Back of house vs. sales floor? Which do your prefer?

[flyonthewall]

B.O.H.-

Pros: no SCs, great place to hide when avoiding crazies.
Cons: managers congregate here, bad air conditioning/heating, usually warehouse like

Sales Floor-

Pros: Nicer scenery, meeting new people, better air conditioning/heating
Cons: SCs



What about you? I prefer BOH. Sometimes observing the drama can be interesting. (The managers where I work hate each other. Also, the rest of the company hates our store so it's funny to listen to conference calls/senior managers complaining about getting flamed by corporate.) More personal interaction with coworkers. I feel like I can be me and not be a retail drone. (Within limits of course.)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Backroom.

Added bonus: our managers don't hang out there! They prefer to stay in their offices.

[flyonthewall]

The area where my department is stationed is next to the managers's offices. >.<

Also the back of house manager can get be a jerk at times.

[Aria]

Well, I'm basically a call centre rep, albeit working from home. So my choices are supporting customers or supporting internal agents. I vastly prefer internal agents. They have to be nice to me or I sic my manager on them. XD

[XCashier]

I've been working in the stockroom for the last few months, and definitely prefer it over regular sales. We start early, which means we end early so I have most of the day off. We get much less customer contact, although they do tend to ask me for help when I'm either up on the ladder getting heavy stuff down, or down on the floor stocking bottom row items (I don't get up off the floor very easily or quickly. )

The bad things include not having nearly enough hours to stock shelves and empty the back room, and receiving freight is very physical work.

[Seanette]

I'm a weirdo, apparently (no big surprise there ). I prefer the sales floor. More varied and mentally stimulating, plus I like most of the customers. Co-irkers are pretty much the same in either setting, and there's about the same amount of management (fine by me. With one exception, I like the supes/managers where I work. The one exception, I fear).

[Teysa]

My summer job is a hybrid of front and back of the house. The advantage I have as I cook is that I can go hide in the kitchen if I need to get away from people. I love my coworkers and I have the best manager ever.

My winter job is purely front of house. Other than the general manager, we're getting a new management team this year, so who knows there? We will have a couple returning cashiers. I got along OK with them last year, but I wasn't in charge so that's another wait and see.

But, to answer the question, I find I enjoy both.

[WishfulSpirit]

I prefer sales floor. I'm a natural extrovert, and I don't seem to attract SC's (not sure why), plus the work is less physical. Being a truck unloader (which I have never done) sounds like my idea of hell. I HATE physical work. I'd rather type or even hang up clothes. Right now I work the front desk at a hotel, and that's a good fit for me.

[KellyHabersham]

For the library, I prefer our equivalent of the sales floor......because of how the building was designed, the "back of house" area always seems warmer/more humid.

[notalwaysright]

My reaction should be to say stocking, for sure! But I would put conditions on it. For example, once the store opens I would much rather just help customers. It's so hard to stock while we're open, and people are not understanding about it. They complain about the boxes or that we seem distracted or unhelpful.

I'd actually choose hidden option C: office work. Yup, I'm that person. The one who likes very repetitive tasks, and likes doing the same thing as the day before. At work I am completely comfortable being a drone.

[Sunshine]

Well....since I'm an ICM now...guess I have to say back of house lol. I like seeing the product first, and making sure it's held when it needs to be. Right now we have a new manager, and she's trying to correct the old managers errors. I've worked front of the house at other jobs and I liked it fine.