The e-mails keep flowing in as more and more people want to tell me about their job, why it sucks, and so on. So without further ado, we get a little anecdote from the Shermanator, my old co-worker at Gateway, and we get a complete report from Tim, about his job at Market Basket. He should know too, he's been there forever. At least 5 years I think.


Sherman, from Gateway, tells a recent story about a customer at the service center:

on the customers side. I work in service as you know. and this one guy comes in and tells me what is wrong with the system and that he wants it repaired. I work for Gateway and ask a few questions and come to find out the last time he was in it needed a new hard drive. so I said to him we should order a new hard drive in order to get it back to you in a timely manner. he's like what if it's not. I say to him than we will refund your credit card. well he just babbles on and on about this for another 10 minutes going on about how do you know it's the hard drive. and why am I charging him for a new hard drive when it hasn't been looked at yet this day. Told him we will look at it and if its' not refund your cc. he asks to speak to a manager and the manager says the same exact thing I say and he's like ok. that makes sense. What a moron. I wanted to jump across the counter.


Tim sends in his lengthy, but funny report on Market Basket:

work is ok. i think the only reason i'm there now is that i can make my own schedule when i'm in school and when i go away and stuff like that. working sunday is great cause we get time and a half. so the more hours u work on sunday the better your check will be. but, just as long as i get about 30 hours a week, which means i have about 200 after taxes, i'm happy. and getting two bonuses every year helps too. heres a run down of my job at mb

being an assistant:
for the most part, this is great. i wouldn't be working there now if i was still a sacker or something like that. although, kenny didnt' seem to mind being a college sacker. haha, no offense kenny. but then he started to complain that if he wasn't an assistant soon, he would quit. so they just laughed at him, and instead of quitting he moved on to grocery. which isn't that bad. its most likely where i would want to go if i was given the option. but we all know that hes just Mr. Kelly's bitch now. for those of u that don't know him, hes lazy. he has everyone do his job for him and now that kenny's working that ends, guess who does all the work. everytime i see him he hates it and swears out loud in the store. i just laugh. anyway, enough laughing and pointing at kenny and back to my job. i really like the people i work with. my boss is cool most of the times. he just took us all out to eat and that was cool. the other assistants are cool most of the time also. eric is a really good friend now. i've seen three of the assistant girls naked which is a plus. the only assistant that bugs me most of the time is claire. this is how claire works. claire has a boyfriend. it seems that claire and her boyfriend fight alot. not all the time but alot. and on the days she gets into a fight with her boyfriend, she comes to work all mad and takes it out on all the guys that are there. if shes mad at one guy, all guys must suck. i've even told my girl jess to watch how she treats me. when she first walks in, she'll talk to jess about her problems because jess works in the courtesy booth and therefore is like a priest in a confessional that everyone has to talk to when they have problems. so after she talks to jess, i'll call over and ask if she had a fight with her boyfriend, she'll say yes and i'll tell her to watch how she treats me. and i'm right, she treats me like shit. i've told jess to say something to her but she won't. i guess i'm just made to suffer.

dunkin donuts is great. if i'm bored i can usually send someone to get a coffee for me. i usually talk one of the courtesy booth girls into doing it for me. even though one is on the window and one is reading a cosmo and drinking a pepsi in the other window and not taking any customers. Oh but "they have so much work to do". bullshit. theres nothing to do but count draws. and that seems to be their big chore. everyone knows it. although only one person counts the draw while the other one sits on her ass. even if there is no customers. sometimes i'll buzz over and try to tell them to both count but they say that one has to be on the window. even though i'm standing there and haven't seen any customers for like ten or so minutes. can't the window girl count a draw on the desk next to the window. makes sense to me and the rest of the store. one time i even walked up there and jess and katie were playing cards on the table next to the windows. but yet they "had so much work to do" haha. and another thing, most of the girls buzz over and try to get us to pull girls early so that they can get draws early and count them. i think i'm the only assistant that can stand up to them and say no. all the others seem to cave in cause their nice or their hot. most of the time i just say "you've been sitting on your ass all night and now u want me to give u draws so u can get out early while i've been doing tons of shit out here". most of them know now not to ask me. now if there is another assistant on, they'll ask them. most of the time i'm standing there and i say there not getting any so thats what they tell the booth and they get all mad. oh, well. should of thought of that before i saw u playing cards.

sometimes my job can be really boring. sacking gets old fast so most of the time i'll walk around and look for overstock. saturdays are great cause its so busy that i usually have all 12 registers open and lights going off all over the place so i have to keep walking around. and thats another thing, most of the other managers don't seem to realize that when the assistant is the only person running the front and there is no manager or other assistant, that assistant is responsible for around 20-30 kids on a saturday or sunday. thats alot to know what everyone is doing at every little minute. the other assistants know what i'm talking about. most of the time we do know where everyone is, but there are sometimes when one sacker will wander off and try to sneek around to go talk to someone or go to the bathroom with out telling us. we're always getting calls from the managers telling us that they just saw someone wandering around in the backroom doing nothing. "what were they doing" that brings me to another part of my job. babysitting. on the weekend its mostly 14 and 15 yr olds, cause thats all they can work is the weekend (damn child labor laws).i'm always saying that were nothing but babysitters on the weekend. "just tell all the parents, bring your kids down for the day, we'll babysit them and pay them for it too" anyway, we're constantly chasing after them. when we send them to get some carriages, they walk around and talk with the other younger sackers. so u gotta yell at them and u gotta keep callin them up to the front. just this saturday, i really wanted to kick an young sacker out. i had just sent krista to break. now, krista seems to be cute and gets all the attention from the boys. thats all i'm gonna say cause shes only 14 and i could go to jail. haha. as soon as i sent her, i noticed that seth was missing too. so i called seth to the front. after the third time i called him i was getting mad and realized that he was probally in the back goofing around with krista. i know all about krista sneaking into the boys room with a boy in her high school cause she thought her boyfriend was cheating on her. but it turns out he really wasn't and i only know this cause jess's sister is in the same grade in the same school and told jess everything which of course gets back to me. so finally i'm all mad and telling the other assistant at the time, dave, that i'm gonna kick him out of here cause i know hes in the bathroom with krista or somewhere with her. so he finally comes up and i ask him where he was cause i called him like 5 times, and he said he was in the bathroom and that he punched out to go cause he knew it would take him along time. i was like "what". then krista comes back from break and i actually pulled her aside and asked her if she was in the bathroom with seth. she just smiled and asked what kind of girl i thought she was. i told her cause i knew the whole other story and she knew that i knew cause all i do is make fun of her for. but she said no and then started talking about something else and i forgot all about throwing set out. i so wanted to though.

the thing i really hate about my job is dealing with the bitchy customers. they never seem to believe us. we get called over because the customer say a sign that says 99 and its ringing up 1.99 or something like that. so we go look for this magical sign or send a reliable sacker, like john culbert (i knew if i didn't throw his name in here somewhere he would complain), and if it does say 99 i'll change it. but most of the time it says 99 but for some other product. so u have to tell the customer that they can't read and give them a lesson in the alphabet. most of the time i'll actually bring the other product up to the front to show them and if they wanted that instead its just easier that way. but sometimes theres the customer that just believes their right and has to take u over to show u the sign. and even then their still wrong. i love that part. then your just sticking it to em. haha. another thing about prices is that we have to give it to the customers for what the product is marked.like if it rings up 1.99 and the sticker on it says 1.79 or something like that, then i'll change it for them. thats what the law says. yes there is a state law that says this. but that is just the first part of the law and thats the only part that customers know. the second part says that we don't have to give it to them if it is for more then half off the original price. the other day some bitchy lady was complaining to my manager cause something rang up 14.99 and it was marked 4.99. like the 1 didn't print or something like that. so shes flipping out and yelling at him that he has to give it to her for what its marked. so he informers her about the second part of the law so she can't have it for 4.99. he keeps telling her he'll sell it to her for 14.99 and that it. shes screaming at him that this is illegal and shes gonna sue. so she tells him to ring it up for 7.99 so its more then half and he said he won't. so he finally just voided it out and walked away. i love it when he gets mad and does stuff like that. its so funny.

this is gettin long so i will regale u with one more story then i'm off. another thing that customers do that really pisses me off is if i tell them something and they don't like it, they'll want to see the manager. which is ok with me cause that means that i can unload them on someone else. but the thing that really gets me is when the manager says the exact same thing i just said and the customer says ok with out any fuss or question. what the fuck did i just say? its gotta be the red coat the managers wear. they must be right. this one time a woman customer bought two of the same items. i don't remember what they were but thats not important. she had one coupon that said buy two get 1.00 off, and another that said save 30 when u buy one. our store doesn't take double coupons. which means she can't use both of those coupons. even the computer won't let u do it. so shes yelling at me that i have to take both of them cause she bought two. i even checked with the courtesy booth and i was right. i kept telling her we don't do double coupons here. she's flipping out. yelling. "show me where it says that in this store", "show me where it says no double coupons on this coupon" while she shoves the coupon in my face. she just keeps going on and on and on. so after a while i notice the assistant store manager walking by so i say hold on one second and i go talk to him. i ask him to help me out with this lady cause she wants to use both of the coupons and won't listen to me. so he says sure. so he goes over there and he tells her that we don't do double coupons and we never have. she just says ok and uses one of the coupons. i'm ripshit. he just said the exact same thing i said and she believed him not me. but all u can do is give her a nice "fuck u lady" as she walks out the door.

i think pat can tell when i'm bored and i go over and talk to him when he comes in. or when any of my friends come in for that matter. i just keep talking and talking. i won't let them leave. finally i think they get fed up and make up some excuse to leave. haha. oh well, gotta find something else to do.


Well there you go. Testimonial from the man himself. Tim brought up a lot of interesting points that I totally agree with:

Just to throw in one more thing about working Guest Service at Target. I've talked about the return policy, and how strict it is. NO receipt = NO return or exchange. When women come in without a receipt, It's almost a scripted dialogue between the woman and me:

Woman: Hi, I'd like to return this.
Me: OK, do you have your receipt?
Woman: No, I don't.
Me: OK, do you know how you might have paid for it, I may be able to look up your receipt if you paid by credit, check, or debit?
Woman: (EITHER) A) I paid by cash, or B) I don't remember.
Me: I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do for you then.
Woman: (THEY ALWAYS SAY THIS EXACTLY THE SAME WAY) OK then, I'll just take store credit.
Me: I'm sorry ma'am, I can't do that, our store policy is that you need a receipt dated within 90 days for all returns and exchanges
(BY THIS POINT, THEY ARE GETTING VERY SNIPPY AND ANGRY, WOMEN DON'T LIKE HEARING NO)
Woman: Let me speak to a manager
(AT THAT POINT, I CALL UP A MANAGER, AND THEY SAY EXACTLY THE SAME THING I SAY, AND THEN THEY EXPLODE)
Woman: I can't believe this, I'm never shopping here again, and I'm going to tell all my friends to never shop here again
Me: (AS THEY STORM OUT, I USUALLY SAY IN MY NICEST VOICE POSSIBLE) Alright, have a great night. (AS I SMILE LIKE AN ASSHOLE, AND THEN MOST OF THE TIME I'LL SEE THAT PERSON IN THE STORE SHOPPING SOON AFTER)

12/17/01 4:23pm
Finals Fever

Classes have ended, and now the pressure of finals is getting to me. I've had a lackluster semester, and the finals are my chance to possibly salvage some of these bad grades. Hopefully once school ends, I'll be able to update more often than I have, and Eric, I will get those pics up soon, I promise.

Quick Update: Simpson's Trivia is going to finish with 6 difficulty 5 questions to get me to an even 100. All of those questions will be posted tomorrow.

Anyway, a lot of people wrote back about some stories they had on the job, or wrote about how bad their job was. So I just wanted to show you what I've got. So, enjoy these stories from your fellow Pramas.com readers.


Kenny from Market Basket tells a good customer story:

geez Pat, thats rough...im sorry all that crap has to happen to you at Target. Customers or "guests" can be real morons. one time at MB, one lady came to me and was asking for chicken breats or somethign like that, and i told her it was in the freezer case near the dairy isle, and she said..."no, it wouldnt be over there"...and im telling her...yes it is, and she still insisted "no it wouldnt be over there. and im thinking to myself....do i work here, or does she. So i keep telling her, its over in the freezer case in the dairy isle....and she still doesnt beleive me and shes getting upset. So i go get mike..a clerk from meat...he comes back...and told her where it was but we didnt have anymore, i was right...but since the fact that we didnt have anymore...she starts flipping out at him. then finally she left...but that just shows ya ignorant customers can be. well cee ya later Pat. Good luck during this christmas shopping season...HAHAHAHA Kenny


Margot, one of my "teammates" from Target replied not in the best of moods:

Why does my job suck....lets see....you think Hardlines2 have it bad? Try being back up everything!!! Being a cashier sucks because normally whenever I'm a cashier people flock to my register because they only see my light on. Having to watch the Hardline 2 boys *cough* Patrick *cough* "do reshop" (talk about lazy ass guys) while there are 2 cashiers on and lines out the door. Then finally when the lines do go down, I hear "Margot to Softlines 1 for back-up" or "margot to upstairs lanes for backup". They never give me a break. The best part comes when a CTL comes to me and says, "how would you like staying untill 11 tonight?"....And to top of the list, being hired for Guest Service and not actually being trained for it and having HL2 boys get the position first. Talk about sucks.... That's only job #1.....You're lucky I didnt talk about me teaching 4 yr olds how to dance. Talk about tiring. Ugh.


There you go. Write in if you have some more stories for me. I'm going to put up some links later on this week. Good luck on finals everyone.

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