Hide-n-Seek Merchandise!

[Kogarashi]

Most of my sucky customer stories come from a handful of years ago, when I was still a retail slave. I started out my very first real job (since babysitting doesn't quite count in my book) working the salesfloor/registers at Wal-Mart for three consecutive summers during college. Oh, the SCs I've encountered there.

One thing I never understood is why customers feel the need to play hide-n-seek with the merchandise they no longer want. It was bad enough when I became a cashier and I'd find all these items in the checkout line that didn't belong there, like underwear among the magazines, cheese with the bubblegum, and a pillow stuffed in with the travel tissues. Once or twice I'd catch customers in my line going to put their unwanted merchandise amongst the checkout lane, and I'd ask them to just hand it to me. They usually complied without complaint, once I explained that cashiers preferred it that way. I'd usually grab a CSM to take care of any perishables I found.

It was more fun working the salesfloor (Toy department, specifically), where I'd find all sorts of random merchandise tucked in amongst displays where they didn't belong. I couldn't stop this habit of our customers', since I never caught any of them hiding their unwanted stuff on our shelves. I usually tossed it into a cart I kept with me for picking up misplaced or damaged merchandise, and would take it to Customer Service later for sorting.

The kicker, though, was soon after I was first hired by the store. I was sorting the seasonal section (which, in June, was still pool supplies and beach towels). I was in the process of picking up and hanging up beach towels that people had tossed all over the floor, when I found a jug of milk tucked all the way in the back, behind several layers of towels. The grocery department is all the way across the store. Luckily, it still felt cold, and I ran it up to Customer Service right quick for them to take care of (page the grocery department and all that). On other occasions, I've found containers of sour cream, cottage cheese, and other refridgerated items just sitting out on the wrong side of the store, for who knows how long.

What possesses someone to leave perishables in a non-refridgerated location? I can understand if you don't want to buy it anymore, but is it really that difficult to walk back to the grocery department and put it away? Send one of your noisy kids to do it! Or at least snag an associate and explain the situation. They might give you a long-suffering look, but at least the food won't go bad sitting on the shelves.

[irateguy]

I feel ya. Picking up melted ice cream or bloody exposed meat is the worst. Not to mention the famous 1/2 eaten candy bar that they didnt pay for

[Zinjadu]

I know exactly how you feel - I'm a grocery store slave. At night when I'm doing returns, I find stuff stashed all over the place - melted frozen foods, half-eaten packages of donuts or chips, empty drug packages (apparently they open the package and hide the tylenol or whatever in their pocket/purse), banana peels, empty condom packages, empty cheap aftershave bottles (they actually drink the stuff!). It seems that in my store the customers prefer to steal stuff or eat half of it, then stash the evidence somewhere. Nasty buggers! Where are the LPOs when you need them?

[Kogarashi]

Yeah, I really do hate it when I'm at Wal-Mart (whether as a customer or an employee) and find apple cores and banana peels tucked away amongst the impulse purchases.

[JustaCashier]

We don't have a huge problem with this at the Hardware Store where I work. (Unless it's that the departments are keeping on top of it, so that I din't see it.)

As a consumer though, it has always highly offended me. :pissed: Even before I got into Retail. Obviously, perishables are the worst. If the store discards it, as they should, it drives everybody's costs up. If it's put back, and another customer buys it, and it's contaminated from sitting out too long, they have a risk of severe illness or worse. :puke:

As far back as I remember, if I change my mind about buying something, I've always taken it back and put it in it's proper place, even if I have to stand there a minute to find it's spot.

I'll even face it! :p

[Kogarashi]

As far back as I remember, if I change my mind about buying something, I've always taken it back and put it in it's proper place, even if I have to stand there a minute to find it's spot.

I'll even face it! :p

And the retail world thanks you!

[HawaiianShirts]

We don't have perishables where I work, but I've seen some good ones. I work in Computers. A dryer cable from the appliances section ended up tucked behind the blank DVDs on a shelf. Movies have been just dropped on random shelves for me to find later. I think the funniest was when I was demonstrating a four-in-one printer and opened the ink cartridge door (there's a big opening inside where the ink cartridges move around) only to find a Game Boy Advance game, still in its package, discarded there.

[evilhomer]

I found a jug of milk tucked all the way in the back, behind several layers of towels.
With it hidden like that I'd say it's a no-life who wanted to make one of your lives hell (or should I say a worse hell ;) )by having a hidden smell come from the back after a few weeks. Or a no-life who wanted to buy it the next week and subsequently sue the store for selling him sour milk.

[Dark Psion]

Yeah, I really do hate it when I'm at Wal-Mart (whether as a customer or an employee) and find apple cores and banana peels tucked away amongst the impulse purchases.

You forgot the empty popcorn chicken cups. They are all over my Wal Mart. I think I am the only person who actually pay for them before I eat them.

[stickycoins]

I find stuff everywhere in my store too, and it's a VERY small store. Melted ice cream bar on the Little Debbie rack, candy in the freezer, eggs in the freezer, you name it. You can walk around the whole place(all of three aisles) in about a minute. So, it can only be that people are too lazy to put things back where they got them. If I am shopping and I decide I don't want it, I ALWAYS take it to its rightful home. :angel:

[blas]

Part of it, you can blame on people as being just plain stupid and lazy and having entitlement problems ("They PAY people to put this stuff away!").

The other part of it, you can blame it on whatever moron it was who invented the Wal-Mart game. What is the Wal-Mart game? Just like what the rude, lazy SCs do. Pick something and stick it where it doesn't belong, aka, mascara in automotives, towels in hardware, tampons by sporting goods, condoms by the toys, etc etc............

Both instances, the perps are SCs. It's just that one's a game and one's part of being extremely lazy, stupid, and entitled.

[pbmods]

Makes you wonder... do these people clean up after themselves at home? I mean, if you're working on a project at your home, and you grab a screwdriver from the closet, don't you put it back in the closet when you're done? Or do you tuck it behind the dish soap at the sink?

And why are customers so ashamed of changing their minds? Ok, we'd much rather that you put it back *yourself*. But if that's *whines* too much work, ok, we'd rather know that you don't want it now than to have to find it sometime next week.

And finally, for those of you SCs out there too cheap to pay 69¢ for a bottle of freaking water and instead have to chug it all secret-like and stash the bottle somewhere, grow up!

[Becks]

:repost: I originally mentioned this a few boards ago...

A few months ago, I was wandering around the store when I noticed two boxes of frozen garlic bread in the...chips aisle (or maybe some other one, I forget). So I grab the boxes and head towards Customer Service to get our non-sellable stickers to slap on them and stick them in the frozen back room (sniffing garlic all the while). The kicker, they were stashed IN THE OPEN only a few aisles away from frozen. :pissed:

[HYHYBT]

I don't think it has to do with how they live at home. I'm always conscientious about putting things back properly in a store, but at home tend to leave them wherever they were used last.

The last out-of-place item I found at a store was a book in the ice cream freezer.

[Phone Jockey]

I swear, something I try to do is put perishables back. It's rude, thoughtless, & obnoxious to leave this crap just anywhere. The company loses $$ on merchandise that otherwise could have been sold. Oh, and it makes more work for the lowly slaves that are customer service reps. I feel your pain. My customers just leave their stuff lying around & expect to call me so I can fix it. Lovely.

[chainedbarista]

As far back as I remember, if I change my mind about buying something, I've always taken it back and put it in it's proper place, even if I have to stand there a minute to find it's spot.

I'll even face it!

same here; i get po'd when i find things out of place that others were too lazy to return or hand over. i return my stuff where i found it as well; it gives me a chance to make sure i have what i need at the same time!

[AmericanZero8503]

Okay I'm totally guilty of this...we used to play this game at walmart back in high school (I live in a small town, it's the only entertainment besides getting drunk). But we would hide condoms in the toy section. Bbq next to women's underware. Our favorite game was called wish list, we fill a cart with shit we wished we could buy then abandon it somewhere in the store. I'm afraid at one time I was an SC, before i had to work in retail myself.

[Lvl_9_Gazebo]

This was a daily occurrence when I worked at a bookstore. Some of it was definitely on purpose too, such as when some highly-deficient person would stash the sex manuals in the kids' books, or when one particular SC would nab a Penthouse letters compilation and roam the store reading and, if he thought he was out of sight of staff and other customers, launching an exploration expedition in his pants pocket. If he noticed you noticing him, he's abandon the book in whatever section he'd wandered to -- cookbooks, New Age, humor, etc. -- and casually, but very quickly, leave the store.

[dawnmaria]

Oh God Hauntedhead! You bring back such wonderful memories! I don't know what was worse, keeping the pervs from leaving porn in the kids section or keeping the kids out of the "relationship" section trying to look at the sex manual books! I hated summer when the little b*st*rds were out of school! And I always caught at least one guy a day pulling the porn out of the plastic and trying to look at it in the store! Are you that cheap?!!? Just give me $6 and go take care of business in the privacy of your own home! Don't read it and get your jollies trying to leave it where kids can see it! Pervs!

[greensinestro]

I was in a JCPenney the other day and saw a woman try on a coat, decide she didn't like, then just laid it across the coat rack. She didn't bother to put the coat back on the hanger, then hang it back up the way she found it. That's totally lazy in my book. Makes you wonder what her closet at home looks like?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

when one particular SC would nab a Penthouse letters compilation and roam the store reading and, if he thought he was out of sight of staff and other customers, launching an exploration expedition in his pants pocket. If he noticed you noticing him, he's abandon the book in whatever section he'd wandered to -- cookbooks, New Age, humor, etc. -- and casually, but very quickly, leave the store.

Commence projectile vomiting in 5,4,3,2,1....

:puke: :puke: :puke: