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My advice would be to not work retail.

Seriously. What do you want? You're at the absolute lowest end of the totem pole of whatever company you work for. They're going to treat you like gak because there's people lining up to do your job the second you quit. If you need the money, endure it while working your ass off to make your marketability as an employee better so you never have to do a job like it again. If you don't need the money, quit already.

Very few people get to do what they want to feed themselves. My resume is basically a list of things I hate to do. Welcome to life.

Yeah, and shut up about it, right? Because why should people get to complain about the things they put up with in life? Even though it no doubt makes them feel a lot better about it?

Yeah, nice argument.

I'm wondering where the "right to not complain" came from exactly.

"This ain't Russia, you're not my dad or mother (they never knew anyway)" ~Alice Cooper

It's a subset of free speech.

Give me back a retail job.
Left the mili and started doing retail work, then went into ground work.
Been doing this a while now and would swap back to retail work any day.

Every job has its stress, not always for the same reasons, but they do.
No matter what the job is, there will be a stress involved in it, its something you can count on.


Also, to the person saying about services getting paid more:
this would be because they tend to deal with lives instead of material objects.
If you make a mistake in retail, worsed case scenario is you get fired.
for the services, its either your life or someone elses that is lost.
How can you possibly say that there is more stress involved in being fired than causing a fatality or losing your own life?
Thats just pushing the border of whining and being disrespectful.

Jackal wrote:Give me back a retail job.
Left the mili and started doing retail work, then went into ground work.
Been doing this a while now and would swap back to retail work any day.

Every job has its stress, not always for the same reasons, but they do.
No matter what the job is, there will be a stress involved in it, its something you can count on.


Also, to the person saying about services getting paid more:
this would be because they tend to deal with lives instead of material objects.
If you make a mistake in retail, worsed case scenario is you get fired.
for the services, its either your life or someone elses that is lost.
How can you possibly say that there is more stress involved in being fired than causing a fatality or losing your own life?
Thats just pushing the border of whining and being disrespectful.

Yup, cuz losing your job based on having earned too many raises then not being able to find another one and getting evicted and being homeless is hardly stressful at all. You get compensated and can afford to live in a "real" job. I've known significantly more people who have been medical practictioners/soldiers/whatever for 5+ years than have worked at the same retail store. You don't even know if you'll be able to pay the bills ever because of fluctuating hours. Seriously, no job is easy, but quit implying retail is.

But losing your job can happen to anyone, right? Stress varies from job to job..it's the level of stress that matters. Some people thrive on stress and others buckle and fail. I've seen both kinds over the years, I myself perversely enjoy the stresses my job brings with it. I'm not saying retail is easy, in fact I stated earlier that I respect people that stick with such a gakky job.
I always make a point of being polite to sales staff, cos I know it's a badly paid and crappy job, even with the rise of Internet shopping, it's still important to have some face to face contact. And I for one still like too actually see the product that I want..
It's horses for courses though...

Retail workers have a significantly higher chance to lose their job than most fields, I'd argue. I know contract IT work gets a raw deal on that front too.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Retail workers have a significantly higher chance to lose their job than most fields, I'd argue.

Boy howdy.

Retail, you can get fired for customers complaining about you not doing something they asked the way they ask.

But being an abusive boyfriend who attacks his Air Force Captain girlfriend because he's drunk, gets charges pressed against him, goes to court, get orders issued against him because they work at the same base? Doesn't even lose you your TS clearance as a Government Contractor. Bastard shouldn't have a job, much less clearance. It's not like there aren't any other Engineers without jobs to replace his ass.

Retail work is BS.

I can't wait for the after Halloween door-buster sales to start!

rockerbikie wrote:Americans are lucky to have "Black Friday". Australian only have Christmas and Half-year sales. Normally, we pay 175% more than anyone else for things.

Thats because you live upside down and your toilets flush the wrong way. Do you think you can just traipse through life flushing toilets the wrong way without repurcussions?


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htj wrote:Yeah, and shut up about it, right? Because why should people get to complain about the things they put up with in life? Even though it no doubt makes them feel a lot better about it?

Yeah, nice argument.

No wussy. Man up and complain in a bar like everyone else.

I'm English, it's in our national culture to complain everywhere and at all times. Both in pub and on internet. It's mandatory, or they take away your passport.

htj wrote:I'm English, it's in our national culture to complain everywhere and at all times. Both in pub and on internet. It's mandatory, or they take away your passport.

I thought your national culture was to wait in lines and eat really bad food?

Frazzled wrote:

htj wrote:I'm English, it's in our national culture to complain everywhere and at all times. Both in pub and on internet. It's mandatory, or they take away your passport.

I thought your national culture was to wait in lines and eat really bad food?

All just fuel for complaining.

htj wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

htj wrote:I'm English, it's in our national culture to complain everywhere and at all times. Both in pub and on internet. It's mandatory, or they take away your passport.

I thought your national culture was to wait in lines and eat really bad food?

All just fuel for complaining.

respect.

Well apparently some open times have been moved up...to 9pm on Thanksgiving day(Toys R Us)..and working in food industry I would never want to work retail..I already hate people enough hah

I've worked retail (GW, Blockbuster, Bestbuy) and food service (Starbucks). Once even at the same time. I will say that when I was doing it (4ish years ago) Sbux provided time and a half for Black Friday. To be fair we already worked crazy hours so 12am instead of 4am isn't a huge stretch.

Best Buy didn't pay holiday pay but you worked 8 hours (you were not suppose to go over but they'd allow around 30 minutes of overtime to finish with a customer). To be honest the only people screwed on pay at Bestbuy were the checkers. Everyone else made pretty good money for retail (most of my fellow employees and I were between $14-$22 an hour). Granted the higher end was for the Magnolia people and none of them were managers.

Black Friday is just a crappy day to be in retail. But to be honest I've had to work harder on an average monday at Starbucks than I ever did on Black Friday at any retail shop I was employed at. I feel for the people who can't travel home for the holidays but thems the breaks.

I might be the only one on here that worked retail and loved it. I loved working on black friday, and picked up any holiday hours I was able to. Paid pretty well (starting was $6.75 back when minimum was $4.75). Personally, I thought it was easy, but probably because I loved it. And when you're doing what you love, do you ever really consider it that hard?

Work ethic plays a huge part in whether or not you get fired or even disciplined over a customer complaint. If you've shown management that you're willing to go the extra mile, most of them will tell you what the customer said and then laugh about them with you.

Yeah, some managers will be ass hats, but if you stick with it, you'll likely outlast them.

Not to mention most companies like to promote from within. Hell, I started as a cart pusher, became a cashier, electronics specialist, garden shop manager, then overall customer service manager, all in just 3 years. Then they transferred me over to be the loss prevention lead at another store.

I guess it just depends on whether or not your managers have morals.


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And I always did my job. If a customer asked if something was in the back, I always went and actually looked, unless I was positive it wasn't there. If it was gone, I was more than happy to call any of the 7 surrounding stores and ask them to hold it for the customer.

Are you looking for a job, Nocturn? You're a precious commodity.

Nocturn wrote:Work ethic plays a huge part in whether or not you get fired or even disciplined over a customer complaint. If you've shown management that you're willing to go the extra mile, most of them will tell you what the customer said and then laugh about them with you.

This is very true.

I did some pretty appalling things to customers when I worked retail. I was also appallingly late many times. However, if they needed stuff to get done and done well in a crunch, they knew who to call. Due to this, they let a lot of my eccentric behavior fly.

The only time a manager ever gave me a seriosu talking to was when customer complained that I said, "Jesus!" and they overheard me. I laughed pretty hard.

I'd never work retail. 1 summer sacking grocieries was all the motivation I needed to get my Engineering degree.

People are donkey-caves. Shoppers at Christmas time are major donkey-caves.

For fun, this year I think I'll go to the mall really early around Christmas time, go inside, and drink some coffee. Then, I go out to the completely full parking lot where 3 or 4 cars will follow me around, hoping to get my parking place. I'll sit in my car a minute. Then start it. Then turn it off and go back inside.

Hours of entertainment right there...

I've worked retail and food service. Oh, and I've been deployed 4 times to Iraq/Afghanistan. There IS stress in both worlds, I won't lie. I am better paid, better cared for, and get more respect as a military officer. At the same time, no one is dying in line at a Starbucks (yes, I worked there too).

It does suck having to come to work at 4 am. However, I will say that of all the jobs I've had, I have never had to "take my work home with me" in a retail job. I can walk out the door, take off my apron, and be my old self. As a solider, I am ALWAYS a soldier. 24/7 I have responsibilities and can be called up to do whatever is asked of me. I have worked 3 Christmases and 4 Thanksgivings over seas.

I actually have mad respect for people who do a retail job well. It take fortitude to go in and actually make the customer think that you really care that you got "just" the right about of cheese on their chilli-cheese fries or that you perfectly matched their socks with their tie. Retail workers get gak on a lot which does suck.

Retail work in America is generally a means to an end. A retiree looking to make a little more money will be a Walmart greeter. A hipster college student will work at the local coffee house (not Sucksbucks, Man, because that's like, too mainstream) while trying to get his Indie Music Degree. A high school student will bus tables or bag groceries. It's generally seen as a stepping stone. With a constantly fresh workforce coming in, and a generally minimal investment in training, it is little wonder that retail workers are poorly paid and overworked.

That's... oh boy this'll be interesting. Either everyone will be out shopping and want a quick dinner and come to me to get it or everyone will be passed out and it'll be a slow night. I'd say working nights suck, but I work night shift anyway and really wouldn't mind working till sunrise one day, especially if there is extra pay involved. Then again by virtue of working that evening I won't care enough to be up to participate in the event so I guess my point is irrelevant. I can see their point of view though, especially on a day you want to be out and getting deals for your own family and friends.

starhawks wrote:I understand it would be tough, but is it really worth complaining about? Do you really think there aren't other jobs that are a bit tougher than working retail over the holidays? I have to imagine it can be much, much worse.

^
|

This man has not faced a line of angry customers, or a long line trying to get exactly everything they want. I will say this. The line of service is: Police officer (great pay, great benefits and you carry a gun), Security officer (crap pay, twice the complaints and no equipment), Manager (crap from all around, not enough pay to actually care about what they do) sales associate (all crap, all the time, and you must take it with a smile at all times, and you get paid in crap)

Starhawk, I really don't think you appreciate the kind of crap retail has to put up with on a daily basis. Holidays are bad in retail, not because you have to work odd hours, but because you have to work them in addition to your regular schedule. Add to that, its not just the fact that you are working on a holiday, but that you have to deal with holiday shoppers, and holiday shopers are real bloody pricks. They're always mad as hell, in a hurry, and they always have some sort of gripe about something to whittle it down, or can't just accept the deal, they need to know everything, have it sworn and signed in triplicate before they buy it at the sale price.

WarOne, I feel your pain. I ran the mens wear department in wedding/formal wear solo most of the time, got $12/hr and $2/rental for the trouble, in the meantime I am keeping track of 80-140 orders over three-week intervals (as many as 200 in the summer), between assembly, checks, handling new clients, making sure that everything fits good with the pick-ups, making sure the returns are undamaged, sorting stuff out for drycleaning, keeping tabs of which shirts need to be junked, what needs to be opened/added to stock, what we need to replace, what we are running low on, measuring and remeasuring when it goes into stock, cleaning shoes and then polishing them up befoer they go out, double check garment bags for residual scents and integrity... and... of course... handle some umnetionables that inevitably come back in the suits. Add to that I have to keep the mens wear section cleaned as well. I did all of this without prompting or direction from my higher ups because a.) one half of them have no idea what needs doing anyway, and b.) the other half is absentee.

I hope you get extra lovin' over the next week.

@SGT_Scruffy: Starbucks is also one of the top 10 retail jobs to get. That being said, one of my friends who worked there had a doctor's note saying she had the swine flu a couple years back. They told her it was her job to find someone to cover her shift or she would have to come in. WITH SWINE FLU.

So, I have no schedule this week. I finally had to talk to the store manager and beg him for one and have him call me a troublemaker in the process while giving me grief. Forgive me for wanting to be able to tell my dying mother when I can be there on my last Thanksgiving with her or trying to schedule an appointment to get my stitches out and so the doctor can see the area where the stitches ripped out that's emitting a strange odor, is highly sensitive and looks infected. I guess those are personal issues, after all. Calling the union as we speak, but I'll be shamed at work today regardless. Just... grr.

Oh, yes, there's the other sucky thing about retail and food service. Medical insurance, if it is even offered (may places don't), will either cost you most of your paycheck, or be totally useless. You can either work for free, be starving and homeless, and go see a doctor/go to the hospital without being bankrupted; or have a place to stay and food to eat... but going to a doctor will cost your next check, and going to the hospital will cost your next year's income.

And then they want you to come in and work regardless. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard a retail/restaurant manager say something like "I don't care how sick he is, tell him to get in here and work!" Yes. Restaurants too. Just the place where you want someone who is puking up their guts, or coughing all over the place, or running back and forth to the restroom with Montezuma's Revenge... or all three.

And that doesn't happen all that often, because another thing about retail/restaurants is a complete and total lack of sick days. If you don't come in, you don't get paid. There is no taking a week off to get over a cold; you go in because you need the money. Then you share it with everyone around you. For the next month, there is always someone sick in the store, usually more than one. And as I've already mentioned, medical care is pretty much out of the question as well. You live on cold medicine until you feel better or you get so bad you go to the emergency room, and wind up sticking the taxpayers with the bill because your employers can't be bothered to get you affordable health insurance worth a gak.

In my experiece in restaurants, between early November and late April there is a 1 in 3 chance at any given point in time, in any given restaurant, that someone is in there working while they are sick. Think about that a moment. 1 in 3. Go out to eat three times, it's pretty much guaranteed that a sick person has handled your food.

Still feel like going out tonight?

Oddly I never had nearly as good of an immune system as when I worked retail/food service. I think it's the constant exposure.

Anyway I don't know of any place I've ever worked where sick days weren't accrued (granted slowly in the case of part timers). It was your responsibility to get the shift covered or notify the manager that you couldn't in a timely manner. I've actually found being the peon, shift lead, and manager that for every person who calls in sick legitimately 5 call-ins are bogus. Which is why it's your responsibility to get things covered. Often times it's the only way to remove a bad employee as it's pretty hard to fire people nowadays, at least in Cali.

I've given up trying to call in sick. I just go in and show them. Puke on the bosses' shoes if I must. Then they send me home.

Would be really funny if it happened more than once a decade or so - me getting that seriously sick, I mean. Routine colds and flus don't mean too much to me anymore - although I do sometimes wonder if the customers who catch them from me are as blase about it as I am.

Vulcan wrote:

In my experiece in restaurants, between early November and late April there is a 1 in 3 chance at any given point in time, in any given restaurant, that someone is in there working while they are sick. Think about that a moment. 1 in 3. Go out to eat three times, it's pretty much guaranteed that a sick person has handled your food.

Still feel like going out tonight?

[being a nard]in backwards, stone-tool useless old country of eatern communistia (europe) the food establishments gets in extensive quanta of fecal matter if they don't have their employees checked for health condition, and permit the employees to work sick. Even more gak is layered on if the person is forced to work sick. Of course, this is all in backwards, disregardable eastern communistia, and theyre dirty red socialist commie scum, so, naturally, they are completely and totally wrong on this point. [/being a nard] seriously? who the heck monitors health and safety.... if you get sick its your job, but if your asshat manager gets sick, chew him out for it, and, again, its your job....

I hate managers with a seething passion. I have yet to meet a manager that wasn't actively engaged in being a toilet-brush of a person, or causing their business damage. (or meet a competent one, for that fact)

There are a few good managers out there. The trick is getting a full compliment of them, AND making sure that their boss isn't a total ***wipe.

I've only worked with a full crew of good managers once. And the District Manager was actively sabotaging us, making sure we weren't making sales goals so the company would shut us down so that the other store in his disctict - the one he was a GM for before he got promoted - would be the only one.