Author Topic: I'm sick of working retail.  (Read 1657 times)

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Offline Texacon

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I'm sick of working retail.
« on: September 13, 2018, 07:18:07 AM »
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211126991


Oh, this is rich!


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Wed Sep 12, 2018, 11:45 PM
FreshStart1 (18 posts)


I'm sick of working retail.

I'm 26 and going back to college so I can actually get a real job.
I've worked retail, in various places since I was 16, off and on between that and selling on eBay.

One of the biggest things that pisses me off about retail, is the closed loop way CEO's and upper management runs a company anymore.

You see, back then, I noticed a lot of stores had little comment cards people could fill out and put in a bin. Some stores actually read these, if enough people asked for say..a certain flavor of cheese, soda, etc, the store would obtain some to sell.

Feedback in retail seems to be absolutely dead, I've witnessed countless times how a store quits selling a flavor of something, or a fast food restaurant discontinues a particular sandwich, despite TONS OF PEOPLE getting pissed off they did that.

Just try leaving feedback anymore. It's usually buried somewhere at the bottom of the page, and you will get a nice little "we will pass these comments along". Hate to break it, but no one reads these. They are just a form to feel out to make the customers feel like they did their part.

Anymore, the store THINKS it knows what people want. This never works. This is why countless businesses have gone bankrupt. All thanks to the stubbornness of upper management.

I've actually have held conversations with district managers and regional vice presidents. I will say something along the lines of "a lot of customers wish we had this, or did this". It falls on deaf ears, 100% of the time.


Retail has turned into a very toxic work environment because of how bad the culture is anymore. People are highly replaceable, and as such, get treated with little respect. There is no loyalty unless maybe your a general or district manager. I noticed a lot of places have done away with the pins you get when you have worked there so many years.

Stores are no longer investing in their employees, taking advice from customers, or really doing much in the way of improving. They try to get away with paying people as little as possible and countless large corporations have ended up under lawsuits for violating labor laws.

If you factor in how many people get paid less than $10/hr, and how rent has doubled not keeping up with inflation, and how people live paycheck to paycheck, it really is no more or less than legalized slavery.

Tons of Americans have very little left over after paying their bills. Maybe enough to go out to eat somewhere. Nothing to save, nothing to invest.


What?  You can't tell me that these large corporations are not taking the sage advice this 26 year old business genius is laying down on them!  Say it ain't so!!   :lmao:


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Thu Sep 13, 2018, 12:21 AM
Eko (3,756 posts)

6. One of the main reasons that retail sucks is because of online sales.

Like Ebay and amazon. Ive been working in retail since 2002, and before the online giants came along we all made good money. Now, pfft, I cant pay anyone a decent wage because of them and keep the store open. Y'all root for unions far more than retail, retail unions make no sense now because people expect a store to carry everything like them but don't want to pay for them. You would rather order online and expect a brick and motar store to have it for you but you dont want to pay for it and then complain about it. The economy is what you choose, so choose it and don't freaking complain and blame us for trying to help people in our communities with jobs and benefits. Maybe support us instead of using online sales to juice your income and things will slowly start to turn around, or order from Bezos and amazon and ebay and support their businesses model where they dont even offer sick pay to their part time workers. Your choice.


Uh oh.  It said some unpopular things.


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Response to Eko (Reply #6)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 01:32 AM
Bernardo de La Paz (26,563 posts)

15. Maybe it is a better allocation of resources.


Save in person retail for where it counts, such a personal fit in clothing or where actually seeing and touching an item makes a difference to choice (produce and meat, for example).

There is a societal benefit if driving to malls is reduced and replaced by trucks delivering dozens of packages for the same expenditure of fuel. Suppose for example the mall is four miles away where the car occupants buy three items; compare that to a delivery truck that spends four times as much fuel (lots of stops and starts) but delivers a dozen items in one mile. That might be 3 items per tenth gallon for the car, but 12 items per tenth gallon for the truck.

Many times people just go to malls for entertainment and to bother retail staff with little intention of buying.

I don't need to drive some number of minutes to see and finger a disk drive box in a store to be able to purchase one, and in fact on line there is a much vaster selection and choice for me to get more exactly what I want. I recently bought a disk drive and a 32 inch monitor online. But I do drive once a week to a grocery store and once a week to a farmer's market. If I lived in a huge city of 10 million people, there might be a single store with that large a selection of disk drives that I selected from, but odds are it would be a median distance of a half hour drive to get to.

It is probably better that fewer people sooth boomer egos in retail stores and more sooth boomer bodies in assisted living facilities. There is a declining need for the former and a rising need for the latter.

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Response to Bernardo de La Paz (Reply #15)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 02:00 AM
Eko (3,756 posts)

19. Robots doing all of our work

would be a better allocation of resources also, sound like something you would like?

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Response to Eko (Reply #19)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 02:08 AM
Bernardo de La Paz (26,563 posts)

20. I'm not going to debate a blanket bald terse straw man statement. . . . nt

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Response to Bernardo de La Paz (Reply #20)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 02:22 AM
Eko (3,756 posts)

22. But you are happy to make one.

"Maybe it is a better allocation of resources."

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Response to Eko (Reply #22)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 02:25 AM
Bernardo de La Paz (26,563 posts)

23. My five paragraph discussion is not a single terse bald straw man statement.


You don't seem interested in discussing, so I have little interest in debating you.

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Response to Bernardo de La Paz (Reply #23)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 02:50 AM
Eko (3,756 posts)

24. And there it is.

Im not arguing that history moves on, that it changes economies, that happens. But we have a choice on how that happens, and obviously you have decided on a course that on most levels is against what the democratic party is for. I cant say if that is right or wrong, only that I am fighting for the people that we say we represent. You, are not. I am fighting for those I can, each and every day. You, you are fighting for capitalism. Not for people. I am fighting for capitalism to help people. You aren't. Maybe if you had to look these people in the eye and say why you can or cant offer health insurance because of their status you would have a different view, especially if one of them was really really really sick. But ya know, better allocation of resources or some crap.

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Response to Bernardo de La Paz (Reply #23)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 03:06 AM
Eko (3,756 posts)

26. I dream of a world where allocation of rescources

didnt mean a person will loose their job, their health insurance, their life. I dream of a world that takes care of their family, their coworkers, their team. That if things have to change there is support to enable this change. That if this change take place the people don't then blame the ones suffering for this change, These are simple thing but seem beyond some. Lastly I believe in a world of support, one where assholes who order online dont say a thing about lost jobs. Maybe this seems such a daunting task for some, to me it is a core belief.


Well, Eko is kind of on the right path, but no one is listening.


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Response to FreshStart1 (Original post)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 01:58 AM
Star Member KT2000 (16,002 posts)

18. Costco reads them

One time I suggested a mirror be placed in the clothing area and it was actually installed!
Another time I showed the manager how the cart with returns contained food products and lawn chemicals - never saw that again.

Costco is an exception in many respects though.


Woooo ... we've got a mover and a shaker here!!   :lmao:


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Response to FreshStart1 (Original post)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 05:18 AM
Star Member rownesheck (258 posts)

30. For me,

retail has always, and will always suck. That's all I've ever done and I'm flipping 42 years old! I hate people though, and the customers give me massive anxiety. Maybe that's my problem. I'm in the wrong line of work.

Another comment mentioned robots, and i think it would be awesome if robots took over all the work, and businesses were forced by law to pay out of work retail workers the wages we would have made if we were working. I would love to sit at home and do nothing! Maybe we could be trained to repair the robots every now and then when they broke down. My vision for the future! Vote for me in 2032 and I'll bring about the world in which we all get paid to do nothing! Seriously.


Uh, you're supposed to use those jobs as a launching pad, not a career.  Unless you're moving up in structure.  You don't think your suck ass attitude has anything to do with the reason you're 42 and still doing retail do you?  No, of course you don't.  You're not the problem, you're the one with all the business sense no one will listen to.  You're also a big reason conservatives hate welfare because if you could figure out how to set on your ass and do nothing for money, that's what you would do!


KC
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Offline SVPete

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2018, 08:12:51 AM »
If stupid were to burn, that would be a conflagration ... and just another day on DU.  LPC Noob FreshStart1 seems not to have heard of this website called Yelp (or maybe (s)he just uses Yelp to post phony attack-reviews of businesses (s)he hates and doesn't realize most people post honest reviews). Then there's email, and comment functions on company websites.

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Eko (3,756 posts)

6. One of the main reasons that retail sucks is because of online sales.

Like Ebay and amazon. Ive been working in retail since 2002, and before the online giants came along we all made good money.

Oy, such ignorance! Retail models have been evolving since Cain fleeced his family. A century ago A & P was hurting single-owner specialty stores with stores that offered a full range of food products and using their buying power to get better prices from manufacturers. 30-40 years later, supermarket chains started eating A & P's lunch through even larger stores stocking more than just food.

Yeah, along came Walmart ... which was hurt for a while by Amazon, until they included online sales with local pick-up in their business model. Walmart responded to new sales models by adjusting their own, unlike retailers like:

* Borders Books - late in responding to Amazon's Kindle; B & N did better and is hanging on;

* Radio Shack - failed to create a new marketplace for itself when hobby electronics tinkerers dwindled away;

* J. C. Penney and Sears - late in getting into online sales, failed to follow trends in products sold; CRAPPY customer experience.

Mom & Pop can't compete head-to-head with Amazon or Walmart or ... . But if they offer unique, desired products the giants can't/won't, with excellent customer experience, Mom & Pop will thrive. DUpipo look to government to save Mom & Pop, and that would, at most, prolong the going out of business process of those who refuse to be creative and flexible.
If, as anti-Covid-vaxxers claim, https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/robert-f-kennedy-jr-said-the-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-deadliest-vaccine-ever-made-thats-not-true/ , https://gospelnewsnetwork.org/2021/11/23/covid-shots-are-the-deadliest-vaccines-in-medical-history/ , The Vaccine is deadly, where in the US have Pfizer and Moderna hidden the millions of bodies of those who died of "vaccine injury"? Is reality a Big Pharma Shill?

Millions now living should have died. Anti-Covid-Vaxxer ghouls hardest hit.

Offline SVPete

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2018, 08:18:39 AM »
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Star Member rownesheck (258 posts)

30. For me,

retail has always, and will always suck. That's all I've ever done and I'm flipping 42 years old! I hate people though, and the customers give me massive anxiety. Maybe that's my problem. I'm in the wrong line of work.

A misanthropic DUpipo? How not unique! It took 20-25 years of work experience to figure that out? ::)  :o By the time it figures out it could find a more suitable career field by getting education in another field it'll be thinking it could afford retirement on SS and Medicare.
If, as anti-Covid-vaxxers claim, https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/robert-f-kennedy-jr-said-the-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-deadliest-vaccine-ever-made-thats-not-true/ , https://gospelnewsnetwork.org/2021/11/23/covid-shots-are-the-deadliest-vaccines-in-medical-history/ , The Vaccine is deadly, where in the US have Pfizer and Moderna hidden the millions of bodies of those who died of "vaccine injury"? Is reality a Big Pharma Shill?

Millions now living should have died. Anti-Covid-Vaxxer ghouls hardest hit.

Offline Carl

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2018, 08:27:43 AM »
Spoken like a person that has never had to balance a checkbook much less manage or operate a business.

Offline 67 Rover

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2018, 09:45:07 AM »
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211126991


Oh, this is rich!



What?  You can't tell me that these large corporations are not taking the sage advice this 26 year old business genius is laying down on them!  Say it ain't so!!   :lmao:


I believe that Tubby Tobin also finished his associates degree in business after 10 years or so and he too believed that he could do a better job than the folks running the trucking company he was working for at the time.  :-)


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Response to Eko (Reply #6)Thu Sep 13, 2018, 01:32 AM
Bernardo de La Paz (26,563 posts)

15. Maybe it is a better allocation of resources.


Save in person retail for where it counts, such a personal fit in clothing or where actually seeing and touching an item makes a difference to choice (produce and meat, for example).

There is a societal benefit if driving to malls is reduced and replaced by trucks delivering dozens of packages for the same expenditure of fuel. Suppose for example the mall is four miles away where the car occupants buy three items; compare that to a delivery truck that spends four times as much fuel (lots of stops and starts) but delivers a dozen items in one mile. That might be 3 items per tenth gallon for the car, but 12 items per tenth gallon for the truck.

Many times people just go to malls for entertainment and to bother retail staff with little intention of buying.

I don't need to drive some number of minutes to see and finger a disk drive box in a store to be able to purchase one, and in fact on line there is a much vaster selection and choice for me to get more exactly what I want. I recently bought a disk drive and a 32 inch monitor online. But I do drive once a week to a grocery store and once a week to a farmer's market. If I lived in a huge city of 10 million people, there might be a single store with that large a selection of disk drives that I selected from, but odds are it would be a median distance of a half hour drive to get to.

It is probably better that fewer people sooth boomer egos in retail stores and more sooth boomer bodies in assisted living facilities. There is a declining need for the former and a rising need for the latter.

This DUmmie better check its carbon footprint, I think it could make due with a 15" monitor.
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Offline jukin

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #5 on: September 13, 2018, 12:31:04 PM »
I'm sick of working retail.

Fixord and all one needs to know.
When you are the beneficiary of someone’s kindness and generosity, it produces a sense of gratitude and community.

When you are the beneficiary of a policy that steals from someone and gives it to you in return for your vote, it produces a sense of entitlement and dependency.

Offline Texacon

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #6 on: September 13, 2018, 12:59:47 PM »
I believe that Tubby Tobin also finished his associates degree in business after 10 years or so and he too believed that he could do a better job than the folks running the trucking company he was working for at the time.  :-)


This DUmmie better check its carbon footprint, I think it could make due with a 15" monitor.


Wonder where to Tobs has been lately.  I haven't seen much from him or that self proclaimed lard ass, BigmanPigman.

KC
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Offline Mary Ann

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2018, 01:09:53 PM »

Wonder where to Tobs has been lately.  I haven't seen much from him or that self proclaimed lard ass, BigmanPigman.

KC

The Pig is having a fight today with Mineral Man and a couple of other DUers over his/her/its lies.

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Star Member BigmanPigman (19,088 posts)

2. They usually only want your address

if you request them to respond to you in the future. Also, a staffer the other day asked for my address and I gave her one from her state. She told me she only needed the zip code to keep track of which parts of the state are calling about which issues. A relative of mine worked for my Dem rep in his DC office answering phones. They do take down your info if you want them to, for contact/ reply purposes. They also do keep track of what issue you are calling about and your opinion is used. When I call only about 10% even ask for a full address.

I am calling...I DO NOT CARE if it is a lie. I am playing the GOP game now, the gloves are off. I am not bringing a butter knife to a gun fight. Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is our fight for the future of our country and I will do anything I can to save it. I won't even be alive in a few years and I don't have kids so I am doing this for my country! I am a patriot. RESISTANCE WORKS!

Offline Texacon

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2018, 01:29:41 PM »
The Pig is having a fight today with Mineral Man and a couple of other DUers over his/her/its lies.


So he's still playing that game where he calls people all over the country and lies to them about where he lives so they think he's a constituent.  That is absolutely disgusting.  If I didn't have morals I would call his rep and senator and do the same thing to him.

What an ass.

KC
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*Stolen

Offline I_B_Perky

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2018, 07:50:18 PM »
Ya all probably not gonna like this... but I can understand where the dummie is coming from. Back in the day in the restaurant business, the big bosses would come in from time to time and sit down with you and review what was selling and what wasn't. Asked what worked for your store/area.  You also had more control over inventory.  Managers and Area Supervisors had some real leeway from what to order to what kind of advertising you could do.

Not anymore.  From what I understand now days it is completely different.  I the computer don't think you need it, you ain't getting it. The end. Same with retail and food stores.  Nothing pisses me off more than going into a Kroger and finding an empty shelf where something you want to buy should be.  Used to be, if you out you order more. Now days? Who knows.   :banghead:
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Offline DUmpsterDiver

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2018, 12:00:59 AM »
>I've worked retail, in various places since I was 16

Oh, you poor soul.  I can just imagine the callous results...

Did you mow grass, rake leaves and do chores at ten to twelve?
Did you hustle cinder blocks and bricks while delivering mud at thirteen on?
WTF have you done to deserve any respect at working for a living?

Did you advance from labor jobs to intelligent tasks such as wiring, plumbing, HVAC, Civil Engineering? 

Offline SVPete

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Re: I'm sick of working retail.
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2018, 07:29:01 AM »
Ya all probably not gonna like this... but I can understand where the dummie is coming from. Back in the day in the restaurant business, the big bosses would come in from time to time and sit down with you and review what was selling and what wasn't. Asked what worked for your store/area.  You also had more control over inventory.  Managers and Area Supervisors had some real leeway from what to order to what kind of advertising you could do.

Not anymore.  From what I understand now days it is completely different.  I the computer don't think you need it, you ain't getting it. The end. Same with retail and food stores.  Nothing pisses me off more than going into a Kroger and finding an empty shelf where something you want to buy should be.  Used to be, if you out you order more. Now days? Who knows.   :banghead:

Well, on one hand, if a company's stores have POS systems that are integrated with the company's computer and appropriate SW, corporate knows what's selling, and if the store accounts in the system for losses due to theft and spoilage, corporate knows what stores have in their inventory, +/- a day. OTOH, that's horrible people management. When upper manglers keep aloof it breeds misunderstanding, contempt, and resentment, a breeding and feeding ground for unions that will kill a company and blame management for the company's death.
If, as anti-Covid-vaxxers claim, https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/robert-f-kennedy-jr-said-the-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-deadliest-vaccine-ever-made-thats-not-true/ , https://gospelnewsnetwork.org/2021/11/23/covid-shots-are-the-deadliest-vaccines-in-medical-history/ , The Vaccine is deadly, where in the US have Pfizer and Moderna hidden the millions of bodies of those who died of "vaccine injury"? Is reality a Big Pharma Shill?

Millions now living should have died. Anti-Covid-Vaxxer ghouls hardest hit.