The United States Postal Service shared some useful holiday mailing tips with us a few weeks ago, with some sensible suggestions to help you get your packages to their destinations faster and with a minimum of fuss. An anonymous postal worker complimented that list, but told us that she had some additions of her own: insights that can only come from behind the counter. [More]
employee confessions
Confessions Of A Kmart Service Desk Employee
By 9.13.13 — Updated: 5.30.14
Five years ago, we published a post called “10 Confessions of a Kmart Manager.” Kmart and all of Sears Holdings Corporation aren’t doing so well right now, so maybe the company has tried to make some changes to draw and keep more customers? No, an anonymous front-line Kmart employee tells us. They have not. [More]
Ex-Stupid Shipping Gangster Explains Why Your Purchases Are So Poorly Packaged
By 1.9.13
Reader T. would like everyone to know that the members of the notorious Stupid Shipping Gang aren’t necessarily stupid. There could be a perfectly valid reason why your bubble wrap is wrapped in bubble wrap, a small clock comes in a box large enough to store your fiancée, and every ten-foot power cord requires its own wooden pallet. They’re just working with what they have, within the rules they’re provided, and trying to get your item to you in one piece. On their end of the transaction, these decisions aren’t so stupid. What seems wasteful to us consumers may actually save the company money.
[More]
How To Get Good Service At A Chronically Understaffed Walmart
By 1.2.13
What should you know when you place an online order that you plan to pick up at your local Walmart store? An insider––an ordinary store employee in an ordinary Walmart––reached out to us to explain to customers what you should know before you click “Site-to-Store,” and other pitfalls. Walmart may employ millions of Americans, but it still tries to run stores with the smallest crew that it get by with.
Let’s hand the floor over to the employee, who we’ll call “Samantha”: [More]
‘Children Are Just Plain Scared Of Santa’: A Former Mall Santa Tells All
By 12.21.12
Disappointed because your children became hysterical once they were seated on Santa’s lap and the cameras came out? In this post, you will learn how to prevent Santa meltdowns. One winter, Brandon was unemployed and ended up working at the local mall, seated in the Santa throne. So if you take your kids to have their photos taken with Santa and file their last-minute gift requests this weekend, keep these tips in mind. [More]
Bank Teller: If You Have No Patience And Don’t Listen, Why Should I Feel Sorry For You?
By 12.17.12
Reader A. works as a teller at a regional bank. She write in with some advice for readers who use banks (and everyone uses banks) that will make your visits to the bank smoother and happier, and make your dealing with the tellers at your own bank more pleasant. Though we hope that none of our readers are as unreasonable and impatient as the customers A. describes. [More]
Bleak True Confessions From The Junk Mail Factory
By 12.13.12
Reader S. works in a junk mail factory, making sure that solicitations are perfectly printed so that you can ignore them. Yesterday, after reading our post about one reader’s battle to get off AT&T’s U-Verse mailing list, S. decided to write up an explanation of why it takes so freaking long to get your name off a junk mailing list. Don’t hate the mailers, or their innocent minimum-wage employees like S: hate the system. [More]
Best Buy Employees: We Want Our Awesome Discount Back
By 7.18.11
One of the top most awesome reasons to work in retail is for the sweet, sweet employee discounts. But we’re hearing rumblings from some of our friends inside Best Buy that changes to the employee discount are making them sad. Blue, even. [More]
I Signed On To Sell Clothes, Not Force Magazine Subscriptions On People
By 6.23.11
L. works at a popular retailer of plus-sized women’s clothing, Avenue. Selling clothes is the job that she signed on for, and she doesn’t have a problem with that. It’s the credit cards and magazine add-ons her company wants employees to push on customers that make her uncomfortable. She vented in an e-mail to Consumerist about why this bothers her so much. [More]
Best Buy Store Won't Price-Match Website, Still Does In-Store Pickup
By 5.26.11
Reader B. is a Best Buy employee, and has a moral problem with a new policy. This policy may just be at B.’s store or in that district, but it’s still annoying. Employees have been told that they can no longer price-match BestBuy.com. They can, however, help the customer place an order online for in-store pickup from inside the store, then wait around for up to half an hour. This seems inefficient at best to B, but sounds familiar to us. [More]
