Large chain fabric stores from a quilter's perspective.

[EricKei]

XC: It was the same way at GS. Corporate honestly seemed unable to comprehend the notion that someone might not WANT a discount card/pre-order/warranty. Heaven help the workers once the stupid credit card is introduced (I already have a thread on Fratching for that one ). They literally seem to believe that the ONLY difference between a sale that includes one of those things (or more), and one that lacks them all is effort on the part of the employee.

Seanette: Aye, but there's the rub -- The choices for video games if you care about having salespeople who know a ton about the games/systems are: GS and...uhm...x.x Wait, it'll come to me. >_> If you don't care about that, the choices are still rather limited, albeit broader. For fabrics and hobbies, you DO have some choice, albeit one limited by which places have decided to set up shop where you live.

[Seanette]

There's also the online shopping world if you know what you want.

[Kanalah]

But you can't pet the fabric that way.

[Seanette]

True, but you don't have to be harassed about add-ons and upsells.

Note that I have nothing but sympathy for the cashier forced to harass customers or face unemployment. My ire is reserved for the out-of-touch suits who mandate such.

[notalwaysright]

Want honesty? When certain managers aren't working, I don't push anything. Not even the mailer signups, which is that company's bread and butter. I will only suggest things I truly think the customer might have forgotten.

[Seanette]

Want honesty? When certain managers aren't working, I don't push anything. Not even the mailer signups, which is that company's bread and butter. I will only suggest things I truly think the customer might have forgotten.

That to me sounds like GOOD service, sincere helpfulness rather than pressuring the customer to buy stuff they would have actually selected if they actually wanted it.

[EricKei]

There's also the online shopping world if you know what you want.

There are apparently plenty of people who don't know what they want. ^_^

But you can't pet the fabric that way.

And you can't ...uhm...lovingly caress the video game boxes or something? I dunno. I got nothing.

As for the following comments: Now you know the one of THE major things every current and former GS employee hates about working for that company. They actually made us track the add-on sales in a journal, so they could yell at us later for the usual : "You blew away the goals in 9 out of 10 areas, but fell short in this one -- damn, you must be some seriously lazy motherfuckers!" (aside from the cursing, that was 100% accurate regarding how Corporate saw things)

[Kanalah]

Well and for a quilter, it's hard to match different fabrics together online. That's something you really need to see for yourself. Even some fabrics in the same collection don't play nice together.

[morgana]

Those are some seriously ugly bags . . .

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Corporate was exactly the same way at GameStore (they just did it weekly, though), regarding payroll. We had to watch our hours like a hawk;...

I once witnessed a manager at Gamestore go in the system and "roll back" the hours of two employees who had just over 40 hours to 39.5. I now know this is blatantly illegal but back then my naive little 20 something self just assumed it was some company policy I wasn't aware of.

I wish I could go back and handle that one differently.

I also remember a time there when, for several weeks, the company REQUIRED each of their salaried managers to work a MINIMUM of 60 hours a week.

Also common was getting our payroll cut to the bone and having our area manager show up and wonder why the store was in shambles OR the payroll cut to the bone and we'd end up going over just to keep the store running and corporate would bitch at us for that.