Department Store

[veniteangeli]

I'm now working in a department store, and so far I've only had one SC, and she was mild at best.

Dear Bitter Old Hag
Thank you for your very helpful comment that if my coworker and I were to stop talking, we could serve people faster. That is good advice, and definitely something we would take under advisement...

...if it weren't for the fact that it's my /first day/ and the "conversation" you objected so vehemently to was my coworker /training me to use the register/.

Please die in a fire.
-Me

[Sandiercy]

She was probably complaining because you did not help her within 10 seconds of her entering the store. Some people will find anything to bitch about and if it werent that, she probably would have complained about how long you took to ring her out.

[Jetfire]

She was probably complaining because you did not help her within 10 seconds of her entering the store. Some people will find anything to bitch about and if it werent that, she probably would have complained about how long you took to ring her out.

Said complaint made because she was pestered by (and complained about) someone asking if she needed help 5 seconds after she entered the store.

[PepperElf]

Which reminds me of how many EWs say "train your employees" etc.


Too bad you can't ask them.... "So you want me trained to better serve you?"
and when the EW says "Yes!"... "They're training me right now!"

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Or, as an alternative, use a notebook and pen and write down what you want to say and hold it up to the coworker instead of actually talking.

Bet that customer would get a laugh out of that.

This also comes in handy in the office while on a conference call, b/c I can't figure out how to put the speakerphone on mute.

[emax4]

I would have liked to have heard the conversation to see exactly how that went down. It'd be one thing if she was told you were training, then apologized or kept quiet. This may go under that category of not being able to please anybody, sadly.

[veniteangeli]

It was literally, "Okay, so push shift and F12... yup, then go down to"
"Wait, why did it do that?"
"Because you have to put in a sales note. Okay, so go to Unsuitable Item and type "wrong size"... then F12 again..."
"And now hit enter, and go to EFTPOS?"
"Yup, and have her sign the slip when it comes out."

I'm paraphrasing, but that's about /all/ we were saying.

[veniteangeli]

Er, sorry, half finished story. So after I handed her the slip to sign, she complained, saying that if we would chat less, we could serve quicker. To which we just gaped - and she was stomping off before either of us could tell her it was my first day.

But why should we have /had/ to tell her it was my first day? I mean ffs it's pretty obvious from the "conversation" that it's /training/ stuff, not shooting the damn breeze.

[EricKei]

It's been my experience that a good many managers -- and obviously some SC's -- are incapable of differentiating between "social chatter" and "speech needed to help another person". They simply assume that human beings...excuse me, "workers", who are, of course, not human ...are physically incapable of talking and working simultaneously.

[PepperElf]

because some EWs are never happy unless they're pissing on someone

[blas]

I work in a different industry, but I can't tell you how many times I've had a shift lead or my manager go fucking insane thinking I or we were screwing around when we were in fact working together or one of us was helping the other.

Matter of fact, a few months or so ago, my coworker and I were balls deep inside a machine that sometimes you gotta take two people and manually push the damn arms of it back to the origin points, and it has to be done at the same time, so you need two people.............my idiot manager comes stomping up and asks us what the hold up is on all the other machines.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

One of my co-workers had a woman snap at her "You don't need to be on the phone like that!" because she was on the phone with somebody who had called the store looking for something.

I will admit we do give our in-store customers priority when things get busy, but we can't ignore the outside callers completely. They could be employees from other stores trying to set up transfers or locate merchandise for a customer; they could come in later and buy lots of stuff from us.

Some people just think the world revolves around them.

[EricKei]

...but we can't ignore the outside callers completely.

Of course not. Then you'd be "Toy store with the reverse 'R' and the really cheap diapers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in the back of the store"

[wolfie]

It's been my experience that a good many managers -- and obviously some SC's -- are incapable of differentiating between "social chatter" and "speech needed to help another person". They simply assume that human beings...excuse me, "workers", who are, of course, not human ...are physically incapable of talking and working simultaneously.

Such people need to be put in charge of a radio station - feeble excuse for a brain go 'splodey when they realize the workers HAVE to talk while on the job.

[anyanka2]

One of my co-workers had a woman snap at her "You don't need to be on the phone like that!" because she was on the phone with somebody who had called the store looking for something.

I will admit we do give our in-store customers priority when things get busy, but we can't ignore the outside callers completely. They could be employees from other stores trying to set up transfers or locate merchandise for a customer; they could come in later and buy lots of stuff from us.

Some people just think the world revolves around them.

I work in the home area of a department store and we have a large number of elderly customers. One older lady called last week, interested in a food processor. I told her we had the one she was interested in stock but that it was on the heavier side. She asked for my recommendation and I suggested a smaller and more compact one. She then said she'd be in early this week and I gave her my name. My co-worker complained I took too long on the phone with her and "repeated myself" too many times. She thinks I repeat myself, but with our customer base, sometimes you have to tell them things multiple times. The woman came in and asked for me. I showed her the food processors and she asked about more items on her list. She spent over $300 after coupons. I think she appreciated that I took the time to answer her questions and find the best products for her needs.