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My ducks? They're all in a row.
Saturday, 22 April 2006 23:01The Cheat!!!! Get me some more tish-yous!!!!
Pleh...my head feels like it's been caught in a vice. After over a week of dodging a bug going around from Rob, April and Laurie, they all pile it on me. Now it's me with the stuffiness, sneezing and constant nose-blowing. Maybe I shouldn't have had sex with April while she was sick...
In other news, here's a good story for all of you who have been (or still are) employed by Wal-Mart. After working for them for a total of 17 months, I received my first "coaching." For those of you not familiar with the term, "coaching" is the Wal-Mart politically-correct term for a formal reprimand, a recorded strike against you for some infraction. You get formally scolded and yelled at. Wal-Mart's usual chain of infractions operate on a 3-strike basis--first, you get a verbal "coaching," next comes the written coaching--in which they give you what's called a Decision Day, in which they give you one day to think about what you've done and to write a letter of your plan of action--and then there's strike 3, where they fire you. I got strike 1 today...2 weeks before I leave the place for good.
The offense? Making fun of the store manager, and also following store policy. Here's the scenario:
I had to close the Connection Center, and so--a customer wants to return a prepaid cell phone. Ok, fine. All well and good. However, I refuse to take it back. She's got no receipt, no packaging, no charger (I think, if I remember correctly). Anyway, without a box and receipt, store (and Connection Center) policy clearly states that I can't take it back. This return policy is stated clearly at Connection Center, and also at the front end at Customer Service. I have no way to deactivate the cell phone without either piece of info, and so, I can't take it. I tell the customer so, and she didn't seem upset by it, so she said she'd try to find them and try again. And she left. Someone had called a Customer Service Manager (or CSM, for short) to do the return, probably someone in Electronics. So, she came over and asked where the customer was. I said she left, and she told me that I shouldn't have sent her away, for she could do an exchange and override all the register prompts DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE PHONE CAN'T BE DEACTIVATED BECAUSE WE HAVE NO RECEIPT OR BOX TO GET THE SERIAL NUMBER FROM. I told her about the policy of, well, you know, not taking a thing back without a receipt. It's in black and white, plain as day in everyone's line of view--big board that says RETURN POLICY. The CSM tells me that even without it, we HAVE to do an exchange in the name of customer satisfaction.
Remember, kiddies, valuable life lesson: if you buy something at Wal-Mart (or even another store) and bring it back to Wal-Mart, even long after the return window/warranty expires, you can still get a full refund or exchange even if you don't have a receipt by being loud and obnoxious and demanding a manager. To please EVERY customer, so they don't lose them, Wal-Mart will allow customers to walk all over them.
So, I re-assert myself, saying that I won't take anything back without a receipt, BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING STORE POLICY, and the CSM tells me that it doesn't matter. The store manager has ordered that we take everything back, with or without receipt (and all components of the package, apparently) to please the customer. It is here that I tell the CSM that the store manager can lick my left nut for all I care. Yes, I used those words.
The CSM then tattled on me, reporting me to management. They were going to nail me last night, but I had left before they could. So they got me, literally, as I punched in for the day.
I was in the presence of my department manager, an assistant manager, and the People Manager...tribunal-like. They asked if I had said what I said, I admitted--not gonna lie. The store manager CAN lick my left nut for all I care, if they're going to break their own policy and make their associates look like total fools when they argue with a customer over the return policy only to get overridden by management. They began to lecture me about how Sam Walton took back things from other stores and made exceptions to the return policy to please customers, etc, etc, etc.
Sam Walton's kinda dead, folks.
So, after that, I then told the people present that I was simply following the company policy on returns. I then said that if we're going to take things back with no receipts, no packaging, missing components, etc, then I ask that the return policy be removed from all places from the store, because there is no return policy. To which that idea got denied. It's simply there to make the associates trying to do their job have arguments with the customers.
They call it "Coaching for Improvement." What did I learn out of it? 2 things:
1) We have tattle-tales in the building. Apparently we can't make a snide remark about upper management without having it reported. I thought that since we're all adults working here, I'd thought that we grew out of being tattletales, since it's something 6-year olds tend to do. I may have to start treating people like they're 6.
2) That store policy simply exists as a means for associates to look stupid. It serves no real purpose other than to make the peons argue with customers when the peons try to do their job to uphold policy, only to have a manager come by and override and break their own policy. I always had a suspicion about that, but now I know.
So glad to leave retail in 2 weeks. So, this little coaching of mine...if I was going to be here for another year, I'd take it to heart. However, I'm leaving in 2 weeks. I don't care. As a result, we've been milking my discount card for all it's worth--we got a new TV and stand for the new apartment.
So, that's my retail rant for the day. There was one major highlight, though--I saw Dana. First time he'd stepped foot in Wal-Mart since they fired him 2 or so months ago. He's got a new job now at a cigar place in Rosendale (or Stone Ridge, I can't remember which), which is much more casual than Wal-Mart, from what I'm told. He likes it better, which is good. Great to see him again--I was hoping to before I moved to Albany.
All righty...I'm feeling sick. April's coming home soon to rub Vicks on me so I can breathe. I'll probably eat something, and then NyQuil. Work 1-10 tomorrow. Oi.
Nighty night, all.
Pleh...my head feels like it's been caught in a vice. After over a week of dodging a bug going around from Rob, April and Laurie, they all pile it on me. Now it's me with the stuffiness, sneezing and constant nose-blowing. Maybe I shouldn't have had sex with April while she was sick...
In other news, here's a good story for all of you who have been (or still are) employed by Wal-Mart. After working for them for a total of 17 months, I received my first "coaching." For those of you not familiar with the term, "coaching" is the Wal-Mart politically-correct term for a formal reprimand, a recorded strike against you for some infraction. You get formally scolded and yelled at. Wal-Mart's usual chain of infractions operate on a 3-strike basis--first, you get a verbal "coaching," next comes the written coaching--in which they give you what's called a Decision Day, in which they give you one day to think about what you've done and to write a letter of your plan of action--and then there's strike 3, where they fire you. I got strike 1 today...2 weeks before I leave the place for good.
The offense? Making fun of the store manager, and also following store policy. Here's the scenario:
I had to close the Connection Center, and so--a customer wants to return a prepaid cell phone. Ok, fine. All well and good. However, I refuse to take it back. She's got no receipt, no packaging, no charger (I think, if I remember correctly). Anyway, without a box and receipt, store (and Connection Center) policy clearly states that I can't take it back. This return policy is stated clearly at Connection Center, and also at the front end at Customer Service. I have no way to deactivate the cell phone without either piece of info, and so, I can't take it. I tell the customer so, and she didn't seem upset by it, so she said she'd try to find them and try again. And she left. Someone had called a Customer Service Manager (or CSM, for short) to do the return, probably someone in Electronics. So, she came over and asked where the customer was. I said she left, and she told me that I shouldn't have sent her away, for she could do an exchange and override all the register prompts DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE PHONE CAN'T BE DEACTIVATED BECAUSE WE HAVE NO RECEIPT OR BOX TO GET THE SERIAL NUMBER FROM. I told her about the policy of, well, you know, not taking a thing back without a receipt. It's in black and white, plain as day in everyone's line of view--big board that says RETURN POLICY. The CSM tells me that even without it, we HAVE to do an exchange in the name of customer satisfaction.
Remember, kiddies, valuable life lesson: if you buy something at Wal-Mart (or even another store) and bring it back to Wal-Mart, even long after the return window/warranty expires, you can still get a full refund or exchange even if you don't have a receipt by being loud and obnoxious and demanding a manager. To please EVERY customer, so they don't lose them, Wal-Mart will allow customers to walk all over them.
So, I re-assert myself, saying that I won't take anything back without a receipt, BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING STORE POLICY, and the CSM tells me that it doesn't matter. The store manager has ordered that we take everything back, with or without receipt (and all components of the package, apparently) to please the customer. It is here that I tell the CSM that the store manager can lick my left nut for all I care. Yes, I used those words.
The CSM then tattled on me, reporting me to management. They were going to nail me last night, but I had left before they could. So they got me, literally, as I punched in for the day.
I was in the presence of my department manager, an assistant manager, and the People Manager...tribunal-like. They asked if I had said what I said, I admitted--not gonna lie. The store manager CAN lick my left nut for all I care, if they're going to break their own policy and make their associates look like total fools when they argue with a customer over the return policy only to get overridden by management. They began to lecture me about how Sam Walton took back things from other stores and made exceptions to the return policy to please customers, etc, etc, etc.
Sam Walton's kinda dead, folks.
So, after that, I then told the people present that I was simply following the company policy on returns. I then said that if we're going to take things back with no receipts, no packaging, missing components, etc, then I ask that the return policy be removed from all places from the store, because there is no return policy. To which that idea got denied. It's simply there to make the associates trying to do their job have arguments with the customers.
They call it "Coaching for Improvement." What did I learn out of it? 2 things:
1) We have tattle-tales in the building. Apparently we can't make a snide remark about upper management without having it reported. I thought that since we're all adults working here, I'd thought that we grew out of being tattletales, since it's something 6-year olds tend to do. I may have to start treating people like they're 6.
2) That store policy simply exists as a means for associates to look stupid. It serves no real purpose other than to make the peons argue with customers when the peons try to do their job to uphold policy, only to have a manager come by and override and break their own policy. I always had a suspicion about that, but now I know.
So glad to leave retail in 2 weeks. So, this little coaching of mine...if I was going to be here for another year, I'd take it to heart. However, I'm leaving in 2 weeks. I don't care. As a result, we've been milking my discount card for all it's worth--we got a new TV and stand for the new apartment.
So, that's my retail rant for the day. There was one major highlight, though--I saw Dana. First time he'd stepped foot in Wal-Mart since they fired him 2 or so months ago. He's got a new job now at a cigar place in Rosendale (or Stone Ridge, I can't remember which), which is much more casual than Wal-Mart, from what I'm told. He likes it better, which is good. Great to see him again--I was hoping to before I moved to Albany.
All righty...I'm feeling sick. April's coming home soon to rub Vicks on me so I can breathe. I'll probably eat something, and then NyQuil. Work 1-10 tomorrow. Oi.
Nighty night, all.
