Can't always get what you want.

You can’t always get what you want. No matter whom you are. Especially, if you just got hired, and are trying to argue with you manager. It’s a Tuesday night and I’m closing. There are markdowns & marketing to do. This is when certain items in the store get a clearance sticker on them and you have to figure out a way to market the new price point. After instructing a newer associate how to refold some sweat pants, I proceed to ask her to mark them down as well. She replies, “Are you serious.” Um, yes that is what I just asked you to do, are you okay? She goes, “I’m just livid.” Now I’ve only heard this word a few times and it was not a good situation. Hearing this statement come out of this girl’s mouth frusterated the hell out of me, as well as made me laugh.

 As I’m setting up this markdown gun for her, she whips out her iPhone are starts texting away, I look up and say, “Are you texting all your friends what a mean manager you have”? No just my brother. What nerve. Anyways, show her how to mark these pants down, which really is nothing more difficult that a 5 year old could probably do. Once completed with that assignment she approaches me with the question, “What’s next.” And not the kind of peppy voice you’re assuming came out of her, like I asked her to starve herself for three weeks and then run a marathon kind of tone. I think to myself, I’m scheduled…no WE’RE scheduled to stay until 2am, and I’m not letting this little girl get her way.

I go on by telling her what other items have to get marked down. Which by the way, I had two other employees AS WELL AS MYSELF, doing this markdowns. She acted as if I was out to get her. I hear her saying how she’s just in a bad mood because she’s been up since 6am doing hair. Did I tell you that you had to take on a second job? Did I purposely schedule you a day that I had no idea you even had another job on the same day?

This...is a kesha.

 No to both of those questions if not already assumed. Is putting stickers on price tags too agonizing for ya? I even offered if she wanted to switch with another person so she would be straightening up the clothes instead of doing markdowns, “NO, I’M FINE.” Was what I got. After making her mark down the other half of the store she approaches me with another “NOW WHAT”. I threw up a peace sign and said you can go home now. She goes, “No, really, what now.” As if she really thinks I WANT her there to listen to her heavy signs and complaining. No, you can really go home. She clocks out and leaves, walks back in the door 3 minutes later because she forgot her Ke$ha34@#$%$&** CD.

 Does that give you any idea what this girl’s like? “She needs to chill the fuck out, and smoke a bowl or something”, Came out of the mouth of another worker after kesha left the building.

The customer's always right.

The saying of 'the customer's always right'...is wrong. As a manager of a retail store and being an employee for two previous years, I've learned, the customer's NOT always right, in fact a lot of the time they're dead wrong. The other day there was a customer shopping around, mind she had a coupon. Once at the register to check out she asks the cashier “am I able to use this today”? The cashier looks at the coupon [EXPIRES 11.15.2010.] it was already mid December. The cashier replies, “no ma’am unfortunately the coupon expired last month.” Pause…”Is that your manager over there”? Pointing in my direction as I overheard this whole conversation. “Yes it is actually.” I pull my head up asking if there’s something I can help them with. She goes, “Am I able to use this”? It’s a coupon for 30% off our entire collection, automatically I think wow this customer spends a lot of money here. “No it actually expired last month; you should have gotten a coupon recently that doesn’t expire until after Christmas.” Pause. She pulls it from her other hand acting as if I caught her stealing or something? The cashier goes to throw it away and after the transaction is complete she goes, “Well let me have that back because the OTHER stores let me use it.” It’s funny how someone can make you feel so uncomfortable by you just following the rules. If I let you use that coupon, you’re cheating the system because all you’re doing is constantly getting a discount, which is fine, if you don’t wait until a month later to use it. If no coupons expired, what makes it any more wrong of me to take a coupon from last year? There’s a date on it for a reason and I don’t know what it’s like to be royalty and get my way everywhere I go because I’m an overworked, stressed out, middle aged parent who’s buying clothes for their kids, not even themselves.

 Another funny story. A woman comes in with a pair of jeans that had a rip down the crotch seam, they were her daughter’s jeans that she had bought for back to school, AKA August. We actually sold out of the jeans after they went down to $19.95, in fact all the stores in the district did. It is wrong that they ripped after a couple of months, but let me continue. I ask her if she has the receipt, no. I’m going to have to give you store credit for $19.95, because that was the price of the denim before we clearanced out of them. “Well that’s just not right, so you’re telling me you have NO other jeans like this.” Well I can show you some that are pretty much the same color, same style, same fit, just a different price. “How much is the price difference”? She demands. I go to the register, “You would owe us around $20.00 because the jeans you’d be purchasing are still full price.” “Um, can’t you look up how much I paid for them using my rewards card”? We are technically not allowed to do that, only because once again. There are boundaries for a reason, you lose your receipt, and you get store credit. Being interested in how much she ACTUALLY paid for them, I go along with the woman. I swipe her card and go to the month of August, I check the tag, scroll down, and what do I see…$5.95. I approach the woman with a sense of confidence. I let her know that she only paid 6 bucks for a pair of jeans and odds are she used a coupon at the time of buying them taking that $20 pair of jeans to $6. She was definatly in shock.

She tries to laugh like nothing ever happened; now I’m her best friend. I tell her that she probably should go with my original idea of crediting those jeans for store credit. She giggles and agrees. Once again showing that the customer is not always right, there are rules for a reason, and that there’s more to managing clothes than many believe.

Management Vs. Parenting

When hired as an employee your first thoughts may be; money, money, money. At least, that’s what mine were. I got a job because I had to get a car and I had to get a car to get to my job. I was probably one of the more reliable employees where I was hired because anytime someone needed a shift covered, I’d always take it. Nowadays, I’m seeing people who beg for these minimum wage jobs, then once hired, won’t do shit.

I think that with the change of everything in this new world, our work ethic had dramatically decreased. I have to train a lot of the new hires and the expression on some of their faces when I ask them to do something so daunting as getting a fitting room or taking out the garbage is quite delightful. You got hired here to do this; you’re actually getting PAID right now to do this, why are you complaining? I wish that was more of a rhetorical question. My parents both always tell me how they would work 50 hour weeks so on and so forth and there are 16-18 year olds getting hired where they act as if it’s the end of the world to do simple tasks. I didn’t ASK you if you wanted an application, in most cases, you turned one in, in hopes to get a call back-interview-then hired. It’s not fair for companies and businesses to be wasting time training kids like this who act as if they’re some sort of royalty.

Not to mention it’s a waste of payroll, or even other associates or perspective workers who might actually NEED a job, not just want one because they don’t get enough allowance a week. To me, your work ethic is your morals. That is what your drive is through life. My drive is to get happy, be successful in myself and not having to worry about living paycheck to paycheck. With that, I work hard to get the money I need to do things in my everyday life I consider a pleasure. It is hard to judge someone who is asking for a job, because you don’t really know what they will turn out like upon being hired. Someone can talk you into thinking they are the best worker alive, and deserve nothing but to be accepted into the workplace. On their first day they have a hard time grasping that, YES I DO expect you to work just as hard as you wanted this job because YOU told me how hard of a worker you were.

If you want something bad enough, work for it. You can’t expect to get what you want without effort. Don’t expect to get respect by being just the opposite. Hard concepts? No they are not. I think that this society as we know it is going downhill. Kids are more concerned with their iPhones or headphones while people across the world are worried about if they’re going to have a meal to eat the next day. Fair? No. Parents aren’t setting boundaries and it’s clear in the workplace with the outcome of these new faces in the ‘working world’. In conclusion, it’s sad to say that the parents themselves don’t even have the time of day to see these occurrences in their very own households.

Original.

Originality is something that’s individual. It is a personal option, opinion, and choice. To say that something is original means that’s it’s ‘origin’. So I bring up this question. Would wearing a North Face jacket everyday be original? Would buying what people literally call POTATO shoes [aka Birkenstocks] be original? Probably NO to both of those questions.

I will not lie, when I was in my freshman year of high school I bought a North Face jacket, and it wasn’t because they were super comfortable or really warm, it was because everyone had one. I gave it to Plato’s Closet the next year and got $30.00 for that thing. It goes to show that me even buying that jacket for $99.99 is a waste of time. They’ve become so popular that you WILL find them at Plato’s closets and even Urban Outfitters is starting to sell the brand. It’s just selling a name in all honesty.

You can go to a thrift store and find that same style of jacket for 5 bucks. Why do people not do that though? It’s because it doesn’t say North Face. Really though, if you actually liked that jacket it should be morally incorrect to be spending that much money on some letters that someone sewed on a coat. If you want to be ORIGINAL you would buy that jacket because that’s what you like, not what everybody else does. If you were like me at that age, I’m sure your parents would appreciate the effort to spend less as well.

Being original would be creating something new or having something that nobody else does on an everyday basis. Do you want to buy that band t-shirt with neon letters? Oh wait which band is it because when those guys found out that’s what’s selling, they all turned to bright colored with animations on them. I’d rather just buy a shirt that says the band’s name on it then something that looks like someone threw up the rainbow on it and you can barely make out what the font says. Let’s buy a shirt that says HOLLISTER CO. across the front of it. The shirts that I buy don’t say TARGET on them. That’s all that certain brands have become the brand. It’s just advertising where you bought something. Victoria Secret sweat pants say PINK down the side of them because…? It’s simply product placement and showing off how much money you spent on those sweat pants that you could’ve easily found without the obnoxious print down the legs or even better across your ass cheeks. Is that what has become of our retail services? Even Miley Cyrus brand at Wal-Mart doesn’t say MILEY on them. Overall, the origin of your clothes is on the tags, it’s not original to wrap it across your chest.

Crocs & Comfort

Crocs for comfort... I agree because when crocs FIRST came out I had nothing to say. I was in shock that people were wearing these garden shoes for their 24-7 shoes. What really is the point of them? Are they supposed to feel like you’re not even wearing shoes? They look like something a doctor should be wearing when working a 10 hour shift. If that’s the case, then I don’t even think they look that safe. Safe, as in secure. I think that rubber shoes should be used for fishermen fly fishing in a river bend. Not for society. Now they are starting to make crocs in disguise. The flat ones so that if you wear jeans that are really long, you won’t even be able to tell you’re wearing them. The name Croc reminds me of a crocodile. They look like alligators in a way. Rubber alligators with holes throughout the shoe. On top of that they try to make them fun by having pins that little kids can put on them. Maybe take them to the beach? I just think that the sand would get stuck in them and you would regret ever buying those damn things. Will I pay thirty dollars to buy some shaped rubber? Hells no, buy real shoes with LEATHER and rubber that will last you for YEARS. They actually have crocs that have wedges now, sad? It’s like the business woman that couldn’t handle wearing REAL shoes for 10 years so resorted to these bad boys.  I was walking through the mall the other day and there was a whole STORE of crocs! Not just a kiosk…A STORE. Do you want to know how many people were in there? Two, both employees behind the register. To me the crocs should be kept outside by the dirt, not strolling around town.

Shapeups for comfort…I guess because I don’t know what else they’d be good for? If you want to be two inches taller just wear high heels. If you’re a guy who wants to be two inches taller, just don’t where shapeups? Instead of the alligator shoes, these are like horse hooves. People are supposed to wear them to work out, what happened to Nike? How can you carry them on your feet?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVTT6_iEQEI

They could not have this commercial with ACTUAL shapeups, because that would not be sexy. It would probably be offensive if anything. Congratulations for finally realizing that that extra two inches of rubber are not appeasing. So what happens? They keep the comfort of the shapeup shoe and flatten them out like they should’ve done in the beginning. Yes, I still think that the advertisement is ridiculous, but as mentioned before, a LOT better than the hooves. It’s like the shoes from the 90s that kids had from Vans that literally made you noticeably taller. Shoes have evolved from bad to worse, but I have to give someone credit for at least trying for originality. As with the Ugs and many other stereotypical shoes, they end up becoming ‘all the rage’ once one person has them.

RetailRetailRetail...

For being a manager at a retail store, it’s hard to see society the same way. Humans have transformed themselves into materialistic fools. You would be so surprised to see how many moms and crazy grandparents that get SO upset because we don’t carry the ONE item they came to the store to receive. We actually offer free shipping to order merchandise online to their house and it takes about a week, that would be too long to wait though right? I mean you need these jeans so bad that you’re willing to drive to the mall 30 miles south just to attain them. I am so sorry that I am such an inconvenience in your day today. There are always those customers that think that the extra small they’re looking for is at the BOTTOM of the folded pile of shirts. There are actually size stickers IN ORDER for customers to see what size they are looking at. This still won’t stop that rampaging mother who needs that t-shirt for her 13 year old daughter who HAS to have THAT one out of twenty t-shirts on the table, BUT was too lazy to try to get it herself. A matter of fact ASK an employee whose 3 feet to your right if you would be kind enough to get it for you because it is only our job.

 Yes I understand every customer should be asked if they need any help or assistance, but when that is clearly not an option for the anti-social, then no it is not my first priority to want to try to keep conversing with you. It’s the best when you’re ringing someone up at the register and they just can’t seem to get off of their phone?! It’s as if I’m only a stepping stone in their life and they need me to ring up their items without saying ONE word to them and on top of that won’t even make eye contact.

 On the other hand there are the regulars. The customers that know your name, and always come to you if they need anything. They are the customers that get the highest percentage coupons and know all the promotions due to stalking our website. Which, I am totally okay with because some people are defiantly clueless when it comes to basic knowledge. They spend a lot of money there and are always so nice and guess what? They say “hi” back to you when welcomed into the store!

It is a CRAZY concept that not every being can grasp, these few regulars make it worthy of my time to want to get to know everyone I encounter in and outside of work. Working retail is defiantly not for everyone, it does although have its perks. I get to see the trends throughout the seasons, have conversations with people of all different ages and origins, and gain a new sense of respect for every other retailer in the world.

Underdressed in Overalls.

I can understand how history has affected the way we dress today in MANY ways. Look at our modern day sandals; they are described as GLADIATOR shoes. Where did that term come from? Gladiators. High wasted skirts, where did those come from? The seventies and eighties created that style. One thing I’ve noticed evolving in the world are…rompers. The word ‘romper’ makes me think of a nine year old playing at the zoo. Second of all the romper seems to be overalls, turned into shorts, with fabric instead of denim. On top of THAT, people are wearing overalls, without actually working on a farm?? I understand if you have no clean pants…or shirts and decided to throw on anything you can find in your closet. But not ONE piece of material that covers up the whole shebang. Also, has anyone else noticed what a lot of these rompers do to woman? It looks like you have a wedgie from the waste up. In a way it seems like the look came from the whole “boy fit” shorts. As in, loose are baggie pants to put on. The craze was apparently passed on to overalls. Baggy pants with straps over your shoulders. Overalls should only be worn if you’re up to your waste in cow shit. Not loungin’ around your house or when you decide to go to the movies. There is literally NO point in these ‘onesies’. It makes me feel as if you had a house fire…but it was JUST in your closet and you just happened to fall asleep the night before wearing a one piece bathing suit that magically made you think it looked good to wear as a real-life outfit. THAT’S what these things are; it’s an oversized bathing suit, right? Honestly, you would be better off just taking scissors and cutting this man made modern overall in half. That way it would seem as if you’re just wearing matching shirt and pants. That brings me to think that rompers are almost like uniforms. Conforming to be wearing all one color, and no graphics or print will not help the situation out at all. I think you could almost wear your father’s XXL sweater and look better than rompin’ around in a romper.  It’s literally baby clothes, but for adults. Does that make sense? Someone decided to be lazy enough to make their shirt tuck around their legs and go out like that and creation of the romper was made. It’s like you might as well wear a dress! That’d be better than a dress with a crotch region. ANOTHER thing these uniforms remind me of is snow clothes. This is where wearing something that’s all connected makes sense. You wouldn’t want snow to get in your pants or shirt, so you create something waterproof and seamed form your neck to ankles. Snow can’t get inside your clothes when you’re in California…at least that’s what I thought.