This bitch is directed at the retail store I visited last night: Pay your employees for their time spent at work after the store actually closes to customers. They shouldn’t be so pressured to get everything done before the store closes that they ignore customers. Maybe the store would make some sales in that last half hour instead of driving their customers away.
I walked into a certain ladie’s clothing store at 8:25pm last night with a friend – 35 minutes before closing time. We were treated like we were invisible because the CSR were rushing around preparing to close the store already. Offenses include: whisking a dress from the end of a rack while my friend and I were actively talking about me trying it on/buying it, making a rude comment when my friend asked for a few different sizes of shoe to try on (“Well, can you pick on ’cause I’m not bringing out six boxes”), and generally making us feel like our presence was unwelcome. We walked out at 8:35pm with no purchases. We would potentially have spent $200 between the two of us.
I want to close by saying I used to work in retail and I remember wanting to get out as soon as possible because we wouldn’t be paid for any time after the store closes, but I NEVER made my customers feel like I was made to feel last night.
— appropriately timed shopper
This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.
Lame.
Last minute window shoppers are annoying as fuck.
/endofstory
A) wasn’t window shopping…I was there to actually buy something, as was my friend.
B) wasn’t like it was ten minutes before the store closed….it was a full half hour.
C) Not everyone can get their shopping done before 8:30pm…that’s why the stores are OPEN as late as they are.
If a store is open until a certain time, that means they’re open until that time. If it says 9-9pm I have every right to be there and be treated like any other customer who comes in at any other time at 8 fucking 59pm if I so choose to be there at 8:59pm, hali.
I’d call up the store’s manager, Bawls…or even email/call their regional office. No excuse for bad service.
i bet it was KA|S 😛
I contacted the head office
Maybe they will give you a rebate on your purchases. Oh wait… you didn’t buy anything.
Now why might that be, hali? Maybe if there’d been someone helpful who wouldn’t rip my head off for asking for a size, I’d have tried on the dress I’ve had my eye on and bought it. Not wanting to be treated like shit is adequate reason to leave a store purchase free. I’ll be heading to another location to buy that dress.
hali was probably the one who treated you like shit, bawls and is feeling a bit touchy about the criticism. And even if she wasn’t, your bitch probably hit a little too close to home, I’m guessing.
Jesus fuck, what’s your problem, hali? If getting treated like shit isn’t a reason to take your business elsewhere, I don’t know what is. Stop acting like such a bitch!
hali probably works at american apparrel or some equally-lame store where customer service is not understood.
hours posted are the hours of operation.
If they aren’t going to operate during those hours, then they should be changed. duh.
Haha, I was thinking something close to the same, Pretty Kitty! Here Here (um…Hear Hear?).
This is a completely legitimate bitch, imo.
I’ve been in the same situation a few times myself, Bawls. It’s extremely rude, and i don’t blame you at all for leaving without buying anything. If the store is open until 9pm, then you have every right to shop until then, and if you want to try on every single item in the store, so be it. The clerks are there to assist the customer, and although some of them don’t realize it, the customer’s money is what’s keeping them on the payroll. I’ve done the retail thing, and yeah, it sucks ass when a customer blows in 5 minutes before closing time. But that’s part of the job sometimes, so suck it up buttercup, or start looking for a new way to pay your bills.
I used to work somewhere where the manager told me he had to fight to get the big bosses to pay employees for the extra half hour after closing time it took to do all the cash, inventory, cleaning etc. That’s fucked, it should be illegal for companies not to pay. It’s WORK.
As far as hang-arounders, you can be there at 8:59, no problem. 9:00, 9:02, have some respect and get the fuck out the door so we don’t have to stand there waiting to unlock it for you. Maybe if it was my business I’d hang around, but as long as I’m some peon working for minimum wage with no hope of a raise even if you do buy something, sorry bout your luck.
Yeah, and that’s the real issue – if the companies would just pay the retail workers for the 15 minutes they’re supposed to be there before they are scheduled to start, and the 30 minutes after the doors close to the public, I’m sure the rush to finish everything early might be lessened. I’m not gonna say elinimated because nobody wants to be at work after 9pm.
I don’t think this has anything to do with companies not paying their employees after closing time and everything to do with employees caring more about leaving work early than actually doing well at their jobs. When I worked retail (and I did for years) our shifts were scheduled to be over a half hour after the store closes to give us time to close out the cash and clean up. And if it took us longer than that our timesheets were adjusted and we got paid for longer. Those employees had no right to ignore you as long as you weren’t making it a point to destroy their carefully folded tables, haha.
I forgot to read the rest of this bitch.
Bottom line is, I think, yes companies should pay workers for work done after closing, but if you are getting paid to close after closing time and you still rush around treating the customers like shit, then that’s just shitty customer service, no question. Especially 35 minutes before closing I mean WTF?
HAHAhalifax….most employers are as cheap as dirt here, I’ve never seen anything like from coast to coast, sure does make it hard to get good service. And people wonder why they can’t attract new workers…HAHAHA
Far from pushin’ 50 and didn’t write this bitch. Your ESP sux Fat. Give up.
About the OP, I’m kinda with the bitch. To think all your employees should go home at the same time as your open-to-the-public doors close makes for a bitchin’ next morning opening routine. Kinda stupid… it negatively affects the closing time customers to boot. Bitch on.
Superstore actually schedules some of their employees a half hour past closing to handle the hanger on-ers who won’t just leave (and to deal with closing stuff like putting re packs away and some cleaning)…and sometimes it only takes 10-15 minutes so you get paid for the whole 1/2 hour, but only have to work a part of it. So I will give SS that.
Sobeys didn’t do that when I worked there back in the day…BUT they paid you for every minute you worked. You wouldn’t be scheduled past closing, but you’d get paid if you had to say (and it was a given you would if you were scheduled up till closing so you pretty much were prepared for that possibility).
Stores who don’t pay their employees for every minute they’re there should be ashamed of themselves. I worked for a store that did that and made an employee stay 2 hours late because their security system wouldn’t work and the doors wouldn’t lock and they had to call the security company over to fix it…they wouldn’t pay her for those two hours. And since it was in an area where there weren’t a lot of jobs, they got away with it because we were all pretty replaceable.
Used to work at Superstore, they were good about paying after 10. I work at a pharmacy now, they aren’t. It’s silly, assuming the cashbox has to be in up until 10, it’s impossible to shut down the terminals and tender while still being paid. Always in until 10:10-10:30.