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Friday, March 23, 2012

(Office) MAXED OUT



In the spirit of former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith’s op-ed in the New York Times, I too decided to write about the many reasons why I chose to quit my job at OfficeMax.
 
The biggest reason was the customers. Now, not all customers are bad or give you a hard time but, the area I worked in, we had an entire tribe of rude and downright nasty customers. Some of the things I failed to understand are as follows:
 
1.) What store in America does NOT have a return policy? I know what are competitors policies are so don’t give me the bullshit that “Well, Office Depot let’s me return this all the time even when it’s past the date?”
 
“Oh, really?” “Well, let me give the nearest store a call and see what they have to say!” I actually did this once and proved the lady wrong to the point that she threw her stuff down and ran out the door.
 
Also, I’m tired of the bullshit I get from customers about return policies on receipts. Customers like to ask, “You seriously expect us to flip our receipt to the back and read the return policy?” My response has always been, “Well, yeah…there is a reason why we give you the damn thing in the first place!”
 
No wonder people had homes foreclosed on in the economic meltdown in 2008. You failed to read the fine print and other information and made assumptions. Well, guess who got screwed in the end? YOU DID!
 
2.) When you buy something for say $12.00 and use a coupon for $5 and then you return the item to us, you only get back $7. Your coupon does not get refunded to you and nobody that I know of (not even Walmart) refunds your coupon.
 
3.) Don’t bitch at us because we don’t have things in stock. I’m just a damn store associate/cashier; you have a problem call corporate. And no, we don’t have it in the fucking back!
 
I could keep going, but I’ll stop here.
 
As for management and corporate, I have so much I could write it would take a lifetime to write it down. Here are the basics:
 
1.) You pay us crappy wages; give bonuses to management for OUR sales, and then insult us by giving us crappy “commissions” (e.g. $129.99 for a full in-store diagnostic and repair = $12 commission which, after taxes, isn’t much at all)
 
And you wonder why we come to work and give less of a fuck about our jobs? Guess that Harvard MBA failed to teach you that when you have disgruntled employees, production declines.
 
2.) To management: If you’re a new Store Manager and have never worked at an office supply, stop trying to dictate like you know everything. YOU DON’T! We’ve been working here longer than you have so why not ask us what needs to be done?
 
I guess you don’t care, which is why, I don’t give a damn either. Have fun trying to convince others to take this job and have fun training them (if they’re stupid enough to take it).
 

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