Another of those lingering customers

I had seen this lady and her tweener age daughter several times one evening.  It was getting close to closing time and they were still in the store.

When the 15 minutes to closing announcement came on they were in the fitting room.  I stood up there in that general area, just to make sure they checked out before I closed all of the registers.

I saw them leave the fitting room, and put some stuff on the return rack and then walk out the store.  I didn’t think anything of it, because for some strange reason, people love to waste time trying on clothes without the intentions of ever buying them.  Just wanna waste my time.

As I was walking through all of the fitting rooms to make sure there was nothing in there, or that no one was hiding out to rob us blind, I found it.  There was a shopping cart FULL of stuff.  It had clothes, sheets, shoes and lots of stuff from all areas of the store.  WHY????

Can someone please tell me the reasoning of it?  Why would someone spend hours of their time walking around a store, loading up a cart full of stuff, staying until we close and not purchasing anything?  Do they have that much free time?  Is that what they do for fun?  Do they get a rush of excitement or adrenaline knowing that now, several people must work to clean up the mess that they left behind for no apparent reason?

Also, what kind of example is this mom sending to her daughter?  That it is acceptable to not be responsible for your actions?  I can accept it if they didn’t realize we were closing, and that they still had more shopping to do.  But they had been in the store for a very long time.  And the fact that they hid the basket made it even worse.

I would love to go to their house and pull out their laundry, dishes, cleaning supplies, and stuff from all over their house and pile it on their kitchen table.  That would be great.  Then I would tell them “Have fun cleaning this crap up, bitches.”

Just Messin’ Around

In order to make my day a little more enjoyable and funnier, I often mess with customers.

Now, I don’t do anything mean or harass them.  I only play a few games with them.

I get asked 3 questions all day long where is shoes, customer service and the bathroom.

If some asks me if we have a shoe department, or if we have a bathroom, with a completely straight face and helpful attitude I say “yes we do.”  Then I stop, it usually takes them a few seconds to register that I didn’t tell them where it was.  That is the funniest thing.  Inside I am dying laughing when they finally ask me the proper question, which would be “Where is this or that?”.  Most people chuckle when they realize what happened to them.  Some don’t though.  I actually had someone ask me if we sold rugs.  When I told them yes, they just said ok and walked away.

Another thing I do is I say hi to all of the customers I see.  As I am walking around I will see the same customer more than once.  So, sometimes, I will say “Hi, how are you today?” several times to them.  Each time acting like it is the first time I saw them.

Boy do I love my job.  Hey, I take my small victories when I can get them.

My Parking Lot is not a Trash Can

As I was getting out of my car to walk into work, I saw this lady putting a bag of trash under her car.

I was pissed. I had to walk past her car to get to the door, so I just stared at her until I got close enough to say something.

Then she looked up and saw me. She had this priceless expression on her face. She was so busted and she knew it. Then she grabs her trash and says to her friend “I wonder if there’s a trash can around here?”

By that time I was pretty close to her so I tell her “There is one by the door, and by the way my parking lot is not one.”

She was stunned. She had no response and just kinda shrunk back into her car.

It was a joyous victory for the little people. On that day, vindication was mine.

sleeping with the enemy

Well, not exactly.

I went on a job interview today with another company.  I think it went very well.  I think I portrayed myself as a dependable, hard-working and productive manager.  The company is a very big and well known department store.

If I get the job, I am not sure I will accept it.  There are many factors that will go into my decision.  The most important thing of course is pay.  The job is actually a step down, so how will it affect my career path?  There is a 6 month wait for health insurance as well.  So I am not so sure.

I feel a little guilty about going, but not much.  It doesn’t hurt anyone to talk.  And, in today’s retail, (management especially) everyone has 1 foot out of the door already just looking for the next best thing.

I should hear something next week, so that will give me some time to think things over.

We shall see.

Appraisal Time

At my company, we do all hourly associate appraisals at one time.  That is kind of weird, but I think it is a scheme to keep from paying people as much as they would if they did yearly reviews instead.  Once again, big business thinking more of how to save a penny than how to treat their people better.

That’s sad, because IMHO, the better you treat your people, the better they will work for you.

So I did my first one today.  I honestly thought it would be a good one because it was the highest rated evaluation I completed.  Therefore, it was also the biggest increase.

WRONG!!!

This person honestly thought they would get a MUCH bigger raise.  Not in retail, baby.  5% is a good amount for retail.  The problem is that when you are making around ten bucks an hour that only equates to 50 cents.  $20 a week, $86 a month, $1040 a year.  That is not that noticeable of an amount.  Especially after Uncle Sam dips his greedy hands in your pocket.

Some valid points were made, but nothing could change the amount of her raise.  The raises are set in stone based on your performance.  There are 4 measuring standards: does not meet, meets, exceeds, or consistently exceeds.  Let’s just say that around 90% of the store got meets, 8% got exceeds, 1% got consistently, and 1% got does not meet.

This person was talking about how they make less than other people at her same level… I am sorry about that, but everyone knows life is not always fair.  The right person doesn’t always get the job, or the promotion, and sometimes people who do the same job as you make more than you.

Now I dread having to give out all of those meets, with their whopping 4% raise.

5am

I had to go in at 5am this morning.  That sucks.  But, it was better than having to work overnight like I was supposed to.  We had to do some rearranging in the shoe department to get ready for BTS (aka Back to School).

The day went by pretty quick because we had lots to do, but my feet and legs were killing me at the end of the day.  I realized that during a 10 hour shift (and yes…that REALLY sucks) I only sat down for my 1/2 hour lunch.

At least I got a free lunch out of the deal.  Today and yesterday, the store bought us pizza.  One of those “reaching a goal” incentives.  Yea, I am totally motivated.  (note sarcasm)

Tomorrow, we are supposed to finish the project we started today.  It will be a much easier day.  I think I am gonna go in late and sneak out pretty early.  Yup, I am a bad dude.

Gas Leak

We had a gas leak at the store. WTF???!!??!!!! I didn’t even know we had gas!

Apparently, we use gas to heat our building and water. Not that we use hot water for much in the store or anything. It is a battle to get people to clean their own dishes in the break room. Besides that sink, the maintenance sink is the only other that has a hot water knob. So, we can’t use much hot water.

The gas company rep came out and said “Do you smell gas?”

I said “You’re the gas man, you tell me.”

He determined that the joints on the pipes behind the building were installed improperly and were leaking.

So his solution was to completely close the main valve and physically take the gas meter out of the ground. Then very politely said “Call a plumber.”

Huh? Gas leak = gas man. What the hell do I need a plumber for?

Well he came out and said that the joints used are not allowed in my state and he has to completely redo all of the joints along the system. I was like whatever, I’m not paying this bill.

Besides that, it was a pretty normal day.

Tomorrow we unload a truck. Yea, fun!

Shopping on my day off

I went shopping at my store on my day off. I hate doing that. I spend 50+ hours working there every week. The last thing I want to do is spend more time there, especially if I’m not getting paid for it.

At least the store wasn’t that busy. We went early in the morning, then went shopping at other stores.

We actually spent more money at other stores than we did at the store that pays all of my bills. Kinda funny, don’t you think. It just shows that I am not die hard to spend ALL of my money at my store. I am just supporting our messed up economy by spreading my measly wealth around.

Besides, Old Navy had all of their clearance 50% off the lowest ticketed price, so that gave me more incentive to buy some stuff there.

Hooray weekend!!

I just got home from work after a very long week and I am off for the weekend.  YEA!!

Today I did 2 rounds of interviews and boy do we get some nutjobs trying to get a job.  But what more can you expect when the average rate to start is only $7.75?

I had 2 qualified people that I would hire.  To be honest, and I told them so, they were overqualified for any position we had available.

I had one dude that had on a huge-ass chain around his neck.  I was thinking our dress code is business casual, not gangsta chic.  Of course I couldn’t say it, cuz then I would be discriminating.  And we have laws against that.

I had 2 ladies show up about 10 minutes late.  I did not let them come in.  Hell if you can’t get to an interview on time, when YOU are trying to impress ME, how the heck are you going to get to work on time.

So out of 7 people I may make offers to 3 of them.  We shall see.

I also had this chick turn in an application wearing some hoochie shorts.  Her application went straight into the “to be filed” folder.  Better known in our store as the “not no but hell no” folder.

Management Training

So we had a management training meeting yesterday.  We had managers from all over the district come to our store so we could have a big training meeting.

The topic was team development and what style of manager are you.

According to the so called experts, there are 4 styles of managers.

I am a facilitator.  That means that I am a people orientated manager.  I think that is pretty true.  I didn’t think that everything was dead on accurate, but overall true.

The funny things about the meeting were:

1.  The 2 co-trainers actually contradicted each other on a few occasions.

2.  On a flip board the word analyze was partially covered up so all I saw was ANAL…LOL

3.  3 other managers from other stores asked me how I liked my new position.  Because since one manager quit, it was assumed by everyone including me that I would get a new role in the store.  But no-oooo.  I stood where I was and the manager-in -training that I was training to take my place in case something like that happened took the open position.  I was and still am pissed.

It’s a very long story and one day when I get more info as to why i didn’t get that position I will let you know.

By the way, the manager that quit told me they have an open position with his company…