work rant

[ashinae]

My mom finally came back to work this week after her three months off. Thank god. It was getting very difficult trying to clean up each week's mess on my one or two shifts every weekend since I started school. She came back and started to notice a lot of really, really shitty things going on -- things missing; free stuff and insane amounts of discounts on some customer accounts -- all rental and purchase amounts, number of late items, discounts and reductions get tracked by our system.

Our newest supervisor, who started back in May, was one of the largest culprits here. He has just quit because we won't let him rip off the store anymore. This makes me go WTF?

Of the three accounts that we can so far find -- one of them belonging to somebody who has the exact same last name (and it's not a last name like "Smith" or "Jones" or anything, there are only 2 accounts in our system with this name, one of them, being his) -- he has effectively robbed us of over $1000 in the two and a half months that he's been supervising. Sigh. What a little bastard.

See, here's the thing, to anybody out there who works in retail, or the younger readers who WILL work in retail one day. Or perhaps in a rental-type business. Every time you give away something free to your family or friends, you are taking away REAL, LEGITIMATE business from customers more than willing to pay full price for your products/service. This is THEFT. It is a black and white issue. You can't convince me otherwise, and you will probably not be able to convince anyone who runs their own business otherwise. You are taking money away from the business that is allowing you to pay for your education, your clothes, your books, your DVDs, your CDs, your bills. (Notice how I put bills last on this list? I seriously have my priorities all fucked up *G*)

This guy has been letting his friends rent everything for nothing. He was using coupon codes to give discounts on purchases. His buddies/family were keeping new releases -- $5/item per day -- for 5, 8, 10 or more days, and then taking off the late fees. This is NOT cool. See, you may think that charging full price for a full rental period for movies and DVDs and games is wrong. But you know what? Every day that you keep something longer than what you're supposed to, we're losing out on an opportunity for somebody else to rent it. You took it out on Friday, it's due back Sunday morning. Clear and simple. If you can't bring it back, that is not our problem. It's yours. Fucking COPE. It is NOT that hard to bring it back -- depending on when you take it out, you can have nearly 48 hours. It's a two and a half hour movie. A five minute drive back to the store. And YES emergencies happen. If it's not a life and death situation, it's not that difficult to pick up the phone. If it was, it's not that difficult to COME IN with the movie and explain your situation. We don't bite unless you bite us first. If you're polite, and calm, and rational, we're more than happy to help you. But if you do it to us 8 times in two months, we'll think you're full of shit. Because you probably are. Nobody's mom dies eight times in two months (I am NOT joking about this. Some dumb bitch tried to convince us that her mother had died eight times in two months).

We live in a society unfairly focussed on money. You don't like it? Nobody does. Cope. You can't AFFORD it, don't DO it. Nobody likes paying for things. But that doesn't mean you have a god-given right to rip other people off. Everytime you don't pay for something that you OWE, it means another living, breathing, feeling, thinking human being doesn't get that raise they need to buy their kids food, to pay their rent, to go to school. You ARE NOT SPECIAL. Learn how to deal with it, or life's just going to get harder because no one will want to give you anything.

Nyah. *raspberry*

Comments

[zasjah.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Definitely makes me feel better to know I'm not alone in this one! I would love for their to be LAWS against this sort of thing, because, I think, to technically be considered theft under the law, the person doing it (being the employee) would have to benefit -- such as, taking away whatever amount of money is owed, but actually taking the money from the customer and keeping it themselves. Maybe one day this can be changed!

Maybe it's not exactly illegal according to the letter of the law, but I would think it /is/ against the intent of the law. At least, that's what my sense of justice is saying.
Apart from that it's a /very/ bad way to treat customers who /do/ pay the full price for it, and that's a crime in itself. (I mean not the fact that other customers pay full price, but the bad way of treating them!) *g*