When you go to the movies there are multiple reminders to turn your cell phone off so you don’t disturb others. Unfortunately, there’s no such reminder in retail stores. The other day a lady parked herself in the middle of an aisle (with her kid in a stroller, completely blocking the aisle) and had Read More…
Maybe You Get Bad Customer Service Because You’re a Bad Customer
One of my favorite series was Justified, and there was a classic line spoken by Raylan Givens, the main character. He said, “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.“ Truer words were never spoken. Another Read More…
21 Tricks Stores Use to Control Your Brain
Here’s another list from Cracked.com, although I disagree with the reasons given for a few of them. My comments are in red under the ones I have issues with. We all know that, even with list in hand, the minute you walk into a store your plan goes to hell. There’s a reason Read More…
The Death of Performance Reviews
The article below, from cablefax.com, talks about how more and more companies are ditching the traditional performance reviews (or “evaluations”) in the belief that they are an administrative challenge (all being done around the same time) and instead employees should be continuously evaluated and provided feedback and goals for improvement. Where I work, the employee review Read More…
28 Failed Fast Food Items
I kept scrolling down on these expecting to find one that I would have actually eaten, but no such luck. Some just made me throw up in my mouth a little less than others. Guess that’s why they failed. Not every item on a fast-food menu can be a hit. We’ve highlighted Read More…
16 Organic Facts About Whole Foods
From Mental Floss, here’s some pretty interesting stuff about the store who has the nickname of “Whole Paycheck” due to their high prices. I really like the idea of a sliding employee discount (#6) based on the idea of keeping employees healthy. The idea of employees knowing how much everyone makes? Not so sure Read More…
Customer Decisions Revealed
As I mentioned yesterday, sometimes customers pick something up to buy it, then change their mind and are too damn lazy to actually put it back where they found it. We find out-of-place items all the time, but these photos from Retail Hell Underground make you wonder exactly what the decision was at the Read More…
Sunday Soapbox–We Are Not A Playground
OK I freely admit it’s a silly thing, but I have a pet peeve about parents who let their kids run rampant in a store. Whether it be running up and down aisles (and risking a collision with a display or perhaps an elderly customer), picking up toys to play with and sitting on the Read More…
A Pretty Bad Employee Confrontation
There are times when I’ve had a confrontation with an employee that turned ugly, but it was always in private and usually because the employee didn’t like what they were hearing and turned violent. This, however, is way beyond that. How do things get so bad that it literally ends in violence? And to Read More…
11 Product Names That Mean Unfortunate Things in Other Languages
Back in the 80’s, Sav-on was acquired by the parent company of Osco Drugs and many of their stores were rebranded as Osco. They soon learned that the word “Asco” in Spanish (pronounced the same) means “disgust” and after realizing how many people in California spoke Spanish, they quickly decided that was Read More…