Work Woes; How My Christmas Day Went
Dec. 25th, 2001 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterWork on the 24th was a killer, even if it was only five hours long.
For one thing, my store is run by idiots.
I don't know whose bright idea this was, but we ran out of the most commonly-used size of shopping bag on December 23rd. That's right. Completely out of spare bags--the day before one of the busiest shopping days of the year. I mean, geez, they teach us about reorder points in management classes in college, doesn't anyone in the real world know what they are? And doesn't it stand to reason that you'd need an extra-large supply during the busiest shopping time of the year?
Another wonderful encounter that took place soon after I started my shift that day. A woman had some sort of toy item that rang up at about $38, was marked $35, but the woman swore that she'd seen it for "twenty-something dollars" back in the toy department. Now understand, we have something called the "power to please," which means that if the price the customer thinks it is is within a certain range of the "actual" price (normally 30%, but the managers have told us to go up to 40-50% during the busy holiday season), we give it to them at what they thought it was. The toy department person told me that it was what it was marked on the package. If they just said, "Oh, she probably saw a sign for X dollars for the item next to it," I could have just done it for her and been done with it. I told the toy person, I needed a price for "power to please," but no, it had to be what it was marked.
So the woman stormed back to the toy department in a huff, holding up my line for five minutes as I had already rung up everything else she had. And in the end, she got it for $28.88. So what the heck was that toy department person thinking? I suppose I should have been more insistent.
There were some other joyful times, such as the customer who'd rung up $180 worth of stuff, then her check bounced, but those weren't directly the store's fault, so I guess I can't blame it too much. But my feet have really been starting to hurt toward the end of the day lately. I think I'll definitely be putting some more work in on my resume tomorrow.
Today, I drove down to visit with the parents and have a small Christmas dinner. It was quite good, and then I picked up a couple more Christmas presents I'd not gotten yet last time I was there--a Subway $5 gift certificate (handy as I live right across the street from one), a picture frame, and (technically not a Christmas present but something my Dad thought looked neat) the paperback of I Am Jackie Chan, the Chan autobiography. And speaking of Chan, we then watched about 3/4 of the Jackie Chan movie The Accidental Spy, whose Hong Kong DVD a friend sent me for Christmas. Unfortunately, it seems that my parents' DVD player is one of those that has problems with certain all-region Hong Kong discs, because the picture started breaking up really badly to the point where we could no longer see what was going on. (Though it worked fine once I got it back to my apartment and tried it on my computer.) So instead we watched the $4 cheapo disc of Deadly China Hero, a Hong Kong movie where Jet Li indulges in a little Wong Fei-Hong self-parody. The subtitles, being Hong Kong original burned-into-the-film instead of DVD subtitles, were often hard to read, but we managed, and the Yuen Woo-Ping fight choreography was, as always, first-rate.
I had a bit of a sobering encounter on the way back to town. About ten minutes away from Springfield, just before the James River exit, I was pulling out of an intersection, the light having changed to green. I was in the left lane of my half of a four-lane divided highway. I'd just about made it up to 50, when zoom, a car passed me in the right-hand lane like I was standing still. I was just about to floor the accelerator and get up a little more speed myself, when I saw flashing lights in my rearview and heard the siren of the police car that was pulling that speed demon over. So I took my foot off the floor, and was rather careful to stay at the speed limit the rest of the way back into town.
Time to be getting ready for bed. More journalizing later!
For one thing, my store is run by idiots.
I don't know whose bright idea this was, but we ran out of the most commonly-used size of shopping bag on December 23rd. That's right. Completely out of spare bags--the day before one of the busiest shopping days of the year. I mean, geez, they teach us about reorder points in management classes in college, doesn't anyone in the real world know what they are? And doesn't it stand to reason that you'd need an extra-large supply during the busiest shopping time of the year?
Another wonderful encounter that took place soon after I started my shift that day. A woman had some sort of toy item that rang up at about $38, was marked $35, but the woman swore that she'd seen it for "twenty-something dollars" back in the toy department. Now understand, we have something called the "power to please," which means that if the price the customer thinks it is is within a certain range of the "actual" price (normally 30%, but the managers have told us to go up to 40-50% during the busy holiday season), we give it to them at what they thought it was. The toy department person told me that it was what it was marked on the package. If they just said, "Oh, she probably saw a sign for X dollars for the item next to it," I could have just done it for her and been done with it. I told the toy person, I needed a price for "power to please," but no, it had to be what it was marked.
So the woman stormed back to the toy department in a huff, holding up my line for five minutes as I had already rung up everything else she had. And in the end, she got it for $28.88. So what the heck was that toy department person thinking? I suppose I should have been more insistent.
There were some other joyful times, such as the customer who'd rung up $180 worth of stuff, then her check bounced, but those weren't directly the store's fault, so I guess I can't blame it too much. But my feet have really been starting to hurt toward the end of the day lately. I think I'll definitely be putting some more work in on my resume tomorrow.
Today, I drove down to visit with the parents and have a small Christmas dinner. It was quite good, and then I picked up a couple more Christmas presents I'd not gotten yet last time I was there--a Subway $5 gift certificate (handy as I live right across the street from one), a picture frame, and (technically not a Christmas present but something my Dad thought looked neat) the paperback of I Am Jackie Chan, the Chan autobiography. And speaking of Chan, we then watched about 3/4 of the Jackie Chan movie The Accidental Spy, whose Hong Kong DVD a friend sent me for Christmas. Unfortunately, it seems that my parents' DVD player is one of those that has problems with certain all-region Hong Kong discs, because the picture started breaking up really badly to the point where we could no longer see what was going on. (Though it worked fine once I got it back to my apartment and tried it on my computer.) So instead we watched the $4 cheapo disc of Deadly China Hero, a Hong Kong movie where Jet Li indulges in a little Wong Fei-Hong self-parody. The subtitles, being Hong Kong original burned-into-the-film instead of DVD subtitles, were often hard to read, but we managed, and the Yuen Woo-Ping fight choreography was, as always, first-rate.
I had a bit of a sobering encounter on the way back to town. About ten minutes away from Springfield, just before the James River exit, I was pulling out of an intersection, the light having changed to green. I was in the left lane of my half of a four-lane divided highway. I'd just about made it up to 50, when zoom, a car passed me in the right-hand lane like I was standing still. I was just about to floor the accelerator and get up a little more speed myself, when I saw flashing lights in my rearview and heard the siren of the police car that was pulling that speed demon over. So I took my foot off the floor, and was rather careful to stay at the speed limit the rest of the way back into town.
Time to be getting ready for bed. More journalizing later!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2001-12-25 09:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2001-12-25 09:21 pm (UTC)But as my plaint should indicate, not even all the employees in the same store are necessarily clued in on power to please. Don't expect the ones in your area to be automatically clueful.
Re:
Date: 2001-12-25 09:28 pm (UTC)