Abbey is annoyed with a woman who works at the new Target store in Washington, D.C., because the woman lied to her and wasted her time:
One of my roommates just got a Wii, so I decided to go to Target and get “Wario Ware: Smooth Moves.” Before hitting the store, though, I gave their electronics department a call to see if they had the game in stock. A woman in electronics picked up the phone and when I asked her if she had the game, she quickly said, “Yeah, we’ve got that in stock.” So I got up off my couch and walked over to the Target to buy my game.
When I got there, less than half an hour later, I checked the shelves – but no game. I went to the front desk to see if someone could help me find it. After a few minutes of being flirted with by his coworker (as a line steadily grew behind me), the guy at the electronics desk told me that in fact, no, they didn’t have the game in stock.
Now, I’d be willing to believe that maybe in the twenty minutes it took me to get to the Target, someone snatched up the last copy of Smooth Moves. But then the guy at the desk (who was really helpful) said, point blank to me, “I don’t know who answered your call, but they obviously just didn’t feel like looking it up. Sorry about that.” (Side note: my guess is that the flirty coworker was the woman who answered my call; she was the only other person working in that department, and she beat a hasty retreat when she heard what I was looking for.)
So, basically, Washington DC’s shiny new Target is being staffed by people who would rather lie to potential customers than spend what turned out to be literally ten seconds to look something up on a computer. What a wasted trip.
–Abbey
PS – I sent essentially this same message through Target’s contact form yesterday and got a standard “sorry, come again soon!” form letter.
You need to chill out, Abbey. It’s quite possible that the woman who answered the phone was a psychic in training, and she made a good faith effort to “see” the inventory without averting her gaze from her coworker’s butt while he ran the cash register. Or what if it’s Target Opposite Day and the employees are forced to reverse their answers? Managers love coming up with weird team-building exercises like that.
At any rate, just pretend that your trip to Target was a bonus Smooth Moves game—Nintendo’s pretty innovative, so maybe they’ve worked real life pointless tasks into the mini-game concept by now.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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@aaron8301:
I totally agree. I worked for Michael’s for 2 years, and the phone was constantly ringing with lazy ass people who didn’t want to come to the store if we didn’t have a certain color of thread.
When you have cashiers answering the phone with a huge line of people who took the risk to come to the store, perhaps didn’t find exactly what they wanted, and are paying with real money, guess who gets the better service?
Also, computer inventory is frequently wrong, because it’s not uncommon that people just go and steal the item or hide it somewhere so that it’s forever lost just so they don’t have to put it back.
It shouldn’t be anybody’s job to do your shopping (unless you do that shop from home grocery stuff).
And if someone is nice enough to go searching the store for 20 minutes for your item, you better not have an attitude when you get back on the line with them. It’s not their fault that they have real customers asking for immediate help.
aaron8301 – eat some shit. It IS the person’s job who answers the phone to find out if something is in stock, and yes, since computer inventories maintained by lazy Target assholes are frequently wrong, it’s further their job to walk 10 paces to the shelf and see if there are any (toys, games, baby bottles for losers like you) there.
This is the CONSUMERIST website, moron, not the “apologists for lazy worthless retailers” website.
Slow news day?
aaron8301…
Let’s assume your little theory there is right. If the amount of work that a person should be expected to do is commiserate with the amount that they’re paid, then I REALLY wouldn’t go out to eat anywhere. God knows what your waiter is going to do to you.
To be blunt, you’re completely and totally wrong. I’ve worked retail (including Target) and professional jobs, and there are some of us out there with a work ethic. I don’t give 110% because I’m getting paid to give it; I give 110% because I want to know I’ve done a damn good job at the end of the day. I do it because I’m quite aware of the many times that I’ve received customer service from someone who thinks they can slack off because the company isn’t paying them that much. I do it because I’d rather make someone’s day brighter than to piss them off on purpose.
Checking stock was this woman’s job. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s her job. It’s not the customer’s fault if Target isn’t paying her well. If she doesn’t like checking stock, which is something that every associate in Target is supposed to do, she should get a different job elsewhere.
Please do us all a favor, and stay out of customer service jobs.
@wolfybrie:
There’s a lot of different solutions to the “Cashier is too busy to hunt down the item you are looking for” problem. Simply lying to the customer and telling them it’s in stock without checking is among the worst of them.
Minimum wage has nothing at all to do with it. I worked retail for almost 13 years and believe me, I started at .10¢ above minimum wage so I was making squat. But ya know what? I also did my job.
I can also sympathize with the employee via the poster above who made mention of working in say a toy store the day after thanksgiving, or how about working at a grocery store from November-December when everyone and their brother is cooking their biggest meals of the year?
Everyone wants to bash and slam the person who answered the phone as being lazy when in fact she may have seen who knows what that made her think it was or was not in stock. I worked hands on with inventory in my 12+ years and could probably tell you with all certainty what was in or out of stock without looking, but I will admit I did make some mistakes. What really pisses me off is when you tell them what they don’t want to hear and 10 minutes later a co-worker comes over and says that customer XX is looking for XX item and you find out it is the same person.
I hate to tell you that No, the customer is NOT always right, that shit went out the window in the stone ages, people use that over and over again just to screw the system or make unreasonable demands on the employees who should be fired, written up, suspended over the stupidest little thing just because the customer doesn’t agree.
I’m all for consumer rights, but I also cut the people on the other side of the counter a little slack since I know how it can be. I cannot tell you how many times while getting rung up at a register some kid is shitting bricks because he is slow at counting out change, or some asshole in front of me is holding up the line because of who knows what reason all the while this poor cashier is apologizing to everyone to the next 30 minutes while he empties out the line and I just say, “don’t worry about it”. not your fault.
Well, call me a F***ing moron too! I did the same when I worked retail. And here’s why..
Retail and grocery stores are a long cry from the old dry goods stores where the owner knew what was there and would get it for you. People want cheaper prices on goods, and you get what you pay for.
I never have a problem with customer service of any company. The secret is simple, if I want to know if a company like Target has something I check myself. I don’t buy anything I think I might not like or might take back. I utilize the internet to check stock (there’s an idea, use the net to shop instead of complaining about your own laziness… 10 seconds and I checked for the same game)
And the best secret: RTFM!!
Enough bad customer service/stupid customer stories.
@aaron8301:
WTF? Dude, if you don’t like the job you’ve got at the pay you get, be a man and tell your boss, “I really don’t like having to do my job.” S/He’ll help you out. Or reach down and find your balls and be man enough to quit. Take some personal responsibility. Otherwise, DO YOUR FUCKING JOB! Don’t take it out on the customer; you know, the one who pays your bills?
One last thing…
There’s several posts from former retail and customer service people and current ones including current Target employees stating opinion. Please read them and take note that of 25th comment from “verucalise”. Obviously a consumer who never had a job helping anyone.
“Oh, F, I hate that place” & “This particular person is just an asshat employee who values d*ck over their job responsibilities.”
Is it any wonder customer service people don’t always give it everything? Customers flip out of the smallest stuff! Maybe she thought it was there, anyone think of that? Confused it with a different game? Some customers ARE unwanted!
@kalenoble: So then the correct question when calling a store rather than driving around at $4.00 a gallon is:
“Hi! Do you _think_ you have ProductX in stock?”
At least the OP only had to walk to the store. I’m often in situations where the store in question is 2 or 4 *hours* away, or I’m in an area where it’s a $20 – 40 cab ride each way.
I’m not calling ahead to be lazy. I’m seriously calling because I will gladly plan a trip, but it isn’t trivial time/expense we’re talking about. If more stores would post (accurate) inventory online, we could avoid this.
When I worked retail at a grocery store through high school & beginning of college, I would always say we were out of stuff, especially sale items, even if we had a pallet in back.
Then I would go back fifteen minutes later after I was sure they left and put it out on the shelf.
@aaron8301: Well, one thing is clear — John Galt isn’t your role model.
I love Target, I hate their customer service.
@aaron8301: You’re conflating two arguments: 1) that our expectation of service level should be proportionate to the amount we’re willing to pay for the service, and 2) that an employee should provide a level of service commensurate with his pay. On the first point, I think we can all agree that our desire for as-cheap-as-possible products leads retailers like Target to pay as little as possible for labor in order to keep their margins profitable, and that means we’re not going to be getting an electrical engineer in the electronics department to answer our questions. Fair enough.
On the second point, however, there is absolutely no justification for someone not doing the job one is paid to do, no matter what one is paid to do it. You don’t like your job? Get another one. If being paid for providing a service isn’t enough motivation to provide that service well, you need to reexamine your work ethic, and hopefully your employer will reexamine your continued employment.
@Pro-Pain: Luckily I think your store was the (very bad) exception. My husband worked in loss prevention at several Target stores in Illinois and nothing like that ever went on there.
@ Everyone else – I’m getting just a little sick of people saying “what did you expect from [insert company name here]” on these threads. Honestly, it doesn’t matter where you shop – people are being paid to do a job and it wouldn’t kill them to be helpful and friendly at the same time. It’s this kind of excuse-making that is dumbing down our society. We just keep lowering our expectations and pretty soon we’ll start de-evolving. Oh wait, too late!
@bonzombiekitty: You and me both. Why is it that we as customers JUMP to the conclusion that if a cashier/sales person/customer service person gave us incorrect or erroneous information they were either lazy, lying, or just plain dumb. I can understand the frustration, but if the WORST customer service debacle you ever experience is going to a store to discover that the item you thought would be there wasn’t, then consider yourself to be lucky.@farker: I’m not disagreeing with the rest of you, just saying we may not know both sides of the story here. I don’t see the need to condemn an entire company for the actions of one high school girl. I’m more likely to condemn Target for failing to hire enough people at their Brooklyn store. I don’t think I’ve ever waited less than 20 minutes to check out…
She shouldn’t have told you they had it in stock. She should have put you on hold until she got around to looking for it. Anyone who calls to check if something is in stock should be handled after customers who actually go to the store.
It was rude that they kept you waiting once you were there though.
@aaron8301:
If the store “worker” hadn’t enough ambition, honesty or integrity to assist the potential customer, why did she bother taking the call? Perhaps she thought the caller was friend, to whom she could yak, for a quick half-hour.
When I worked behind a counter, I did what I could to assure customer satisfaction, not tell them what they wanted to hear. I didn’t say to myself, “I am only making a pittance–why should I be helpful?” What’s the pay got to do with it?
Some people somehow have an idea of their employers’ precise expectations, according to the pay scale–I find that quite amazing.
Then these lazy-assed slackers expect promotion, pay bonuses and pay raises. They certainly don’t merit such.
i work retail, and i work for 8.50 and hour. and retail really is an easy job except those shitty days when you get like 5 pissed off customers in ten minutes but those are few and far between. i take pride in the work that i do and when i help a customer. if i didnt take pride in my work then the small amount i make just wouldnt be worth. although my mom did work for target at one time and their ours suck. if you work a closing shift you definately arent leaving until like 2 in the morning because of their shitty policies.
I remember when Dave Gahan’s Paper Monsters CD went on sale in the US, I called Target that day to see if they had gotten them in yet. I got transferred from the operator to the front desk to the electronics department to the toys department and back again. Everyone told me the store didn’t carry that CD. The last girl I talked to said they never planned on carrying them and hung up on me.
I called back a few minutes later, not bothering to explain what had gone on the first time. The first person I talked to (who was at their front desk) put me on hold while she went and physically checked for the CD. When she didn’t see it she came back to let me know, asked if she could put me on hold again while she got a hold of someone unloading new merchandise in the back, and came back with this person a few minutes later, both of them happy to let me know that their first batch had sold out but they were unloading some new ones. She was holding on to one at the front desk for me until the end of the day.
You win some you lose some, I guess.
I work for Target. When people call for a specific item we look it up in our PDAs (or check the shelf) to ensure the item is in stock, then offer to hold it for up to 24 hours for the customer. That’s what this girl should have done. Who knows why she didn’t — maybe for personal reasons, maybe because she was new, or maybe because the job is soul-crushing.
Most people would not be able to tolerate working (on the sales floor) at Target for very long. In my experience, the training is quite uneven, the pay is pretty lousy, English is not the first language of 40-50% of the staff — and of them, maybe a quarter speak almost no English, some of the 400 cameras in the store are aimed at the employees which makes me kind of nervous when they don’t even trust me to do my job, the PDAs we NEED to do our jobs flat out malfunction maybe 15% of the time, working on the sales floor (in the non-clothing area) basically means you cover 32+ different areas of the store–therefore you may move from cosmetics to DVDs to patio furniture to cleaning supplies to automotive supplies to toys to furniture to bicycles to vacuums to wrapping paper to paper shredders to inflatable camping equipment, etc, etc.. IN A SINGLE DAY. The result? Less than stellar customer service because how am I supposed to know where anything is or what it does when I only stay in a given section for minutes or hours before moving to another part of the store. And then there’s quite an Orwellian approach to whole thing, which apart from the omnipresent surveillance also manifests itself when aspects of your personal efficiency and that of the store’s are literally measured by computer, and also when the employee handbook specifically states that you are to use the EXACT words: “Can I help you find something?” when addressing people in order to subliminally “brand them” by reminding them they are in Target.
Target’s tagline of: “Expect more. Pay less.” kind of says it all. To deliver on that promise, they literally forbid employees from working overtime (when the store NEEDS it, incidentally) and won’t even allow most of the staff to work full-time because then they would have to provide extra benefits. Or, to put it another way: We’re over-budgeted on staff but rarely seem to have enough people.
I’ve only been there two months, and I’ve had enough jobs to know that this was going to be a personally challenging one–not cognitively, obviously, but om the sense of staying sane in a sea of corporate madness and any number of concurrent stressors. The only way I can do it is to not take things TOO seriously, otherwise I’d probably have a heart attack like this other guy who looked like me in 30 years if I’d never had a vacation.
@Applerod: That sounds like a lot of customer service jobs.
Same thing happened to me at Kohls. That’s why I no longer shop there
Lying to customers is WAYY more common than you think. Ethical, not really, but with the short staffing there’s no way you can look for everything. I usually just say we don’t have it. It’s so annoying how people call in every 20 minutes looking for some obscure item, you find it, bring it to customer service to be held, then the customer never comes for it days later. Then, you have to put it back on the shelf.
MORAL: Physically come to the store and do your own shopping!