Retail-Sucks

Crazy Hobo

We had a loony come in last week and... well it’s a bit of a story so maybe I should go back a little.

I get a strange call at the front, the caller seems a bit distracted and is saying something about the coke guy, and being bothered. I tell him I’ll see what I can do... I assume something is going on outside so I call my SM and finish ringing up my customer. The phone rings again and it’s that same guy, still seems distracted and isn’t very clear on what he’s talking about, asks for the manager again. SM gets there and I tell her somethings going on in the parking lot with the coke guy and someone else, but I’m not sure what. She goes to the back of the store to look for him, thinking he was still in the store.

Ok so finally the guy driving the coke truck comes in and explains what he’s talking about clearly. Some guy was bothering him out in the parking lot at his truck for the past few minutes, I let my SM know and she says we’ll call the police if he starts up again.

A couple minutes after that I see two ladies walking into the store followed by a man. I can hear him talking to them and at first thought he was with them, I looked up and realized he was trying to sell them a radio and was bothering them. I yell over to him that he can’t do that in here and he needs to leave, so he walks over to me and the lady I’m checking out and I finally get a good look at him. A black man, missing teeth, shorts, a big smile with many missing teeth, and the heavy stink of alcohol.

Read My Mind

I have worked in retail for approximately 15 years and currently work in a hardware store giving advice on anything from toilet flappers to insect killers. One fat dumpy middleaged lady with stringy greased hair, missing a lot of teeth and dressed in sweatpants and sweatshirt with a gravy stain down the front presented a special challenge. I have to admit she did create some excitement on a boring routine day. She also thought that you can read her mind. It went like this:
"I need some hook-thingys?"
"What are you trying to hang with the hook-thingys?"
Looking competely put-out by my question she snaps: "Pictures - what else would you hang with hooks?"
"Whats the size, approx. weight and type of wall are you hanging it on?
Further annoyed by such a dumb question, she says in a loud voice, "I don't know its this big(she extends her fat arms) Its just a p-i-c-t-u-r-e...and going on a w-a-l-l"
Sorry, I think, stupid me for asking such a dumb question...

Walked away from a horrible customer

Today a call came over the intercom for customer assistance to one of the registers. I make my way up to the counter and see a family waiting and a backpack in the cashiers hand. The cashier tells me the mother says she saw a sign for -$5.99 off of the backpack. I take the backpack, walk over to the rack for this particular pack and can't find a sign anywhere.

Back to the register. I tell them I didn't see a sign for -$5.99 off. The daughter who looks to be about 13 lets out a loud irritating sigh, like I'm an idiot. So her mom takes the backpack and wants me to follow her so she can show me the sign. She tears off and almost runs into an old man, who excuses himself kindly. We get to the rack and very sarcastically she says;

"Oh, what's this?", pointing to a red -$5.99 sign on a rack for a different brand of pack.

Mother: "Huh. $5.99 off. What do you think that means". So now I'm pissed and realize this woman is a waste of skin.

Me: "I didn't see that before".

Mother: "How could you not see that?", still talking like I'm a moron who's trying to cheat her out of a discount.

Maybe he should drive the short bus instead

The convenience store I work at has a rather large parking lot. It's situated right next to a very busy 2-lane highway, with no shoulders and not many places to pass. It's near a major area lake and is twisty and hilly. Truck drivers and delivery drivers and such tend to simply pull off the highway and park parallel to it so that when they leave, they can pull straight out and go. The lot is so big, they can park two and three deep and still not block regular car traffic. Pretty ideal setup, unless some moron can't understand the simple concept of GETTING OUT OF THE HIGHWAY. One day a beer delivery guy parked so close to the road that he was stacking cases of beer in the eastbound lane! That's how stupid some of them are.
Anyway, since school recently started back I have once again had the displeasure of finding the damn Vo-Tech kids in the store at noon every day. Now, I have nothing in particular against Vo-Tech kids in general. I have something in particular against the idiot moron fuckhead Vo-Tech kids that come into my store every day at noon. The bus route that takes them to Vo-Tech runs right past the store, so every day they ask the driver to stop and let them get snacks and such. They're even eastbound, so the bus door is on the store side and everything. No crossing the highway, no trouble for the driver, easy peasy. The last couple of years they've had this old lady busing them around, but I found out this past Friday they've got a new driver.

And I Thought Being an In Home Care-Provider Was Hard!

My 1st two weeks of working retail and I have quickly discovered how much it sucks. If not for needing to pay my bills I’d of told them to shove it after the 2nd day. But as it is I’m determined to hang in there. Below I shall list some of the strange and maddening things I’ve already had to deal with.

Where I work we are currently having “Back to School” sales and never in my LIFE have I ever seen so many cheapskate people. Not only are they cheapskates they're retarded cheapskates, because they see sales in our sales ads but don’t read the fine print. Things like quantity limits, while supplies last, or so many per customer, are almost always ignored. When you try to tell them the rules stipulated in the ad they get very indignant or downright pissed.

There’s this one old geez who comes in almost every day (or at least every other day). His glasses are as thick as the bottom of a glass coke bottle, bald, and toothless, with no dentures. The man is so ancient I swear I smell formaldehyde. Every time he shuffles through the door he carries one of our badly shriveled plastic bags in his hand with his obligatory return item for the day. I have NEVER seen a person return stuff so often. Every day he comes back having changed his mind about a purchase. I stand there behind my counter blinded by the light reflecting off his lemon shaped head as he makes me calculate the price difference for various things he wants that are on sale – the line growing longer and angrier behind him with every minute. If the packaging on an item is just a little crumply or torn he makes me wait as he goes back to get a better one. After I ring him up he comes back into line almost immediately as he’s already changed his mind and he doesn’t want his product anymore. I cringe every time I see him shuffle into the store with that crinkled bag clutched in his hand.

Another One Caught Red Handed (on video)

Hmm....can we get another category -- something along the lines of "People Besides Customers, Co-Workers, Managers and Corporate Suck"? I mean, if you just come into a store to steal, you're NOT a customer.

It seems that someone took a little side trip into our stockroom when nobody was there and grabbed a couple of employees' backpacks. He then took them into the restroom, emptied the bags of anything useful, and to top it off dumped the backpacks in the toilet.

What this guy didn't count on, however, was that we got the entire thing on the security cameras, as well as another shot of the guy entering the store. He also took some time to sit in the cafe while filling out a job application at another store, so we checked with the manager at that store, who remembered interviewing him.

However, one of the victims of the theft happened to run into the, um, "suspect" at the grocery store in our plaza, so he called the police. A while later, a cop came in with a digital camera (he had taken a picture of the suspect), and compared it with the security video. He had absolutely NO doubt that it was the same guy.

Score one for the good guys!

Caught red-handed

These two women come into the gas station I worked at in college to pay for the gas they just pumped.

Customer 1: "Here's money for the gas. Is there any way you can get me a cup of water, I have to take some medication."

Customer 2: "I was going to buy some water for her, but it's just too expensive here."

Me: "Well, I guess I could get you a cup from the faucet in back."

Crazy

I work in a bookstore, and its terrible. My second day a customer was looking for a book I couldn't find, because I was never properly trained. So I found a coworker to help. Then this customer called corporate the next day to complain that I pushed them aside to someone else. Tell me, would you rather we wonder around for an hour before I found it? Idiots. Of course I was snapped at by the manager, even though I haven't been trained. Then today it was after 5pm when we close on a Sunday, and a woman came up to the locked door and made a big fuss to get in and of course my manager let her in. Then out of some odd act of entitlement she just wouldn't leave. Then at check out, she kept on trying to delay leaving. I'm sure she'll complain about me because I wasn't the least bit helpful. She was too rude for me to bow down though. Good Luck everybody. I hope we all find better jobs soon.

How NOT to be a dick at the catalog desk.

Here goes.. Backstory here, I work at the catalog desk of a major department store. If you order anything from the catalog or our .com site, you CAN return it to the store's catalog dept, you CANNOT do an exchange in the store. It automatically refunds the credit card that was used when the order was placed since the account number is in the system as the form of payment. There is no other way to do this. So here it is, middle age guy walks in with a pair of Levi's that are an online exclusive, not in stores. Wants to return them. His mother ordered them online with HER credit card for him. I did the transaction, showed him the slip where it said her card was refunded for the amount paid, he flips out and launches into dick-mode.
Dickhead: I wanted to do an even exchange"
Me:          I'm sorry, but all online refunds go straight back on the       credit card, it tells you right on your invoice there.
Dickhead: Well, this is bullshit, I want to exchange them!
Me:          Sir, we dont carry these in the store, I can place a re order for you
Dickhead: *not listening to a damn word Im saying* Well, I should still be able to exchange them, I didnt want to refund back on my moms card, I want to be able to get these in a different size in the store.
Me: Well, i can't change the way the system does refunds (at which point he replies "it's not your fault" in a very sneery manner)
me:      glad we're on the same page with that, now would you like to
speak to a manager, perhaps one of them could get ahold of your mother, get her account number, and transfer the refund value to a gift card you can use in the store (and i explained again that we don't have the blasted pants in the store....
Dickhead: No, I'll take my business elsewhere
Dude leaves.

It's all in the little things

I posted a story earlier about a co-worker who worked at my job for more than 2 years and didn't know where stuff was. well she got fired, but when one person leaves, others take their place.

I needed a place to vent today because it seems today is "international, screw up orders" day. So here is what goes down with my usual annoyances.

We have this one co-worker who only temps for us every now and then. We usually wrap stuff in gift boxes, which range from 4x4's all the way up to 19x12. to put it simply, we have ALOT of boxes. although she is a temp, she should know by now that we carry alot of gift boxes. so she comes over to the shipping room and tells me they need box bottoms and leaves. I turn, without thinking, and look at the giant shelves of boxes... I pause and then go to the store to say "ok... you're going to have to be more spacific, there is no way you need every box bottom" to which she responds "I thought I was being specific". I just looked at her... it's like going into KFC and asking for "chicken"... ok... what type? luckily another co-worker made the list for her and I went on my marry way.