Damn displays…

We have a seasonal department and right now, our summer set is winding down as we transition to Back 2 School so that department is really empty.

Yesterday one of the cashiers calls me and says a customer wants to know how cheap you can sell her the table that’s back there on display.  I asked which one and she said she didn’t know which one it was.  So I walked all the way over there and  waited for the lady.  When she gets there, she asks me how I would like to get rid of that table?  With a smile I said, that’s why it’s here.

So she asks me how much I will take for it, and I check the prices.  It is regular $439 and on clearance 70% off for $175.  I told her since it is a display and has been out here for a couple of months I will take another 20% off the already clearanced price, which is another $35 off so it would be $140.  That is a VERY reasonable price for this table that really had no scratches or flaws to it.  Plus, it was already assembled and if she were to buy it brand new, she would have to assemble it.

She then had the nerve to ask me if I would take $100 for it so I don’t have to worry about it any more.  I told her that I was not able to do that, because once it was here long enough I could send it back (which is only a half untruth).  She said oh well, and was looking at a few other things.  She asked if we had any chairs to go with the table, I told her they were all gone and that we would not be getting any more.

By this time, it was a few minutes before I got off so I was pretty much ready to leave.  She then asked me if another store may have the chairs.  I saw my opportunity and brought her to customer service so they could call another store to see if they had some.  Then I scooted out of there.  As I walked past she was on the phone with the other store asking about the chairs.

When I came in this morning the table was gone.  I have no idea how much she paid for it.  I bet she told the cashier that I said $100!!!

Fall Season has officially started.

Mark this day, (yesterday) June 16, 2009 is officially Fall in the whacked out world of retail.

We processed a truck of freight yesterday and in all of my Children’s departments I received fall clothes.  I put out long sleeve shirts for girls and boys because I had the space on the salesfloor to merchandise them.  I had to backstock fall dresses for infants and toddlers because I have too many spring/summer dresses still out there.

I think it is really ridiculous that summer is over before it has even begun.  It is 96 degrees today and we are selling long sleeve shirts.  That gets my goat.

We are always told merchandise seasonally, yet how can we do that if in the middle of JUNE we get Fall apparel?  AACCCKKK my head is gonna explode.

I even heard that a craft store in town has started selling Christmas stuff…

BOOM!!!

DISGUSTING PERVERT

So LP and I were watching some potential shoplifters in the Men’s Dept.  As I was checking the fitting rooms, this guy walks out holding some swim trunks.  He has them balled up in his arms and he is looking around kind of lost like.  I ask him if I could take them for him and I put them on top of our return rack.  No big deal, normal situation.

Since I was watching thieves, I wanted to run and check inside the fitting rooms to make sure they were all empty.  In the very last fitting room, I noticed something was stuffed under the bench.  It was a pair of swim trunks.  When I grabbed it I noticed it was wet.

I looked to see what I had put my hands on and I realized the freak had masturbated all over the shorts!!!  AAACCKKK!!!  I had this pervert’s man juice all over my hands.

I went to the phone to call LP and see if  he could see him in the store still, but he had left already, fucking pervert.

I know it was him too, because in the stack of shorts he gave me, there were 3 shorts and 4 hangers, and the extra hanger matched the shorts he put his business all over…

GOD I LOVE MY JOB!!!

It’s been a while…

I know it has been a while since I’ve added a new post.  I am currently on vacation right now.  I return to work tomorrow.  I am dreading it.

However, I am refocused and dedicated to telling all of you what’s going on in the crazy retail world.

Somethings that have happened to me since my last updates:

I have fired 3 people.  These situations are either easy or hard.  Two of them were easy, the other was not hard, just not as easy.

The first two were at the same time.  This guy came to work two and a half hours late, with his girlfriend (who was on time).  I saw him come in, but instead of him calling me to let me know he was there, he went straight to the register.  I went up to him and asked him why he was late.  He told me he had an exam that he just found out about a week ago.  He said he forgot to call and his bad.  I told him I was fed up and he needed to be on his best behavior that night.  Well, his girlfriend then called me and asked if she could leave early.  I told her no because everyone had to stay and get the store back into shape.

They began to tell everyone (except for me of course) that they were leaving early no matter what.  At closing I had a meeting with everyone to direct them on what needed to be done the last hour of our shifts.  After the meeting the 2 of them came to me and said they needed to leave.  I said no.  If they had made arrangements in advance, or not pissed me off earlier I may have said yes.  They kept arguing with me about how they had to go study for an exam.  To me that is BS.  After several minutes of them telling me they were GONNA leave I finally told them that if they left they would be abandoning their job and to not come back.  THEY BOTH LEFT.

The next day, he came in to work someone else’s shift!!   I said what are you doing?  Did you think I was kidding?  He said he was sorry and he really had to study…blah blah blah…  I said you made your decision yesterday, and told him to leave.

The third person was a bad hire on my part.  She interviewed well, but on her first day of work I realized the mistake I made.  She acted as if she was dumb as a brick.

One example:  We have an employee from Australia, recently an Australian influenced restaurant opened in town, owned by an Australian.  Just joking I asked him if he knew the guy, because he knew everyone in town from Australia…  Well the lady over heard us and thought he SERIOUSLY knew everyone in Australia.  He goes yeah all 60 million of them…ha ha  we all laugh.  She then asks him if he knows (I am not joking she was completely serious) Crocodile Dundee.  We are all dying laughing now.  She honestly thought that Crocodile Dundee was a real person, not a fictional character.

So back to her termination.  She could not follow her schedule for anything.  She would misread her schedule all the time.  Finally I gave her an attendance counseling and told her she had gone over her allowed missed time.  I told her that during the next 20 days of her probationary period she could not be late or miss work, or she would be fired.  THE VERY NEXT DAY, at the very time she was scheduled, she called and said she was going to be late.  I did not want to here her sob story.  I told her that sometimes you need to cut your losses before it is too late.

Ugghhh  people just don’t have a good work ethic these days.  It seems that everyone expects you to be grateful that they come to work.  Whether they are productive or not.  When really, in today’s economy, they should be grateful they have a job and do everything they can to keep it.

Call Me the Baby Catcher!!!

I was walking down the back aisle of the store today, heading to the office so I can wrap things up to go home.  There was this lady pushing a stroller cart with a toddler in the front seat.

As I was getting closer to them, the girl stood up in her seat.  The lady steered her cart to the side and the girl tumbled head over feet over the front rail of the cart!!  I dove forward and CAUGHT THE BABY!!!

I caught her right before she hit the ground.

Call Me the Baby Catcher!!!

wierd phone call

I got this “manager line one page” yesterday.  When I answered the phone this lady sounded kind of distressed.

She started telling me her name (I didn’t care).

Then she told me she lives over an hour away (So sad).

She was in the store for about 2 hours… (Great who did what and how much am I gonna have to kiss this lady’s ass to make it better).

The whole time she is talking she sounds upset, not happy at all.  Then she tells me that she completed our survey and she never does that.  (Crap, now our survey scorecard will go down)

She tells me that she feels that doing that alone wasn’t enough so she HAD to call and speak to a manager. (WTF happened)

She tells me that the cashier (totally mispronouncing her name) was checking her out and (OK here comes the crap hitting the fan) was the most friendly cashier she had ever had and that everyone in our store was super friendly and gave her the best experience that she had ever had while shopping!!!

I was shocked.  I totally thought I was gonna get bitched out about something stupid, like normal.

Seriously, she could not have sounded more like an upset customer.

i bought this watch…

This lady called me and started telling me this really long story about how she bought this watch.  Basically, she drove more than an hour to shop with her friend.  While they were shopping, she bought a watch and some perfume for her friend.

The watch needed to have some links taken out so it would fit her.  We did that fine she said, then she got the rest of her stuff and left.

She drove all the way home and tried to set the time on her watch, but it wasn’t working.  So she called the store and spoke to our store manager.  He said to ship the watch to us and we would pay for the shipping.  Which by the way is completely a ridiculous thing to do.  So she did.

Then yesterday she called to tell me that in the confusion of her brand new watch not working she accidentally sent back the perfume instead of the watch.!!!

How dimwitted must you be to package and send perfume back instead of a watch.  That is crazy.  So today she is supposed to drive up here and return the watch.

The stupid thing is that the watch is probably not broken, the battery is probably dead.  These watches don’t have expiration dates on them, so some of them may be more than a year old by the time they actually reach our store to be sold.

Stupid lady.

Yes I have been slacking!!

Not at work of course.  Only on this blog.  I have been caught up playing Mobsters on Myspace and have not had anything blogworthy happen at work the last few weeks.

I have 2 more days to go then I am on vacation for a week.

I need the break before we get into crazy time.  This crazy period lasts from the day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday, all the way until a few days after Christmas.

It sucks because from Black Friday until the 23rd of December we stay open until midnight.  That really really really SUCKS.  I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten off of work after 12 in the morning and had to be back for 6am.  Too many freaking times.

Yea Christmas

On Wednesday September 17, 2008 we set our Christmas department.  That is a total of 3 months and 8 days before Christmas.

I haven’t been to many other stores recently, besides Wal-Mart and they don’t have Christmas up yet, so we may be the first to sell it.

I can say that it looks nice and we have some nice ornaments and decorations, but damn it’s way too early to even be thinking about Christmas.

The thing I dread about Christmas is that the closer it gets, the more the customers act like they are the only one in the building.  Even though there are usually 2x as many customers (or more) than normal, each one feels that if they don’t get the exact toy or shirt or whatever they need for a gift it is MY fault and I ruined their Christmas.

It is too early to be thinking about that, so I will say no more.

Aftermath

Hurricane Gustav hit Monday morning.  The store’s power went out and stood off until this past Tuesday.  So the power was out at the store for 8 days.  Luckily we had a generator to give us lights and more
importantly A/C.

There was a huge point of distribution (POD) in our parking lot for a total of 8 days.  The National Guard was there keeping everything going smoothly.  I will try to get some of the pictures I have loaded on here soo

We stood closed until Friday.  Once we opened, the city and surrounding areas were under mandatory 8pm curfew.  So we closed at 6pm.  That was nice.  The curfew was lifted yesterday, so today we resumed normal hours.  That sucks.

On a personal level, we had a total of 14 people staying at my house due to the hurricane.  We lost power from Monday until Saturday, and part of my fence was blown down.  Besides that everything was ok.  We had a generator, so we were prepared.

Thanks for everyone’s well wishes and support.

I am off of work this weekend and next week I set Christmas.  Yea!!

One good thing did come from the hurricane, our inventory was postponed until January.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all in Texas and Southwest LA that are riding out Hurricane Ike right now.