Jun 26, 2009
Is Retail Management Really That Bad?
I read this excerpt from the article Why Retail Management Sucks the other day and my eyes were opened:
At 8:20 you finally get back to receiving. Luckily it is the Pepsi Vendor who you are good friends with. You are thinking you finally have a minute to relax and shoot the shit with a friend when you hear, “return at register 1.” You make your way to register one and the customer explains to you that the .25 coupon was not rung up correctly. Unfortunately, your corporation has made it impossible to do a refund without canceling out the entire transaction. You explain this to the customer and she asks “isn’t there an easier way?” Yes, there is; take the quarter and stick it up your ass! Instead, you ring up all 22 items she bought again and make sure to ring up the .25 coupon at the end. It takes ten minutes for her to save .25, but I am sure it was worth it.
For much more, make sure to read the entire article at Subprime Blogger. The question I am posing today is “is retail management really this bad or is this embellished? Any of you who have worked in retail in any capacity are encourged to comment. I would like to hear from those of you who have to deal with the public every single day.
typical retail manager pricks. instead of blaming the .25 cent coupon headache on their employer’s shenanegins, they blame it on the customer for “not getting in line.”
I am guessing you have never worked in retail Tony
Tony, not all customers are a pain in the ass, just the ones like you.
THIS STUFF HAPPENS EVERYOTHER DAY ,IRRITABLE CUSTOMERS COME IN GET UPSET AND PART OF YOUR JOB IS TO BE UNDERSTANDABLE AND HAPPILY HELP THE CUSTOMER HAVE A WONDERFUL TIME IN YOU STORE. BUT INSTEAD HAVING 100% CUSTOMER SERVICE THIS MAN OR WOMAN WAS 100 % LAZY. TWO THUMBS DOWN
From personal experience, being grinding on by each and every customer, year after year, it is impossible to continue to give good customer service. The only people that can do it are the ones who are puppets for their respective corporations.
Been there, done that. It’s the toughest business I’ve ever been in. You catch it from employees, corporate and customers, the hours suck and to make a decent paycheck you have to work 60 hours per week.
Other than that, it’s great……
Working at store level in retail can pretty tough. Major retailers claim to be focused on their customer-facing employees and the customer experience, but all too often it seems they see store level payroll as an expense to be minimized rather than one of the keys to driving revenues.
RETAIL SUCKS!! It is very hard because of the hours, lack of communication between the ranks, customers and co-workers. When you get promoted you expect to gain some sort of respect, but that doesn’t happen. In turn you get stuck with alot of the slack that managers leave you with and co-workers. You are pretty much on call and ….well you get the point….. a revolving door of misery.
No really it sucks balls, big, hairy sticky ones and its more or less the same with every company so here is some of the things I’ve picked up, in rant form:
*You are a souless minion and puppet to your area/regional manager
*Your whole team hates you for putting your foot down, even though an informal ‘don’t do that again’ is the alternative to the area manager firing people - which the cocksucker does with relish - and know he does not suck cocks with relish.
*The senior supervisor reffered to hereafter as “Little Jim” is another dead-eyed-minion-puppet-creature with no life of his own. He is a backstabbing little rat who makes list of shit you do wrong to report to the masters at H/O. If its any consolation his greatest punishment for being the slimey little dick he is, is being him.
*Everyone has to stay late unpaid for an hour and a half to ‘acheive the shop floor standards’ - the only person who doesn’t mind is little jim- and by the way those pigs bastards in head office get an errection just thinking about staff staying late unpaid.
*You have to motivate your team with daily breifs and corny company catch phrases ‘premium product, you know what that means? PREMIUM PRESENTATION GUYS!’ - Little Jim really buys into that crap and on your day off he terrorises the staff with it making them hate you more.
*You are snowed under with needless paperwork that will never be used. Little Jim stays late every night ot make sure its all done perfectly.
*Every time you reapear on the shopfloor EVERYONE scatters and pretends to work while avoiding doing anything, thus mainting the cycle of having to stay late - this makes no sense?
*You will hate the people who pick what we listen to OVER AND OVER ALL DAY (I hate you michael buble.) Music is dead to me.
*When you ask if H/O’s latest hairbrain scheme to mistreat the workers is really legal/ethical the fabled contract nobody has ever seens is referenced (this is presumebly the place you signed your soul away with a flaming fucking quill pen to a red skinned guy holding a trident.)
*Once an area manager actually gave us in inscentive that if we maxed out our targets he would buy us all a burger each. Wow. Little Jim is already fat enough from all the microwave dinners he eats at his swanky bedsit ‘flat’
*H/O has a thousand and one ways of taking all your bonus money away.
*If you work in high end retail, you find yourself at odds with a company that charges £400 for a crap jacket and pays its workers mimimum wage, while the workers themselves seem to have an ‘I’m holier than thout, becuase I work for this company and its rad’ attitude
Oh yeah what else, crazy customers, SHOCKING pay - your freind who empties bins earns more.
Thats pretty much it - apart from that the up side is you get to pick when you want your lunch hour.
Yes it blows. The hours are probably the worst part. Get paid for 40 and work 60….not ideal. Oh, and making anything under $60k/year isn’t that great since you will likely have to manage 100+ employees at a bigger store….if not all of them.
Retail management is horrible! I have worked for a large retailer since graduating college (ECONOMY SUCKS ONLY SOLID SECTOR OUTSIDE HEATHCARE). This is my average day:
-Dealing with idiotic stupid employees all day. The majority of retail employees outside management have horrible work ethics and usually struggle with every minimal average task, including reading.
- Horrible customers. American consumers are ass holes. They have no regards to anything but getting their shit and getting out while making a mess. The weekends are the worse. People are off work and their ass-hole meter is even higher. They treat me like a pos, even though I most likely make more than %75 of them and are higher educated.
-D head corporate workers. Most of these clowns have no retail experience. They are hired in from outside industries to make my life even worse.
- I make good money being a retail mgr. However, I now hate every person in the world and would advise no on to get into this profession inless they want to hate their life.
retail management sucks ass! been in it for 26 years and am on the verge of shooting myself,,customers are rude, corporate doesnt care about anything but the almighty dollar and if i could make more money being a whore i would, at least i would have better hours!