Archived I almost lost it at work today

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StateofTarget

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I almost lost it at work yesterday

This guest comes back to the electronics boat. Completely rude and arrogant. Literally gets in my face and asks why we don't carry whatever the hell he saw on Target.com. In my face with a print out from his computer at home of the item.

Gets in my face and tells me "this is why you work retail" and tells me to go get a degree like him. Eventually the LOD has to come over.

Turns out the print out was from staples.com

FREAKING MORON! And I'm the one that's stupid?

edit: of course I mean yesterday. Maybe I am losing it.
 
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SticksandStones said:
Necessary stress and procedure to resolve a problem.
Customers know what they want. It's your job to thoroughly check.
Why don't you just assume every "inconvenient" person is a secret employee testing your proficiency and attitude? Hard to use incentives but it makes work all the better.
"Makes the day go by faster"
"It's crazy this time of year"
"and then some"
"What time do you close?"
"So how do you like working here?"
Click to expand...

First of all I am the electronics TL. I know what products we carry, and of course I do check if it is something possible like "HP Ink Cartridge number 55". FYI - I don't need to "check" the fact we don't carry $600 Samsung laptops, which is what he wanted. As the electronics TL, how would you suggest I "check" that?
 
Smile, show them the netbooks & target.com at gs. Sorry, staples is across the street. Have a nice day. Say all that to the guest. You will be ok. The whole next wk will be rougher for you. Returns & helpless guests questions.
Hang in there!
 
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SticksandStones said:
What did you tell him exactly? (Word-for-word)
He was making an online store-local comparison.
Was there a way for you to show the site to the guest from the computer that target.com does not list the Samsung Computer?

Look I'm sorry I didn't realize you were a TL in Electronics, I'm just trying to help.
I'm sure you took all the necessary steps you could to helping the guest.

All I'm saying is that your attempts in doing so were still valuable even if it ended up being from another store.

But keep in mind however that the Guests ARE NOT idiots.
It's almost impossible to tell if they are simply uninformed or wanting to know if the employees truly care, and persist based on their inability to find that assurance.
Guests on rare occasions tend to make these little mistakes and continue to argue until appeal is reached in their favor. It's usually because they
feel that their search is not of importance and they vent by pressuring the team.
Click to expand...


You must not work at my store then....
 
SticksandStones said:
I completely understand the grief of being insulted.
But that's not the point I was making.

Outrages like these seem too trivial to be a coincidence, did you consider that maybe they were sent to monitor your performance?
Click to expand...

That's just dumb, there's seriously no way around wording the response I have for this. Assuming this event happened on Christmas eve then it's far more logical to assume the person was shopping at the very last second, whether by self inducement or situation, and panicked when the item they were seeking was not available. I have personally seen these situations before when a guest has just ASSURED me they know we carry this item for this price and eventually I manage to wheedle it out of them that they were looking at a competitors ad by mistake. People make small mistake like this all the time, it's even worse when you call them out on it and they lock themselves in even more to try and save face for themselves.
 
I had a guest like that a few years ago that ended up chasing me through the break room when I wouldn't cash him out in front of very long lines on the GSTL register. Those people aren't clandestine Target researchers evaluating your performance. They're just @$$holes.

As far as the degree bit goes - If anyone tries to "insult" me like that, ever, I'm going to look them in the eye and tell him I have a bachelor's degree and ask if his company is hiring. I probably wouldn't want to work where someone like that might end up being my boss, but I love seeing the looks on people's faces when I completely disarm their insult.
 
SticksandStones said:
Outrages like these seem too trivial to be a coincidence, did you consider that maybe they were sent to monitor your performance?
Click to expand...

That could be considered a violation of the 8th Amendment if Spot was even smart enough to come up with that. I could only see this happening if you had a whackjob DTL that lives near the store or something like that.
 
my patience has about run out with guests as well. There is a certain type of question, well questions that I don't mind, but here lately it's like the guests want me to do their shopping for them. They will come up with a christmas list and point to something in their chicken scratch handwriting and be like "what's this?" Usually I have no idea so I have them spell it for me and I item search. Generally there are no matches, but I'm still suppose to know what they wrote down and where it is, and somehow magically markdown the item to like 4.99, just for them!

Or they will be like where are your remote control cars? There's one in your ad for 49.99. I'm like you are perfectly capable, why don't you briefly browse the toy aisles, until you see one with cars, look through those FIRST, and then if you can't find it, or you find it but the spot is empty, then ask me for help. I'd be more than happy to check in the back and pull it for you, but PLEASE don't ask me to do your shopping for you.

Also, guests are getting rude about their timing. I will often be running the irregulars from the truck, and right after I pick up a heavy furniture box (I use my right AND left arm as a team lift), a guest will run up to me and ask "Hey I'm looking for the stupidest thing in the world, where is it?" And I get visibly frustrated, so I drop the furniture box with an attitude and kind of mean mug them. One time a guest had an issue with that, and she's like "You work here right, is it okay that I have a question?" Im just like sorry I was holding something really heavy, and I've been up since three am, and handling freight all morning, it's kind of rude to do that to me, you just saw me pick up something really heavy.

Anyways...
 
invictustaylor said:
my patience has about run out with guests as well. There is a certain type of question, well questions that I don't mind, but here lately it's like the guests want me to do their shopping for them. They will come up with a christmas list and point to something in their chicken scratch handwriting and be like "what's this?" Usually I have no idea so I have them spell it for me and I item search. Generally there are no matches, but I'm still suppose to know what they wrote down and where it is, and somehow magically markdown the item to like 4.99, just for them!

Or they will be like where are your remote control cars? There's one in your ad for 49.99. I'm like you are perfectly capable, why don't you briefly browse the toy aisles, until you see one with cars, look through those FIRST, and then if you can't find it, or you find it but the spot is empty, then ask me for help. I'd be more than happy to check in the back and pull it for you, but PLEASE don't ask me to do your shopping for you.

Also, guests are getting rude about their timing. I will often be running the irregulars from the truck, and right after I pick up a heavy furniture box (I use my right AND left arm as a team lift), a guest will run up to me and ask "Hey I'm looking for the stupidest thing in the world, where is it?" And I get visibly frustrated, so I drop the furniture box with an attitude and kind of mean mug them. One time a guest had an issue with that, and she's like "You work here right, is it okay that I have a question?" Im just like sorry I was holding something really heavy, and I've been up since three am, and handling freight all morning, it's kind of rude to do that to me, you just saw me pick up something really heavy.

Anyways...
Click to expand...

The absolute *worst* thing a guest can do to piss me off. Of all things in the world:

If I am building an end cap, you see a cart next to me full of shelves/peg hooks/peg backers/portable printer/etc, do not ask me if you can have my cart and then get upset that you can't have it because you are too damn lazy to walk a short distance to get an empty one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The guests look at you like "WTF is the problem?" when you tell them no. Well, where the fu** am I supposed to put a cart full of peg hooks, shelves, etc so you can take the basket? Just dump it all on the floor? Next your a** will trip over what you would have me put on the floor and then sue us.
 
i agree w/sns... guests are NOT idiots.
they choose to appear as idiots in order to skirt the rules and social boundaries for their personal gain.
today i had a guy find a sign in the floor, told me it was expired (2 months) and laying up under the edge of the base deck, then demanded he get $4 off the clearance prices because we willfully left the sign out and it was our mistake.
someone dropped a snow globe and it shattered. i was pushing a flat and turned it sideways to help me block the aisle in seasonal because we were so busy and it would take a couple of seconds for someone to get back there. broken glass everywhere. i asked the guests to go around because of broken glass, and FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES was told they would risk it, they really needed xyz (a lighted snowman, a wreath, you name it). then three guests pushed my flat out of the way and one ran me over with a cart. so they could save a whopping 1.25 on a stupid bag of xmas candy. i wish that hoarders show would do a clearance hoarding special. i think we would have some serious candidates from our clearance shoppers.
 
good way to put it that they pretend to be stupid. I like the things guests come up with to try and get a discount...

guest to invictus taylor: "These bookshelves are on clearance right?"

invictustaylor to guest: "Amazing powers of observation you have there!"

guest to invictus taylor: "Teeheehee I noticed they went on clearance last week, BUT......there's only one left! So does that mean since it's the last one that I get a extra discount from the marked clearance price?"

invictustaylor to guest: "You obviously have no concept of supply and demand! If there's only one left, that means they are selling well at this price...if anything, we should RAISE the price a little bit else it's money out of our pockets. Very respectable effort though, maybe next time your argument will have merit!"
 
So many guests feel that their interaction with us is fleeting & anonymous so they can be as rude as they want or do things they'd NEVER do to someone who *knows* them without fear of being called on it.
 
Guests have turned into demanding customers.

They want to know the function of every single item, settings, and for us to demonstrate it to them. I had one customer ask me the difference in hard drive cache's algorithm. Why he wanted to know this was beyond me, I lost patience with him after explaining it to him and he walked off.

Anybody else's guests demanding that they demonstrate an iPod before they purchase it? I had one lady said she was buying one and a bose but wanted me to demonstrate it first. I said I cannot because they come factory sealed. She said that I just lost a sale then. I walked off smiling, because she had to come back to me the next day because we were the only ones with the Bose speaker system in town.
 
This wouldn't have anything to do with your survey inquiry, would it?
 
redeye58 said:
So many guests feel that their interaction with us is fleeting & anonymous so they can be as rude as they want or do things they'd NEVER do to someone who *knows* them without fear of being called on it.
Click to expand...

Like that guy from my church who swore at me because his One Spot items were $2.50. I wanted to call him out for his "very Christian behavior", but the LOD was near my lane.

pzychopopgroove said:
You just insulted actual sh*t.
Click to expand...

D-:
 
Why would anyone assume a total jerk is an undercover target employee? If target were to stoop so low as to try and bait an employee into a confrontation I will find employment elsewhere. We work retail,that does not give anyone the right to treat you with the disrespect this TL got. If someone treats me or any of my team with disrespect I will call them on it. I had someone get into a service desk tms face and call her stupid and an idiot because she would not process a return. I stepped in and told the guest that we do not let our team members be subjected to name calling. Then I turned the reciept over and read the return policy to her. When I was done I suggested that if she did not like the return policy she had 2 options, call headquarters and ask them to change it or shop elsewhere. Nowhere in my core roles does it say that I am expected to allow myself to be verbally assaulted by a guest or feel threatened by a guest.
 
Nicely put...I'll use that line next time I have a guest like that...most likely will be tomorrow..:dance4:
 
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