Holiday Shopping - Former Retail Employees Perspective

(warning: this post gets kind of random, and goes all over the place)
Right now it is the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Thousands of people flock to stores, to purchase gifts for their loved ones. I have found through personal experiance, this turns nice, pleasant, people, into complete and total assholes.

I spent over seven years of my life working in retail. The mentality of many members of the general public disgust me. If any of you wonder why it seems that some retail employees don't seem to care about you, I shall share some of my experiances with you, so you might better understand the mentality of someone who works in a retail store. I started out as an average, run of the mill employee, and worked my way up to management, so I can comment from experiances at every level.

Each retail store has its own terminology, so I will do my best to use laymens terms, although it isn't natural for me.
After straightening up an aisle with closet organization and hangers, I moved on to the next aisle, which was dish soap, air fresheners, and garbage cans. After two minutes in that aisle, someone asked me for help. I gladly followed them into the aisle I just finished. There were packages of closet organizers ripped open (not unsnapped with the contents taken out, but the package itself was torn), hangers all over the floor, and a few boxes ripped open (down the side of the box, like someone was ripping wrapping paper.) Since I had just finished fixing that aisle, I knew I was looking eye to eye with the person who did it. They then asked me a question about something, I don't remember specifically what. Because of the thoughtlessness of that one person, It added 45 minutes of work to my evening. I had to tape up all those ripped boxes and packages, because retail stores are not factories. They don't make and package the items in the store.

Many of my more entertaining incidents were in the electronics department. Mind you, I was 20 years old, making $6.50 an hour. My responsibilities are to keep things neat and answer questions. A woman came in at 8:15am on a saturday morning. She holds up the ad that came out sunday (6 days prior) and points to a stereo that was on the front page for a rediculously low price. I politely say "I'm sorry, we are sold out of it." She responds by throwing her ad paper at me, telling me I'm an asshole and I shouldn't fuck people over like that, and storms out of the store. (on a related note, an 18 year old girl who weighed in at 98 pounds soaking wet I worked with was hit in the face by a shampoo bottle an old man threw at her, because we were out of another type of shampoo.)

After a few years, I moved up to managment. I was over electronics at the time, and was helping someone with a camera. They said they wanted a camera with an "automatic zoom lens." If any of you know anything about camera's, you probably know that there is no such thing. I politely ask if they mean auto focus, since auto-zoom doesn't exhist. They proceed to call me stupid, and ask for someone who "knows a little more about the department."

Another incident, happened when I was over another area of the store, as the stress of recieving insults for things out of my control was making me sick and doing a lot of damage to my health. I was over furniture, and someone asked me if we had a "whole section" of rice paper lamps. I said no, we only had the two or three in the lamp aisle. They asked to see them. I walked down the aisle, showed them all three, to which they replied "we've already seen them." They then asked me if I was completely sure there weren't more somewhere else. I told them yes, I was completely sure. They left. Two minutes later, I hear my name called on the walkie talkie. I answer, I get asked "do you know if we carry rice paper lamps?" I answer "we have three in the lamp aisle." Ten minutes later, my name gets called on the walkie talkie again. "Do we carry rice paper lamps?" I answer again. Five minutes later, it happens again.

I just remembered another electronics story. Several years ago, there was an earthquake in some third world country, that leveled a factory that made computer chips for the Game Boy Color. It was the second year it was out, so it was still in heavy demand. We, along with every retailer in the US, were sold out for several weeks. I had a phone call for them, which I told the person we don't have any. Then I got the, "are you sure?" I then stated yes, as we have been sold out for several weeks. I then began to tell her why, which she replied "I heard that story from a bunch of people, who's your buyer for the store?" I then told them we don't have a buyer for the store, which she called me a liar and asked for a manager.

So, I shall explain the way large chain retail works (at least the store I worked for). Stores do not control the exact number of everything that they recieve. We get what our corporate office thinks we will sell. They are rarely right. We do not have a buyer for the store, who says we need 70 DVD players.

Stores do not control, or have ANY influence on what goes into the NATIONAL ad. Since we have no control over how many of an item we receive, if we sell out quickly, its actually not the fault of anyone in the store.

We do not know when something is going to come in. The next days truck is literally loaded that day. I had someone argue with me that is stupid, since we can't tell somone when something is going to be in. The reason why it is done that way, is if something sells out quickly and unexpectedly, it can be replenished in a day or two, instead of having to wait over a week, for that truck to get to the store, since there are 5+ in line in front of it.

99% of items are not ordered by anyone. A computer keeps track of every item sold, tells us when things need to be pulled from the stockroom to fill what is empty on the floor, and when our supply is below the corporate set minimum, requests our distribution center to send more on the next available truck. It is a very streamlined and effective system, as it involves next to no human tabulation.

Since theft of items, and some human error do play a part, the manager of the area will go through once a week, and with a handheld scanner (LRT, PDT, Telzon...) scan everything that is out or low, and key in how many are on the shelf. If the inventory # is off, it updates it, if there are any in the back, it asks them to be pulled and stocked. An area with a ton of small items like health and beauty and pharmacy, literally gets 8 bottles of shampoo, and a box of tylenol coming out a week. Everything else that is out, is legitamantly out.

In other words, the people in the store have very little control over how many they have or what is on sale. Yelling at the kid making little money, or the manager, isn't actually going to do anything to fix the problem. The problem was caused by someone sitting in an office, making 6 figures a year. So, please, be polite to retail employees. Most are trying their best to serve you, but get insulted and assaulted from every angle over the holidays. It literally kills your holiday spirit, and can easily put someone in an upleasent mood. Being told you are "going to hell" because your store doesn't carry popcorn in tins anymore isn't good for the psyche.

I no longer refer to the holiday as Christmas, because our society has driven it far away from being about Christ. Its about buying things, and material possessions now. That is why, you will see me regularly say or type "Krimmus."