Lay-away fun!

[barainga]

At a big box retailer a few years ago.
Its winter, two weeks before Christmas. It is the busiest time of the year for layaway.
A lady stands in a line that goes clear out past the shoe dept and into jewelry.


Me. How can I help you?

EW: 'handing me an almost two foot long receipt' I want you to go through these and lower the price on anything that is on sale.

Me Ill be happy to, which items are now on sale?
EW: I dont know, I just want you to type them all in and see if any are on sale.
Me. Im sorry maam, but we are to busy for me to do that, I would be happy to adjust the price of anything that you know is on sale, but there are far to many items here for me to key them all in to adjust price.
EW: But the other person did it for me!!
Me: If we were not busy I would be happy to do so as well, but you have over 200 items here, it would be unfair of me to take up that much time when I have at least 50 more people in line needing help. If you want to go through the store and mark the items that are on sale now I would be happy to adjust the prices for you, but I cannot take the time to hand key in over 200 items to check prices.

EW: Youre just saying that because Im black, I bet if I was white youd do it for me !!ELEVENTY!!

Steph (dept manager): Excuse me maam, Im the dept manager and I wouldnt do that for you either at this time, are you gonna call me a racist too? (Steph shared the same ethnic background as the EW and was also very pregnant at the time, I bring up that last cause she had NO patience for SCs but loved me because I could get 5 times as much done as anyone else)

EW gave cat butt face and left, didnt see her till Christmas eve when she picked up her 200+ items.

[bainsidhe]

Gee, I wonder why most stores cancelled layaway. /sarcasm

[Mytical]

They are starting to bring back layaways.. due to the economy no doubt.

[MoonCat]

K-mart has layawy, I don't know about other places. I used to use layaway a lot when I first started working.

[pitmonkey]

I hear that wally world is bringing it back.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If the swamp ever brings back layaway, I will cut my own throat. I am serious.

We no longer have the room to store layaway items, nor the manpower to track the payments, return items to the salesfloor, or retrieve layaway items for customers.

And layaway used to be a huge business for us. HUGE. As in semi-trailers full of nothing but people's layaways, and retrieving items from them in the dark using flashlights to see inside the trailers. But this was many years ago, when the swamp was pretty much the only game in town as far as discount stores go.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Knowing modern business practices, I wouldn't be surprised if lay-a-way items weren't reserved by computer, and kept in some desert warehouse until the customer paid for them, at which time they would be sent to the store or the customer.

If modern businesses haven't thought of that yet, I should patent it and collect lots of royalties. But I won't. Patents are a pain.

[EricKei]

Wait...if you put something on layaway, doesn't that mean that you have agreed to pay whatever the price is AT THE TIME YOU PUT IT ON LAYAWAY?! o_O

If you want it on sale, take your chances with the rest of the wolves.

Besides, most places with even remotely intelligent managers cancel ALL layaways if they haven't been picked up by closing time on December 24th...

Heck, I imagine that most places stopped the practice in the first place due to the immense amount of lost sales/revenue from items not being picked up at all/not paid for/intentionally ignored until they were on sale, especially at stores that don't require deposits.

[Pixilated]

Ah, that ever-present and always-obliging "other person" again ...

[Racket_Man]

Wait...if you put something on layaway, doesn't that mean that you have agreed to pay whatever the price is AT THE TIME YOU PUT IT ON LAYAWAY?! o_O

If you want it on sale, take your chances with the rest of the wolves.

I do know that in the past K-Mart used to have a policy that if something went on sale you could go to the lay-away dept and have them lower the price, but you DID have to know the specific item inorder for them to do so. \

not sure what their policy is now

[sweetj82]

oh yes we are getting layaway backthis year.....oh the joy.

[RealUnimportant]

Knowing modern business practices, I wouldn't be surprised if lay-a-way items weren't reserved by computer, and kept in some desert warehouse until the customer paid for them, at which time they would be sent to the store or the customer.

If modern businesses haven't thought of that yet, I should patent it and collect lots of royalties. But I won't. Patents are a pain.

I can already see the flaw in that system...

"Whaddaya mean, I gotta wait for my item to be delivered? I just PAID, I wants it NOW! ..."

[Rumiel]

I hear that wally world is bringing it back.

Only for October to December, and only for Electronics and Toys section (I work at a Wally world, we talk about it ) Also.. word on the grapevine is, it ISN'T confirmed but because how they do the layout in my store (clothes sections have wooden floor the rest is tiles) they're rearranging part of it, very... very.. slowly. BUT.
Word on the grapevine is we MIGHT be getting a fabric section back.

[Clover]

Major props to your manager for putting that idiot in her place. I hate it when people pull the race card-I thankfully don't get it pulled on me very often because I take after my hispanic mother mostly in looks (though I've got a little of everything in my blood, and I do mean EVERYTHING) so they tend to not pull it on me, since I don't look white enough. I've been referred to with racist slurs before (most notably being called a stupid wetback), but I don't pull the race card, EVER, and I think anyone who does is simply lacking the intelligence to back their argument up and is pulling that card to try and get the obviously more intelligent individual to back down.

[ADoyle90815]

I do know that in the past K-Mart used to have a policy that if something went on sale you could go to the lay-away dept and have them lower the price, but you DID have to know the specific item inorder for them to do so. \

not sure what their policy is now

When I worked there 4 years ago, that was still the policy. The worst SC stories I heard from co-workers happened in layaway. It was also outside that department that the store manager actually banned one particularly nasty SC.