Need to vent on my crappy job.

[flojocabron]

thanks all for taking time to hear me out.

Yes, like many of you. I HATE MY JOB

I've mentioned where I work at before, but I'm paranoid and to save my ass from getting fired (not that it matters pretty soon); Im not mentioning the name of the retail place where i work at. But it rhymes with REARS.

Non Discloure work/internet policy I signed BE DAMMNED!

Yeah, I'm being stubborn, but my career choices are at a dead end.

My job has had interesting (albeit wrongly executed) ideas that in theory are fine, but management and polices/actions from the higher ups force me and others at the bottom of the totem pole to submit to keep your job afloat!

The same with many jobs in the retail sector!

Every few months some "genius" aka company president has a new idea to make bigger sales and to be more competitive in the retail sector.

The latest idea This time around the store has implemented a so called "digital journey" to transition almost all retail sales to Ipod/Ipad Transactions. ALL OF THEM!

I must admit the tools are interesting! The ipods have a special cover with a special lazer scanner and card swiper attachement.

The managers and supervisors and sales people were trained on how to use the new APPLE PRODUCTS to ring people up without the use of a register. On a crappy purchasing program that is still working out the bugs despite being about 2 years old now.

My store was a second phase one, and other stores were the beta testers. While the items do take sales and orders nominally, it takes too damn long!

My managers response? "Get used to it" " they're not going away" "its the future of the Business!" "you need to get out of your comfort zone and try out the new tech!"

Theres a help button where error/bad sales/canceled orders are sent to review by the company. Some issues are fixed by turning off and redownloading the sales app. Or redoing the sale again. taking up more time!

Upper Management wants all of my items sold to be 65% transactions rung up on the IPOD/IPAD.

In my departments there are seven registers and in an attempt to force us to use the ipod/ipads, we have been forbidden to turn on four of them. Management has told us that in other stores near us, the registers have been physically removed from the sales floor and sent to the office. Because sellers werent using it enough(ipod). In my store There are only three on because they need to be on just in case of returns (which ipads cant be used for that), and to print out wireless receipts from the ipods. Supposedly everything is paperless, but you still have to print out every transaction on the ipods, Big, long confusing receipts.

Customers walk up to registers and have all their items ready to buy, and they look at me funny wondering why I'm not ringing them up with the price scanner and I have to give them a foolish response. OMG have a look at my new technology! I can ring you up everywhere. No more paper receipts, its all convieniently sent to your email. Let me have your email for our points program! Most are kinda excited, but when it takes me five minutes of tapping on a small touchpad screen taking all your info, many have lost their patience.

Some coworkers have bent to their corporate will and (to not lose their jobs) use them constantly. Me, not. I'm at 25% usage. And constantly reprimanded and scolded as to why I'm not using it.

Every fucking day! No hello, hows it going, only Why aren't you using the ipad? I've been spyed upon by supervisors and they ask me why im not using it. I've gotten 'write-ups and forced to sign them! I did one today first thing when I clocked in.

I can understand that its a vital tool on comparing products in the store when you are buying electronics/appliances, you get a cool look at other color schemes and alternate models, but where I work at in small hardware and tools, its a pain. Imagine trying to scan up a cart full of small tools and inputting whether 'take with', 'Merchandise pick up', or 'order'

I can see the young hip people all interested in seeing how the ipads work and getting rung up on it, but most of my customers are older folk who just want to pay and leave.

even if someone wants to pay cash, we still have to use the ipod/ipad! it gives us a special code which we then use on the remaining registers, which again brings up a stupidly long receipt!

why stupidly long you say? All sales done on the ipads/pods regardless if it was bought in store, automatically becomes an 'online order' All of them! From the lowliest screwdriver to the $2500 refrigerator.

I smell cover-up/fraud/scam!

I think that theres a sort of laundering scheme going on. The business that i work in is moving sales from one sector to another. The online sector! Why is the store so damn pushy for us to do 65% of sales? To exaggerate their online sales/profits!

Another point into why there's scamming going on is that I recently bought a microwave from my place of business, and my coworker rung me up with her IPAD. I paid with my credit card (same name as the store). When I got my credit card statement in the mail, at first i thought i got a strange charge from some random company called "MY GOFER.COM". I was just about to call the card company, when I checked the date of the sale. It had the same date of the purchase of the microwave. I realized that I also got an email on that day of purchase of the microwave. The email had all the info of my purchase, where I got it from and who rung me up. It had the stores name and date. But why would "MY GOFER.COM show up on my credit card statement? I've never used their services! Oh! but its an affiliate of my place of work! Its even shown on the website! Suspicious! dammnit!

For years I've heard that my place of work is going out of business. Lots of stores have shut down. but We've been told to not spread rumors to our customers and to say that our store is doing fine. But I think this is a current scheme to impress sales nationwide, to inflate profits and to impress the shareholders with the so called impressive growth of online sales!

I'm no expert on looking this up online, but I want to see how my corporate employer spinballs this 'sales increase' and what they will do next.

But tomorrow, its business as usual:

HI, welcome to XXXX, are you a member of our rewards program? NO? let me sign you up. Oh you're buying this today! This qualifies for a "protection agreement" Its a really good deal to get peace of mind. Dont forget extra acessories for your purchase today! Let me go get them for you. Are you going to put this on your XXXXcard? Lets apply right now so you can get $15 off your first months statement. Would you like to donate to our charity? All done? Okay, Swipe your card here on my IPAD. I'll be right back with your sales receipt. One more thing, We have a survey here, please tell us how we are doing! I hope I gave you a level 10 service. Dont forget to do the survey okay.

Thank you for choosing XXXX

[hashiriya1]

When I was a teenager I worked at Sears. I thought only my store was shitty, but I guess they all are. Sounds to me like while technology has changed, Sears management hasn't.

[dsheinem]

meh, I worked for Sears in electronics for a few years as a grad student. It was fine, and probably the best retail sales experience out of the several I had. It was great to get nice bloated paychecks with tons of commission around the holidays, and as long as I was half way decent at selling things the rest of the year then I made a lot more per hour than I would have in most retail/mall jobs.

And you should be glad they are switching the payment system. I am always shocked to see the EXACT same style of registers and sales software being used in my local Sears as was being used a dozen years ago. That software was old THEN, so they absolutely need to overhaul it.

[ZeroAX]

Yeah big corporations making shitty choices to get short term profit by boosting stocks ain't exactly new. It's how the global economy got fucked. But unfortunately unless the consumers start complaining about something it won't change.

This being a case of fraud? I can only see it that way if online sales get taxes less than in store ones (I don't know much about US law to answer that one), or if declaring make believe growth in online sales to boost the stock can be considered a fraud against the stock owners.

As for the technical aspect of your problem, to me it sounds more like a case of shitty software. Smartphones became big cause they made so much stuff easier. If this is really as buggy and as slow and you asay it is, people (customers) will just get fed up and complain/shop elsewhere next time. Technolodgy get's very easily replaced as long as it makes things more convenient for the consumer. This doesn't seem to be the case, though honestly digital cash registers with QR codes is pretty much what everyone should be getting by now. It's just that the technolodgy the store built for this job is pretty shitty.

[Hobie-wan]

Are there customer surveys with these checkouts? Can you ask the customers to provide feedback on this checkout style system that way or by giving them the manager's name? If you can have them speak up that you were helpful and just wanted to check them out and send them on their way, but it was the drawn out payment process that turned them off, maybe it will help you and send a message.

[Hatta]

That software was old THEN, so they absolutely need to overhaul it.

That's an odd attitude from a retro gamer. If it's not broke, why fix it? It's not always the case that newer is better. For a lot of applications, a dumb terminal running a text mode interface over a serial line is a great option. It minimizes the amount of information presented, latency is negligible, text mode interfaces with hotkeys are incredibly fast to use once learned, and uptime is measured in 5 nines. Databases are just a bunch of tables anyway, so text mode interfaces are a natural match.

Now there are a lot of legacy systems that don't have all those advantages, and they should be fixed or replaced. But just because it's old doesn't mean its a problem.

[CRTGAMER]

I thought Sears was down in the Market, silly to add to the overhead with the pricey iPad when there are less expensive touch tablets. Usually when a piece of hardware is corporate level purchased they also tend to cost more then the consumer market.

I can see the idea of convenience for the customer ringing up a purchase anywhere in the store, though it may not work if not enough employees on the floor due to downsize to pay for all the toys.

A good point that a large portion of the customers are an older crowd that would rather be rung up thru the cash register. Looks like Sears is trying to try new things to bring in the younger crowd. I think another incentive for the store using wireless transactions is people tend to spend more with a credit card versus cash. It will backfire especially when a customer has to wait longer for the extra touch tablet entries and for the receipt back at the printer.

As Hobie pointed out and since your store is a trial store, I would really push Customer Feedback. It should be one of the entries on that Touch Pad or at least provide good old paper mail in form for the customer's privacy or is there such a thing anymore? That is the bottom line, will the customer come back if the new sales tools are too intrusive and a shopping convenience or not.