Retail Hell Underground

Untrained V'Ger Overlord And Captain Asshole of the Million Changes

Hello RHU,

We all loathe Bullseye, and I had a brief stint under their poisonous thumb. But this isn't a story about that... It's about when Bullseye pulled me off the registers and threw me into the integrated pizza fast food court.

Now I had been hired on to be a cashier at Bullseye. I had been working with them for a few months, so I knew my way around their particular registers. Suddenly a wild manager appears out of the long grass, tells me to turn off my light and walks me over to the food court.

Manager: "We've got a problem. The cashier girls called out. We've got two experienced cookers, but nobody to run the registers. Guess where I'm putting you?" He hands me a food court labeled sun visor.

Me: "Hey! Wait! I've NEVER worked in ANYTHING related to food! Also...." I point to my long, straight, shoulder length blonde hair. "I'm pretty sure this should be put in a net or someth-"

Manager: "You won't do anything but take orders. The cooks will put it on the counter and call out the numbers."

Now RHU, I am well indeed ignorant of how many laws, health codes, hygiene requirements get shoved into the heads of fast food workers, but one thing I do recall is that hair tends to be tied or restrained or something. Perhaps I am foggy in memory, but even the folks at registers at Golden Arches had something, even if it was just a pony tail sticking out the back of a baseball cap.

Again, I've got a sun visor, and my Bullseye red shirt and khakis.

Feeling like a deer in the headlights, I'm deposited in front of a register that works completely differently from the standard Bullseye register.

One of the cooks comes out of the back, bedecked in all the proper hygeine head and hand gear, and gives me the ten second training montage.

Cook: "It's a touch screen. Push these for individuals, push this for a combo, drinks are over here. Hit the total, the tender buttons come up after that. Good luck."

Me: *out loud* B-B-But! (in my head) AUUUUGGGHHH!

Clock: Tick. (lunch hour rush has begun)

I pride myself in being a quick learner. I even pride myself in making very few mistakes once I have the rough hang of any cash register. I absorb training efficiently. Today, I was just chucked off a cliff.

With the desperate speed of the cartoon character flapping two feathers in order to keep from falling off a cliff, I get through the first three custys without incident. They are kind, and patient, because I make it very clear that I am very new.

Then Captain Asshole of the Million Changes comes forth.

Captain Asshole: Okay I want a chicken basket with fries and a medium drink, a slice of pizza... no wait, take the fries off the chicken basket, I want a combo number 4, but substitute the drink for a shake, wait, that slice of pizza, make it the number six instead, hang on, axe the chicken basket and make it a number 1....

His changes are never ending, my fingers are flying trying to keep up with his changes, alterations and deletions, and I'm positive that I'm getting something wrong because he can't fucking make up his mind for longer than five seconds.

The lunch rush is in full fucking swing, people have now lined up behind this douchemobile so far that it's out of the fucking food court, I'm the only cashier, and there's an irate mob muttering behind him.

Captain Asshole: "Okay, that should be everything. What the hell?! It shouldn't be that expensive! What are you charging me for?!"

At this point I give up, poke my head in the back and yell for one of the cooks. She stares at the mess I've made on the screen, voids the whole thing and takes his order anew.

The new order is completely unrelated to anything I'd had on the screen, and he makes several changes while the cook rings him up. Finally, she tells him to get out of line and make up his mind before he approaches again.

With that "fix" she abandons me yet again without even so much as a pat on the shoulder in sympathy and the orders fly.

I get through five people before Captain Asshole has made his decision, steps forward and orders. I give him the total. He swipes his card to pay. "That's better. I don't know why it was so hard for you to get it right."

My eye twitches and I reach for the nearest object to bash him over the head with, but he has already spun on his heel and walked away to sit with his four kids.

The entire lunch rush --three hours-- is just me, my flying fingers, and the lines. Then I feel a tap on my shoulder. The 2 pm shift has arrived, and a sweet-faced angel gently shoos me away.

My head is filled with an image of my glomping her and sobbing my relief into her comforting shoulder. Instead, I leave and return to the registers of Bullseye for another hour before my break.

May all your customers be nice,

Evil Customer Reject

 

LOL of the Day: Target Goggles

Custys Crashing Into Target and Walmart

From Huff Po:

Norma Joan Brennan, 79, was on her way to get driver's license restored Thursday when she crashed through the front doors of a Target store in Ocala, Fla., the Associated Press reported.

Brennan's passenger and the owner of the car, Rev. Kevin Holsapple, told police that he was giving her some driving tips in the parking lot when she pressed down on the gas pedal instead of the brake, according to the Ocala Star-Banner.

Brennan had held a driver's license for about 50 years before it was suspended due to a medical condition. On Thursday, Brennan and Holsapple were planning on heading to the driver's license center so she could get her freedom to ride back.

No one was injured in the incident, but Brennan got a citation for driving with a suspend license, and the pastor was cited for allowing an unlicensed driver to drive his vehicle.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Here's another Target crash that happened in Los Angeles in 2012. The driver of this car was a 70 year old woman who confused the gas with the brake. The car did not stop until she landed in the eletronics department. Three people were seriously injured. :

And this crazy custy car crash happened a few weeks ago at walmart:

By Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times

A man was under arrest in San Jose after a bizarre car crash and attack Sunday at a Walmart.

Police are investigating what motivated the man to drive into the busy store.

“We don’t know if there was an intended target or not,” said Officer Albert Morales, of the San Jose Police Department.

At least four people were injured when the suspect crashed into the Walmart, exited the vehicle, picked up a blunt object from inside the store and began to assault customers, police said.

The man drove a red two-door car between 10 and 20 feet into the store on the east side of the city about 11:15 a.m., Morales said. Authorities have not released the identity of the man.

One of the customers suffered a serious injury and was taken to a local hospital. Three others were treated for non-life-threatening injuries, Morales said.

The man, who is about 30 years old, was arrested after a brief struggle with police. At least 70 people witnessed the crash, Morales said.

The driver made several laps around the store’s parking lot before crashing into the front entrance, witnesses told the San Jose Mercury News.  A woman said the driver sideswiped her Honda in the parking lot while she was waiting for a spot.

“At first I thought I may have done something to anger him while driving,” said Sharon Kaye, a teacher from San Jose. “But then I realized he was out to get into the store.”

The driver was being held in a jail and is receiving mental evaluations and drug tests, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Source: LA Times

Target's Sandal Name Fail

From Huff Po: Target is planning to rename some shoes being sold on its website that are probably sending Spanish speakers the wrong message.

The store is currently selling at least four pairs of shoes entitled “orina,” which in Spanish means urine. And Target's not alone. Many other popular brands sell an “orina” shoe.

(Scroll down to see a photo of the shoes)

Target says it came up with the name for the shoes based on the Russian translation for the word, which means "peace" or "peaceful," according to ourbabyname.com. It's also used as a woman's name. The store became aware of the word's Spanish translation about a week ago, according to Jessica DeeDe, a spokesperson for Target.

"Realizing this name could be misinterpreted, we are taking steps to remove the name from the sandal," DeeDe told The Huffington Post.

Target isn’t the first company to sell a product with a name that doesn’t quite translate. In fact, the phenomenon is rather common. Ikea found that many of its product names translated to dirty phrases in Thai after the company hired translators to make sure its product names are appropriate, the Wall Street Journal reported in June.

Mondelez International, the name for Kraft Foods’ global snack business, closely resembles the term for an oral sex act in Russian, Crain’s Chicago Business reported last year. And when KFC first debuted in China, the fast food chain accidentally translated its famed slogan “finger-lickin’ good” into Chinese characters that meant “eat your fingers off,” according to Time.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

Not Everyone Is Happy About Easter

 

Framed Encounters A Roaming Bitch Who Mistakes Her For A Slave

From: Framed:

Greetings again from your mostly friendly neighborhood craft store framer!

The Facebook page keeps reminding me of great little goodies. I don't post more than comments on the FB page because Crafty Corporate has a pretty enthusiastic LP/Social Media team, and I don't want the possible cross contamination.

Anyway, someone had mentioned good ideas for how to respond to customers, who in their ever increasing obliviousness, ask if you, in the outfit that looks like the outfit of everyone else that works here and is wearing a name tag with the store name on it, actually work here.

Well, what happens when you get the opposite?

My craft store happens to be located next door to a Super BullsEye and as such, a lot of us will pop over there for things resembling food on our lunch breaks. The holiday season had started gearing up, so I wore my GREEN jacket over my distinctly NOT RED shirt, and was making my way over to the grocery section when a woman storms up to me.

Lady: "Where is your f#$%ing baking soda?"

Me: "Ugh... I'm sorry? I don't actually work here."

She pulls my jacket open further and gets about an inch away from my name tag and just stares at it for about 15-30 seconds... which given where my name tag was, and most are located, I'm sure looked amusing to anyone who happened to glance over.

Lady: "So you're telling me you can't tell me where the f%^&%ing baking soda is. God, you're worthless."

Me: "I'd assume it's with the rest of the baking supplies, which since I can read, should be that aisle there, but if you want more, you'd have to ask someone who works here."

The lady stormed off, and I just stood there for another minute, still trying to process WTF just happened.

Has this happened to anyone else, or am I just that lucky?

May all your custies have a few brain cells still in use!

--Framed

Target Janitors Threaten Strike: Hardworking Low Wage Americans Have Had Enough

(This strike is scheduled to happen Feb 24th, 2013!)

On Friday, The Nation labor reporter Josh Eidelson reported that approximately 150 contracted cleaning workers (janitors) who clean Target stores in Minnesota have threatened to strike if the three contractors they work for do not meet to address safety and labor law violations, as well as the firing of two workers a week after one of them appeared in a campaign video.  The non-unionized janitors, contractors for Target facilities in Minneapolis and St. Paul, are led by Twin Cities labor group Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL). The janitors – not employed by Target – work through three janitorial contractors: Prestige Maintenance USA, Diversified Maintenance Systems, and Carlson Building Maintenance.

Eidelson reports:

The strike threat follows a series of OSHA charges alleging that employees of those companies were denied proper safety training and legally required breaks and mealtimes, and are locked inside of Target stores, and National Labor Relations Board charges alleging that they were retaliated against for organizing. The charges and the strike threat were spearheaded by the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL), a Twin Cities labor group that, as The Nation reported, has been organizing retail cleaning workers for two years.

Former employee Honorio Hernandez reported:

“At 11 at night, I would ring the doorbell to get let in, and then from there, we would be locked in the store all night, until 7 am when they opened the store. I was scared that something would happen, and I wouldn’t be able to get out of the store…. But I never complained about it because I was scared that I would lose my job.” (Source)

CTUL has been collaborating with Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose members clean commercial offices in the Twin Cities, including Target corporate offices. According to CTUL organizer Veronica Mendez, the employees made the decision to prepare for a strike in meetings last weekend. She said that “ we’ve got a core group of really strong leaders,” and “More than likely workers will be going on strike on Tuesday.”  (Source)

“We’re looking to that as a model of how we need to stand up…” said Mendez. “We can’t wait for the companies to continue to retaliate.” She said that “workers are very isolated,” and “ we’ve been figuring out different ways that we can get workers to meet with each other one-on-one…so they can speak to each other and understand their struggle in a broader context.”

The two groups hope to win formal union recognition and collective bargaining for CTUL members. At that point, CTLM members would become members of SEIU in addition to remaining members of CTUL. Workers in both groups could go on strike simultaneously. CTUL and SEIU have set a joint strike deadline for resolution. The National Labor relations charges allege that the janitors have suffered retaliation because they’ve organized.

An emailed statement from Target spokesperson Molly Snyder stated:

“As these individuals are not employed by Target, I’d have to refer you to their employers.” (Source)

In a January interview with The Nation, Prestige’s general counsel said that the company complies with the law. Carlson and Prestige have not responded with a request for a statement about the charges, but when asked about the strike threat, Diversified General Counsel Andrea Kiehl said.

 “We have reports by employees that they feel like they are harassed by the CTUL and do not want to participate. And so it’s our feeling that the CTUL does not have as great of a support among the Diversified employees as… what they portray to the public.”

Wagering a guess, I’d say it’s likely that the employees do not want to participate for fear of losing their jobs and other retaliation. She can’t seriously mean that these people want to continue working in unsafe conditions.

When asked if Diversified would fire workers if they strike next week, Kiehl said,

“That’s not a decision that the company has made at this time. But we are committed to serving our customers, and all cleaning will continue whether we have employees that engage in the strike or not.” (Source)

Kiehl claims Diversified offers employees good benefits for full-time workers, but she was evasive when asked how many of the workers are full-time. She claims that diversified has tried to address these issues in the past.

“[...] has asked the CTUL on different occasions to provide us with information regarding what working conditions they want to discuss, and we still don’t know what those working conditions are…But Diversified does not intend to talk to CTUL about CTUL unionizing our employees. And CTUL is not an officially registered union.” (Source)

Alejejandro Quirino, Diversified Maintenance Systems employee and CTUL activist, told The Nation: 

“I guess I’d say I’m not scared because I’m fed up and sick and tired of how they’ve treated us, and how our demands have been ignored. And that’s why I’m going to go on strike. If I get fired, I know I was fighting for what’s right, and putting in what I could to fight for what’s fair.” He continued “Management told one of my co-workers that if a worker tries to strike or organize with their co-workers, they’ll be fired. The effect I want the strike to have is that they see us, as workers,” he said. “That they know that our voice counts too, that we have a right to a better salary and to better benefits, and that we have the right to organize.”

Target joins Walmart, fast-food restaurants, and even car washes in a growing list of companies nationwide whose employees are rising up against poor wages and unacceptable working conditions. These people go in, usually earning minimum wage or slightly above, and do an honest days hard work and usually receive no benefits. That in itself is bad enough, but throw in unsafe working conditions and being locked inside a building with no way out? Please. It’s too much. Working class people in America have had enough.

See video: 

 

(Note: If you cannot see the subtitles for the spanish speaking parts, watch it on Youtube. --Ilia)

via www.addictinginfo.org

Black Friday Target Prank: Two Custys Pretend To Be Workers

  

Harmless prank or hell for a manager when the custy complain? Hopefully they told the custys it was a prank after the cameras were off.

 

Second Year Petition Started To Stop Target From Working Employees on Thanksgiving

 

 

Yes RHU we've see this sad horrible movie before. Last year a Target employee started a petition to stop Target from working it's employees on Thanksgiving. We promoted it and we all signed it. Over 200,000 signatures were collected. Target did nothing. Black Friday came and went and all the stores had the biggest increases they'd seen in years. Nobody cared about the humans who had to work on Thangsiving. This was one of the things that inspired my new book Return To The Big Fancy and I mention in the intro how disheartening it was to see how there was so much talk about Occupy Wallstreet and down with corporations in general, yet nobody cared when it came to shopping and making the humans work on Thanksgiving Day. --Freddy

 

 

 

From Good Morning America, by SUSANNA KIM (@skimm)

Nov. 12, 2012

Retailers are pushing the envelope again this Thanksgiving with earlier store openings, bringing jeers from some employees who say they would prefer to spend the holiday with their families.

Target announced on Monday that it's opening on Thanksgiving at 9 p.m. at some stores for its Black Friday sale, which in the past began the day after Thanksgiving.

Walmart will be opening its doors at 8 p.m. Sears will also open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, up from 4 a.m. on Black Friday last year. Kmart will be open Thanksgiving Day 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., then it will close and reopen 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. Macy's, Kohl's and Best Buy open at midnight.

Some employees and their families have expressed frustrationwith the earlier store opening time, saying it cuts into family celebrations. Last year, one Target employee started a petition in protest against Target's 11 p.m. opening, which proceeded as planned.

This year, a sister of a Target employee in Vernon Hills, Ill., started a petition on Change.org.

Jennifer Ann, 26, started the petition so that her younger brother, a part-time Target employee, can spend Thanksgiving with the family. She asked that her last name not be published to protect her brother's employment with the retailer.

"Last year he had to leave early, and this year he won't be able to make it at all," she said. Her brother, who has worked at Target for a handful of years, is a full-time student. Jennifer Ann said her brother enjoys his job and has no plans to leave Target.

"It's just this time of year it gets extra stressful," she said.

Traditionally, her family travels about 40 minutes to their grandmother's home to spend the holiday with their extended family. Her brother, however, will have to be at work around 7 p.m.

A spokeswoman for Target said that the 9 p.m. opening time was "carefully evaluated with our guests, team and the business in mind."

"In fact, across the country, team member preferences were considered in creating our store staffing schedules," Target said in a statement. "Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest of the year, and we appreciate our Target team's flexibility on this weekend and throughout the holiday season."

Jennifer Ann said her brother does not believe Target will change its policies this year, but she hopes Target will reconsider their plans for 2013.

Change.org is hosting about 40 similar petitions against other retailers, including Best Buy, Sears and Toys "R" Us.

"I just hope next year this doesn't occur. I hope retailers take a look at this," Jennifer Ann said. "Every year this gets worst. People want to spend Thanksgiving with their families. Next year, I hope they revert to the way things were when Black Friday was on Friday."

via abcnews.go.com

 

SIGN THE PETITON TO STOP TARGET FROM TAKING THANKSGIVING!

CLICK HERE

 

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Custy Changes Signage At Target

  

 

 

 

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