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The good news: After too many years of looking, I've got a decent, minimum wage job with an awesome boss and a set of awesome coworkers.
The bad: I still have to deal with the general public.
The job I now have is a job at a thrift store, whose sole purpose is to raise money for a local disabled organization. Most items there are sold cheap, next to free, and some of them are even in good condition.
A lot of the workers, me included, tend to also be disabled, ranging from Aspergers (
) to CP and Downs Syndrome. Most of them also get paid a percentage of minimum wage, where as I'm part of an experimental crew that started this week, hence full pay.
My coworkers also seem to have full decks of cards, mentally, and so we're all equally capable.
So it's my fourth day of work, doing an afternoon-night shift. Most of the people who annoy me are the ones who take clothes, then don't put them back properly, I.E. on the floor, the racks, halfway across the store...
The other minor annoyances are people who, apparently, can't be assed to pay a princely sum of 50 cents - $1.50 for items, as we've found a few empty boxes, switched shoes (1.25 a pair!), etc.
The guy who came in tonight, though, really takes the cake.
I was within hearing distance of this, as I was on the floor at the time, managing clothing (see above: hanging them back on the hangers) and generally picking up the store so it looked decent.
At first he walks in and tells us we really need an Open sign, a neon one, because the windows are tinted and its hard to tell that we're open for new hours. Great, we knew that, thanks for the tip, though.
My big clue to how this would've ended was, possibly, when he name dropped the big boss here.
He disappears for a minute, I keep doing clothes, and everything hunky dory.
He comes back out with an acoustic guitar. You know, one we had way in the back, that was indeed priced, but wasn't ready to be put out on the floor yet. And the back, as in the place where we test a lot of the donated shit to see if it really does work / structurally sound / not infested with spiders. It also tends to be one of the two employee break rooms.
We shrug it off, figuring it was bound to be sold anyways, though there was a general air of pleasant annoyance from awesome boss about going in the back and picking up items.
So he starts to rant about how many items are donated (he's keeping tabs???) and how many big ones (TVs, stereos, vacuums, you know) go out. We tend to junk a good load of this because we really get so many donations, we don't know what to do with them all, and a lot of the lousy / non-functional / infested with spiders kind go out in the trash truck. Clothes just get recycled after a short time of sitting on the shelf, and sometimes, staff will put a hold on electronic items and pay for it during their break. Perks of the job. Other times, they will buy out vacuums and the ilk so they can give their other crews (cleaning) newer, shinier tools to work with.
Which he immediately bursts into rant about. How staff will sometimes claim the donation items (money still goes to the store) before they even hit the floor, and how about we bring in all donations (ALL) through the front doors so EVERYONE can see them as we bring them in?
For one, no.
We have very limited store space, and the donation bins are pretty hefty sized. For two, people will steal from them as we pass. Sorry to be cynical, but we are. Three, again, most of it won't make the floor anyways. No sense getting people's hopes up. Four, thieves, and people who will claim items that aren't even tested/priced yet.
It still goes on with how staff, again, keep some items for themselves. We're all okay, so long as they pay sticker price for them.
He then starts telling personal stories. The one that sticks with me, the reason for the topic title, is how he had seen a gas can sitting outside once, fresh in the donation bin, and asked about buying it [before it was priced and inspected.] The person, who is getting paid at least a quarter-to-a-half as much as he is, said no, they still had to go check it out, and so he goes around the person to each other person until he hits a person who says yes, and then brags about how he had 'found that his (the worker's) stash' and how he got the item instead of the person who told them it couldn't be sold yet.
Bonus points for ranting about not getting a bike that was juuuust bought by another customer before he could get it. He was convinced it was another employee (it wasn't), and was convinced that the guy who got it bought it just so he couldn't have it.
Imagine this for ANOTHER FORTY MINUTES. The guy wouldn't shut up!
I later found out from one coworker that the guy, apparently, doesn't use the items either. He buys them cheap and immediately resells them on eBay. Fine, so long as he pays store price for them. He was also convinced that two dollars for an ACOUSTIC GUITAR was too much money, so you can guess my opinion on him concerning that...
Through the same word of mouth, I heard he also made one of the extremely nice big bosses mad, and they apparently got into a swearing fit (thankfully, the store had no customers in at the time.) According to my sister, who worked there for a while, that means he should've been banned, which means...
The entire reason he showed up that late on the new shift was to either avoid a ban, or to avoid severe embarrassment, because every other boss would know him and, possibly, fire his ass out of the store with a JATO attached.
TL;DR:
Guy is a jerk who is convinced every item that comes into the store belongs to him, that the prices are too high, and has been possibly banned by every other shift manager, except my boss. Also, some people are petty, annoying assholes who steal from charity.
Otherwise, the job's great.
The bad: I still have to deal with the general public.
The job I now have is a job at a thrift store, whose sole purpose is to raise money for a local disabled organization. Most items there are sold cheap, next to free, and some of them are even in good condition.
A lot of the workers, me included, tend to also be disabled, ranging from Aspergers (
) to CP and Downs Syndrome. Most of them also get paid a percentage of minimum wage, where as I'm part of an experimental crew that started this week, hence full pay.My coworkers also seem to have full decks of cards, mentally, and so we're all equally capable.
So it's my fourth day of work, doing an afternoon-night shift. Most of the people who annoy me are the ones who take clothes, then don't put them back properly, I.E. on the floor, the racks, halfway across the store...
The other minor annoyances are people who, apparently, can't be assed to pay a princely sum of 50 cents - $1.50 for items, as we've found a few empty boxes, switched shoes (1.25 a pair!), etc.
The guy who came in tonight, though, really takes the cake.
I was within hearing distance of this, as I was on the floor at the time, managing clothing (see above: hanging them back on the hangers) and generally picking up the store so it looked decent.
At first he walks in and tells us we really need an Open sign, a neon one, because the windows are tinted and its hard to tell that we're open for new hours. Great, we knew that, thanks for the tip, though.
My big clue to how this would've ended was, possibly, when he name dropped the big boss here.
He disappears for a minute, I keep doing clothes, and everything hunky dory.
He comes back out with an acoustic guitar. You know, one we had way in the back, that was indeed priced, but wasn't ready to be put out on the floor yet. And the back, as in the place where we test a lot of the donated shit to see if it really does work / structurally sound / not infested with spiders. It also tends to be one of the two employee break rooms.
We shrug it off, figuring it was bound to be sold anyways, though there was a general air of pleasant annoyance from awesome boss about going in the back and picking up items.
So he starts to rant about how many items are donated (he's keeping tabs???) and how many big ones (TVs, stereos, vacuums, you know) go out. We tend to junk a good load of this because we really get so many donations, we don't know what to do with them all, and a lot of the lousy / non-functional / infested with spiders kind go out in the trash truck. Clothes just get recycled after a short time of sitting on the shelf, and sometimes, staff will put a hold on electronic items and pay for it during their break. Perks of the job. Other times, they will buy out vacuums and the ilk so they can give their other crews (cleaning) newer, shinier tools to work with.
Which he immediately bursts into rant about. How staff will sometimes claim the donation items (money still goes to the store) before they even hit the floor, and how about we bring in all donations (ALL) through the front doors so EVERYONE can see them as we bring them in?
For one, no.
We have very limited store space, and the donation bins are pretty hefty sized. For two, people will steal from them as we pass. Sorry to be cynical, but we are. Three, again, most of it won't make the floor anyways. No sense getting people's hopes up. Four, thieves, and people who will claim items that aren't even tested/priced yet.It still goes on with how staff, again, keep some items for themselves. We're all okay, so long as they pay sticker price for them.
He then starts telling personal stories. The one that sticks with me, the reason for the topic title, is how he had seen a gas can sitting outside once, fresh in the donation bin, and asked about buying it [before it was priced and inspected.] The person, who is getting paid at least a quarter-to-a-half as much as he is, said no, they still had to go check it out, and so he goes around the person to each other person until he hits a person who says yes, and then brags about how he had 'found that his (the worker's) stash' and how he got the item instead of the person who told them it couldn't be sold yet.
Bonus points for ranting about not getting a bike that was juuuust bought by another customer before he could get it. He was convinced it was another employee (it wasn't), and was convinced that the guy who got it bought it just so he couldn't have it.
Imagine this for ANOTHER FORTY MINUTES. The guy wouldn't shut up!
I later found out from one coworker that the guy, apparently, doesn't use the items either. He buys them cheap and immediately resells them on eBay. Fine, so long as he pays store price for them. He was also convinced that two dollars for an ACOUSTIC GUITAR was too much money, so you can guess my opinion on him concerning that...
Through the same word of mouth, I heard he also made one of the extremely nice big bosses mad, and they apparently got into a swearing fit (thankfully, the store had no customers in at the time.) According to my sister, who worked there for a while, that means he should've been banned, which means...
The entire reason he showed up that late on the new shift was to either avoid a ban, or to avoid severe embarrassment, because every other boss would know him and, possibly, fire his ass out of the store with a JATO attached.
TL;DR:
Guy is a jerk who is convinced every item that comes into the store belongs to him, that the prices are too high, and has been possibly banned by every other shift manager, except my boss. Also, some people are petty, annoying assholes who steal from charity.
Otherwise, the job's great.
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