My Departure from the World of Retail Sales- January 21, 2007
It's all about "the bottom line- profit." OK, that's the way our economic system functions; That said, I can understand when a cash register doesn't ring-up sales as often or quickly as it could, that management needs to scrutinize the reasons why.
Now I'll be specific: I was given the opportunity to join the staff at a local business, one long in local history (100+ years!) in my smallish town. I really liked most of the merchandise and thought, as a retired teacher, I'd enjoy working part-time there as well as at my other part-time job, which is not in retail, but where they love my work. The shocking reality was that I'd have to learn to use the new business computer/ cash register software under pressure and with little effective assistance.
I've run cash registers before, but it was back when all you dealt with was cash, checks, or credit transactions. I'd worked for two different record stores, Pizza Hut, and Sears prior to starting my career in teaching. And during those teaching years I've almost been a leader- in the forefront, locally, so to speak- of using the computer to do sundry jobs- long before other teachers gave it a try: I've figured how to use Adobe Photo shop to remove red-eye, re size and do photo resolution changes, etc. I've used different programs to put together school and band posters, photo albums, slide shows, put up my band's 8 page web site (with MP3 files) and numerous other successful work. The difference here is that I could take my time to train myself in using these programs. But I always got the job done, and done right. I'm proud of the work I've done and the computer programs I've mastered. I'm no newbie. But I am 58 years old. I don't memorize as well or as fast as I used to.
Still, I never had a problem, given my time and dedication to a completed product. Computers have taken over the cash register during this span, and learning a proprietary (private company's) program to run the computer can be a steep learning curve. On my new employer's computer/register I can easily do cash, check, and credit transactions, as well as take payments over the phone and in person for rentals. For most businesses this would be all that was needed. But these duties probably only comprise 80% of the needed work done at this computer. It's the other 20% that got to me. In addition to the above three or four functions, there are many others where I simply have to turn to someone for help. I've never been guilty of badly messing-up the end-of-day receipts, and don't want to start now. These other functions are less often used, but are important to such a diverse business. They include doing layaways, making payments on them, paying them off; account purchases; taking-in repairs and paying them off (done two different ways as per just who does the repair); etc., etc. Believe me, there's a myriad of other functions that register does, almost all of which must (evidently) be learned quickly by any new employee.
So how was I trained to do these functions? Almost all my fellow employees- even the bookkeeper, God bless her!- showed me their way of doing certain things. We're talking 60 second to 2 minute lessons. And over half of these short sessions were interrupted by a phone ringing that had to be answered or a customer with a request. That's when the lesson ended by necessity. (The one lesson that really stands out was when a fellow employee, seeing me use the computer mouse to work the software, took it and threw it the length of its short cord, saying, "Don't touch that! You don't need it!" In fact, his one, brief lesson may have been the best. I rarely had to use the time-consuming mouse after that.
The computer, besides having its proprietary point-of-sales software, also had the same proprietary software's "training program." I should have been alerted when I noticed the training program was called the "Test" program. I spotted it on the computer screen's start-up page, but when I asked about it I was told it was pretty useless. Two weeks later, with my skills obviously still lacking, the assistant manager asked me to try it out. It was an exact copy of the regular P.O.S. software, only transactions done on it didn't go into the computer's memory. If I had had someone looking over my shoulder and teaching me, it could have helped. But there was no such person available. There's no money to be made in staff training until the training is complete! I did a few of the transactions I already knew how to do, but was soon lost and frustrated on the other functions and had no help learning just how to do them. What good does it do to just stare at a screen when you don't know what to put on it?
If I had been given the chance to stand at the computer and DO each of the more complex functions at least five or ten times in a row, I know I could have mastered them. But retail is obviously about sales, not training. Instead, after being shown how to do something new, I was not asked to actually do it again for many days. This gave me ample opportunity to forget what I was just shown! If I don't use it, I lose it. Don't most people?
One fellow employee commented that it was hard for me to learn the software because I was constantly being taken away from it to do other jobs: "The new guy" - me- got to spend half a day delivering merchandise, sometimes in the dark, or lugging around the store a large stepladder and replacing burned out incandescent and florescent lights, or spending two-thirds of a day just vacuuming the entire store, and another few hours spot-cleaning the carpets.(OK, I admit I volunteered for this last job.) Got to admit, it's hard to get much software experience when sweeping cigarette butts in the parking lot But these were jobs needing doing, and I'm a "team player," so I did them. (The only time I complained was to a much younger employee when I said I didn't like going to my next job while soaking wet with sweat in my "sales clothes.") No one told me to wear jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers on "maintenance days." I wore a salesperson's clothing to do maintenance work. So here I was, a part-time employee, expected to learn the software, yet I was constantly being taken from it to do other jobs.
It has now been four weeks since I started this job. I came into the frying pan at Christmas rush, so the flame was on high at the time. I knew the least about the business when I was needed the most. At the conclusion of the Christmas sales period I was congratulated and thanked by the store's owner who said I had been a big help to his staff and had contributed to the store setting a record profit. And that same owner called me into his office to thank me for "stepping up to the plate" by offering to spot-clean the many dark, unsightly stains on the carpet. This fine man recognizes initiative and hard work. He even gave me my first-ever Christmas bonus! (Teachers don't get bonuses too often.) He is a very kind person that I will miss. During our three-part interview process (once interrupted by me having to leave to go to my other part-time job) he told me: "Don't feel guilty if you ever want to quit this job. If you want to quit, go ahead." Granted, I've only been interviewed four or five times for employment, but his words seemed strange during an interview. Now it seems like a prophesy of sorts, like he knew it would happen, like it had happened before.
I felt inadequate and even rejected by a couple fellow employees for the past week. My only interpretation is that they've grown weary of helping me. After only three weeks there, this overpowering sense of doom fell upon me. After four weeks I know it's not in my head: I've noticed contempt towards me from one employee, the one most helpful when I started! And others are purposefully ignoring me or giving me curt answers to my innocuous questions. I'm a "dead man walking!" I don't need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind blows, as Dylan sang. So at the conclusion of a very busy Saturday, during which I had really earned my $8 per hour, I turned to the assistant manager, a guy that I had previously thanked for his patience and kindness during my "internship," and asked, "Do you think I should be looking elsewhere for another job?"
His expression of consternation told pages as he responded with, "Well....( insert long pause)...You'll have to talk to (insert owner's name) about that."
All my life I've made it a point to not be where I wasn't wanted. In teaching, I've made it into the Who's Who of America's Teachers a solid dozen times, and another professional honor organization once, without ever seeking those honors. My students wanted me. My school system of 29 years asked me to stay another year for double salary! They wanted me. Tomorrow I will quit the world of retail sales. They don't want me.
Through my teen and adult life I've had the ability to "outwork" most other employees, through sheer determination and strength when I was young, and through perseverance as I aged, often logging 80 hours per week as a teacher (see next blog entry). That willpower is simply not with me as much as before. Yes, I gave it a pretty good try, and I feel I improved this retail business some while there, cosmetically- and I think I made a couple of the employees aware of the importance of price tags on merchandise. (Some customers don't want a salesperson assisting them for various reasons, they just want to look and note prices; these customers need price tags!)
I'll survive. I still get my full teaching pension and my other part-time job salary. (They just gave me another raise and a bonus!) In another year and a half I can dip into my TSA savings, and in four short years social security kicks in. Yes, I'll make it, but it'll be without much respect for this new wide world of retail sales.
It's all about "the bottom line- profit." OK, that's the way our economic system functions; That said, I can understand when a cash register doesn't ring-up sales as often or quickly as it could, that management needs to scrutinize the reasons why.
Now I'll be specific: I was given the opportunity to join the staff at a local business, one long in local history (100+ years!) in my smallish town. I really liked most of the merchandise and thought, as a retired teacher, I'd enjoy working part-time there as well as at my other part-time job, which is not in retail, but where they love my work. The shocking reality was that I'd have to learn to use the new business computer/ cash register software under pressure and with little effective assistance.
I've run cash registers before, but it was back when all you dealt with was cash, checks, or credit transactions. I'd worked for two different record stores, Pizza Hut, and Sears prior to starting my career in teaching. And during those teaching years I've almost been a leader- in the forefront, locally, so to speak- of using the computer to do sundry jobs- long before other teachers gave it a try: I've figured how to use Adobe Photo shop to remove red-eye, re size and do photo resolution changes, etc. I've used different programs to put together school and band posters, photo albums, slide shows, put up my band's 8 page web site (with MP3 files) and numerous other successful work. The difference here is that I could take my time to train myself in using these programs. But I always got the job done, and done right. I'm proud of the work I've done and the computer programs I've mastered. I'm no newbie. But I am 58 years old. I don't memorize as well or as fast as I used to.
Still, I never had a problem, given my time and dedication to a completed product. Computers have taken over the cash register during this span, and learning a proprietary (private company's) program to run the computer can be a steep learning curve. On my new employer's computer/register I can easily do cash, check, and credit transactions, as well as take payments over the phone and in person for rentals. For most businesses this would be all that was needed. But these duties probably only comprise 80% of the needed work done at this computer. It's the other 20% that got to me. In addition to the above three or four functions, there are many others where I simply have to turn to someone for help. I've never been guilty of badly messing-up the end-of-day receipts, and don't want to start now. These other functions are less often used, but are important to such a diverse business. They include doing layaways, making payments on them, paying them off; account purchases; taking-in repairs and paying them off (done two different ways as per just who does the repair); etc., etc. Believe me, there's a myriad of other functions that register does, almost all of which must (evidently) be learned quickly by any new employee.
So how was I trained to do these functions? Almost all my fellow employees- even the bookkeeper, God bless her!- showed me their way of doing certain things. We're talking 60 second to 2 minute lessons. And over half of these short sessions were interrupted by a phone ringing that had to be answered or a customer with a request. That's when the lesson ended by necessity. (The one lesson that really stands out was when a fellow employee, seeing me use the computer mouse to work the software, took it and threw it the length of its short cord, saying, "Don't touch that! You don't need it!" In fact, his one, brief lesson may have been the best. I rarely had to use the time-consuming mouse after that.
The computer, besides having its proprietary point-of-sales software, also had the same proprietary software's "training program." I should have been alerted when I noticed the training program was called the "Test" program. I spotted it on the computer screen's start-up page, but when I asked about it I was told it was pretty useless. Two weeks later, with my skills obviously still lacking, the assistant manager asked me to try it out. It was an exact copy of the regular P.O.S. software, only transactions done on it didn't go into the computer's memory. If I had had someone looking over my shoulder and teaching me, it could have helped. But there was no such person available. There's no money to be made in staff training until the training is complete! I did a few of the transactions I already knew how to do, but was soon lost and frustrated on the other functions and had no help learning just how to do them. What good does it do to just stare at a screen when you don't know what to put on it?
If I had been given the chance to stand at the computer and DO each of the more complex functions at least five or ten times in a row, I know I could have mastered them. But retail is obviously about sales, not training. Instead, after being shown how to do something new, I was not asked to actually do it again for many days. This gave me ample opportunity to forget what I was just shown! If I don't use it, I lose it. Don't most people?
One fellow employee commented that it was hard for me to learn the software because I was constantly being taken away from it to do other jobs: "The new guy" - me- got to spend half a day delivering merchandise, sometimes in the dark, or lugging around the store a large stepladder and replacing burned out incandescent and florescent lights, or spending two-thirds of a day just vacuuming the entire store, and another few hours spot-cleaning the carpets.(OK, I admit I volunteered for this last job.) Got to admit, it's hard to get much software experience when sweeping cigarette butts in the parking lot But these were jobs needing doing, and I'm a "team player," so I did them. (The only time I complained was to a much younger employee when I said I didn't like going to my next job while soaking wet with sweat in my "sales clothes.") No one told me to wear jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers on "maintenance days." I wore a salesperson's clothing to do maintenance work. So here I was, a part-time employee, expected to learn the software, yet I was constantly being taken from it to do other jobs.
It has now been four weeks since I started this job. I came into the frying pan at Christmas rush, so the flame was on high at the time. I knew the least about the business when I was needed the most. At the conclusion of the Christmas sales period I was congratulated and thanked by the store's owner who said I had been a big help to his staff and had contributed to the store setting a record profit. And that same owner called me into his office to thank me for "stepping up to the plate" by offering to spot-clean the many dark, unsightly stains on the carpet. This fine man recognizes initiative and hard work. He even gave me my first-ever Christmas bonus! (Teachers don't get bonuses too often.) He is a very kind person that I will miss. During our three-part interview process (once interrupted by me having to leave to go to my other part-time job) he told me: "Don't feel guilty if you ever want to quit this job. If you want to quit, go ahead." Granted, I've only been interviewed four or five times for employment, but his words seemed strange during an interview. Now it seems like a prophesy of sorts, like he knew it would happen, like it had happened before.
I felt inadequate and even rejected by a couple fellow employees for the past week. My only interpretation is that they've grown weary of helping me. After only three weeks there, this overpowering sense of doom fell upon me. After four weeks I know it's not in my head: I've noticed contempt towards me from one employee, the one most helpful when I started! And others are purposefully ignoring me or giving me curt answers to my innocuous questions. I'm a "dead man walking!" I don't need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind blows, as Dylan sang. So at the conclusion of a very busy Saturday, during which I had really earned my $8 per hour, I turned to the assistant manager, a guy that I had previously thanked for his patience and kindness during my "internship," and asked, "Do you think I should be looking elsewhere for another job?"
His expression of consternation told pages as he responded with, "Well....( insert long pause)...You'll have to talk to (insert owner's name) about that."
All my life I've made it a point to not be where I wasn't wanted. In teaching, I've made it into the Who's Who of America's Teachers a solid dozen times, and another professional honor organization once, without ever seeking those honors. My students wanted me. My school system of 29 years asked me to stay another year for double salary! They wanted me. Tomorrow I will quit the world of retail sales. They don't want me.
Through my teen and adult life I've had the ability to "outwork" most other employees, through sheer determination and strength when I was young, and through perseverance as I aged, often logging 80 hours per week as a teacher (see next blog entry). That willpower is simply not with me as much as before. Yes, I gave it a pretty good try, and I feel I improved this retail business some while there, cosmetically- and I think I made a couple of the employees aware of the importance of price tags on merchandise. (Some customers don't want a salesperson assisting them for various reasons, they just want to look and note prices; these customers need price tags!)
I'll survive. I still get my full teaching pension and my other part-time job salary. (They just gave me another raise and a bonus!) In another year and a half I can dip into my TSA savings, and in four short years social security kicks in. Yes, I'll make it, but it'll be without much respect for this new wide world of retail sales.
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