No, I mean that literally- they will not pay us to keep the store open late

I have HAD IT with these customers, loyal readers.

Today, as we were closing up the store at 9 P.M., A Customer came in. He saw Free-Shirt pulling the gates closed (yeah, our store has metal gates in the front, we're classy) and asked,

"When do you guys close?"

"9 P.M.," I said.

"Your website says 10," he said. I pulled out my phone and checked our posted hours. Sure enough, Thursday says 10 AM to 10 PM, even though every other day of the week is correctly marked at 10 AM to 9 PM.

In the meantime, the guy and his girlfriend are looking at the wall and whining about how Skyrim is still $50.

"That's the legendary edition with all the DLC," I said. "The game by itself is $20."

"I ALREADY HAVE IT," he snapped at me.

This week of all weeks, I don't have time for people to be rude to me for trivial bullshit.

"Yeah, the website says 10 PM, but sorry, it must be a typo," I said. "Every other day is correctly marked 10 to 9."

"WHERE IS FALLOUT," he snapped.

"In the "Under $10" bin," I said. He managed to find it and bring it up to the register as Free-Shirt is locking the door and beginning to clean up customer mess.

"I'M FEELING RUSHED RIGHT NOW," he complained.

"Sorry," I said. "We don't get paid to stay open late."

Now, I am aware that mentioning your shitty working conditions to customers is The Biggest No-No Ever In The History of Corporate Retail, but I've had it with this guy.

"WELL, THAT'S A GREAT ATTITUDE."

Ain't nobody disses my attitude.

"I mean that literally," I said flatly. "They will not pay us to keep the store open late. We're restricted in the number of hours we can have employees scheduled, and we're already over our allocation for this week." Of course, legally, they have to pay us for hours worked, but there are all kinds of tricks corporate can use to "make up" the over-used time, the most common one being slashing hours for the following days and weeks, which hurts the store long-term.

(By the way, we're over on hours because our district manager came in, moved everything around, made a huge mess, and we had to bring in an extra employee to clean it all up.)

"WELL, THEN, IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMEBODY MESSED UP THE SCHEDULE."

"We have no control over the number of payroll hours we get. Feel free to take it up with our corporate office."

"MAYBE I WILL."

Seriously. Customers are not Delicate Flowers who can't bear the effects of Reality interfering with their Happy Shopping Time. Stores, particularly small specialty stores like mine, have closing times for a reason. Even if I didn't have a life outside of work and was totally happy to wait around for him to finish picking out $5 PS3 games, I would get punished by corporate for going into overtime.

Of course, I'm going to get reamed by corporate anyway for telling a customer THE TRUTH OF RETAIL, but at least I get to watch my DM flounder when I ask him how much overtime pay I can get.

Encouraging people to complain to corporate totally takes the wind out of their sails, though.

Black Friday is a scam

There's plenty of internet out there about how Black Friday deals are basically the worst, especially on big-ticket items. Last night I was at the store until 11 P.M. unloading all the cheap Black Friday garbage that corporate is eager to unload on the public this year. My personal favorite is our returning door buster $60 tablet that's so cheaply made that it doesn't even have a real manufacturer's warranty. 

Because I want to be that fancy blogger who links to The Wall Street Journal, enjoy this link to The Wall Street Journal:

The Dirty Secret of Black Friday 'Discounts' 

Here's how it works, according to one industry consultant describing an actual sweater sold at a major retailer. A supplier sells the sweater to a retailer for roughly $14.50. The suggested retail price is $50, which gives the retailer a roughly 70% markup. A few sweaters sell at that price, but more sell at the first markdown of $44.99, and the bulk sell at the final discount price of $21.99. That produces an average unit retail price of $28 and gives the store about a 45% gross margin on the product.

Retailers didn't always price this way. It used to be that most items were sold at full price, with a limited number of sales to clear unsold inventory. That began to change in the 1970s and 1980s, when a rash of store openings intensified competition and forced retailers to look for new ways to stand out.

We run into this a lot with video games- basically all new releases are $60, even the ones that shouldn't be, because $60 is What A New Game Costs and they have to milk as much money out of their crap as they can. Many non-A-list games will go "on sale" for $10 or $20 off mere weeks after they came out, which is preeeeetty irritating when you're the one changing the price tags. (And is one of the reasons I generally only buy Nintendo products, which don't have silly price fluctuations, except for the 3DS that one time LOL.)

Of course, as the article mentions, when stores try to go from the misleading inflated-prices-and-sales format to a more honest everyday-low-price format, people stop shopping there. Retailers are stuck in a cycle of artificially jacking up prices so they can afford crazy markdowns, because people would rather buy stuff off the sale rack. Is it because they think something's better quality if it's priced higher? I dunno.

Other things people complain about, like not including sales tax in the price or pricing everything at $9,999.99 instead of $10,000.00 and so on, is just more nonsense that retailers have come up with to make things look more competitively priced than they are. And you know why they keep doing it?

Because it works.

USians have voted with their wallets, and they said: "We want misleading sale nonsense!" Now we're all stuck with it.

It was this post or a long, profane screed about how much I hate the concept of "deals," because DEALS ARE A LIE.

Today, I crushed a man's dreams

Some guy in his 20s was just in here looking for a job application. I told him we were going to be hiring seasonal employees soon.

"What's the pay like?" he asked.

"Minimum wage," I said. "You'd be making minimum wage."

"What's minimum wage now?"

"$7.85 per hour."

"Wow," he said disdainfully. "That's bad. That's really bad." As if I have any control over what the pay rate is here.

Sir, you are applying for a temp cashier job at a corporate retailer. It's not exactly an entry-level career position.

Minimum wage isn't there to encourage corporations to pay us more. It's there because said corporations would pay us even less if they were legally allowed to.

It's good he left before I could tell him that he'd only be working maybe six hours a week, or that he'd be better off looking for a job in a call center.

REALITY: IT'S HARSH

This is news to no one who's been paying attention

Turns out, it's basically impossible for someone to survive on minimum wage. I think my favorite is that this spreadsheet is for McDonald's employees to use to budget their peasant wages, but the budget includes income from a second job. 

Really, bro?

I make above minimum wage, but only because I'm a manager. I'm almost 25, and my parents still pay for my insurance and my phone. And then, of course, my job cut my hours down to less than 30 a week, because they were worried they might have to pay for health insurance for me.

When I confronted my district manager about it, he told me it was Obama's fault, and that I was welcome to look for a second job.

True story.