Sure, let me go wander in the stock room...

[GiftShopGirl]

Some time ago I worked at the Big Red Bullseye mart.

#1
SC wants three baby bottles. She can only find one, so she brings it to me and asks me to find two more. I whip out my scanning gun and the suck begins.
Me: I'm sorry ma'am, but my scanning gun is telling me that this is the last one left.
SC: Well, can't you go check?
Me: If the main computer says we don't have any in stock, then we don't have any in stock.
SC: I want you to go check!! There might be some in the back room that the computer doesn't know about!!
Okay, I don't think customers realize this, but the stock room is roughly the same size as the sales floor where people shop, and is stocked from floor to ceiling with shelves of pallets of plastic-wrapped cardboard boxes. I'm not seriously about to get out a moving vehicle, get out a box-cutter, and start checking boxes. I'd be there until next year.
Me: Certainly ma'am. I'd be happy to look. *So I wander off to the stock room, and get a quick sip of coffee. I return a little more pleasant* I'm sorry ma'am, I looked high and low, but I could not find any more of these bottles.
SC: Oh well, at least you checked. You never know WHAT'S back there until you look, do you?

#2
I'm working in women's athletic clothes, just folding clothes and putting them back on hangers, when this red-faced angry mustached short man wanders up to me.
RFAMSM: Do you have short athletic pants?
Me: You mean like capris?
RFAMSM: WHAT ARE CAPRIS?
Me: *reaches over to a rack and shows him a pair of terry capris*
RFAMSM: Yes! Those are the pants! They are for my daughter! You wait here, and I will bring her to see them! Don't you move!
When he said "here", he pointed to the floor like I was I dog or something. I'm not being paid to stand about and drool, so I shrugged and went back to work. RFAMSM comes back and can't find me, so he starts to whistle. Like you would whistle for a dog. I am not a dog, so I ignored him.
RFAMSM: *finally seeing me* I was calling for you!
Me: Weird, all I heard was someone whistling. But what can I help you with?
RFAMSM: My daughter! I have brought her for the short pants!
I look up and see that not only has he brought over his daughter, but he brought over the whole g*ddamn family. And they're all just as short as he is. I hand him the capris, and they go to the fitting rooms. They come back a few minutes later.
RFAMSM: These short pants are no good! They look like long pants on my daughter!
Me: I'm sorry to hear that.
RFAMSM: Don't be sorry! Do something about it!
Me: Well, I can recommend women's atheltic shorts, or children's athletic capris.
RFAMSM: Ok.
I go back to what I was doing.
RFAMSM: Well?
Me: What can I help you with?
RFAMSM: Aren't you going to go get the shorts and children's pants?
Me: Sir, there are so many to see here, that I couldn't possibly carry them all over to you. You'd be here all night waiting on me. There's a ton of different colors, and sizes, and I don't know what kinds you like. You'll have to look with your daughter to decide what you want. The athletic shorts are here *waving to the table behind him* and the children's athletic capris are in the children's section by the underwear. Can I help you with anything else?
RFAMSM: *His face even redder with rage* You are incompetent!
Me: *ignoring him completely* Can I help you with anything else?
RFAMSM: No! Go away!
So I went on break.

#3
It's my first day working at the Big Red Bullseye. I haven't even been there three hours at this point. I'm wearing a name tag that says 'New Teammember' instead of my actual name. This woman wanders up and comments on my name tag.
SC: Oh, New Teammember. You must be new.
Me: *great observation, Sherlock* Yep, it's my first day. But how can I help you, ma'am?
SC: Well, I'm looking for tissues that are individually wrapped. Not like the travel sizes, but a pack where each tissue is wrapped individually.
Me: I'd be happy to help you find that, ma'am. Since it's my first day, I'm going to ask another team member. It'll only take a moment.
So I whip out my walkie-talkie, right in front of her, and ask if anyone knew about individually-wrapped tissues. I explain it exactly the same way she did. A CW comes online and says that nope, we don't have 'em.
Me: *even though I knew she could hear the walkie-talkie as well as I did, I repeated the message for her anyway* I'm sorry ma'am, but my co-worker says that we don't have any in stock. Can I help you find something similar?
SC: No, that's okay, I'll just get the other things on my list.
So, no trouble, she seems pretty reasonable. But would I be writing about this on CS if this was the end?
20 minutes later, SC returns to me with a terrifying look in her eyes, a look that was a mix of anger, triumph, and vengeance.
SC: I found the tissues you said you didn't have! They were on Aisle 32B!! You should remember that for next time instead of telling people you don't have them!!
Me: I'm sorry about the misinformation, ma'am. I was just repeating to you what my co-worker said.
SC: Well, now you know that you actually do sell them!! Remember that for next time so people won't have to search for them on their own!!
And she wandered away in a whirlwind of self-satisfaction and ignorance. She made me want to barf. Honestly, it was my FIRST DAY, she knew that, and I only repeated what someone else (who'd been there longer) had told me. Maybe she should have shoved the tissues in CW's face, if she needed so much reassurance that she had a better 'tissue radar' than everyone else.

Sheesh, I wanted to put in more, but the suck is too long already. Maybe more later.

[Teskeria]

Why the hades would you want each tissue individually wrapped? You'd be paying for more wrapping than tissues! (& I personally have never heard or seen such a stupid thing. But then I admit I don't know it all)

[protege]

Why the hades would you want each tissue individually wrapped?)

Maybe she wanted the small "travel packs?" Those are usually sold, say 6 little bundles of tissues, inside a box. If not, she was a moron

[the_std]

SC: Well, I'm looking for tissues that are individually wrapped. Not like the travel sizes, but a pack where each tissue is wrapped individually.

Protege, somehow I doubt it!

[simplyanother]

The guns LIE! LIE! LIE!

Or something. I love it when I scan something with the RF gun and it says we have only 1 on hand, and I'm looking at 40. Or something with a negative quantity on hand...and well, it's obvious we have more. I KNOW that's because people are screwing up somewhere, but it's still annoying. the SM has basically told us to ...fake it. Even if the gun says we have 0, and 0 on order and last received them 12 years ago... if the customer is bitchy enough, look in the appropriate over stock boxes. And if the aren't satisfied, check the mysterious back (where absolutely none of our regular over stock is stored. Seasonal merchandise...yes. But day to day items, they're right on the cap shelves.) We hardly ever remember to do it.

Because, chances are, if there is one on the shelf, and the shelf holds more than say... 4, then and the gun says there are 3, then probably---there aren't 3. And they could be in the store. ANYWHERE. Just chillin. Sitting there, where a customer abandoned it, or a co worker stuffed it. Sorry, I'm not going on a wild goose chase. Hey, I know, lets call another store!

I HATE having to tell a customer we don't carry something. Because they will do that stupid "HA! I FOUND IT!" thing. That makes me want to shake them. It's one thing when I have just said "no, we don't carry that". It's another when I've said "I don't know, let me ask a co-worker" and I ask a co-worker, or 12.. including the one who is responsible for that section and generally knows it top to bottom, and they've all said "no, we don't carry that". We're not being sucky, we're not being useless. We just missed that damned product. Sue me.

AND seriously? Someone expected a personal shopper at freaking TARGET? WTF? You want that sort of service, you go somewhere that the prices will reflect it. But, people are always trying to get something extra, aren't they?

[EricKei]

(& I personally have never heard or seen such a stupid thing. But then I admit I don't know it all)

I have heard of that for things like sterile wipes...but for Kleenex-type ?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If somebody asks me to check the backroom for something the scanner says we don't have in the backroom, I go to the backroom, find a nice box to sit on for about 5 minutes, maybe grab a drink of water, and then emerge to tell the customer "Sorry, we don't have it."

It's called pretend checking. It is your friend. Although it is possible the item may be in the backroom after all, what with the breathing meat that passes for help around the swamp forgetting to scan items into locations, it's too much dicking around to check every square inch of the backroom for your hidden grass seed or foot fungus medication.

Also, at Target the price scanners on the salesfloor, in addition to telling you the price of an item, also tell you if the item is in the backroom. God is my witness, if we ever get salesfloor price scanners at the swamp and they do the same thing, I will personally jump headfirst into the . My problems with co-irkers forgetting to delete backstock locations when they take the last of an item are legion and well-documented. The last thing I need is some shmuck of a customer smugly telling me something is in the backroom when it actually isn't, because the scanny-thingy says so.

[jerkface11]

Yeah I wouldn't trust the gun. I tried to buy my mom a TV at target for christmas the gun said they had 3 but when they went to get one there wasn't a single one in stock. So either someone stole 3 tv's or someone screwed up. I know my boss would chew on my ass for a very long time if i had lost $5k worth of stuff but they acted like it was no big thing.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Yeah I wouldn't trust the gun. I tried to buy my mom a TV at target for christmas the gun said they had 3 but when they went to get one there wasn't a single one in stock. So either someone stole 3 tv's or someone screwed up. I know my boss would chew on my ass for a very long time if i had lost $5k worth of stuff but they acted like it was no big thing.

Or...it could be the inventory counts don't update until the store has closed for the night.

Also, one of the three TVs could be the display model, since it is a saleable unit even though it won't be sold until it's on clearance and it's the last one left.

This is how it works at the swamp. In your example, we'd just have to sell 2 of that particular TV during the day for that to happen. The inventory count wouldn't go down to 1 until end-of-day processing was completed.

[jerkface11]

I know they thought it was odd the TV's weren't there. But it was a new store so they might not have been familiar with exactly how it worked yet.

[mattm04]

It always amazes me how SC's seem to think the back rooms are some magical neatly organized place that look just like the sales floor where we can find anything. Our store, which we got we we bough out another company years ago has a very small back room. We have the main receiving area which is mostly pallets off the truck and other large items. We have a hallway that runs the length of the store with shelving. Most of the stuff that has been removed form the pallets, but not needed, is sitting on that (supposedly) organized by aisle.

If we look in the area it is supposed to be in and we supposedly have it, it is either still buried on a shrink wrapped pallet or somewhere. We could find it, but by the time we did the SC would have probably given up and left.

[jjllbb]

Uh. I hate when new stuff gets stocked to the floor and we're not told about it. And then the SC comes running up screaming at you because you DO have it.

But honestly, are we expected to memorize EVERY single product when 100 new things come in every single week? grrr

[LadyAndreca]

Or...it could be the inventory counts don't update until the store has closed for the night.

Also, one of the three TVs could be the display model, since it is a saleable unit even though it won't be sold until it's on clearance and it's the last one left.

This is how it works at the swamp. In your example, we'd just have to sell 2 of that particular TV during the day for that to happen. The inventory count wouldn't go down to 1 until end-of-day processing was completed.

The computers at the Bullseye update overnight, so what you're looking at on the computer is the inventory from opening. Occasionally, it's from opening the day before, but that's rare. In general, if the back room team is registering their pulls right, the guns are actually MORE accurate than the computers, because the guns update from the store's system and not the company-wide inventory system. (Though, it HAS been over a year, so they could have changed the system since then.)

...why yes, I got asked that question a lot. Why do you ask?

[jerkface11]

Yeah I was irritated that they charged me for it BEFORE they checked to see if they had it though.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I looked high and low,

...so you looked up at the ceiling, and down at the floor, and had some more coffee?

RFAMSM: No! Go away!
So I went on break.

so people won't have to search for them on their own!!

Wait, I'm not supposed to look for stuff by myself when I go shopping? Wow, I guess I've been doing it wrong...

I would have asked to see them because I have no idea what the hell she was talking about.


At the bookstore, looking in the back wasn't necessarily a fruitless endeavor, depending on the section. The books are on library carts organized by section, with dividers on the cart to organize by subsection, so they can just drag the whole thing out to the floor and shelve stuff with a minimum of sorting on the floor, and get the cart off the floor by midmorning. So if the receivers are doing it right, it's not that hard to find something, and since you can see when it was last received, you can guage the likelihood of it actually being there. (It says we have one, last received within the last few days? Sure, I'll look. Last received 3 months/years/eons ago? Sorry, would you like me to order that for you?) Problems really start when things start getting backed up and the overflow is in boxes in front of the carts. I've had overflowing carts of fiction with 5 boxes of mass market paperbacks stacked in front of them. I'd scan the cart real quick but no way was I rooting through stacks of boxes.