Sunday, February 03, 2008

Reasons why I'm annoyed by my part time job

I've been a bad little blogger recently *slaps wrist* so much so that many of you won't even realise that I do have a part-time job. I started in late October, and haven't blogged about it yet as there wasn't much to blog about. But yesterday, after an 11 hour shift with me getting increasingly wound up I decided that had to change. So here it goes.

I have to work part time to fund my going out and getting pissed University education. This realisation caused me to do much applying for jobs but there was one in particular that I wanted, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't for the money, because it was. I had an interview and got offered the job of a store assistant at a well known discount supermarket which shall remain nameless. All was well at first, but over time little things have begun to niggle at me, about the job, about the customers, about everything. So in the name of blowing off steam, I give you the top five of things that annoy me at work.

1) Children. Now you may say come on Lola, that's not exactly fair. They're little and can't help what they do. All I know is that this job is encouraging me more and more to have my tubes tied. Try sitting on a till in a busy as hell store with a few parents in the queue with a screaming kid in tow. I can forgive babies for this moreso although the crying noise does still set my teeth on edge. It's the "old enough to know better" kids having tantrums because they can't have what they want that really winds me up. I'm going to generalise here but most parents I see with a kid in that situation are only feeding this kids tantrum (the kid is invariably called something like Charmayne or Reece). In a lot of cases as well, both parents are present, so why doesn't one take the kids outside while the other sorts out the paying and packing of the food? It's not rocket science and it will stop the nice cashier from suddenly snapping one day and going on a homicidal rampage. Seriously though, the last two saturdays I've worked 11 hour shifts, why should I have to spend the majority of it listening to crying kids?

2) People who are unobservant/ignorant. We have specials coming in on certain days of the week. Please do not ask us what day they are due in if it is in large bold font at the top of that page! Also we get people coming in looking for certain things, and have no idea when they came in, while this in itself is not a sin, getting snotty about it when the staff haven't a clue about what you mean, is. The only person who has been extremely rude to me was one of these people. She came in looking for a portable television with inbuilt dvd player. We had had small 7' portable dvd players in recently, so I assumed that was what she meant. When I showed her one she looked at me as if I was retarded.
"No," she repeated, "A portable television with inbuild dvd player."
I replied that we hadn't had anything of the sort in and asked where it had said that we had them, as I thought they may be due in, in the recent future. She told me that a friend of hers had gotten one from a store elsewhere. I again said that to my knowledge we hadn't had them in (at this point I had worked there for about a month and a half, and I knew we hadn't had anything in since then.
She then said, very snottily, "You don't sound sure, can you find me someone who is."
I was fuming, but another of my colleagues told her exactly the same thing and she disappeared in a huff. I'm sorry but rudeness is not acceptable. In general the staff know a lot more than the customer about what has been in and what hasn't, so be polite for gods sake. I later found out that a different discount supermarket had them instead. Moral of the story, if you're going to be rude to the staff then make sure you have the right shop first, idiots.

3) People who put things on the till but don't tell me that they are returning them and want a refund until after I've scanned it. I then have to void that transaction (with manager approval) then do a refund (with manager approval). Save us a lot of trouble by just telling me it's a refund before I scan it.

4) People who bag stuff at the till. Now I don't mind this when we're not busy, but when there's 4 cashiers on and we're still struggling to manage please don't bag up your shopping as I'm putting it through, whack it in the trolley and bag it in the designated bagging area, like everyone else!

5) The fact that we are worked extremely hard. Now I don't mind hard work, but when I'm running about, sweating, and picking up heavy things and it's only 7 am that's when I'm likely to get tetchy. I had a shift that started at 6 am on Xmas Eve. I wasn't awake, I probably wasn't safe to drive to work as one point I had to look down to see if I had my uniform on (I couldn't remember getting dressed). Then when I get into work I have the store manager following me around telling me to speed up, grrrrr. Then when the store opens, there is no chance of getting things done in peace, people constantly ask you things like, "where are the eggs?" when they are standing in front of them, or you are getting called to hop on the tills. And yet the day still goes slowly!

Ok, rant over until another time...

Firstly I'd just like to draw your attention to my tongue in cheek pole fund. The jist of it is that I want a pole at home, and I can't afford at pole at home due to being over a grand into my overdraft. Prevent my purchase from adversely affecting my ability to buy textbooks. Seriously though if you have nothing better to spend your money on and fancy a couple of pics posted later of my practicing on said pole then you know what to do ;-)

Thank you to everyone who donated for the world record attempt. We are still to hear back regarding that but I believe that the money raised was phenominal.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have u try the online bookstore Cocomartini

http://www.cocomartini.com/

I get all my textbooks for this semester from this bookstore. All are brand new and half price discount.

Good luck and wish some help.

hehe ^_^

KindaBlue said...

There used to be a magnificent web site called "Customers Suck", which I last read about ten years ago and seems to have disappeared into the ebony void of cyberspace. Its hilarious anecdotes quite honestly evaporated any remote possibilities of my ever working in retail...

I'm pleased the fundraising went well. How was the response from your readership?

Oh, by the way, I've tagged you. It's my first post in over a month; you're not the only one neglecting their blogging duties :-)

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