Kinja reply list

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Alex CHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:14pm
“I just wish the company would value us, not the customers.”

That's not how any business works though. Target doesn't exist to employ people, it exists to sell products. Save for unique circumstances, you're not doing your employer a favor by working for them, and you're easily replaced. Customers are harder to replace.
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  HairyPalmer1Alex C
  11/30/15 1:22pm
  Companies can get away with the most horrible abuses of people with that line of thinking. It pretty much can be used to justify anything, no matter how awful.
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  Alex CHairyPalmer1
  11/30/15 1:26pm
  Well the truth sucks, but it's reality.
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Max CherryHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:06pm
As far as dealing with customers, it helps to be in a union. My goodness it helps. You still have to put up with some shit but you can draw a line. Without a union, your only option is walking out the door. Or decking the customer on your way out.
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  mymomsawmyjunk2Max Cherry
  11/30/15 1:14pm
  Your suggestion to improve customer service is to completely remove the incentive to be client focused?
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  GrilledCheeseonSourdoughMax Cherry
  11/30/15 1:18pm
  A union makes people nicer to you? That sounds rosey lol
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10" Rubber BilboHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:08pm
Well, I have to say they hide it well: Purely from the intuitive ‘vibe’, I have to say that Target feels more like a wholesome, worthwhile place at than does either Walmart or my local mall, both of which have a last-days-of-the-American-Empire feel to them nowadays. Maybe it’s just the habits of local folk around where I live: Can you walk upright and have you ever read a book for pleasure? Target’s the place for you. Are you a 47 year old with a 10-foot radius effluvium of old tobacco and who rides a Rascal scooter pretty much everywhere? Walmart, my friend.
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  I Have No Account and I Must Post10" Rubber Bilbo
  11/30/15 1:10pm
  You get a star for use of the word “effluvia”, which is one of my favorites.
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  10" Rubber BilboI Have No Account and I Must Post
  11/30/15 1:12pm
  It’s so much classier than ‘stink’ or ‘stench’.
  
  I still love your screenname, btw. If you’re ever in desperate need of an escape from the greys, let me know.
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Jujymonkey3Hamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:08pm
I don’t get the mindset of someone who feels the need to yell at a retail worker or waiter. Have I been frustrated? Sure. I just say “thanks” and walk out.
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  RockYouLikeAHermanCainJujymonkey3
  11/30/15 1:12pm
  I always just assume people that do that have literally never worked a service job of any kind.
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  LopsidedownJujymonkey3
  11/30/15 1:16pm
  I’m always so so empathetic with retail workers, having been one myself. So much so, sometimes, that it’s sometimes prevented me from getting what I walked in for.
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JamesLawhorneHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:07pm
If they are sick of the way they are treated, they should find another job.
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  CAPTAINOHJamesLawhorne
  11/30/15 1:14pm
  Your kind of people are the worst.
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  MrBryanJamesLawhorne
  11/30/15 1:15pm
  Well fedora model is already taken.
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Jerry-NetherlandHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:25pm
HamNo, I have an adult ward (really). He is the brother of my best friend who died and left me to oversee his care, because he has a few impairments. Though he’s in no way noticeably intellectually disabled, he is not cognitively able to drive or responsibly handle household management. However, he’s fine with figures and writing, very stylish and an excellent retail salesman. So he’s worked retail for about 20 years, mostly for the same firm (and lived underwritten by his late sister). When I had to step in after his sister’s death I discovered that the chain for which he worked was, through bogus compensation structures, denying him healthcare, paying less than our region’s (L.A.) minimum wage, and deducting so much from his commissions that he usually came out with NEGATIVE COMMISSIONS (and this at one of the chain’s fanciest locations in the country!). The chain he worked for? MACY*S!

It’s been 2 1/2 years now, since I took on this responsibility; first helping him get proper healthcare coverage (thanks to the ACA, not Macy’s). Now he’s out of there and at a much better store that pays him a living wage and medical benefits.

But many people working retail don’t have an advocate (in fact, I didn’t advocate so much as function as a social worker to steer him to services he deserved, and then encourage him to get out of a years-long rotten situation - in addition to my responsibilities overseeing his living situation). He’s much happier and earning what his work really merits at the new employer (a national housewares chain).

I know it’s fascinating to look at the “high cost of cheap” (as you’ve done magnificently with WalMart, Amazon and Target), but Hamilton, maybe next stop might be a look at the abuses of the biggest retailer for the Middle Class (Macy’s/Bloomingdales).
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  WillyIsBackYoJerry-Netherland
  11/30/15 2:29pm
  Thank goodness for people like you. I take care of my relative. I often wonder who would look out for him. They’re so happy to be working and earning a living that ANYTHING could go wrong and make life spiral out of control.
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  Jerry-NetherlandWillyIsBackYo
  11/30/15 2:40pm
  You’re very kind, but my only intention here was to encourage Hamilton to have a look at some of the “more respectable” upscale chains, who are - perhaps due to carefully cultivated brand management - not on the radar of journalists covering unfair labor practices.
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Taint NuttinHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:38pm
I believe it was on one of the previous Amazon posts where a commenter went off on how she feels disrespected by clerks every time she enters a shop and that’s why she shops online, and got hundreds of stars for it...

There is a saying in retail, if not life- if you get an asshole every now and again, they’re just assholes. If you get a ton of em... you’re the asshole. I’ve been on both sides of the counter and it holds true either way.

If you cannot go to Target and buy paper towels and toothpaste without feeling like the clerks are assholes every time, YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE.

I definitely see it more at my day-job the past two years since the neighborhood became extremely gentrified. A large part of it is entitled people who get everything they want when they want online now, not knowing how to act when they actually need, not just want something, from a real human being who they feel is in a lower station in life than they are. My boy recently quoted somebody a normal rate for a job they asked for and got a jaw-drop accompanied with “My husband does code, and he doesn’t even make that much an hour!”
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  LittleJoeCartwrightWon'tVoteForTrumpTaint Nuttin
  11/30/15 2:09pm
  More than two, it’s you!
  
  I go to Target like three times a week. I find the employees pleasant and helpful.
  
  As polite as I usually am, I’m going to be extra courteous to the Target employees after reading this. Particularly during the holiday shopping rush.
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  Abe Lincoln's Robotic Machine Gun ArmTaint Nuttin
  11/30/15 2:33pm
  “My husband does code, and he doesn’t even make that much an hour!”
  
  Fabulous. Then have your hubby whip up an app that will stop the rain from pouring in from the hole in the roof, the sewage from flooding the basement, or the sparks from shooting out of the fuse box..... Until then, here’s my price list.
  
  Look, it may not be Quantum Physics, but if I have a good/service you NEED and you have no clue how to do it yourself, then, as far as you’re concerned, I’m Stephen Flipping Hawking.
  
  I honestly don’t know why this is so hard for people to understand.
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dollarbillbooberryHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:10pm
If you’re employed by scumbags who treat you like garbage, the solution is to do the shittiest possible job and get over on them as much as is humanly possible. Actively work on sabotaging them from the inside out in any way you can, big or small. I once worked in retail and I’d show customers how to switch price tags and tell them exactly what to say in order to get over on the store, I’d also grab anything that wasn’t nailed down for myself whenever I could. Break things, disappear into the bathroom for an hour and a half, whatever it takes to fuck them over.
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  Boudicadollarbillbooberry
  11/30/15 1:19pm
  
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  Poopcycledollarbillbooberry
  11/30/15 1:39pm
  This is incredibly shitty advice.
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tornadoslackssHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:53pm
I went to Target last night to return some dog stairs (sweetpea old dog has cancer and still tries to jump on the couch only to collide with the front of it and ignominiously plonk to the ground-but won't use the steps). I felt sooo bad for the people at the return desk. The line was long and the customers rude. The biggest problem seemed to be the people who were picking up items they ordered on line. The counter people would talk on the phone and then disappear for several minutes. They should have a better system for that service. I was nice, those poor people.
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  WildNightsWildNightstornadoslackss
  11/30/15 2:09pm
  The order online-pick up in store is a fantastic idea, but my experience is that Target completely failed to design a good system. I bought some diapers online to pick up in store and it took longer to get than it would have to walk to the diaper section, pick up the box, and walk to the check out. Talking to the representatives at the desk, it sounded like there was basically no system for easily identifying whose order was which when the customer arrived (rather than saying “Ms. WildNights is here to pick up her order” or “I need order 17068”, they basically wound up just reading off the order to the people in the back who were tasked with fulfilling the order). It was such a depressing clusterfuck because I’m sure the executive in charge of putting the program together got a nice pat on the back and a bonus, while the poor associates actually doing the work get shouted at.
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  drock905tornadoslackss
  11/30/15 2:46pm
  Just remember it's not the employees fault, they are probably trying their best, the stores are understaffed and they are getting hundreds of online pickups per day
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Manic OttiHamilton Nolan
11/30/15 1:05pm
I used to go to Target once a week. I moved and it’s too far to drive to now, so I never go there anymore. I actually kind of miss it, but not much.
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  cuntybawsManic Otti
  11/30/15 1:09pm
  I am reading this in David Sedaris’ voice, but slower, and with the gentle sound of a rocking chair punctuating every couple of words.
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  Vitamin Vcuntybaws
  11/30/15 1:23pm
  I was hearing Ira Glass as I read those words. lol But he would have at least had a point he was making.
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