It’s been a LONG weekend. Normally, working all weekend isn’t too bad. Especially working on Sunday’s; they go by quickly. We open at 11, close at 6pm. Easy 8 hours! However, this weekend of working at JCP was not too great.. By the way, I’m filling this post with happy pictures of Disney stuff to make me feel better..
Let’s start with Saturday night. I was closing and before my co-worker got off work, we had some crazy mean people come in! It’s interesting to me how often people get mad because we didn’t just give them ALL the discounts even though we aren’t allowed to. People who shop at JCP often know the typical coupon rules:
1. We can only use one coupon per transaction
2. We can only split your stuff into two transactions.
If we associates don’t follow these, we get in trouble. And yes, the cameras work. I’ve has people say “So I can walk out and walk back in?” A year ago, I said yes one time. Then I found out that was a mistake because I could’ve gotten in big trouble. Someone else did right after I did that. Luckily, it wasn’t me! So now I kindly say, “Actually no. Those cameras (point to them) work and they’ll know who you and I are.” After that, people usually shut up and do it our way. Most of our coupons have a kill code, meaning once it’s used it cannot work again. People try to use them more than once too. It’s insane! We feel like we tell people constantly but it makes no difference. It’s hard to make people mad but keep a smile on your face. We do our best.
Another problem I had this weekend was that people (customers) seriously doubted my ability to work! I had one lady insist on my co-worker helping her instead even though we were swamped. She thought I was not giving her her “discount” when the reality was that I wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t know I needed to be quicker than 2 minutes BEFORE you decided to take items out. Which made me have to start all over!
Then today, I had a lady yell at my co-worker saying I probably didn’t know what I was doing. She just wanted help finding a size in a specific type of men’s underwear. While she was going crazy to my co-worker in front of several other customers, I dropped what I was doing in women’s and went over to the men’s underwear area to help. I started looking for the size but realized she didn’t tell me what cut of briefs she wanted; low cut, full cut or boxer. I waited for 8 minutes for her to follow me back there. I gave up and saw people were at my register. I went to leave but then heard this “Hey you! Did you find them?!” I knew this was directed at me. I replied “Oh there you are!” With a smile. “You didn’t tell me what cut of briefs you wanted. I do t see too many in size small.” Freaking out, the lady wanted boxer briefs in white. We are a small store so as weird as it sounds it can be hard to get the right sizes. After searching, finding a package of briefs tore open while shes going crazy at me for not being fast enough, I discovered our store only had those in colors. No whitey tideys. “Don’t you have some in the back?!” Another rule from corporate:
3. No items in back stock. Everything needs to be out on the sales floor. This is not a new rule either. So I told her… And she got pissed!
She started yelling at me like it was my fault. She said she wanted to see the small anyways. I grabbed a colored package of stalls but that was not what she wanted. No, she wanted me to pull the white ones out of my ass and magically make them appear. Sorry, I can’t do that! I told her we could order the right size for them. I told her twice, and after the second time she screamed, “Well why the hell didn’t you say that in the first place!” Fed up, I honestly said “Because you didn’t ask.” We ordered the size small of whitey tideys for her pissed of son, and she was happy. Didn’t apologize for her behavior but said thank you several times. I still don’t know if she was truly thankful of my HARD work, 10 minutes before we closed.
All evening before closing, I just kept wanting to finish people’s transaction and say, “Thank you. Now get out. Oh I’m sorry, that was rude. Please GET OUT.” If you’ve been to Disneyland and you’ve been on the Jungle Cruise, you get the joke. For those of you who haven’t experienced the best place ever, they always say that line at the end of the ride. I love it!
I should’ve got a job at Disneyland. Then I could mean it and nobody would care! It’s the happiest place on earth! Lol
I needed to write this all out. On my way home, both days started to affect me a little more than normal. I was emotional, and tired. I’m only human! We all make mistakes. Even if we don’t, aren’t we allowed to once? Aren’t we allowed to share our feelings? Not if we work in retail. I still think that EVERYONE should work in retail at least once in their life. You learn a lot about people & their attitudes. As well as their attention span!
Thanks for reading! It has been a rough couple days. Time for bed!!
Small Town Dreamer 