They had more in "The Back"!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Mods, no clue here where to put this. Help me out here.

This is not sucky at all. In fact, it rocked. And I felt compelled to tell you all about it because it involved the fabled "back", where endless extra stock is kept, according to every sucky customer on earth.

Short version: after spending many, many hours with a couple friends searching for a swingset for my daughter (It's so hot and humid here right now it's hard to BREATHE, mosquitos are out in thick, stinging clouds, sweat is rolling down everyone's spine, and the sun is like a sadistic, relentless jackhammer. We can find neither swingsets or mosquito coils, but by damn we can sure buy our choice of Christmas trees. ) , we find ourselves in a Kmart, where we have been sent by ANOTHER Kmart to dismantle a floor model, evidently the last swingset left in the free world this season. They were gonna sell us the display, provided we took it apart ourselves.

As it turned out, this Kmart actually did, despite earlier reports to the contrary, a nice selection of boxed, new swingsets...."in the back." The manager said it, we didn't. She said she had stuff that wasn't even on display back there. She was like, "Oh, come on back, there are pictures on the boxes and you can look and pick the one you like best." So she led us into the fabled, mythological land of "the Back."

It was cool, it looked like our old prop storage, back in college, only it had cool chutes and conveyor belts to move boxes around with, like the post office. We didn't have to dismantle anything, we got a brand new boxed set of exactly what we wanted, and they even sold it to me on the cheap because it's out of season.

Go, Kmart!

I just had to tell you about it, because we have all these conversations about customers thinking EVERYTHING is in "The Back". The whole time I was back there, I was thinking "I gotta tell the CS gang about this! I'm in THE BACK!!!"

[Becks]

Rock on!!!!!!

[Hyndis]

The problem with SC's is that they don't take no for an answer, unlike regular people. Sometimes if I really want a particular item for some reason I'll ask if they have any in stock. If they don't, then they don't. No need to demand that they somehow magically teleport another one in just for me.

[csdrone]

The Back is like Narnia!

[Sorianna]

The Back is like Narnia!

Wait, The Back is a TARDIS?

No, seriously. True and completely-off-topic story. I was introduced to Doctor Who much earlier (like, 3rd grade.) than I was to the Narnia books (which was more like 6th grade). And so the idea got into my head that Narnia was actually the inside of a Tardis.

I was a strange child.

[Broomjockey]

Mods, no clue here where to put this. Help me out here.

This is not sucky at all. In fact, it rocked.

Sightings is perfectly fine. We get positive stories in sightings a few times a week usually.

[csdrone]

The Back may very well be a Tardis. That would explain why it appears and disappears more than the Wardrobe to Narnia did. And my husband the Dr Who fan appreciates that.

[BookstoreEscapee]

We had a Back at the bookstore. It was actually not uncommon to find things back there. But if the computer said, no, then the answer was no (well, unless I happened to remember seeing it back there and the computer was lying, but then only if the customer was nice would I go looking). Also, if the computer said we had something but it wasn't on the shelf, if it hadn't been received with the last few days (maybe a week depending on how much shelving had been getting done) I wouldn't bother looking.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I'm surprised you were allowed in a store's backroom. At my store, the rule is no customers allowed in the backroom, no way, no how, forget it, no matter how much you insist.

There's too many ways for a customer to get hurt. Lots of merchandise stacked haphazardly that call fall and injure somebody walking past, plus power equipment like forklifts operated by people who really shouldn't be operating it (koff koff Numbnuts....)

And our insurance probably would not cover any customer injuries that might happen back there, since the backroom is understood to be employees only.

I'm not saying this to bag on the OP because she did not ask to be let in the backroom; the employee offered it. It's just different from my personal experience at work.

[flybye023]

There's a Lane Bryant that I've started shopping at that keeps stuff in "the back" too. They're a really small store so there really isn't a lot of shelf space on the sales floor.

The problem with SC's is that they don't take no for an answer, unlike regular people. Sometimes if I really want a particular item for some reason I'll ask if they have any in stock. If they don't, then they don't. No need to demand that they somehow magically teleport another one in just for me.

Agreed. Sometimes it may actually be in the back but because the way inventory works nowadays, the employee may not be able to sell it to customers for a day or two.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

At Target, their price scanners on the salesfloor will tell you if they have an item in their backroom.

If something like this is ever implemented in my store, so help me Gord I will hang myself. Just because an item shows as being in the backroom doesn't mean we actually have it. Not with my very special co-irkers frequently forgetting to delete backstock locations when they take the last of an item.

Or the item may be in backstock, but it's being held for somebody with a raincheck and we have to give them time to pick it up.

Or inventory has just passed and we created special locations for certain merchandise on the salesfloor the inventory crew isn't going to count, and those locations aren't deleted yet.

But just try explaining these things to the fuckhorn who flagged you down and is insisting "You have that item in the backroom; the scanner says you do! I want it NOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!"