Originally Posted by taylor /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I work at a major electronics retailer, in the warehouse.
Our warehouse department, for the most part, is very good. We always move TVs and stuff carefully and properly. We load into customer's cars a lot and any one of us will spend an extra 5 minutes to make sure the TV is secured properly. Laying down flat screen TVs is bad news. It would be so easy to just throw them laying down in the trunk, but every one of us will spend 5 minutes forcing it into the back seat standing up, even though we don't have to. Products in the warehouse are always treated well. Not babied, but never abused.
Our corporate office did a kinda dirty thing once, which lasted for a week before it was rescinded. Because people will buy a perfectly fine TV, then take it home and break it, and return it claiming they broke it (for physical screen damage, we have to write it off, which is a ton of money lost), for a little, we were required to open up every TV, check off that it wasn't cracked, and make the customer sign it. They got pissed off because they didn't want to be given opened merchandise, so we stopped.
There are a lot of things that would be annoying towards customers, and which slow down things, but we have to do certain things because of dishonest customers. If you return a TV, you can expect that the serial numbers will be checked very carefully with the ones recorded when you purchased it. Most returns are carefully checked to make sure it's the right product.
We have 15% restocking fees on some stuff. It's there for two reasons - if we take it open, we sell it at around 15% off . Also, it is there to discourage swapping out the item. We had people who would buy something, then after 6 months it would break, so then they would buy the same model, switch the units, and return it. It is designed for the least amount of problems as possible (no fee if exchanged for an identical unit or one of higher value, but often the manager will exchange it for store credit or a completely different product, just as long as it's not a cash refund). I think it makes perfect sense. I know that if I bought something I wasn't sure about, and knew there was a restocking fee (we got smart about a year ago and put big stickers on the stuff, so that you cant open it without tearing the sticker), I would think about it before using it. If I bought a GPS, and it broke, I'd get another one. Too many people try to rip us as a company off.
We have some policies that can be bad for an innocent customer, but they're in place because of people trying to rip us off. We as employees need to be paid, so we're immediately against doing things that will cost the store money.
Oh, and, often people will bend over backwards to help people who are being really nice. If someone comes in and is a jerk to me, I treat them as such. I'm warehouse, and I refuse to load stuff for people who are ******** to me. One time this guy came in for these chairs, and made this whole big fuss about it, called me an ******* to my face, and accused me of lying to him when I told him we didn't have something (we had two display models and one sealed box of this chair, and he wanted two. the policy is to give him the one we have and special order the other). So he finally gets one after dealing with the manager. At this point we already had closed and there were like 5 people around, and he points to me and says "I have a bad back. Put this in my car." so I said to my manager "Ben, I'm clocking out and going home now, see you later." and walked out. The ****monger got even more pissed off at me, but Ben knew that he was being a tool and earlier said "yea this guy is a real piece of work, let me deal with him"
I haven't had any other times when I refused to load something, but if people give me **** like that again, I'm going to. Just gonna put their bigass plasma on the sidewalk and be like "have a nice day" and walk away, and if they bitch, be like "ill load it when i get the chance" and then make them wait at least 15 minutes.
That's another thing we do condone in the warehouse. We do our best to get things as quickly as possible. We have a lot of responsibilities. The pickup counter is not supposed to be staffed all the time. When a customer comes up, they page us, then we get up there ASAP, which could be a minute or two depending on where we are. Then we load their **** ASAP, but that could take a few minutes if we have to search for it and use the stockpicker. Most people are fine with it, but if someone gets really bitchy, we've all been known to stand there just out of sight of the window holding a product for a few minutes. The way I see it, all I'm asking for is to be treated like a human. If that's too much for someone to do for me, then I don't see why they need their products all that quickly.
Oh, and if someone is really bitchy, we talk **** on them. We'll all stand in a group behind the counter when it's not busy and make fun of the most ******* customers we've had that day. Back before they replaced our managers with useless ********, they would take part in it as well. Small victories like that are all that keep us from quitting. There's a reason why in a store of 75 people, maybe 25 have been there longer than I have, which is less than 2 years.
The thing with product, though, is that our distribution center blows. I unloaded a truck 5 AM yesterday morning with air conditioners. They weren't even nicely stacked or anything. Just kind of thrown together.
It's a bad situation, because product comes off of the truck damaged, and there's nothing to do except sell it or write it off. We def out the stuff that's actually damaged, but boxes that look beat up or ripped, we still sell.
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