Retail Hell Memories At The Mall: Dumbass Coworker Mistakes Newbies For Custys

I hate working at the mall. So much fucking suckage.

Bookstore Slave with memories from the days of being a mall slave.

The store opens at 9:00 am. This is easy to understand. However, I am scheduled to be in the store at 8:30 to begin my shift and acquire my till, count it out, confirm that I didn't steal money in the first 5 minutes of my shift etc.

So at 8:15 I'm standing at the gated door of the dimly lit mall store, keeping a keen eye out for meandering employees.

Time keeps ticking away. 8:20 am.

Me: Hello?

No answer.

8:25. I have been joined by a second newbie. No movement.

Me: HELLO?!

Miss Prissy saunters out, makes a "shoo" motion with her hands at me, doesn't even look at me standing dressed in full store regalia: "Our store doesn't open until 9 am, come back then." She then saunters back into the back.

Me: THIS IS MY FIRST DAY OF WORK, I WOULD APPRECIATE BEING LET IN SO I CAN SIGN IN!

Miss Priss: We don't open until 9! Come back then!

8:30, and there are now three of us outside the door, dressed in our uniforms. We should be signing in right fucking now.

Me: IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HEAR ME, I WORK HERE! I DON'T HAVE A KEY!

Well, security isn't deaf, and they naturally came over to investigate. We were obviously dressed for work, complete with the shirt sporting the store name. Since yelling hasn't been working, we are all drawn away to the info desk by the Security Officer. He picks up the phone and dials the store number. This is the side of the conversation that we heard:

SO: Hello. Listen, this is Mall Security. I'm not sure how you missed it, but you have three employees who are trying to get into your store so they can begin their shifts.
*pause*

SO: Uh huh. Well maybe they wouldn't BE late if you had opened the grate for them fifteen minutes ago.
*pause*

SO: No, I observed one of your store employees telling them to leave and not come back until 9, when the store opened.

*pause* His face becomes thunderous.

SO: So you're telling me that on their very first shift on their very first day of work with your company, that you expect them to have a key to get in to the back door, even though you never issue keys to anyone but the manager on duty?
*pause*

SO: Oh KNOCKING on the door would have gotten them inside. Do they KNOW how to get to your back door?

(We learned later that the mall has hallways behind every store to let employees transport trash and/or cash throughout most of the mall without exposing themselves to to mall traffic and the danger of having their tills taken from them by NATs. These are mazes and even the most experienced mall slave is apt to get turned around due to the sameness of every hallway and the lack of store names on the doors that you may pass.)

SO: Look, you've wasted my time, yours and theirs. You have two minutes to get that grill open to let these new employees inside or I will be calling your home office to report your behavior.

The actual manager of the store opened the grill to let us inside, allowing the three of us newbies begin our first day of work ten minutes late.

The manager has has somehow remained oblivious to the whole situation with Miss Priss: Oh, why didn't you call the store?

The security officer gave the nearby Miss Priss a look of murderous death and very succinctly told him what was going on.

Miss Priss got written up, but we were never issued keys. We spent the rest of our shifts either hanging from the front grill in the mornings or else hopelessly meandering the maze in back, carefully counting doors and still knocking on the wrong one.

May all your customers be nice,

--Bookstore Slave

 

Comments

[The Last Archimedean]

Wow. Wasn't she told there would be new employees showing up? Or was she that bubbleheaded that she not only forgot but was too stupid to recognize you guys even though you have the store uniforms on?

I think I've been converted to a believer in the version of Murphy's Law that says that while the total intelligence on the planet is constant, the population is still growing. My faith in humanity just dropped another notch.

Oh well. Everyone should believe in something and I believe I'll have another drink.

[L]

Kudos to Mall Security for sticking up for you! Too often they're encouraged to bow and scrape to the stores to keep them happy so they don't make complaints to the mall office.

So, I guess when the company hired you they expected you all to have psychic abilities to locate that mysterious back door?

[Cherry IScream]

Ah, this happened to me at the cinema loads in my first few months there. Because I only worked weekends to begin with, in a part of the building that was slightly separated from everywhere else, anyone who wasn't regularly scheduled on weekends would either ignore me knocking or eventually try to turn me away.

In the end, I used to get my name badge out and press it against the door to convince them to let me in faster.

[Ted the 'Flayer]

I had that happen to me when I worked at Big Red (the two big box stores in my town are nicknamed Big Red and Big blue, if that's any hint). Except I had been working there for three years when it happened.

[trekkiebabe31]

I remember those hallways when I worked at Suncoast, you really could get turned around!

[Humor_Me]

I hated working mornings at the big blue K way back when. At least people knew me because I had started off as evening, PT only. I still hated going up and having to ring the doorbell and waiting for someone to come up all the way from the back. Why not just have someone there if you know employees are going to be arriving about that time?

[L]

Yeah, they should have been aware you were coming for your first day, especially a manager. I've had the opposite problem; I'm security in a mall with a policy that if you want in before the doors open, you submit a form 48hrs in advance (for insurance, so we know who's in the mall outside normal hours)HOWEVER, employees that have been there for YEARS show-up at random wee-morning hours and bitch to the office that I wasn't there to let them in! I'm sorry, but being psychic wasn't one of my job requirements! One employee in particular does this randomly several times a week and has done so for years.