Seasonal Temps..

[bubblelittlepally]

I was checking out at the store and the cashier was soo fascinated with the mini white Christmas tree I was buying, that she obviously couldn't operate her register.

I slide my debit card and wait. She yells "Oh it looks like you don't have any money!" I look down at the card reader, it says "Please ask cashier to press the debit key". I tell her, she looks puzzled, so I look over at her keyboard and point out the "debit" key. Probably shouldn't have done that, but I think with only one line open and probably 6 people in line behind me, we'd be here all night.

Just thought I'd share that..

[fma_fanatic]

So..can I ask how you know it was a seasonal temp? It could have been a new hire. Just saying...

[bainsidhe]

Or could've just been an idiot. I've worked retail with full and part-timers that were just as clueless. Steady employment does not earn you sense, or class for that matter. Who the hell calls out that "it looks like you have no money!"?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

This really isn't a time where a store would be hiring new people. Promoting some of the seasonal people to regular employees, sure, but normally stores are either doing that or cutting their seasonal people loose.

At least here in the states. The really slow part of the year is rapidly approaching.

I think we can all agree the cashier is an idiot though.

[chainedbarista]

it was the shiny, i tell you; no one can resist the shiny!

[Mytical]

Yes, the cashier suffers from the little known thing called Shiny Things Syndrome. A lot of people have it, but this affliction is not as well known as ADD or ADHD. STS (Shiny Things Syndrome) can also be brain burps, or the like. STS is normally not debilitating, but can be frustrating. More severe STS can even lead to...ooo wait is that something shiny.....

On a more serious note..cashier should have been paying a bit more attention.

[fma_fanatic]

Sorry, sorry my mistake. *shuts up*

[bubblelittlepally]

How do I know it's a seasonal temp? I'm pretty sure it was because this store is notorious for it's horrible temps. Nov. 1 they put a big sign out for seasonal jobs.

It's the store management. I know this because they hire a lot of the people at Christmas time that we serve and it's part of my job to talk with them about this. It's also well known that this store is just the pitts for shopping during the hoidays. Cashiers and service people in departments are never trained properly in the first place. You probably know where I'm talking about, it's convience.

I could go on about this store. I sware I'll never go back almost every time, but I always end up back in there at least once a month.

[blas]

I believe you.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Seasonal help in any store is hit or miss year to year. Some years we have great seasonal people we hate to have to say good-bye to; other years we can't wait until it's time to let them go.

This year we had good seasonal people. It's a shame we won't be able to keep most of them on. We didn't have anybody quitting without notice, ganking stuff, or doing other stuff to be fired before Christmas. I thought they all tried their best in whatever they did.

When I was at the swamp's flagship store, they used to hire anywhere from 75-100 temps for the holidays. Just about every night I'd work from early-October to mid-November I'd see the HR lady taking a group of them around on orientation. And they needed all those temps, not only because they were so busy but because many of them would turn out to be lazy, incompetent, rude, thieving or too naive about the workplace to understand quitting without notice isn't a good thing.

The store in the OP can only hire its seasonal workers from the pool of people applying. If they turn out to be less-than-savory characters, then that's what they're going to have running the store.

[blas]

My work has not done direct hires in over 2 years, which is a damn shame.

Instead, they use temps because I guess it's cheaper, but for every good temp, there are always at least 3 or 4 idiots. Everyone in the past couple of years who has been a new hire was a temp first, and due to higher up monkeys being cheap, they are delaying full time hirings for these temps (to become full time regular employees) up to 6 months to a year for some of them! The idiots I can understand delaying or never hiring them on, but the good ones end up going without benefits and insurance for over a year. It's not fair.

[Sapphire Silk]

My work has not done direct hires in over 2 years, which is a damn shame.

Instead, they use temps because I guess it's cheaper, but for every good temp, there are always at least 3 or 4 idiots. Everyone in the past couple of years who has been a new hire was a temp first, and due to higher up monkeys being cheap, they are delaying full time hirings for these temps (to become full time regular employees) up to 6 months to a year for some of them! The idiots I can understand delaying or never hiring them on, but the good ones end up going without benefits and insurance for over a year. It's not fair.

Nursing, of all professions, is like this. When hospitals try to cut back on staffing costs they end up using a lot of temps whose SS taxes and bennies they don't have to pay. You get some idiots who can't hold a regular job, and some gems.

Irv and the other retail folk: just curious about something. With jobs getting harder to find, have you found competition for temp jobs increasing? If so, what about the quality of the temps? Are you getting a better class of temps hoping for a permanent job during the bad economy?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Irv and the other retail folk: just curious about something. With jobs getting harder to find, have you found competition for temp jobs increasing? If so, what about the quality of the temps? Are you getting a better class of temps hoping for a permanent job during the bad economy?

I dunno. I'm not privy to the hiring process. I suppose it's possible but I can't say for sure.

We do have a couple people who work seasonal every year, and have for a few years now. They're let go and come back when the next Christmas season comes. They're always very dependable; they're just doing the job for a little extra income.

[bainsidhe]

Irv and the other retail folk: just curious about something. With jobs getting harder to find, have you found competition for temp jobs increasing? If so, what about the quality of the temps? Are you getting a better class of temps hoping for a permanent job during the bad economy?

Based on what I've seen, the answer is complicated. Believe it or not, it was sometimes easier to find good employees while the economy was doing well. When you're interviewing people who were laid off from a job making over $25 an hour, they may apply for an $8/hr job, but it's unlikely they'll be willing to stay or give it their all. You may also have a hundred applicants, but only one or two that have the experience you're looking for. We'll get 5 temps, but only 1 returns on the second day. It's not that there aren't wonderful workers out there, but there's more to wade through before you find someone.

[ralerin]

Pah-if she was that fascinated by the white trees we have, she should visit my Aid of Rite. We have tons of them. Though it depends-by mini, do you mean under 3 feet? Because ours are 3 feet-6.5 feet...