How did you react the last time you were mistaken for an employee at a store? Were you wearing "their" colors? Did the person become angry with you?

Question

Pro tip: Don't wear orange to home Depot.

WhiteSteve · Accepted Answer

Oh man…. at my last job it was crazy. I went out of my way to dress up and not look like I was a store employee, too. But it was grocery retail sales, so my company would have sections of our product or they would be integrated into sections. I’d either come through to take an order, or the store was under my ultimate supervision, so I’d be there on a “store visit”, and in either case, I’d probably take a few minutes to fix up our section to look tidy.

One thing I definitely notice that’s different today than when I worked for grocery stores in the 90s as a teenager, staffing is WAY down. Like the chain I worked at, there would be a grocery department manager, an assistant manager, probably 3 or 4 associates dedicated to stocking shelves as well, PLUS there’d be a dairy manager, a frozen foods manager, and each probably had a #2 to help out.

Nowadays, same place (and they’re UFCW union too, they have some power)…. ONE grocery manager, ONE assistant, MAYBE a third associate, and they not only handle grocery, they do all of dairy and frozen too.

When I was growing up, maybe this is naivety to some extent, but it felt like businesses were eager to employ people, and nowadays they seem to want to get by with as much of a skeleton crew as possible.

One more quick anecdote before summitting “Mt. What’s-Your-Point?”…. at WALMART, I remember one store had a grand re-opening across the street, because they were in an old supermarket space, but then bought a lot across the way and built a stand-alone full-sized Walmart. So for a month or so we’d hop from one to the other, handling normal business at the old store, then going across the street and dealing with Walmart corporate and their “Store Planning” department people.

Anyway, big meeting with all of the vendors about a week prior to the new store opening, and I’ll never forget the guy mentioning that, on their end, they would be following the “Walmart way” of “running lean and mean”, meaning they’d have as light a staff as possible. (Found out when there was an impending hurricane that they only need one manager and one associate to remain open in emergencies, per company policy. The money can never stop coming in, lmao.)

But that explained a LOT to me, because one of the biggest problems at that job was trying to do work with a bunch of customers interrupting me every few minutes asking where things are. First off: whatever happened to “looking around?”, lmao. These people want to come in and have you hold their hand and lead them to any items they can’t immediately locate🤦‍♂️

I get it to some degree, like canned cranberry sauce, it was in a weird spot that the aisle content signs wouldn’t make obvious. But people are like “excuse me, where’s the peanut butter?”, and it’s like “in the aisle that says ‘Jam/Jelly’, like every other supermarket in the developed world…. is this your first day?”🤦‍♂️😂 And I’m too nice to say “sorry, don’t work here”, so I’d always try to help them, lmao.

But I say all that to say that these stores barely have anyone working on the sales floor these days, and it seems like customers are unable to find help when they want/need it. I started to realize a lot of these people have probably been looking for someone to no avail for five minutes, and they’re just trying to finish shopping and get on with their day, so I tried to be gracious about it and help out if I could, and at very least help them find an associate.

I just wish these stores, especially Walmart, who make money hand-over-fist and in outrageous amounts, don’t want to staff their businesses. All you Republican voters, this is who and what you support, businesses doing *just* the bare minimum to keep you as a customer, but not really concerned about serving you. “Come in and buy stuff, but don’t bother us with any questions”, lmao.

I wonder if the younger generations just have no concept of this. Like this is just normal, that a gigantic place like Walmart has two cashiers, two carriage-shaggers, and six associates working on a Saturday afternoon. Definitely got multiple people working Loss Prevention though, or “Asset” Protection in Walmart-speak. Everyone I see working is now one of the online shoppers, and all they do is block aisles with their huge carts🙄 But they probably work for free as far as Walmart is concerned, you just build their cost into the service charge, and you make more sales. Walmart wins again, lmao.

This turned into a hell of a rant, lmfao, but yeah…. used to always happen to me, almost daily. Then I’m also tall, so I’d have short women asking me to reach them stuff from the top shelves, haha. I don’t mind that though, happy to help. But yeah, the second I’d start fixing up our sections, the customer questions soon came to follow.

msc545 · Accepted Answer

So I waas getting out of my car one evening at a restaurant to meet friends, and this guy pulls up next to me in a very nice Corvette, hands me the keys, and says "don't go racing in this" and I said "Yes sir" and took the keys... into the restaurant, where I had dinner with my friends, and stayed late to listen to music. I did NOT go racing and I didn't give the guy his keys although I would have if he had found me. His car was still where he had left it in front when I finally left at 3 AM.

CheeseMonster · Answer

I pointed her to where the ketchup was. I was wearing a shirt that said "volunteer" on the back (hand-me-down from someone who at some point volunteered somewhere I guess, lol).

Communicationisking · Answer

I just went with it and tried to help best I could. Probably gave them a bum steer but I tried.

RedInnocent69 · Answer

I’m always very helpful and friendly, often more so than the staff

NathanDavis · Answer

only at  Hot Topic...  lmfao...

LiamJHayden · Answer

I have never had that happen, but I would try to help if it were ever to happen. I do often get asked to help get things from higher shelves by people who are shorter.

dustybiker2 · Answer

I helped them. 😎

chrissykerdock · Answer

no they simply asked me where something was

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