Big Mistakes and Bad Ideas, Christmas in July Edition

by on August 23, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Posted In: Managers

Giving Away Money
by Craftstoreslave

I work as a cashier for a craft store chain that also sells a large selection of home decor and various other things. Our manager is one of the wussiest I've seen. He gives into everyone, no matter how ridiculous or absurd their requests may be. The latest incident happened earlier this week.

So, this man walks up to my register (from within the store) with a very expensive shadowbox, and asks me to hold it at my register for a few minutes. Okay, fine. Then he asks me the name of the store manager. I offer to call him up front, but no, he insists on just knowing his name, so I tell him. (At the time, I didn't know what he was going to pull off.) So then he tracks down the assistant manager nearby. I can't hear their conversation, but then the assistant manager comes up to me and tells me this guy is returning the shadowbox, and I'm to give him cash, even though he has no receipt. (Well, duh. He took it from the back and brought it up.) Might I mention this guy was pretending to be in a major hurry the entire time, saying he had a flight soon?

But there's nothing I can do, and this is typical for this company, so I start the return process. At that moment, the store manager comes up front (the one whose name I revealed), and the assistant manager tells him what was going on. Apparently, the customer had told the assistant manager that he'd spoken with the store manager the day before about returning this item. Strike one. The day before was a Sunday, and we're closed on Sundays. So he quickly changes his story to say it was actually Saturday. Strike two. The store manager acknowledges that this guy never even said a word to him. Besides, he didn't even work on Saturday.

He agrees to do the return, but at the last sale price for the item (which, in this case, would be 50% off), and store credit. The guy refuses, stating he'll be gone for over a year. For a moment, I thought the manager might actually stick to his guns for once and refuse the return on a very obviously stolen item. But the moment the guy puts up a fuss, the manager turns around, kisses his feet (figuratively speaking) and lets him walk out with the cash.

It's no wonder corporate can't figure out why we're losing money.