Retail Hell Underground

Front Desk Hotel Worker Leaves Handwritten Protest Sign on Counter Saying They Are Quitting After Being Attacked By Drunk Coworker Who Wasn't Fired

 

 

Earlier today I posted this pic that was very "Wet Seal-esque" in its nature of letting custys know what's up with bad management. The pic was posted to reddit by a coworker with no information, but Ilia found the back story to the photo and it appears to have originated from a Hotel. Here is the story:

From Happyplace Someecards:

This very reasonable public resignation was left in lieu of a human at the front desk of a small hotel in a college town in California last night for any and all guests to see. It was posted online early this morning by the employee who came in afterwards to work the graveyard shift, redditor JordanAsshole, who, despite his name, he promises he's not the drunk assailant. It was posted with the title "My coworker went all Wet Seal on our boss today," a reference to the public resignation notices posted by mistreated Wet Seal workers in malls across the country.

Jordan (no need to use his full name) also gave more details regarding Drunky The Amazing Assaulting Coworker, who is currently wanted and at large after blowing his chance at having charges dropped by following up with threatening voicemails to the employee who quit.

All in all, this is shaping up to be a very bad week for the manager who declined to fire the troublesome employee. Jordan originally told reddit that he, too, planned to quit, and commenters advised him that in this economy (recovery notwithstanding), the hotel would have new workers within a week who were all unaware of what happened. Whether or not taking advice from people on the Internet is wise, it seems like this hotel (which was once part of a franchise, but no longer) is due for an imminent visit from the Department of Labor and OSHA (Jordan also says that employees don't receive the breaks they're entitled to by law).

That popcorn cart would leave, too, if it could. It needs to be freed!
(via redditor JordanAsshole)

Oh, and if you act now (or tonight on the graveyard shift), Jordan also says there's a popcorn cart in the lobby that's on wheels and for $40 he'll take a smoke break as you wheel out your buttery prize.

via happyplace.someecards.com

 

 

 

 

Comcast Apologizes For Changing Custy's Name To "Asshole Brown" on Their Bill

 

From Huff Po:

A Comcast customer received a shocking bill recently, and it wasn't the dollar amount that stood out. It was the name on the bill, which someone at the company had changed from Ricardo Brown to "Asshole Brown."

Consumer advocate Christopher Elliott wrote on his Elliot.org website that Lisa Brown of Spokane, Wash., had called the company to cancel the cable portion of her family's bill to save money. But as we've seen in the past, Comcast doesn't make the cancellation process very easy for the customer.

Brown was transferred to a retention specialist, who then tried to persuade her to sign up for a new contract.

“I was never rude,” Brown told Elliot. “It could have been that person was upset because I didn’t take the offer.”

When the next bill came, her husband's name had been changed to the profanity. Making matters worse, Brown told Elliot that calls to the cable company and even a visit to a Comcast office couldn't get the name changed.

Comcast confirmed to The Huffington Post that the bill was real, and said the company was taking action.

"We have spoken with our customer and apologized for this completely unacceptable and inappropriate name change," Comcast spokesman Steve Kipp said via email. "We have zero tolerance for this type of disrespectful behavior and are conducting a thorough investigation to determine what happened. We are working with our customer to make this right and will take appropriate steps to prevent this from happening again."

Elliot, who is also a Huffington Post blogger, reports that Comcast plans to fix the name, terminate the employee responsible, give Brown a refund for the family's two years of service and add two more years of service for free.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

 

 

Corporate Caused Hell: "Sell Harder" At Your Tiny Store!

 

From: Mary C

During the time I was in lower management I learned that corporate, in addition to expecting a certain amount in sales, also wanted us to meet a minimum UPT number.

What is UPT you may ask? Units Per Transaction.

Even if we sold a really expensive item, if we didn’t sell anything else with it, it would hurt the UPT. Therefore we were required to upsell something on every transaction.

We had an “item of the month” to push if there was no other obvious upsell item. Usually this was something fairly inexpensive, but there were times when it just didn’t feel right.

We were a pretty small store so most of the time we would sell one or two items per transaction.

I used to figure the plan numbers and I found that often we would meet the sales number but not the UPT number.

This always resulted in corporate chewing us out for not trying hard enough and threats of making us watch those stupid upsell videos that everyone riffed on.

--Mary C

 

 

 

Ruby Tuesday Restaurant Being Sued For Gender Discrimination Against Men

 

From Daily Mail:

Restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday is being sued for gender discrimination against men after only hiring women in the summer of 2013.

The lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission demands compensation for two male employees denied their applications for a transfer.

It also calls for an injunction preventing the firm from favoring one gender.

The case comes just over a year after a court found Ruby Tuesday guilty of age discrimination at restaurants in six states, ordering the group to pay a $575,000 fine.

According to Andrew Herrera and Joshua Bell, they responded to an internal advert for temporary roles in Park City, Utah, but were denied, The Oregonian reported.

The positions would have come with a higher wage and free housing for two months.

Their suit claims the company, based in Tennessee, clearly favored female applicants and no men were hired due to gender discrimination.

'It's an unusual lawsuit,' John Stanley, a supervisory trial attorney for the EEOC in Seattle who has served 27 years with the commission, told the Oregonian.

'It's rare to see an explicit example of sex discrimination like Ruby Tuesday's internal job announcement,' noted EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney William R Tamayo, according to a statement on the EEOC website.

'This suit is a cautionary tale to employers that sex-based employment decisions are rarely justified, and are not consistent with good business judgment.'

via daily mail

 

RHU Pet Peeves: Apple's Douchebaggery Causes Hell For Custys And Techs Alike

 

From: Kryss

We used to run a computer support company. One reason I don’t like Macs is that about once a year someone would bring one to us to repair, and we’d have to turn them down.

Why? Because Apple refuses to supply parts to anyone who is not an authorized Apple dealer. 

The other reason is that since I’ve been using PCs for the past thirty years, the Apple interfaces are in NO way “intuitive” for me. I can’t figure out how to do ANYTHING and I’m completely lost without that second mouse button. Seriously, I can’t even close a window...

Yes, I understand that this is a quality control issue: they’re trying to ensure that only people who have some idea of what they’re doing can service them. However, we lived in a tiny town of 2,000 and there simply wasn’t any demand for them and, more importantly, we were a service company.

We just didn’t sell computers; although we’d bring one in if a customer wanted something purpose-built. Usually we couldn’t beat Future Shop’s prices, though, so we didn’t bother trying. Customers would ask if what they had on sale was a good deal for them and we’d happily advise them.

But, see, in order to get parts from Apple to fix even something as basic as a damaged hard drive, we’d have to sell a certain number of Apple products a year. And there was just no way. Not in a town that small.

It’s like Ford insisting that only people who sell at least twenty new Fords a year can get Ford parts. So your local mechanic, who knows his stuff and gives you a decent repair rate, can’t do anything. Heck, he can’t even swap out your battery, because in this parallel universe, Fords are 100% made of proprietary parts.

So it’s a good thing they tend to be pretty robust, because the nearest Apple repair shop was a six hour drive away.

So yeah, that’s kind of obnoxious.

 

 

New Carl's Jr. Super Bowl Commercial Outrages Many Women

 

From ABC7:

After Carl's Jr. released its new Super Bowl commercial, starring a scantily-clad model, the ad has already incited a fiery reaction online.

The commercial stars model Charlotte McKinney, depicted going "au naturel," as she walks through a market and attracting ogling eyes. Throughout the ad, McKinney's private parts are hidden by various props while the commercial employs visuals that suggest the men want to grope her body. In the end, it is revealed that she is wearing a bikini.

"I think everyone knows what Carl's Jr. is all about," AdWeek editor Lisa Granatstein told ABC News' "Good Morning America." "Those ads aren't going after women, they're going after men. They are not afraid of the controversy. The more controversy the better."

Carl's Jr. has developed a reputation with their salacious ad campaigns, often depicting women in very revealing attire. Previous commercials featuring Kate Upton, Paris Hilton and Heidi Klum have been so ill-received, they prompted critics to create the hashtag #WomenAreMoreThanMeat and #MoreThanMeat.

"They get more clicks on YouTube, they get more social media. It's a win-win for them. I don't think they care one way or the other what women think about these ads," Granatstein said.

Though Granatstein also admits that other companies are now shying away from their once racy ad-campaigns. GoDaddy, for instance, is expected to show a tamer and fully-clothed scene with Danica Patrick, complete with an adorable puppy.

The regional ad will not air nationally on Super Bowl Sunday, but will be seen mostly in Western states and online.

"Do these ads work for selling burgers? Possibly, but what it really does is put Carl's Jr. on the map and make them a nationally known brand," Granatstein said.

A representative from the parent company of Carl's Jr. told ABC News the ads don't show anything you wouldn't see at the beach and that they don't cross the line, but they like to get right up to it.

Carl's Jr. says the All Natural Burger is the first all-natural burger amongst "major" fast food chains made with "grass-fed, free-range beef that has no added hormones, steroids, or antibiotics."

Though, in small print at the bottom of the ad, the commercial admits that these stipulations only refer to the beef paddy.

via abc7.com