Sometimes, working in retail is so hilarious, one cannot help but to slack off the job! Even when you NEVER take your breaks and have the best of intentions, always...!
Case in point: three different sets of rugs arrived in the latest shipment from the main warehouse that invaded the already cramped-up backstore area. Naturally, the associates hurry up to place the new merchandise on the floor, (meaning in the store, lest I need to remind you all of the sordid lingo debate? No? Good!) but then it occurs to one of those guys that they are missing vital components in order to be able to make that happen so fast...
A) One of the so-called ''rugs'' looks strangely like a BATH MAT indeed. The astute associate checks the label and it reads AQUARIUS - BATH FASHION! He points that out to the de facto head honcho of the fashion department and (assumed) final say of the linens department as well (just because she is a woman - and the boss' woman!) and she categorically denies that it could ever be, have been or eventually become a BATH MAT! The associate then points out the Aquarius label - and she flip-flops on the spot! Some authority she is, eh...
Alas, all this laughable debate was for nothing: because the associates had, just hours prior to it all, placed legitimate, non-ambiguous bath mats on the floor already - and there was no room for these new ones anyway!
B) Next: Los Alamos rugs, hand-made and all! Heavy as hell too, especially when you take twenty at once; so heavy, in fact, that the hook that they supplied the associates with to hang those things ''on the floor'' (lingo, folks - lingo!!!) in glorious display for the customer to see (and, hopefully, purchase them all) BENT AND BUCKLED UNDER THE PRESSURE IMMEDIATELY! Time to look for some contingency plan - and, once again the same associate simply put on display one of each colour that was received - five in all - on a brand new hook, just to be on the safe side! As for the rest of the shipment? Tossed into the backstore! It wasn't so quickly done, though; the associate looked and looked and couldn't find the proper fixtures to solidly place all the rugs on the floor - for they seem NOT TO HAVE THEM AT ALL. Great going, guys! Finally, he was to makeshift with something he whipped up out of old fashion rack components...! Thank you, Fashionistas!
C) and last but hardly least; no tape can be found anywhere, in the beloved backstore - and the associates know because they looked for it, desperately, once again! Dare they just get a roll from the floor, without paying? Should they get one from the competitor nextdoor, in the most unlikely case that they sold out?!? In the end the associates just leave the damn rugs like that, unrolled, IN THE BACKSTORE - because they know they are just wasting their time with them and have other ways to waste it, now: for it is both MARKDOWNS and FACING time! Both are a total and abysmal waste of both time and their money - but hey, if they are dumb enough to pay their associates to do this... why the heck not, right?
First, the markdowns - when the associates get to feel like Robin Hood, no less! For they steal from the rich to give to the poor; sort of! They are neither "stealing" nor "giving" in truth and fact, of course: just narrowing the gap and discrepancies between "inflated retail value" and actual chain cost for the crap that they would sell at a much higher price, at first, in order to maximize the potential profit... When that didn't work out, they flat out give up and start marking it down! ALAS, as the associates found out through customers that their very own manager was NOT following procedure (either he isn't or the other guy in town isn't - read on!) which is dictated by the Head Office hoodwinks. The proportion of the "markdown" (as in price marked on the way down - duh!) is dictated by Head Office - but the associates are told by certain customers that the same items they reduced "moderately" at best have been drastically reduced (like, from 5.99 to 99 cents!) at the sister store on the eastside! What gives...?!? Either this store's manager is a penny-pincher - or the other store's got an over-the-top generous heart... unless that is just more of a realistic and pragmatic approach! Marking it down once and for all does have its benefits: sure, you sell it off at a dirt-cheap price, but you are rid of it at last. Most of all though, no more paying the associates to mark it down in three or four steps - since it still did not get sold and there are 20 or so items like it, at quantities that vary from ten to fifty per "sku" too...! Marking this down week after week means many hours devoted to the process; and there's lots and lots of wasted salary right there!
But speaking of wasted salary: FACING TIME!
Or to indulge (for an hour, at least) in the art of deception...! It is especially true for the grocery sections, too... Well, what else would you call making an empty shelf look full to the brim by carefully placing all the products left so that they cut all the angles, show no empty corner, fill the view as so much trompe l'oeil or tape-à-l'oeil would do... hmm? It is all to give the customer that false sense of ''plentiful'' - we have it and we have it in spades...! The associates are, therefore, fully accomplices of the perpetrated lie as they are the ones making it happen...! Half-a-dozen packages, well placed ans spaced out, make it seem like a shelf normally able to store six or seven times as much ''full'' - and so the store can avoid selling on discount for a while longer (there is a limit to the shelf life of those things, you know...! And, normally, something approaching that ominous expiry date should be marked down, too...!) And as the facing unfolds, the only truth that a mercantile venue knows makes itself revealed: as those few, proud associates called cashiers are making sense of the business day's cashflow, counting every last penny, virtual or not - balancing it all...
Finally, about two hours after the actual closing time, the associates can go home... only to come back, first thing in the morning - the store opens at 8 A.M. as one of them gets to announce on the microphone, while announcing the end of the day to the few customers that wouldn't leave!
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