
Originally Posted by
Unregistered
Hello, I've been working at CT for over 3 years now, part-time while I go to school. I work in the warehouse, however I still end up helping customers when I'm on the floor on my way to do carts, carry-outs, fill propane tanks, etc. Its nice and easy to blame the floor staff for being incompetent and lazy, as well as baked out of their minds. (Yes, its very mindless work most of the time, so some staff like to show up to work high, just like most low end service jobs.) Never mind that we work odd hours, with shifts ranging from 3 - 16 hours, dealing with customers who constantly put us down, expect us to come when they snap their fingers, and know the entire store by heart no matter what department we work in, tell us we're idiots even when we find the right product because "the packaging in the picture is different" or simply take one look at us and say we can't possibly know anything about what you're looking for because we're too young, etc.
I've personally witnessed a customer try to bully one of our courtesy staff into accepting his credit card without checking to see that his signature matches the one on the back of it, to the point where she broke down in tears. We're not even allowed to post signs asking not to use our shopping carts as dumpsters because a customer found it offensive. I've even heard customers make quick jokes about our service as paramedics are dealing with one of our older staff who had a heart attack scare. Its not to say everyone is like that, but those that seem to have a problem with our service to that extent (and those we try to spot and avoid) have no respect for us. If you expect us to have proper knowledge and work ethic for minimum wage work, you should at least be able to learn some manners and common courtesy.
That being said, CT corp is a mess. Our store warehouse is a mess, despite being billed as one of the best kept, according to our regional manager. A disorganized warehouse means it'll take longer to find stock in the back, as well as a lot of items not being found at all (especially sale items). We recently had our store renovated as Corp didn't feel it was necessary to build a bigger store, which we desperately need, or even bother fixing the leaking roof, and as they own the building, as opposed to the store owner, we have no say. I can't speak for all the contractors they recommend, but the guy our store owner chose from their list was an idiot, who did things ranging from stupid to downright dangerous, and wouldn't listen to anybody. Coincidentally, we had shelving collapse during and after the reno, which has never happened before in our store, including one that fell on a customer, and had to reduce how much stock we put on the floor because the bincap amount was bending the shelf.
As for customer service, there is an online "university" for store associates to learn product knowledge and customer service skills, but its mostly optional and our employer doesn't want to pay to train us properly, so most of our work is learn as you go. Remember as well that the turnover at CT stores is about 6 months, and the same thing for a lot of the buyers as well, so we're constantly reorganizing for new stock, and most of the stuff we sell, and sell a lot of, is junk with the right price. Also, a lot of the floor staff is also expected to fill shelves because we can't budget enough fill crew to cover our store (and we supposedly have more staff than we should), so a lot of the time when they're avoiding customers they're either filling aisles (which they have X amount to do in a shift), or already helping another customer( or two or three....)
We usually try our best, so please be patient if you see the store is busy, or find one of the buzzers for customer service to let us know where to be.
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