Retail Hell Underground

Retail Toilet Hell

I had to clean up DIRTY TOILET WATER off our sales floor tonight!

It was one of the nastiest things I've had to do there in a while. 

For some reason people think it is fun to flush paper towels and other non-flushable items down our toilets and then laugh at us secretly while we are mopping the shit up (quite literally tonight!)

Yes, you stupid wench, I see you over there laughing at me, don't tempt me or I'll fling toilet water at you so you can have it in your shoes too!

After I got to work, but before I clocked in dinner time and all, one of the other employees found one of our regular customers in the stockroom where our STAFF ONLY restroom is. 

Notice the words STAFF ONLY! 

We have a public restroom but to cut down on the thievery you have to ask for the key at the counter.  The employee asked the customer to leave the stockroom and told her she shouldn't be in there and she was quickly informed that, "Your manager said I could use the staff restroom anytime I wanted to!" 

LIAR!!!!  

I didn't know any of this until I walked towards the back a little while later and water was seeping like a mini-lake under the wall and into a pond on the sales floor.

I stuck my head in the bathroom and one of the other girls is frantically trying to get the water to stop.  We shut off the water and it seemed to stop but the water was nasty!  I had to get out the mop, roll up my jeans and mop the nasty water up from our sales floor first. 

THEN because there had been nasty poop water all over I was grossed out and re-mopped with sanitizer. 

This isn't even the best part though! 

While I was mopping up the water from our restroom the woman wanted to use the restroom again because "little johnny has to tinkle! He's potty training and has to go NOW!" 

Even when we tried to explain all the water is off because YOU FLOODED THE STORE YOU DUMB BIMBO, she continued to get nasty and demand to use the restroom.  

On top of all of that insanity, after the plumber left and I went back to finish cleaning, the bathroom still smelled like something died. 

She left us the wonderific gift of her son's nasty diaper in the can. 

I nearly vomited! 

She is now on our restroom offenders list and will be tazered on night sight -  I wish! 

She'll be back tomorrow to pick up a desk she couldn't get into the car, I hope she doesn't mind the smell, it was in the stock room and got a little wet too....

ginger!

P.S.
Next day: Some lady handed me her smell baby to hold while she shopped! ICK!

 

Resale Hell and Shoplifters

Hey Retail Slaves,

Hope you are all surviving out there. Today I'm ranting a bit about shoplifters.

I work in a glorified thrift store. You can get a coat for your kid for less than $15 or pair of shoes for less than $5, yet for some ridiculous reason we have a huge shoplifting problem.

We can't say anything unless we actually see someone take something. We have had to start locking our public restroom and now have to let people in with the key each time. We have to keep one shoe of each pair behind the counter. Coats and anything over $10 has to have an inktag on it.

We saw a woman take her son out of the store, sit down on the steps with him, pull a pair of shoes out of her purse put them on him, right in the front door. This incident was what started the holding of one shoe behind the counter policy. It's a total retail pain in the ass. We have 26 baskets full of single shoes behind the counter and have to find the mate to the shoe the cutomers want when they are ready to check out. It's a disaster! Our manager however, hilariously informed me of the new policy right in front of our shoe-lifter!

Another night a couple of women came in with several kids and ripped tags off of about $80 of merchanidse in the restroom and walked out with all of in the bags. One of the items was purple coat. About a week and a half later, they came back and the little girl was wearing the coat. Our manager  made a big deal about how cute the coat was and such. She ahd the other employees followed them around to keep them from walking out with anything else.

I've asked a couple times for people to tail possilbe shoplifters and they don't even try! Plus it's our slow season and that means people are getting sent home or their hours are getting cut. It's a turn-based system. If I get cut tonight, then someone else gets cut tomorrow. One of our girls is refusing to go home when someone has to and also coming in early for her shift. OUr new assitant (who I cannot make myself like) let her stya when she came in early and made me leave. WTF?!! I need hours too! Stingy beeeotches!

Your Resale Whore,
Ginger

Customers Behaving Badly

Retail Whore Ginger's resale tales continue:

A few weeks ago I was standing at the front counter processing merchandise customers bring in to sell to us (Remember I work second-hand resale!), when a woman walks up to me and asks if I was finished going through the things her daughter had brought in. I told her they weren't quite ready and she walked away. 

About 15 minutes later she came back up to the counter and started yelling at me, "This place is too hot! What is wrong with this store it is just too hot! I am so hot I'm going to have to leave! I'm going to GNC! It's too HOT IN HERE!!!" 

I stood there in complete shock as she screamed at me about being too hot thinking good god woman are you having a f'ing hot flash? What the hell?

I managed to apologize "I'm sorry you're uncomfortable, I'll be finished with your daughters items soon."  She continued to complain as she left.

The assistant manager heard all this and was about to split and couldn't resist laughing at me. I told her I was tempted to pick up a newspaper off of the counter and fan her and the assistant told me I should have offered to blow on her. lol

Same day after the too hot meltdown, a woman came in with 3 children (2 older children and little girl about 5).  She left the store and I looked up and saw her little girl still wandering the store.  Yes I'm not joking the woman left without her 5 year old daughter. 

I went running out the front door after the woman screaming "Ma'am, wait! I think you left your daughter in the store!" She didn't even seem slightly distressed and neither did the little girl who heard me yelling for her mother and came running to the door. The kid didn't get upset, mom didn't seem to care. What the hell, leave your little girl in a store, really!!!

I don't understand how it is okay for people to come into any store, especially a children's store, high and/or drunk. We have a couple that comes in so high they don't even know where they are. They bring in stuff and drive us all crazy. Another favorite was the drunk woman who came in and was still drinking something suspicious out of a soda bottle. Come on now, we are near a bar but it doesn't mean you can bring your drunk, high ass in, trash my store, and scare my customers!

This weekend, an older woman came in with 4 small children. Shortly after a younger woman came in with a bag from the Chinese restaurant down the strip mall.  The children were going wild: riding bicycles, climbing on things, tearing the toys off the racks, screaming, etc. Our manager asked them several times to stop while the adults did NOTHING!

A couple of minutes later I get a whiff of the greasy delicious smell of Chinese food. I just started a diet and am starving for something other than fruit and here is this woman walking around with egg rolls.

Wait! 

She's not just roaming the store with the bag of Chinese, she is sitting on the floor at the end of one of the aisles with her bag of food open and having her own little picnic. 

First our floors are kind of gross and COLD. Second, egg rolls are greasy and it's very likely as she was feeding them to the kids they got grease all over merchandise. 

What the hell? That is so f'ing rude! Eat before you come in or after you leave! NOT ON THE FLOOR OF MY STORE!  I went back to the staff restroom that is in our stockroom and lo and behold on the way out of the restroom here are her and her children in our stockroom, "looking for a trashcan." 

I rudely told her that there was not a trashcan for them and that it was a major safety hazard for them to be back there and to please leave our stockroom. EMPLOYEES ONLY! 

As usual the woman didn't have her purse and she had to hold up the whole line to go get her money from the car. I think she had stolen merchandise under her fake fur coat she was trying to sneak out....and that will make a nice segue way for next week's post: Shoplifters! See you then!

 

Scary Retail Hell Horror Tale

Just in time for Halloween.....

EWWWW!!! I haven't had much to say lately but this is a gem of a story!

 

I was at the front counter greeting customers today when a pair of women came in...

One had a basket of stuff for me to go through and the other, obviously the grandma was carrying a little boy.  I was talking to the mom and getting her signed in to sell her stuff when grandma started screeching that the little boy had puked down her back! 

I grabbed the restroom key and was trying to give her directions to the restroom when the little boy turned and vomited like the little girl in the Exorcist. 

At this point I threw the restroom key at the assistant manager and ran for the backroom to keep from throwing up on myself.  As I was hiding in the stockroom the manager came back looking for gloves so she and the assistant could clean up the vomit.  

WTF!  Really? Someone's child puked and they leave with the kid (but not permanently..wait for it!) and expect us to clean up their kid's vomit!  (No this isn't the first time this has happened either!). 

I finally got brave and walked back out the front and decided to go outside and walk down the strip mall for some fresh air and what do I see:

Mom and grandma in the parking lot with the kid stripped down to his t shirt and underwear changing his clothes. 

No more than 5 minutes later (after the first mess was cleaned up!)they come back in.  

They continued to shop and the little boy was trying to look at videos at the counter in front of me.  The mom and grandma were working to coax him away with them...At this point I decided that if they left the little geyser alone in front of me I was leaving! 

They manage to bribe him away from the counter and about 5 minutes later another employee, who had been hiding from the puke in the back with me earlier, came up and said the little boy had just shit himself too! 

He apparently got explosive in one of the aisles. 

At this point all I could think was fuck this shit! I'm outta here. I looked at the assistant and told her I was going to lunch, clocked out and walked out the door.  

WAIT FOR IT THOUGH!!!! MORE HELL: 

While I was gone again our employees had to clean up not only the kid's shitty mess but also our playroom because he destroyed that too! 

Then about 45 minutes after I get back from lunch GRANDMA AND MOM COME BACK TO FINISH SHOPPING!!! WHAT THE FUCKING HELL!!!

YOUR KID PUKED AND SHIT ALL OVER OUR STORE AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO HELP CLEAN UP AND YOU ARE BACK IN HERE AGAIN?   GET THE FUCK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope none of you have retail scares like that.

Have Happy Halloween Everyone!

Ginger the Resale Whore

3 Examples of a When Retail Hell Managers/Slave Drivers Take Advantage

Retail Whore Ginger's Resale Hell continues with a few examples of a hateful Slave Driver Manager taking advantage of her retail whoredom good will:

It's amazing how someone who tries to work hard and be flexible gets taken advantage of! It's better now with a whole new management staff but I can't help but still be a cynical bitch sometimes!

I get so tired of being the person who taken advantage of. Here are three examples from my Resale Hell:

Example 1:

Me: I have physical therapy at 1:30 so I need to be out of here at 1:15.

Manager: Ok, let me just go take my break. [breaks are 30 minutes and this is like 12:45]  

Me: Um it's 1:25, I need to go to therapy. [I'm not even supposed to be here today!]

Manager: I know umm I need to go to the bathroom, wait a minute!

Me [thinking]: WHAT!!! YOU CALLED ME IN ON MY ONLY DAY OFF THIS WEEK! I'VE BEEN STANDING ON MY KNEE THAT I JUST HAD SURGERY ON ALL DAY AND NOW YOU'RE   GOING TO MAKE ME LATE FOR PHYSICAL THERAPY WHAT A SELFISH BITCH!!!!!!!!!

Example 2:

Manager: Hey will you stay so I can take my break? [a little before 3:00, still 30 minute break].

Me: Yah I guess. [I'm off at 3:00]

45 minutes later....

Me: [Still waiting to go home....]  Hey! I've been here since 10 and   didn't get a break at all today!  What is wrong with this picture?

Example 3:

It's Saturday morning, your first chance to sleep in in over a week. You are TIRED and want to sleep until at least 10:30 or 11. You've get up take the dogs outside so they don't wizz on the carpet and crawl back into bed. Ahh finally you  get comfy enough to get back to sleep when the phone rings. "Damn it's  9:30 and why is my mother calling this early?" is your only thought. You roll over and groggily answer the phone. 

"Hello?" 

"Is Ginger there?"  It's my boss...

"Yah I'm here" 

"I have an emergency, my opener just called and said she's not coming in, in fact she quit and said she'd never come back. I'm here alone and we open in a half an hour, can you come in?'

First thought: shit!

"Yah, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thanks, you're wonderful. You do realize that's open to close right?

"I know."

-Click-

I worked all day that day, didn't get any laundry or anything else at home done because the same girl that called off on her first day wouldn't come to work. She even refused to come in and work from 10-1, until I was scheduled to be there.

What the hell is wrong with people?  I mean really, it's not like we are mean to new people or anything they just won't work. I have lost count of how many employees have just up and quit this year. (hmmm at least 6!)  As usual those of us who are reliable and trust worthy get stuck cleaning up the mess and screwed over because we are trying to do the right thing. Damn your conscience if it wasn't for you I could be a bad person too!

Until next time Slaves,

Ginger, the Resale Whore

Resale Retail Hell with Retail Whore Ginger

A new contributor to RHU, Retail Whore Ginger, would like to introduce us to her hell: RESALE!! Resale is big business now and Ginger's stories and pictures are proof that it's absolute Retail Hell!!!

Hey, Slaves,

Ginger, the Resale Retail Whore here. I work in the world of resale as you can see from the piles of crap in all these pictures.

I work for a privately owned company that sells "gently used" children's items. This means customers bring in their things and we go through each piece to see if we want to purchase it to put out in our inventory. The merchandise goes straight from the employee who buys it from the customer, it is tagged, hung, and put out to purchase.

I get the joy of being able to go through the things people bring in to SELL to us. I have had bugs crawl out of containers of clothes, had to sort through clothes that have puke, crap, and pee stains on them, clothes that are damp and moldy, etc... The best part is that people who bring in this crappy stuff get offended and pissed off when we don't buy their items and start to yell at us.

We also have a large problem with shoplifting and people bringing in stolen items to sell. My favorite was when a lady came in and started screaming because we had her stuff that her sister had stolen from her!

I have had to clean up poop off the carpet more than once and we've had kids pee in our carpeted playarea more than once. We've moved into a larger store without carpet since and I've not had to clean up pee or poo in that one. However, I've gotten the joy of mopping up sewage and scraping gum off our floors.

Back to School is our busiest season.  It is like a giant massacre at both ends our sales are highest and the number of people cleaning out to sell us their things is unreal. It also means we have these piles of baskets. All the merchandise is put into baskets for sort and eventually needs to be hung and put out on the floor.

The Mountains O' Baskets of things breakdown goes like this:

Mountain 1 Baskets O' Things are people's things they want us to go through and buy from them.

Mountain 2 Baskets O' Things are what we want to buy from people and are waiting for people to come back and authorize the sale.

Mountain 3 Baskets O' Things are what we didn't buy for whatever reason and are waiting for people to come pick up and take home. Lately there has been many rejections - Why, you ask? I'll tell you why: There were bags of clothes full of kitty litter, clothes that had puke, pee, or poop stains, clothes from 1983, clothes that were moldy, smelled like gasoline, mothballs, etc. On top of that we've had a lot of people screaming at us that we are too picky. I wonder if they'd like to buy a shirt covered in kitty litter and poop?

Finally, Mountain 4 Baskets O' Things are what we bought and now belong to our store. Everything in this plastic mountain from Resale Hell needs to be tagged, hung, and put out to sell. In an ideal world all of this stuff is supposed to be behind our counters, but because of Back to School, it's everywhere right now (stock room, employee bathroom, and in every nook and cranny there is).

Not only are we swamped with stuff, but the customers are out of their minds!  We had to pick up the fitting rooms multiple times yesterday because people are stupid pigs who let their children run rampant around the store and then yell at us when we ask their child to please not ride the bicycle which is currently chained to a display rack up and down the aisle.

Plus we are short staffed because the new girl quit after 2 shifts and now there is a lovely case of the flu going around our staff.  I CAN'T WAIT FOR MY VACATION NEXT WEEK!!!

I'll have some scary Retail Hell stories and pics for you in the future from the frightening world of Resale Hell!

Your Resale Retail Whore,

Ginger