Labor Day Sales. *long, sorry*

[Nunavut Pants]

Isn't it CRAFTDAFQ?

How about two robots sitting behind a sewing machine, speaking repetitively about nonsense?

That would be CRAFTPUNK.

[sirwired]

It's stupid and short-sighted management that leads to never-ending sales and coupons.

The in-my-mailbox-twice-a-month BB&B coupons for either 20% any item or $5 off $15 have got to be total profit killers, because I'll simply grab one every time I need something from there. (And since they take multiple ones on one visit and even take expired coupons I have no need to do anything special to space out my purchases or make them when I'm not ready.)

The X% off Entire Purchase! coupons from dept. stores are silly because the list of restrictions is SO long, it's unlikely they'll work on anything you want to buy.

And having a Big Sale Every. Single. Week. does nothing other than drive up marketing costs, *bleep!* up your logistics, and trains customers to never buy things at full price.

Say what you will about the Mart of Wal's, they figured this out a long time ago, and a lot of their success can be attributed to avoiding the costs and problems that constant sales and coupons impose. (One reason Wally can extract favorable prices from their suppliers is that they have a steady order flow of stuff; none of this slow sales, and then needing a few trainloads of stuff for a single week, followed by nothing again.)

[April]

I went to Joann's this weekend and have never regretted it more. I needed a yard of ribbonny stuff to make a sleeveless shirt into a non-sleeveless shirt for work. I had no idea of sales or coupons, but that place was INSANE. I waited an hour to get a yard cut. Waited another 20 minutes to cash out. It was crazy insane and I felt bad for the employees. That, and their management apparently forgot how to staff people for sales like that. When I first got my number, they had a grand total of one person at the cutting table. When I got my number, I was something like 26 numbers ahead of the current number. By the time I left they had 3, but for a long time, the one girl was seriously stressed out and busy. They only had two cashiers manning the registers. The line stretched back almost to the cutting table before what looked like a manager finally opened another register.

I hope the poor employees managed to save their sanity.

[notalwaysright]

I went to Joann's this weekend and have never regretted it more. I needed a yard of ribbonny stuff to make a sleeveless shirt into a non-sleeveless shirt for work. I had no idea of sales or coupons, but that place was INSANE. I waited an hour to get a yard cut. Waited another 20 minutes to cash out. It was crazy insane and I felt bad for the employees. That, and their management apparently forgot how to staff people for sales like that. When I first got my number, they had a grand total of one person at the cutting table. When I got my number, I was something like 26 numbers ahead of the current number. By the time I left they had 3, but for a long time, the one girl was seriously stressed out and busy. They only had two cashiers manning the registers. The line stretched back almost to the cutting table before what looked like a manager finally opened another register.

I hope the poor employees managed to save their sanity.

I was told that our DM called a bunch of stores and made them cut shifts. On Labor Day. Because our district was "overspent." Yes that included our store, which cut two people, then the closing manager (who was not the one who cut those shifts) added a shift because there was no place to walk behind the cutting counter, it was filled with fabric. The scenario you encountered is pretty common place, I've seen online jokes about how waiting for fabric is worse than waiting at the DMV.

A new-ish employee was suddenly trained to cut fabric this weekend, during a crazy busy time, while there was only one other cutter. She quit after that shift. It's a shame, she was a good stocker. It's like a comedy, the kind that gets bad reviews because the humor is too slapstick.

PS, I neither confirm nor deny where I work, although most know at this point, it makes me nervous seeing the name out there. Eeek.

[XCashier]

I really feel like the company I work for is trying to kill us.

You and me both. The insanity is almost palpable. I wasn't assigned to work yesterday, thank heaven, I don't think I could've taken it.

I just counted 12 coupons that are valid right now, in addition to the sale.

Many of which don't work with each other, meaning we have to split up the sale so the customer can use all of their coupons. For example, the customer has a 50% off total purchase of Notions coupon and a 20% off entire purchase coupon. You can't use two coupons on one item. And if the customer is buying ten notions and fifteen other things, you can't use the two coupons together to get 50% off of the notions and the 20% off of everything else; the two coupons won't work on the same transaction. You have to split up the transaction, which takes longer and ticks off the customers.

I had a lady say that she was going to make me "earn my wages."

I hate people who say that. They're implying that we're lazy layabouts who only work when we're forced too, and Boss Customer is going to get our lazy butts moving.

She made me cut two one yard pieces out of her entire cart. Later she was talking to her tiny dog and said "what's wrong, do you want the girl to go faster?"

Dog: No, I want a more intelligent and less passive-aggressive owner!

She said all of this in a perfectly cheerful tone. I couldn't tell if she was being snippy, or was truly so stupid and out of touch that she didn't realize how horrible she was acting.

Oh, she knew she was being horrible, even if she won't admit it. There are an awful lot of Professor Umbridge types out there, and they just love to make other people miserable while being all cheerful and chirpy themselves. It's a passive-aggressive power grab, and it's sick.

[chimera]

A new-ish employee was suddenly trained to cut fabric this weekend, during a crazy busy time, while there was only one other cutter. She quit after that shift. It's a shame, she was a good stocker.

Cutting during a huge rush has made me want to run outta there...and I've been doing this for a while! There's a ton to learn starting out. Especially given that crafty place pays peanuts for new hires, I don't blame them at all for deciding the stress isn't worth it.

[wordgirl]

notalwaysright, I always break them down into "the Him craft store," "the Her craft/fabric store" and the "rhyming-religious-closes-too-early craft/little bit of fabric store." All three do the same thing.

And I do have to wonder ... does anyone ever pay full price there? The 40-off coupons are the most baffling, because that means I'm only ever gonna buy one thing. Even though they obviously hope I will buy seven things and be happy with the 40 percent off the most expensive of those things. No, I'm not gonna do that! I buy the one thing and then maybe I come back and buy another thing with another coupon. Or the email one on my phone. Or go to another craft store - maybe the same brand, maybe not.

[XCashier]

notalwaysright, I always break them down into "the Him craft store," "the Her craft/fabric store" and the "rhyming-religious-closes-too-early craft/little bit of fabric store."

We also have the Founding Father Craft Store nearby.

Our company is starting a new thing where you can buy what you want online and pick it up the next day at the store near you. This has the potential to be a major and I'm more than a little leery.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We also have the Founding Father Craft Store nearby.

Our company is starting a new thing where you can buy what you want online and pick it up the next day at the store near you. This has the potential to be a major and I'm more than a little leery.

Ah yes, the whole "buy online and pick up in store" nonsense stores are trying because they're scared shitless of Amazon.

The swamp just recently rolled this out. Of course no investments in better computer software or training or anything that would actually make this easy to implement. Instead somebody has to carry around a device that looks like a cell phone and functions like a pager, going off whenever an order is placed. Then the person with this thing has to go to the service desk, wait for them to finish up with customers so they can print off the list of items on the order, and then they grab all the items on the order, bag them up and place them in a holding area. This must all be done in an hour; the customer has a week (I think) to pick up their shit.

So far we've found the pager abandoned in various places on the salesfloor and backroom.

[XCashier]

This must all be done in an hour; the customer has a week (I think) to pick up their shit.

Your store doesn't have a grocery section, does it? I'm hoping they can't buy perishables that way.

That's one thing we don't have to worry about. My concern is that what the computer says our store has in stock and what reality says are usually very different. If the computer says we have 20 widgets, the customer wants 15 and there's only three actually in stock, that's a problem.

There's also the flakes who order half a yard of fifty different fabrics, then don't bother to pick up their order. I'm also concerned with it getting abused on Black Friday; we go to open the store and, along with the mob of customers waiting outside, there'll be a hundred orders of yards of fabric. Yes, it's a fustercluck of colossal proportions waiting to happen.

[wordgirl]

Awww, that sounds insane. I would assume that someone has the brains to lock out Black Friday promos but that would require me to also assume that the corporate monkeys that set up these promos are capable of that level of reasoning.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Your store doesn't have a grocery section, does it? I'm hoping they can't buy perishables that way.

Not fresh grocery. Everything is pre-packaged,

Awww, that sounds insane. I would assume that someone has the brains to lock out Black Friday promos but that would require me to also assume that the corporate monkeys that set up these promos are capable of that level of reasoning.

I would never confuse the people at the swamp's corporate office with people who think. I bet people try to use this as a way to skip the store on Black Friday Thursday, yet still get whatever doorbusters they want.

[notalwaysright]

Yeah, we've had the "oh god, what about Black Friday?!" conversation at my store, too. I really hope they disable it entirely, or at least for the Doorbusters. It would be impossible to deal with. On BF I've cut for more than an hour on one person's order, then cut for another hour on the next customer's order. Just think of the people sitting at home in bed ordering? On the bright side, we were supposed to launch the buy online pickup in store fiasco yesterday, but it was pushed back, and the haven't told us when it will start.

Irv, at least the company I work for doesn't make us open on Thursday. And the past couple years they've sent us a ton of "by-the-bolt" items. This means it hasn't been nearly as crazy for the cutting counter, since people who want the whole bolt can go straight to the register. The down side is that Doorbusters are excluded from the total purchase coupon. And this year AGAIN we have a new store manager, who I hope knows how to schedule for BF.

[XCashier]

On the bright side, we were supposed to launch the buy online pickup in store fiasco yesterday, but it was pushed back, and the haven't told us when it will start.

My SM told us that it was still in the test stage, and only two stores in our state were doing the program: the superstore in the Biggest City and us. Lucky us. She didn't know what would happen about Black Friday, either.

[Nonstop_Death]

The thing I hate most about Labor day sales is that the buses don't run on that day where I live, which means that a large number of customers steal the small carts.

And they often are the ones who complain about the fact we have a extremely small number of small carts over the next few days, while we have some people look around town for the small carts. Would be nice if the Sucktomers brought them back, but you all know those 'specshul angels' never take the carts off the lot in the first place.