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Yup! Pretty normal. Good luck--the trick is to realize that THEY KNOW you don't know shit yet, but they aren't going to bother to do anything about it, so how much could they possibly care? They don't. The store will make money even if you fuck it up. So you shouldn't care either. I'm not saying be rude to customers for no reason or just ignore people who need your help, but if you've got a long line because you weren't trained, don't get suckered by conditioning to feel bad about it. If you fuck up the closing stuff, well, whoopsie daisy! It clearly isn't that important or they'd take the time to train you, or come back to do it themselves. Determine the amount of caring that your boss has, then care even less. Will this strategy gain you fame and fortune? No. It will make you feel less miserable at your minimum wage job though, promise. Good luck!
100%
My favorite lines when I worked retail were some variation of, "I'm the only one here as you can see, I'll be with you as soon as I can" and "I just work here."
You got it! And if my boss gave me shit, I'd give him the big eyes and earnest expression, followed by "I was all alone on a shift that should have had 2 people at least, I did the very best I could" or "But I was never trained to do that, I did the best I could." What was he going to do? Fire me? lol.
When I worked at Kohl's, I was assigned to work returns after Christmas.. Since I learned how to do returns, then I suddenly got stuck running customer service sometimes, even though I had never been trained to do anything else back there. I had so many coworkers who would get all upset about customers trying to work the system to "steal" from the company, and I could never understand that. I got paid the same every hour no matter what, and we had a "Yes we can" policy. You want to return that ancient item for the price on your receipt, even though it's been waaaaaaaayyyyyy marked down since then? Sure, no problem. You want to use that coupon that's been expired for 2 weeks? Yes we can! If it was big enough, I'd call a manager just to cya, but for the most part the "yes we can" policy was enough to keep me out of trouble, and I didn't have to argue with irate customers. Just give them what they want and get them out the door. Meanwhile, some of my coworkers would get into arguments, just to be overridden by management because, again, "yes we can" and have their day ruined by customers "stealing" from the company. Why on earth would you care? And then there was the time I got stuck closing down customer service one night. I had to call another store to get someone to tell me what to do, and they had their own shit to deal with so they weren't very helpful. It was a little nerve wracking because it was so. much. cash. to deal with from all the registers for the day, but again, if I fucked it up, that was not my problem. Big eyes, earnest expression, "I did my best, I had never learned how to do any of that" lol.
Yep. I ended up being a supervisor in retail print/copy, and I basically said yes to whatever unreasonable pricing demands I had control over. I definitely took the difficult customers when other staff was about to have their job made harder than it should be, and it almost always ended up as "sure, we can help you out."
The line I drew was anything in-house production that would fuck over my colleagues. I know you own a restaurant and have a New Year's Eve event coming up, but no, we cannot bump the people who placed their orders in advance to accommodate your need of 4,000 fliers for your shitty event. That would put too much strain on my staff.
The thing I did the most often, though, was fax shit for free. $1 per page for faxing? Fuck that, here, let me type in the service code real quick. Have fun.
That's a good strategy-- I'll give you what you want to get rid of you to make my day easier, unless giving you what you want will actually make the day much harder for my team.
Yep. Also try not to directly contradict something my team says without a little back and forth. Makes it easier for me than just saying no, but doesn't throw my team under the bus. But if there's no compromise between those, I would stand by my team 100% of the time.
Whatever I did worked well for the store, too. We made our sales goals and got the bonus every quarter.
Not giving a shit at work starts to become a hobby if it’s own. Make sure you get some free snacks too
I worked at a gas station where the owner's nickname was "The Barron of [town]" because he owned so much land that most working people in the area were renting from him (had a few trailer parks with tenants he was incredibly racist to add well).
He was such a cheap fuck that he refused to pay for a scanner, so we had to memorize the price of everything in the store and input it manually (he didn't like price tags on some things because he thought they wouldn't sell as much).
He had 15 cameras in the store and would call constantly telling us to get back to work. Every year he bought a new sports car. He had 12 heart attacks and somehow survived them all thanks to his healthcare. He paid us $8/hr (this was 2015). Not even enough to rent from him, or finance a car from him. So he would reject is immediately if we needed housing or a car.
That job is why I'm a communist lol. That and the one before it where a bourgeois immigrant was my boss and basically had poor immigrant women who didn't speak English as slaves (they only got $7/hr for insane QA work like filing turbo housings into shape by the thousands).
I got $8/hr, and the first thing I had to do was strip copper wires out of the walls of the building he was renting. He told me "hard work will get you places, I started out doing work like this, then my dad left me his company, maybe one day that can happen to you!" without a hint of self awareness.
Edit: he was also aware that my father had killed himself the year prior and my family was destitute.
Whenever capitalists/libertarians talk about "protecting freedom", they're talking about those "small business owners" there. The ones that exploit with passion because they know that it's the only way to compete with an international bourgeoisie that's trying to suck up all the labor power. The freedom to abuse.
Small business kulaks. The ones around here that bitch about people not supporting local business are forcing their employees to risk death without giving them health insurance. No compassion no compassion zero fucking excuses from me.
land of the free means being ruled by a thousand petty tyrants
Oftentimes the words "freedom" and "democracy" are code words for oligarchy.
They do it out of pure spite, not to compete with the bourgeoisie. Most of these type of people are too stupid to even be familiar with the concept. It's very basic "I'm the Big Man" type shit, which is why they all love Trump and hate "the Liberal Elite" - which is where they put all their frustrations about competing with global Capital onto yelling at teachers and college students.
They live in a bubble that shouldn't exist. Their class is tenuous at best. They are aware of this and blame the workers who they have nothing but hate for, and the few bourgeois institutions that they have to deal with (IRS, banks, taxes, etc.) Without any real knowledge of the reason they are allowed to exist. All they know is that treating workers poorly gets them more profits.
They don't know any of that shit. It's pure domination and petty cruelty. They don't "blame" the workers, they bully them like any other shitty bully.
it's just so confusing why kids don't believe in the american dream anymore
Yeah that's basically every retail job I've ever had. Godspeed comrade.
For every dollar we take, we throw away a banana. That way the numbers are the same
Wait im not getting this
where does the money come from? don't they notice less inventory than sales?
Yeah, every job I've worked at compared inventory and the cash register down to the penny. How are you getting away with not entering purchases in the register? Even if they couldn't catch you red handed with the money, wouldn't it be obvious it was you?
Yeah buddy thats nice and all. I'll get $20 on 4 and a pack of marb red label 100s. Didja notice the price went (up/down)? Goddamn.
No , those are marb red 100s not red label 100s cmon buddy don't you know nothin?
The cigarettes were the most annoying part when I worked at a deli/gas station
Smokers think that the minute differences in packaging is way more important to other people that it ever could be. Yeah, you figure it out eventually, but if i haven't spent much time on a register in a couple weeks, don't act like im an idiot for not knowing which version of the five different menthols you're talking about.
I also love the dinosaurs who ask for the ultralights rather than the silver box they come in because they started smoking before it was illegal to hint that that type is better for you
Yeah, that's pretty normal - and there's probably a reason the last two people quit. The worst part of retail for me was when a customer who is clearly having issues in their personal life decides they want to take things out on me because we're out of their favourite beverage. People can be really nasty and you're supposed to just smile and tell them you're sorry for the inconvenience. It is so demoralizing.
If you're the last employee though, they're not gonna fire you, so I would personally not worry too much about upselling especially if there's a line up.
Yeah the first few days/weeks can be kind of rough. I've worked at large grocery/retail shops and I didn't know the layout at all. Some places the management/coworkers would get annoyed if you asked them questions because they felt like you were creating work for them (esp if you were bringing a customer who asked you where something was with you).
I could deal with customers getting annoyed that I didn't know were things were. Once in a while I'd get a truly vile customer. The type of person who thinks you're below them and wants to make you feel as worthless as humanly possible or the type of person who demands to speak to management to try to get you fired because they took your exhaustion as a personal affront. Maybe people are more chill at gas stations idk.
"I know it's a pandemic right now, but why would you need unemployment? There are plenty of available jobs open!"
The available jobs:
im in awful chronic pain and yet still id rather work blue collar than retail ever again
Please watch Clerks for suggestions on how to optimize your minimum wage experience.
Management is signaling to you that they do not check things closely or even care about accuracy.
Why should you object? ;)
