Who has worked in retail before?
- Olden Polynice
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Who has worked in retail before?
Is it terrible? Is it bearable? Is it good? Do you have any retail horror stories to share?
- Methuselah Honeysuckle
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
I did it for 7ish years. I always did jobs where I was on the floor as little as possible so my customer interaction was minimal. So any stories I have are weird shit other employees did or lp related stuff.
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
yes currently with about 9 years total experience. dont fucking do it if youre not yet
- Mesarthim
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
Unless you can get into management don’t bother.
- Verbal
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
you say dont bother like as if its something someone would choose out of something other than necessity
- rhino
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
10 years at blowes
- happiness and harmony
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
i did this ages ago, at wal-mart
the condensed version is at first it was actually a great job, since all i had to do was clear the shopping carts from the parking lot and help customers load big boxes into their cars. as long as i did those things promptly i was left to my own devices & thus spent a lot of time reading in the break room. also the job kept me in very good shape
then i moved & transferred stores & had forced interactions with dull co-workers and also an obscene, parodic number of managers. that was when the job became the oppressive stereotypical bullshit i had always managed to avoid
the condensed version is at first it was actually a great job, since all i had to do was clear the shopping carts from the parking lot and help customers load big boxes into their cars. as long as i did those things promptly i was left to my own devices & thus spent a lot of time reading in the break room. also the job kept me in very good shape
then i moved & transferred stores & had forced interactions with dull co-workers and also an obscene, parodic number of managers. that was when the job became the oppressive stereotypical bullshit i had always managed to avoid
- zim
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
worked at walmart for 3 years on and off in grocery. job wasn't terrible, management most definitely was. they always fuck you over on hours, treat you like crap, and act superior. i'm pretty sure their management program lasts like 6 weeks but you ma y end up working at a different store. not necessarily a bad path to go, better than bottom level. i think it's bearable for a little while, my first run only lasted about 9 months before i wanted to kill myself. that was mostly due to them changing my schedule to second shift. fuck a lot of second shift.
i liked working in grocery because it was busy and helping people find stuff sometimes felt like a treasure hunt . i occasionally unloaded grocery trucks and did odd jobs around the store. the people i worked with were generally good and i liked them but your mileage will vary.
surely you can find something besides retail though
edit: oh right horror stories.. not many, my biggest issue was working with this really sexist asshole who was super creepy and asked me really personal questions, he'd also stop working mid job to flirt with whatever trash walked near him. i eventually reported him to management during my 90 day evaluation and they did nothing.
occasionally had a few customers get angry because we were out of something. most memorable ones were the hard-on bearer who told me to fuck off because we didn't have sprite, another hard-on bearer who yelled over us not having coleslaw, and a woman getting angry over her favorite flavor of oatmeal not being WIC approved.
i liked working in grocery because it was busy and helping people find stuff sometimes felt like a treasure hunt . i occasionally unloaded grocery trucks and did odd jobs around the store. the people i worked with were generally good and i liked them but your mileage will vary.
surely you can find something besides retail though
edit: oh right horror stories.. not many, my biggest issue was working with this really sexist asshole who was super creepy and asked me really personal questions, he'd also stop working mid job to flirt with whatever trash walked near him. i eventually reported him to management during my 90 day evaluation and they did nothing.
occasionally had a few customers get angry because we were out of something. most memorable ones were the hard-on bearer who told me to fuck off because we didn't have sprite, another hard-on bearer who yelled over us not having coleslaw, and a woman getting angry over her favorite flavor of oatmeal not being WIC approved.
- Mesarthim
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
for the amount of work that you have to put in vs what you are paid - it's just not worth it for the most part.Verbal wrote:you say dont bother like as if its something someone would choose out of something other than necessity
despite what a lot of people want to believe - retail isn't an easy job - especially in a busy establishment such as a grocery store. you're expected to work crazy shifts that can sometimes be all over the place, high expectations for productivity, and the stress of having to deal with crazy and rude customers all day.
I've never been one of those that punishes people by cutting their hours (you're either part time or you're not and even so you are guaranteed a certain amount of hours each week. we also try to keep a 70/30 ration of full time/part time because well, fulltime employees are simply more productive.) and I try to give people a set schedule as much as possible (ie only morning shifts)
that said, it depends on the company. I work with some people who are not management but have been doing it for a number of years and are making $17/hr (about $35K/year) which isn't terrible. if you're doing it for less than $12/hr it just fucking sucks.
- Methuselah Honeysuckle
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
One of the local grocery stores used to have ridiculous union contracts. Dudes would be making triple time on Sundays and pull in what I made in a month in a few hours.
Last I heard you had to be there for 5+ years to even get time and a half on a sunday. Those first few years you get a whopping extra .50 an hour.
Last I heard you had to be there for 5+ years to even get time and a half on a sunday. Those first few years you get a whopping extra .50 an hour.
- jawn galliano
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
i have done this before and i do not recommend it. no specific horror stories really, just the usual list of gripes due to low wages, inconsistent scheduling, hostile employer policies, wage theft, etc.
- Verbal
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
i wasnt disputing that it sucks. just saying that anyone doing it is doing it because they dont have a better optionRufus T. Firefly wrote:for the amount of work that you have to put in vs what you are paid - it's just not worth it for the most part.Verbal wrote:you say dont bother like as if its something someone would choose out of something other than necessity
despite what a lot of people want to believe - retail isn't an easy job - especially in a busy establishment such as a grocery store. you're expected to work crazy shifts that can sometimes be all over the place, high expectations for productivity, and the stress of having to deal with crazy and rude customers all day.
I've never been one of those that punishes people by cutting their hours (you're either part time or you're not and even so you are guaranteed a certain amount of hours each week. we also try to keep a 70/30 ration of full time/part time because well, fulltime employees are simply more productive.) and I try to give people a set schedule as much as possible (ie only morning shifts)
that said, it depends on the company. I work with some people who are not management but have been doing it for a number of years and are making $17/hr (about $35K/year) which isn't terrible. if you're doing it for less than $12/hr it just fucking sucks.
- zim
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
hi it is interestingVerbal wrote:i wasnt disputing that it sucks. just saying that anyone doing it is doing it because they dont have a better option
some people really don't care and just accept it as something they have to do, some lads just have no ambition or dreams and settle without question. i think it's really sad. when i was at walmart i commonly heard employees say "i've been here for 20 years" and all i can think about is how they didn't find something better in that period of time. some of the people that started with me in retail who were around the same age are still there as associates, not even management.
some people get stuck in it and have no choice but continue to keep making bad decisions which keep them at their shit jobs. a fellating lover of mine at walmart was about 32 at the time when he told me how he wanted to start a gym or go to college. dude ended up having a kid like 2-3 years later and he's still stocking produce, likely unable to pursue anything else now. he looks like he wants to kill himself in his facebook pictures.
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
basically what zim said. i'm just kind of stuck and willingly admit im a lazy piece of shit and sard looking for anything else. im not looking elsewhere because i know i wont make the same or even close to it unless i take up a trade, which, like school, is starting over and i dont want to do that. ive only been with walmart 2 1/2 years and have been a level 7 (highest you can go short of becoming an assistant on a salary) since i become department manager of pickup today (oct 2016) now ecommerece manager, ie online grocery and gm pickup. I have 12 associates under me. I have been told during my last 2 annual evaluations by two different assistants that im not far from becoming an assistant myself, but i needed to work on my leadership skills. both assistants said that i know my specific area and its inner workings better than themselves, the only thing holding me back is confidence in myself to be vocal with others. an assistant here starts at $50,000 which would be about a $15,000/year increase for me. that would be huge. but i see all the upper manager in my 3 years here and they all look and act even more soulless than myself and i dont know if its a responsibility i want.
- Lavabug
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
thisHitoshura wrote:i have done this before and i do not recommend it. no specific horror stories really, just the usual list of gripes due to low wages, inconsistent scheduling, hostile employer policies, wage theft, etc.
I'll add: lots of busywork and feeling like a useless cog in the machine that will inevitably be replaced by automation
- Holocaust
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
Retail for about eight years
Commissioned retail for three of those years
Actually getting paid fucking commission for nearly one of those years now
You don't have to be some kind of super friendly people lover to work retail. I secretly wish every customer who walks into the store is looking for something that I don't sell, so we can end the conversation right there and I can go back to scratching my balls in peace.
Commissioned retail for three of those years
Actually getting paid fucking commission for nearly one of those years now
You don't have to be some kind of super friendly people lover to work retail. I secretly wish every customer who walks into the store is looking for something that I don't sell, so we can end the conversation right there and I can go back to scratching my balls in peace.
- Paste Human
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Re: Who has worked in retail before?
I did it during my last year of high school and most of the following summer. It was at Kohl's, which is basically a clothing store with some household products thrown in.
Most of what I did was unboxing merchandise in the back, and occasionally restocking shelves. My memory is kind of fuzzy since this was 15 years ago, but it seems like boredom was the number one thing that got to me - so much so that I never really minded helping customers since it gave me something to do. Otherwise it was literally wandering around a store that sold nothing of interest to me, or standing around what amounted to a garage.
Although I would say it was a good first job as a teenager, one thing that always stuck with me was how miserable and slimy most of the supervisors/managers were. Case in point: in order to meet sales quotas a group of them flat out lied about numbers, which resulted in way more merchandise being sent to our store than was necessary. As a result it got to the point where there was basically no where to move in the unloading/storage area, which also happened to be my workspace. They were eventually fired, but even as a teenager I remember shaking my head wondering what the fuck was wrong with those people.
Most of what I did was unboxing merchandise in the back, and occasionally restocking shelves. My memory is kind of fuzzy since this was 15 years ago, but it seems like boredom was the number one thing that got to me - so much so that I never really minded helping customers since it gave me something to do. Otherwise it was literally wandering around a store that sold nothing of interest to me, or standing around what amounted to a garage.
Although I would say it was a good first job as a teenager, one thing that always stuck with me was how miserable and slimy most of the supervisors/managers were. Case in point: in order to meet sales quotas a group of them flat out lied about numbers, which resulted in way more merchandise being sent to our store than was necessary. As a result it got to the point where there was basically no where to move in the unloading/storage area, which also happened to be my workspace. They were eventually fired, but even as a teenager I remember shaking my head wondering what the fuck was wrong with those people.