you last week and you said you weren't sure if they were the right size. So you can try all you want, but it is your own fault you missed the return date."

    Was so hard not to laugh. She stormed off after that. Hahahahaha. MORON.​
    ​
     
    Oh my gosh, I have so many stories you wont believe. I used to work at a Sears store. I worked there about 2 1/2 years. Im surprised I havent torn all my hair out as a result of the stress of that job.My job was basically to straighten clothing and other duties like stock work assisting customers, price changes, printing signs and things like that. It was pretty bad. Customers gave me a really hard time and made fun of the way I looked. They would often not even have a question about a product. Many were very diffcult to please( or next to impossible) and get away with stupid stuff because " the customer is always right" I was also usually the only person scheduled to tidy up meaning I had to manage both floors and it was stressful to try to get it straight on time. I could barely handle it.

    Retail is the worst job you can get. If I could of helped it, I wouldnt have taken that job. Unfortunately Im likely to experience the same situation over again, though Im hoping for a job in a smaller place where its easier and more manegable and laid back.
     
    I need to join this~

    Just a small story from my work:
    I was working one morning at the checkouts when scrappily dressed woman came up to buy some DVDs. I was unusually perky that morning so I greeted her with a good morning and how are you? She grunted at me and responded with despicable. At that point I knew not to stretch out the transaction, but my plan to fly through it was foiled when she argued about some sale from the catalogue on the DVDs. I rang up the department and they said they weren't on sale, she became really angry and started complaining about false advertising. She then gave me the catalogue she had, which had the sale on it. I then got the pleasure of pointing out that the catalogue was from 3 months ago.

    I'm glad I work in retail though, it's built up my patience a lot.
     
    Hot tip for you guys who do work in retail.

    NEVER EVER WORK WHEN HUNGOVER! A 10 hour shift, starting at 9am in the morning. I felt so bloody horrible and having to deal with ratty customers made me want to go on a killing spree.​
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    Haha, I disagree. :P
    When you throw in the headaches, feeling sick, being really warm in a hot shop and ALSO the lack of sleep because I got in at 5am and had to be at work for 9am, it isn't a nice experience.​
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    Woo more people! Welcome vappy and Shiny Celebi :D

    Fabio, you work in a clothes store? I could have sworn you worked for the university on the phones for the IT people. Did that not work out?

    Also omg I worked with somebody who was hung over once; it was terrible (you'd think working in a liquor store that'd happen more than once in three years, but I've been lucky I guess). It was a Saturday morning and he was just dead and didn't want to deal with the customers or do anything. So I had to run around filling fridges as well as coming back to serve 90% of the customers because he was just over it. Then the cherry on top of the sundae was when he all of a sudden sprinted out the back with more energy than I'd seen him muster all morning and I heard loud vomitting. I don't know if he made it to the bathroom and I don't want to know - I did not go out there for the rest of the day to find out lol
     
    Shining Raichu said:
    Fabio, you work in a clothes store? I could have sworn you worked for the university on the phones for the IT people. Did that not work out?
    Click to expand...

    Oh no I do! :)
    I work as an IT Technician now but my previous jobs have been retail, so I am calling on memories instead of what just happened! :P​
    ​
     
    Okay maybe being hungover dead and spewing out the back is the worst thing to do at work >.>

    Has anyone ever had to kick out a customer before or yell at them for being stupid?

    A couple of weeks ago a bunch of teenagers came into my shop and just bummed around spent like 12$ between them >.>
    We have a fish tank and some were around it and I looked over and one of the little ----s had their hands in the tank trying to grab the fishes!
    I had to yell at him and tell him to stop being a douche and he came up to me trying to intimidate me. So scary >.>
    I just starred him straight in the eyes and said "Try me."
    So he backed off and all his friends started giving it to him for being an idiot and a douche and such. They all left after that and didnt come back :).
    Thats the closest I've gotten to kicking someones butt out of my shop.
     
    oh I'd love to join this!

    I have a funny story to kick things off. I work at Meijer, which has cart pushers that work out in the parking lot. I happen to know some of them, and one told me a particularly humorous story about his day. So he was out in the parking lot and he sees 2 men making out by a truck. Now none of us are bothered by this besides the fact that you shouldn't do things like that in the parking lot of a family friendly store. Well he turns his back to get some carts and when he looks back one of the men is gone. He thought he had climbed in the truck, but he slowly rises from the ground. Now we're unclear as to what he was doing, but I think you can guess what we were thinking. Just some of the things we experience. xD
     
    Retail's bad, but try managing large groups of small children.

    Same amount of stupidity, coupled with an abundance of energy, a lack of respect, and the fun times of stupid rules thanks to insurance, and dealing with parents.

    To the masochists that can deal with that, my hat's off to them. However, one job was enough for me, and I'll probably not go into that line of work again.
     
    I have never kicked off at a customer, if they are really being a douche, I will just still be all nice and friendly, but never angry, because they just want a rise out of you.​
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    I work at Sainsbury's on checkouts, and yes, I have yelled at customers for being complete morons. Obviously a little more to it than that, but no, the reason they are angry is not to make you angry, but to get whatever the hell they want. I'm not going to pretend I've done it often, only 3 times over 1 1/2 years there, but when you are just stuck there serving customer after customer who treats you like a machine, or you're beneath them, it is just too hard sometimes. When I tell them I'm a student their opinion of me changes so quickly it would be funny if it were not so depressing.

    I still remember when I said "hi" to someone and he and the girl he was with started talking about why cashiers bother to talk. I could've punched them. I would've said something back, but I was feeling too drained to at that time. The reason, anyway, is that we're told to, and we get reviewed on how we acted to customers every so often by supervisors watching us. But it is just polite. I don't understand how they did not get it was polite. I'm a human being behind that checkout...
     
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    this is the club for me
    I can't count how many times I've had to smile and wave as an idiotic customer launched multiple verbal assaults at me for things that were completely out of my control. How was I supposed to know, Lil' Miss Cranky-Lobster-Faced-Divorcee (the divorce you were quite happy to tell me about at the counter even though I would've rather stood on rusty nails than hear you say another word about your husbands secretary), that months after you bought the shirt, you were too big to fit it? Maybe you should've eaten less or at least have tried on the shirt ONCE before that particular morning? I hate people sometimes.
     
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