Fairwell

This blog has no complaining. In fact, it is just the opposite. I would like to use my last blog post to say "thanks" to my small legion of faithful followers who have read, or at least claimed to read, my blogs. It was a lot of fun doing this as a school assignment, but also to share my pains with all of you. Maybe some of you can relate to what I am going through because you have similar issues at your jobs. I just want everyone to know that I am generally a very happy person, and I don't need counseling. I just figured ranting about retail would be easy since I entertain my co-workers in the same manner all the time. I sincerely hope you found these blogs entertaining!
I have decided not to post on this blog any further for a couple of reasons: I don't plan on having this job much longer because I am completing my college coursework in a week! (Sound the victory music here) Also, I am just not that grumpy and cold-hearted of a person as this blog makes me out to be. I found myself really struggling to come up with topics to bitch about towards the end there; as evident as the last minute rush of blog posts is.
I may start another blog some day, but for now I am going to focus on doing things I love to do in my new free time, as well as finding a job to settle in to and make a fine career out of. I just ask that those that really care and would like to follow me stay tuned, I'm sure you will see me in the media for one reason or the other; hopefully it isn't because I did something stupid. So thanks everyone!

Classy Heavy Lifting

This blog is going to give away where I work. At the same time, I will not mention the company's name, therefore it these blogs will not appear when searching the company's name, and they will not be able to stop it!
If you have ever shopped in a sporting goods store, and the employees were all dressed in shirts and ties, you have found the company I work for. There is your hint haha. I know what you are thinking, and you are correct. The employees really do hate shaving every day and wearing shirts and ties (the guys that is, obviously). The girls, equally, hate wearing uni-colored tops and nice dress pants. However, it is the guys who do all the heavy lifting, and me, having a Y chromosome, must wear a shirt and tie. This provides a unique situation I like to call "Classy Heavy Lifting."
In the event that a customer has decided to purchase a basketball hoop system, a treadmill, a weight set, or just a shitload of stuff, it is our job to grab a hand dolly, throw our ties over our shoulders, and lift these huge items on to that dolly. That's the easy part. Next comes wheeling these huge items from the backroom to the front of the store without wiping out valuable merchandise. Once paid for, the real fun begins: "What vehicle will we be loading this in to today, Ma'am?" "Oh, it's that cute Honda Civic over there." DAMMIT. I don't know what stings worse; the shaving every day or the amount of my monthly spending that goes in to keeping my shirts dust free for my employer. Why can't we just be like target and where a red tee shirt and cargo pants? Because we are classy, that's why!

I would quit if we carried this thing at our store:

Just Pick One, Please? My Feet Hurt

I'm going to call this a throw-back blog. Starting out with the company I work for at the management level requires supervision of the shoe department; a key element is selling shoes. Now ladies, please don't get offended by this, but I have the experience to back this claim and I think you will find it hard to refute it: Women are monsters when they are shoe shopping. Ask to try on six pairs, and if the salesman is lucky, you buy one, or the Holy Grail, two. The irony here is while the woman is asking to try on all these shoes because her walking shoes are hurting her feet, the salesman is walking two or three miles over the course of walking back and forth between her and the stockroom.
Is this really necessary? If you ask her, it is: It has to be the right color, it has to provide enough support, it has to look CUTE, it has to match her jogging clothes, it has to breathe well, it can't make her feet look too big or too small, it has to be high on the ankle to offer ankle support but it can't be too high because then it won't look right, and OMG, the laces can't be too long or too short. Trust me, the paragraph I just typed didn't take several minutes to compile. I literally typed that out in seconds because I have done this OVER AND OVER AND OVER again and heard the same things OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Vince Vaughn would explode from the neck and his head would shoot off like a rocket if he had to be a shoe salesman at Macy's (not saying that is where I work) for more than five minutes.
I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Phew, I'm spent.

No Hablo Ingles

As the title suggests, I really wish I could say that and people would believe me. I'm gonna go get a tanning membership right now. The company I work for is huge on newspaper advertisement. Who reads the newspaper these days? Mostly the aging elite that are holding fast in their stand against technology. The main feature with these people - diminishing eye sight. Fun stuff. They come in with their newspaper advertisements, having misread the name, price, and general function of the item that has caught their eye, then decide to ask me where it is. My response: "Move the paper you are holding and look down." Their next utterance, "Oh, these are them?" and my final reply, "The one's with the HUGE, BRIGHTLY colored tags that list the sale price? Yes, those are them." Never fails. I feel like I am Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Haven't seen it? That's because you were probably barely born by the time in came out in the 80's. That just my movie fondness spilling over in to my writing, but I digress. The plot of the film is that Bill Murray has no soul, he is a well-known, wealthy public figure in the broadcasting industry (something I hope to be some day, but with a soul instead) that is forced to wake up to Groundhog Day in a small town every day, until he learns his moral lesson. I'm starting to fit that bill, my soul is hardening, but there is still some soft spots that might spread after Christmas.
I feel like I am repeating the same events every day at work, the same old people who forgot their glasses but still DROVE to the store. The clueless customers whose hands I have to hold and asses I have to wipe, and the customers who are waiting outside the door 20 minutes before we open. I have no answer for this cycle, except "No hablo ingles."

Just Wingin' It

Holiday season is in full swing and my patience is going to be stretched. There is no way around it. I thought I might be running out of topics to gripe about since I'm not normally this bitchy, but now that the Holidays are here!... The number of shoppers in our store is now increasing, and it reminds me of the recent changes in firearms and ammunition laws that are soon to be going in to effect in California. I had just been discussing with a frequent ammo buyer the reasoning for the news laws and my philosophies about them. For those of you who aren't aware of these laws, I will explain: Starting in June of this coming year, ammo buyers will be required to submit a thumb print for any and all ammo purchases, but there will not be a set limit on the quantity they can buy. However, in February of 2011, customers will be required to provide a thumb print, and WILL be limited on the amount of ammo they can buy, per caliber, per month.
My understanding of this new legislation goes something like this: It doesn't matter how many smart people there are in a large group (like say 30 million ;-) ), there will always be those stupid people surrounding them. The government can't possibly regulate on a person-to-person basis, so they create blanket legislature to cover everybody. Therefore, the law-abiding citizens (no movie reference) that come in and complain to me about the new laws have no recourse.
Where am I going with this? - You ask? Such is true with the retail world, especially during the holidays. Remember, this blog is about all the things that frustrate me on a near-daily basis while at work, not about all the nice little gestures that a couple customers do during the day, because I wouldn't have enough material for a steady blog.
The majority of the customers that come in to our store know at least a little bit about the product they intend to buy. Fine, good for them; it makes things much smoother. My "beef" if you will is with the people who prepared themselves by sitting on the couch, watching the game, realizing they just HAVE to have something, and walk through the door without a clue. It gets worse - then the customer proceeds to asking for every item in the display case, asking 100 questions, 98 of which are pointless in determining the best product, and I am left to stand there hoping the people above me in the chain of command don't bite my head off for not getting any tasks done around the store. Now I am standing there thinking, "Man I wish I could just B.S. this guy 'cause he wouldn't know the difference." He's standing there saying, "Well I like this one, I think I'll take....oooooo but can I see those?" @#&$^!($*!!!!!!
So I have a simple request: Shoppers, please do a little research, you'll make yourself feel smarter and make my day smoother. And just keep something in mind.....They're just @%*#ing binoculars!

You get What You See

A lot of retailers carry extra stock in their back room. The retailer I work for is not one of them. I completely understand, although am still frustrated by, the questions, "Is this all you have?" or "Is there any more in the back?" The worst in when I am way across the store with another customer, or embroiled in a project and have to drop what I am doing just to answer that question. And worst of all, sometimes it is a customer that I know shops in our store frequently, and has even asked that question before! Our backroom is tiny, really, it's small. We are not Target or Wal-Mart, but we make our space count on our sales floor. I'd be more than happy to find it at another one of our locations for you, and I don't even know why that question bothers me so much; I guess I'm just sick of hearing it and tired of retail. #@$& my life. Ok, that was a little harsh, but this blog really wasn't funny, so I had to throw it in there.

Here's a funny video (at least I think so):

Trapped without Taking the Bait

Ladies and gentlemen, I have just come up with an idea for a cheesy commercial. I should have patented this first, because it's so good that someone is going to read this and you will see it on TV in 6 months:
Here's to you oh innocent bystander of the never-ending story!
I mentioned in an earlier blog that I must look like the "nice guy" of the group despite my black collared shirts and hurried pace with which I walk through the store. What do you do when you get stuck listening to a long boring story from an old man with plenty of material? Even I don't have the balls to stop them and say, "I don't give a @#*!" I don't think you do either. I should subpoena for help from my employer since they would probably help if they knew how much money they were wasting paying me to listen to long, drawn-out stories. But on the other hand, it's better than lifting a heavy treadmill on to the back of a Geo Metro.
Then, a week later, after I have finally recovered, they re-appear, call me over by name, and I am their new best friend. Oh the hells and nightmares of retail! What a great commercial this would be!