The Worst Day Ever

I had a horrible day at work today. My back was in agony after working yesterday, and I was in no mood for any silliness, but I got chewed out by a guy at our corporate office because I sent him and our general manager an e-mail asking them to clarify a detail in the return policy, which another associate had screwed up on yesterday. The guy called me and chewed me out, making the mistake my problem and told me I had to fix it today.

Basically, a customer was given too much money back for a return, and this guy (let’s call him N) wanted to get our $12.80 back. He e-mailed us some absurdly complicated and unintelligible instructions. After calling my manager and thinking about the problem, I decided we should do something else. Basically, N wanted the charge the customer (who was not there and has no idea there’s a problem) another $50 on her credit card…without her authorization and without her even knowing about it! I think that’s actually illegal, but whatever. He then wanted to give her some strange amount as a refund…honestly, it didn’t work out correctly, and I thought maybe he had smoked too much crack. I e-mailed N my plan, and we waited to hear back from him for hours. I did the simple price adjustment and charged her credit card for only the $12.80, instead of doing the elaborate procedure he wanted. I thought everything was fine, until he called me about an hour before closing time saying he just got my e-mail and insisted that I do it the way he wanted, because it was the “only correct way”. This guy doesn’t understand one thing about retail. I got so mad, I wanted to quite on the spot and tell him to go fuck himself. Instead, I called my manager, who told me to call the General Manager at corporate, where I finally got an answer I wanted. The GM, “J”, told me to leave it for my manager to deal with, that N should never have bothered me with the issue (especially on a weekend), and that she was very sorry. The issue is now completely not my problem, but if N ever calls me again, I may find it very hard to be polite. He’s just such a pompous idiot!!

A Rant to My Customers…and One to My Employers

Now, the majority of our customers (maybe 51%) are nice, polite, and tidy. But the minority, a very large minority, are rude slobs. This rant is dedicated to those 49%.

I have a couple of ground rules for you when you visit my store:

1. There is usually only one person on duty, and that person is responsible for everything. Please don’t assume that you can monopolize that person’s attention.

2. Are you so lazy that putting back the clothes you try on is just too much work? Why is it that every time I go back to the fitting rooms, there are armloads of clothes: on the floor, inside out, hung up inside out and backwards, or just flung every which way? I’m here by myself, dammit…clean up after yourself!

3. Please…if you bring kids into the store, WATCH THEM. I’m tired of them pulling things off racks, spinning the racks around, and generally making a mess. I know it can be hard to watch them, but if they’re so unruly, just leave them at home.

4. Yes, we have a very strict return policy. Stop trying to get around it!

5. When you knock something off a rack, don’t just leave it or sling it over the rack. Hang it back up. It takes maybe 2 seconds. Remember…I’m only one person and the majority of my job shouldn’t be cleaning up after you damn slobs.

Now, a message for my idiot employers:

You say you want this store to be a bargain store. That’s fine…there’s definitely a niche for that. But why does that have to include drastically lowering our standards, so that the store looks like crap and even wrapping our customers’ purchases in tissue is too “posh”?! We shouldn’t want to be as crappy as the other bargain stores…we should try to raise the standard altogether. Our customers are loyal to us because we have the look and feel of an expensive boutique, and yet our prices are extremely inexpensive. Stop trying to turn us into a cheap imitation of some low-end, low quality, ugly little bargain store!

Oh…fix our damn zippers. Almost none of them work. And PLEASE fix the sizing. The average size of an American woman is a size 12…our extra larges only fit maybe a size 8. No one needs to feel that fat when trying on clothes. Half the women who come in here find they can’t fit into anything and leave feeling depressed.

…..OK, I think I got all that out of my system. I feel much better now!

New Jobs and Final Exams

Both of these can be exciting, but most often are just scary! I’ll start with the new job, which I started this past Monday.

The job itself is really easy (just ring people up and clean up after their slobby asses in the fitting rooms), the girls I work with are outstandingly friendly and interesting, but the company itself SUCKS. Since I’m not a manager, I can maintain a certain amount of distance and can laugh at the stupid things they do, but I have a feeling that my frustrations will reach a point where I’ll either get fired for yelling at someone higher up, or I’ll just quit. Not that I’m planning on staying all that long, just for the summer.

One of the main complaints I have is that the higher ups, which include about 3 people, given the minuscule size of the company, have completely unrealistic expectations of their stores and associates. Minor mistakes are broadcast company-wide, after the offending associate is given a personal phone call and chewed out, theoretically to shame them into doing things “properly”. This is something I cannot abide and will not get drawn into. I have been in retail too long and have had enough experience as a manager to know that shaming and embarrassing your employees is not only inappropriate, but is not the best way to achieve results. These people don’t realize that there are a hundred other places these girls can work where they will actually be treated with respect. They switch that around and say that there are a hundred other girls waiting to take this job. But associate retention is important to every company. It boosts morale and productivity, and has a positive effect on customer service and retention. Happy employees = happy customers = more money. The fact that they don’t understand this makes me mad already, and I haven’t even met anyone from the “corporate” office yet.

Anyway, that’s enough ranting for now. They don’t deserve this much of my attention. Now to focus on my finals, which are happening this week. Here is my finals schedule for this week:

SUNDAY: Study, study, study
MONDAY: Do Writing Assignment #8 in Intro to East Asian Culture, do preliminary prep work for final project in Technical and Professional Writing.
TUESDAY: Work from 9:30 – 5:00; bring school stuff to work and ignore customers. Do Renaissance History essay exam after work.
WEDNESDAY: Work from 3:00-10:00; bring school stuff to work and ignore customers.
THURSDAY: Do timed final exam in Intro to East Asian Culture, finish final project for Technical and Professional Writing.
FRIDAY: Work unknown 8-hour shift (May schedule isn’t final yet). Final project and Oral Presentation Discussion are DUE – NO EXCUSES!
SATURDAY: Breathe a sigh of relief and think about the fact that I won’t have classes again until the end of August.

You see, this new job has had me scheduled for 5 days this week, meaning that I have fallen behind in my studying and preparing for finals. This means that today, my day off, will be spent panicking and juggling text books with my boyfriend, who has two of my classes and two of the same finals. Of course, here I am, procrastinating my little head off on WordPress, checking into my favorite forums, and basically doing nothing. But I will relish my day off from work and use this day to focus on my exams, I promise! Just let me check out the weather, the news, and the new posts on The Book Club Forum first…

EDIT: I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea about my new job, like I hate it or something. I’m happy to be there, and I haven’t experienced anything bad yet. But I have the feeling that some people are kind of frustrated with the company, so the things I’ve been hearing about are possibly a result of that. I’m happy to just do my job and wait and see!

Sorry…

I haven’t posted anything of substance in a long time. I’ve always been susceptible to depression, and the past few weeks have been tough for me…all this worrying about getting my school work done by the end of the semester, the running total of my student loans ($18,000…and I have over a year left!), feeling neglected by my family (a totally self-manufactured worry…well, mostly), worrying about my dwindling bank balance, and wondering whether I should quit school. It’s a miracle that I haven’t lost it completely! A lot has been going on in the world of politics that I would love to rant about, but I just can’t muster the energy. This kind of thing happens to me a lot, but I’m always able to pull myself through, and I will this time!

I do have some good news, though. I got a job for the summer at a little clothing and accessories boutique at the mall. They sell slightly bohemian, low-priced items and I already own a few of their pieces. The store seems low-key (and probably low-volume) and the staff are very friendly. I’m hoping that earning some money and taking the summer off from school will rejuvenate me, which is exactly what I need. And hopefully soon I can continue my uneducated coverage of the presidential campaign, because I know you all depend on me so much!