The Bullying of Shaw’s

Since I wrote my blog post about a month ago on Shaw’s, I have regularly been posting comments on Shaw’s’ Facebook page when someone made a complaint.  Even though I have never found my comments rude or in bad taste, Shaw’s has thought differently by posting the following comment directed to me earlier this week:

 

Hello Louis Brown – We strive to provide our customers with excellent customer service, we do this by hiring friendly and hardworking employees, who become part of the “Shaw’s Family”. You comment on our page routinely with negative feedback. We encourage you to email us with your concerns, as we’d like to help resolve an issue that you may have experienced in the past. You can email us at ShawsHelpers@Shaws.com Please know that this is a warning, regarding posting negative generalizations. Thank you ~ Dan

 

Of course the above statement is full of the kind of spin that Shaw’s has been spurting out for months.  I consider my feedback ways for the company to improve, but it seems like they are out to bully me more than anything.

 

So here is my email response back to them:

 

To whom it may concern:

 

I am responding to your comment made to me on your Facebook page regarding my “negative generalizations”.

 

First off, let me start out by saying that I don’t appreciate the “warning” given to my comments.  I find this type of behavior the type of bullying and bad customer service that your company has had over the last year or so.  I feel that if you had an issue with me that you would have sent me a private message rather than putting it out on a public page.  To have everyone see this type of post just makes you look like a very bad company that cares absolutely NOTHING about providing even the least bit of decent customer service.

 

Now with that part out of the way, let me say that I don’t believe that my comments are negative in any way whatsoever.  They are meant to be responses on a public forum that would be helpful to both the customer and your company as ways to improve customer service.  At absolutely NO point, has any of my comments ever been meant to be malicious or attacking any person.  As someone who has had 25 years of retail experience, I believe that I bring to the table mature and socially responsible responses, something that appears to be missing by some of the complaints posted by customers regarding employees/management of your company.  To call my responses “negative generalizations” is just the type of denial that your company has been spinning for the last few months.

 

This leads me to one of the biggest spins that you and your company has been posing several times over the last few months:  “the better customer experience”.  This was the response to the reason why your company got rid of the self-serve registers.  Seriously, the REAL reason that I got from several employees was that people were cheating the system and stealing from your store.  Why can’t you just admit to what all the employees have been saying for the last few months since the registers have been removed?  This type of spin just makes me angry that just can’t come clean with the truth.

 

As far as standing up for your employees, I can understand that many of them are hardworking employees, but there are those that are either unhappy or just rude.  As far as excellent customer service goes, it appears that this greatly missing from your company.

 

Every time I walk into the local Shaw’s store (I visit a couple of times a week, not to purchase, just to evaluate what is going on), I usually see one or two registers open along with possibly one express lane open.  While this may be fine on a slow day, every time I go in, I see at least 7 or 8 customers in each line.  Whatever happened to that “Three’s a crowd” motto, you had a few months ago?  Ironically, I don’t even see these signs up in the store anymore.  Coincidence, I don’t think so.

 

Back to the rude and unhappy employees, why is no one ever happy in your stores?  When I go to either Hannaford or Market Basket, I receive outstanding customer service and the employees are always happy and NEVER rude, but Shaw’s makes me feel the same way as I do at Walmart.  Employees who just don’t care or are so rude that it makes me never want to shop in your stores ever.  Maybe this is why Consumer Reports recently rated your supermarket one of the worst overall slightly about Walmart.  I think it is time to change the way your employees/mangers treat customers.  After all, why would customers keep reporting complaints on your Facebook page if they could get problems resolved in the store?

 

Now at this point, I would like to discuss a couple of issues that I have had with the local Shaw’s store in Scarborough Maine.

 

The first was with an employee, who at one time threw coupons back at me just because the self-serve register (when you had them) could not take the coupons that were on the packages of clearance meats that I was purchasing.  At the time of this incident, I did a survey stating that employees like that should be fired for that type of behavior.  In my own retail experience, I have seen employees get fired for such rude actions.  Unfortunately, this employee still works at that store and is still just as rude as ever.

 

The second issue happened a few weeks ago, when I had to pick up a couple of newspapers (not available else locally) in this same store.  Not only did this employee not greet me when I said “hello”, I got the sort of “deer in the headlights” stare back from them.  To make matters worse, the employee never told me the total of my purchase or did the obligatory “thank you” at the end of the transaction.  This employee never spoke to me whatsoever during the transaction.  They even threw my purchase at the end of the counter as if it didn’t even matter.  I never did a survey on this transaction because I knew it would be the same result as the one mentioned above.

 

A third issue was when I found a several month expired jar of spaghetti sauce on the shelf and I handed it to an employee and told them that it was expired.  While that employee appreciated what I had done, she turned the jar over to another employee working down that same aisle and from where I was standing it seemed like he was totally unconcerned with the expired product.  I was not even thanked for doing something that employees should be doing.  Because of that, I now just leave expired product on the  shelf rather than point it out to anyone.

 

Is this what a “more personal customer experience” supposed to be?  I would say NO.

 

Is this excellent customer service?  I say DEFINITELY NOT to me.

 

As many others have pointed out on your Facebook page, it seems that poor customer service is running wild in your stores.  My only goal is to provide constructive feedback to assist both your company and the customers in general.  It seems to me that your company represented by “Dan”, your spokesperson, does not appreciate the type of feedback that I provide your company.

 

I don’t believe that I am really offending anyone except the people at Shaw’s for being able to provide solutions that your company cannot/will not provide for them.  Under no circumstances do I believe that I am offending anyone, however I do feel threatened by your so-called “warning” only because it appears that your company cannot handle the truth and want to squash anyone who has viewpoints that oppose your own.  Doing business like that will drive your customers away quickly as it appears that some have already fled your company, I really don’t think that was your intent.

 

To summarize, let me restate my points:

 

• Many of your employees are rude and unfriendly. They are unappreciative of their customers and never “thank” them.
• I provide constructive feedback based upon my 25 years of retail experience, whether appreciated or not. They are not meant to be negative generalizations and should NEVER be considered as such.
• Finally, I find your “warning” a personal threat of bullying by your company. This is certainly NO way that any customer should EVER be treated, no matter what especially on such an open forum place as Facebook.  I will also say that all I am doing is expressing my first amendment rights and I really don’t think you want to violate them.

 

I hope that I have made my point across.  I will continue to post to your page when I see fit.  I will not apologize for anything that I have written in the past or what I will write in the future.  However, as I have always been I will not be rude or present myself in an unfriendly way unlike some of your employees.

 

Thank you for letting me express my opinion and continuing to provide continued constructive criticism when appropriate.

 

Louis Brown

Overall, I think I made a fair email to Shaw’s.  I will report back if they give me any sort of response to this email.  I don’t think that any company should be as rude as they are. I don’t believe they will be business long by doing this type of bullying.  Even Staples never stooped to this level that I know of (yet).

 

Next time, the 200^th post, it will be something that I hope will be very special…not that they are not all special.

 

PLEASE NOTE:  There is a good chance that there will be NO post next week due to system maintenance that I will be performing (Windows 10 update).  This is tentative only as I have not made any final decision about this update yet.  If there is not post next week, it will be delayed by two weeks minimum.  Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Company As Bad As Staples? Could It Be?

First let me say that I am going to write this week’s post a little differently than I had originally planned to as some breaking news has happened to make me change what I was going to write.

 

Could it be that there is a company that really is worse than Staples?

 

Apparently, there is one that comes very close or possibly even exceeds evil Staples.

 

Welcome, please, the new low in retail: Shaw’s Supermarket.

 

Yes, a few weeks ago, I wrote about how I felt about the company by having them remove their self-serve checkouts from the local store.  Apparently, my post on Facebook was not the only one showing my frustrations with the company.

 

Lately, it seems that the company has some real issues.

 

Amongst the problems is widespread expired food on shelves, rude employees, long lines, and overall dissatisfaction with the way the company operates.

 

This is definitely a company in trouble.  Lately they have been using gimmicks to get customers into their stores.  The first was giving away (or selling at a reduced price) cookware that could be purchased elsewhere (or similar items) at a better price.  The gimmick was to get stamps for every $10 spent and as you fill up books, you can get the reduced cookware.  This reminds me of the old Green Stamp program back in the old days.  What is so bad about this gimmick is that many stores still have some of this cookware in the clearance section and selling it for its full retail value despite that it was never sold for those prices to begin with.  They created a higher retail price just to make it look like it was really on clearance.

 

The most recent scam that has reared its ugly head for a second time is its Monopoly game.  This consisted of both a game board and entering codes online.  Of course, it was impossible to win anything with either.  I know this first hand as I spent hours entering 100’s of codes and the most I received was 2 free tickets or free Redbox rental, which I don’t use.

 

While many store items had bonus tickets attached to them, this caused many locations to run out of tickets weeks before the game actually ended.  This created frustration and a lot of angry comments by customers on their Facebook page.  Even though the company’s spokesperson Dan apologized for the problems, it still didn’t help the situation much.

 

This brings me to Dan, the single spinner of everything Shaw’s.

 

While Dan seems to be the spokesman, he still can’t solve all the company’s problems.  A couple of problems that stood out to me were the following 2 scenarios:

 

• In northern Maine, a customer complained about shopping carts that regularly showed up in their driveway. While usually only one cart was on their property at a time, the person was frustrated that these carts were leaving their parking lot in the first place.  The customer would regularly return the carts back to the store, but when more than one cart showed up on their property, the customer contacted the store and told the manager that someone should come and get them or else the customer would be disposing of them.  The manager told the customer that he would be calling the police if the customer ever did such a thing.  Certainly, this is no way that any manager should handle a situation like this at all.  My recommendation to the customer was that he should be calling the police because of property that didn’t belong there was showing up.  It is not the customer’s responsibility to take care of carts that show up on their property.  Shaw’s should fire this manager for having threatened this customer.  Another case of how customer service is bad at the company.
• In New Hampshire, a Shaw’s manager seems to have a problem with a customer and whenever the customer is around, the manager seems to making despairing remarks about the customer. Why would any manager ever say anything bad about a customer when they are standing right in the area?  No company deserves a manager like this and should be fired.  But then again, this is Shaw’s, home of the rude employee.

 

Given these 2 scenarios, it is apparent that people like Dan will have his work cut out for him endlessly spinning and apologizing for the acts of its management and employees.  No company should really have to do this as companies should always do the responsible thing.  (Are you listening Staples?  I know you never have and never will.)

 

Given everything discussed above, it is apparent that the company is losing market share.  A recent consumer magazine ranked Shaw’s fourth from the bottom of a survey of supermarkets around the country.  Ironically, dead last was Walmart.  Was this a surprise to anyone?

 

However, in this survey, fourth highest ranked was Market Basket.  Despite having its own issues last year, this company has excelled in most everything service related.

 

This finally leads me to the breaking news:  the Biddeford Maine Shaw’s store is going to be shut down around the 4^th of July holiday.  What a great way to celebrate the holiday especially for the Market Basket store, which is right down the road.  Yes, this Shaw’s store has been a huge underperformer since the opening of Market Basket, but companies like Shaw’s deserve to close.  But is this just a trend in the area as Lowe’s and Best Buy also left the Biddeford area in the last few years or just Shaw’s just being the lousy company that it really is?

 

I am thinking the latter in this case.

 

So how long can Shaw’s survive at its current rate?  It has already lost me as a customer and I expect more customers will also give up on them as well.   I see a very short future for Shaw’s.

 

Now if Staples could continue its downward trend as well…

 

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Spinning with Shaw’s Supermarket

After spending nearly 25 years as a cashier, there is one thing that I have figured out:  most cashiers are either stupid, rude, or both.

 

Any time that I have an interaction with a cashier, I always feel like I am either dealing with a brainless robot or someone who just endlessly wants to talk.

 

Thankfully, I have not ordered any drinks from Starbucks anytime in my life especially during their little “Race Together” program.  Why would I ever want to talk about such a controversial subject with someone who is probably uninformed and have no real clue about the subject?  Add to this that talking adds time to an employee’s interaction with a customer and many customers don’t really want to waste their time spent in such a small confining area for any more time than they have to.

 

Yes, it is all about the time.

 

In fact, there was a period when Staples wanted employees to spend no more than 3 minutes with each customer.  That is, from starting a transaction to saying “goodbye”, they only wanted a total of 3 minutes with each one.

 

Unless a customer was making a very small purchase and didn’t have anything that required explaining things like a service plan, this was all good.  Otherwise, that 3 minute window was a joke.

 

Of course, many times conversations were cut very short especially when lines were long and there was no backup help around.  Staples, during my last couple of years there, always seemed to under schedule for night business.  It was always busier than the schedule ever accounted for.

 

So dealing with customers is sometimes never fun and neither is dealing with cashiers either.

 

Enter the self-serve checkout.

 

This is a boon to anybody who doesn’t want to deal with people.  Locally, the Target and Walmart stores have self-serve registers.

 

Until 2 weeks ago, so did the local Shaw’s supermarket store did as well.

 

So introduces a problem.

 

I don’t like dealing with the cashiers at Shaw’s.  I had a very bad experience with one of their employees at the self-serve registers a few months ago.

 

Let me explain that situation.  One day I was purchasing a few reduced quick meals.  Each of them had an a coupon on them to account for the markdown price.

 

After I had scanned in the 4^th item and coupon, the system would not allow any more coupons for my remaining markdown items.  So the female supervisor, who is also a cashier had to open the top of the register system and retrieve the coupons that I already used and she literally threw them at me and told me that the only way that I could do this transaction was to go to a regular register and then I would have to split up the transaction because I had exceeded the maximum number of coupons even though only 1 was used per item.  I then asked her where that policy was posted and she just said that was the way it was and gave no further explanation.  I checked everywhere later on the company’s website and found absolutely no limit mentioned on coupons.

 

I reported this rude behavior to the store management via a store survey.  In my complaint, I mentioned that this employee should be fired for such bad behavior.   This was not my first problem with this employee, but I certainly wanted it to be my last.

 

Unfortunately,  this employee is still with the company and is still just as rude to customers as she was months ago.  To make matters worse, other cashiers are just as bad as this woman.  It seems that Shaw’s prides itself in the rude employees it has.  No other company have I ever seen so many rude employees as with Shaw’s.  .

 

Fast forward to about a week ago when I decided to make a complaint to Shaw’s on their Facebook page.  I wrote a rather lengthy complaint simply stating that I would no longer shop at the local Shaw’s only because they got rid of their self-serve registers.

 

The next day, I received a replay stating that they got rid of the self-serve registers as a matter of making for a more “personal experience” and make it more “convenient”.

 

Since I wrote my angry comment, a couple of others have made similar complaints about other locations where the self-serve registers were removed, and again the same words were used in the company’s response.

 

Overall, what Shaw’s is doing is creating their own form of spin by creating lies to cover up for the REAL reason for getting rid of the self-serve registers.  The real reason is that apparently there was too much theft at the self-serve registers.

 

Huh?!?

 

What?!?

 

Why is it that others have had no problems with the self-serve registers and Shaw’s claim that there is too much theft?     I actually found it very difficult to try to defeat the self-serve registers as each item seems to be weighed when entering the bagging area.  To add to that, there is a camera aimed right at the self-serve area, so the possibility of actually stealing is virtually eliminated.

 

As far as being “convenient” is concerned, longer lines have become the norm as Shaw’s still has only a couple of register open at a time.  However, in replacement to the 4 self-serve registers they had, they added 2 express lines instead.  This certainly doesn’t help the people who have to wait with large carts full of merchandise.  For the “personal experience” part, I wish not to interact with their rude cashiers ever!

 

So what is Shaw’s REAL problem (it is not theft, by the way)?

 

There big problem is old outdated merchandise not moved out correctly.  I remember years ago when people would stock the shelves, the new product was moved to the back and the old product would be put out front to make sure it sold first.

 

However, laziness has put the new product to the front and the old gets pushed to the back.  There is really no need for this type of laziness but it seems to happen everywhere, not just at Shaw’s.

 

A couple of months ago, I found a stale jar of spaghetti sauce that had expired nearly 9 months earlier.  I pointed out the problem to a salesperson on the sales floor and she took the jar and told her supervisor who didn’t seem to concerned over the problem.  Add this type of behavior to the rude cashiers, and you get a very bad shopping experience.  This was not the first time that I found expired items on the shelf at Shaw’s but it was the first time that I decided to report it.

 

Overall, I have found that Shaw’s has created a very bad shopping experience that has just been getting worse with the removal of the self-serve registers.  If they think that can create a better shopping experience with their change, they are sadly mistaken.  With the increasing number of complaints that I have read, it seems that Shaw’s is bleeding customers and risk going out of business because of their bad behavior.

 

They have already lost my business until they return the self-serve registers to the local store.  I don’t like the type of “personal experience” that they currently give and it certainly is NOT “convenient”.  I will shop where I can use self-serve registers and not be intimidated by rude employees.

 

Finally, for those of you wondering why I didn’t do a posting last week is because being April Fool’s Day, I thought that if I had written a real post it might have been taken as a joke and if I wrote a fake post, it may hurt the integrity of truth that this blog is always trying to show.  However, that doesn’t mean that I won’t write a fake one on some April 1^st in the future.

 

What do you the reader want?  Ignore April 1^st or someday write a wonderful fake post that brings that long needed chuckle here?

 

As always, I appreciate your questions and comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obama Slams Staples

Writer’s note:  I am postponing the post on RadioShack until a future date as I believe this is certainly more important and interesting at the current time.  Hopefully, you will feel the same.

 

First let me point of reference to the following link:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/staples-threatens-to-fire#.ytlLb8j3L.

 

I am in 100% agreement with Obama on this one.  Unlike his other thoughts on issues, he is dead on correct with this.

 

As I mentioned way back in 2011, Staples was reducing the hours of full-timers as well as part-timers in a way of cutting costs despite that the company was still doing fairly well at that time.  Along with that, the company later changed how vacation time was issued as well, again to cut costs of operation.

 

However, the big issue of this article is how managers tell their employees that they are responsible for their own hours.  At the time that I worked for them, there was absolutely NO way to do this unless the employee kept track of their hours on a spreadsheet like I did and highly doubt that anybody except me would be that anal to do that.

 

What I find most interesting about this article is the notice sent out to employees from one store manager about managing their own time.  The interesting part is that the manager’s name was cut off the notice before being posted to this site.  My thought would have been to embarrass this manager by posting his name and location as to show everybody just what an idiot that this person really is.

 

I have always believed that it is the responsibility of managers to watch the hours of employees and keep them or send them home accordingly depending on where they stand hour wise.  However, nobody can anticipate sickness or if a store gets busy and is needed for extra help.  I have never seen a clean-cut answer to how to manage hours.

 

That is except for cutting hours to a threshold lower than the maximum number of hours.  For full-timers, this meant not scheduling for more than 37 ½ hours per week and for part-timers to no more than about 20 hours per week.  At least that was the way that it was when I left the company in 2009; I don’t know how that has changed since then.  I would certainly be interested in hearing any comments as to the situation at any Staples store now as to the maximum scheduled hours and if employees are highly restricted with them.

 

The biggest issue of course with all these hour changes all rotate around the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which I have never supported.  I have always believed in a fair insurance system with free enterprise and no health restrictions.  Of course, full-timers always had this, but only a couple of years before I got terminated did the part-timers get insurance benefits.

 

Maybe this is part of the problem at Staples.

 

Having to insure both full-timers and part-timers is not a cheap venture, which is the reason why I and others were terminated because we were using more than our fair share of the health insurance program.  In fact, the day I was terminated I went to the doctor to have new bandage wraps placed on my leg.  In the future, I will discuss my downhill health all courtesy of Staples and their ignorance.

 

What makes me madder than anything is how Fox News is portraying this.  Last week on Fox Business Network, former Office Depot CEO Steve Odland blasted Obama for his comments regarding Staples.  Apparently, Odland still has shares in his former company and certainly don’t want to say anything bad about his future stock gains.

 

This leads me to what Melissa Francis said on the Fox News program, “The O’Reilly Factor” last week.  Her comment was that Staples is only doing this because it has to be accountable to shareholders only.  Of course,  as I pointed out in my last post that the only real winners in the proposed merger are the shareholders.  The employees of both companies are the real losers and more will lose their jobs if the proposed merger happens.   Like Odland, Ms. Francis is a cheerleader for Staples and a hater of Obama by calling Obama spreading of lies.

 

If only she read this blog, she would know that the real lies are being spread by Staples.  Maybe Obama reads this blog and knows that Staples are liars and finally calling them out.  Highly doubt that but certainly would make this blog special if that was true.

 

One last point, I want to make about all this is that the reason why Obama discussed this in the first place is that he wants to put the final nail in Mitt Romney, a significant shareholder of Staples.  I don’t know if he still owns stock with the company, but if he does he will certainly receive a huge windfall if the merger happens.

 

For those people who don’t realize everything, Fox News is skewed toward Republican support (anti-Obama) and pro-Staples.  Unfortunately, I see a lot of spinning here in the “No Spin Zone” of “The O’Reilly Factor”.

 

Thankfully you will never get spinning on this blog.

 

Not today

 

Not tomorrow.

 

Never here at all.

 

 

 

Why Staples is Sliding in its Stocks

In my last post, I discussed the giving of huge bonuses to the top executives of Staples.

 

Since then, the stock has dropped to below $11/share, making it to one of the lowest points in the company’s history.

 

Five years ago, when I left the company, the stock was valued at over $21/share and now it is worth about half that much.

 

So what is really happening here?

 

Bad weather has been the excuse used most of the time as the reason for the company’s failure to make the company’s sales goals.  Even with the closure of companies like Circuit City, Staples still can’t improve and continued to fall when they should be gaining ground.

 

I feel that the real reason for their ongoing problems can be broken down to a couple of different things.

 

The first is that almost all the items that Staples sells can be purchased elsewhere sometimes at a considerably cheaper price.  This is has been especially beneficial to companies like Walmart as it has been a one-stop for just about everything.

 

But even Walmart has been hurt by such things as dollar stores and smaller retailers.  So companies like Walmart can’t be blamed totally for the decline of Staples despite them causing a major hit against them, although Staples uses them as an easy target for their own decline.

 

The other problem is with the store’s management.

 

Anybody who has ever shopped or worked at Staples knows that the management seems to change almost as much as the staff that it employs.  The reason is that if a manager sucks, they are shown the door.

 

Unfortunately, no manager is safe with Staples.  Whether it is the store manager or sales manager or another manager, the company is notorious for eliminating managers on a regular basis.

 

During my nearly 10 years at Woolworth, we had only 2 store managers and 1 interim manager.  During my nearly 13 years at Staples, we had at least 5 store managers and countless sales managers.

 

This regular changeover of management never made Staples an enjoyable place to work as each manager brought in their own rules and policies, basically undoing the policies of the manager before them.

 

So are the managers that bad?

Not at all but Staples would rather fire managers and put someone new in rather than staying the course and having some consistency within the company.

 

Overall, I feel that Staples should stop swapping out managers so frequently and learn to accept managers’ flaws.  However, Staples is either unable or unwilling to suck it up and accept their managers.

 

So this whole scenario creates the instability that is unloved by those on Wall Street, therefore the stock continues its downward slide.

 

In some ways, I am thankful that I am no longer with the company as they continue their own slow death.

 

Sometimes liars do benefit others.

 

 

 

 

Shaw’s’ Hidden Policy

Just when you thought that Staples was the only bad company (actually I have discussed others here), I now introduce Shaw’s to the bad company crowd.

 

For those of you who don’t know what Shaw’s is, it is a grocery store chain located in the New England/New York area. Up to a few months ago, the chain was owned by the Supervalu chain of stores, but now is independent.  Apparently independence has not done the chain well as I describe here.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the local Shaw’s store where I was purchasing 8 dental products, which each of them had a 55 cent off coupon on the package.  After I scanned all the items at the self-serve register, I started scanning my coupons from the packages.  Everything was fine for the first 4 items so I continued scanning the remaining coupons.

 

After I finished scanning all 8 coupons, it required management approval for some reason.  So when the woman supervisor scanned her employee card, I noticed that the register only doubled the value of the first 4 coupons and not the last 4.

 

The woman supervisor told me that it was policy that there was a limit of 4 coupons to be doubled.  When I asked where it was stated, she either did not hear me or ignored my question.  As she started taking the items off the receipt to void the transaction, the other coupons started doubling themselves over the limit of the 4.

 

Being irritated over the whole thing, the woman supervisor told me to go to a “regular checkout with my items” and she threw my coupons back at me as if I was to be blamed for the system not to work the way it should.

 

So off I went to the regular checkout grudgingly.  I decided to checkout as 2 transactions my 8 products to eliminate any possible problem.  The first transaction went fine, however the second one stopped me in my tracks as my credit card was not accepted because the same amount was in 2 consecutive transactions.  I have used my card many times at other places with same amount consecutive transactions with absolutely no problem whatsoever.  This is apparently a Shaw’s’s problem and not a credit card issue.  After a couple of minutes, the transaction did go through but this embarrassment could have been avoided if the registers were programmed correctly.  To insult to injury to all this was that the cashier was sort of rude to me while doing my transaction.  This is true of many of the cashiers who work at Shaw’s being rude.  This is why I use self-serve registers and recommend anybody with any intelligence to use self-serve when available.

 

Overall, I was very dissatisfied with my experience this particular day.  I filled out a survey on their website expressing my displeasure with how things went.  Thankfully, unlike Best Buy, I never received an email asking me to respond to them with either a phone call or an email.  Apparently Shaw’s does respect the privacy of their customers unlike companies like Best Buy and Staples.

 

What is the takeaway from all of this?

 

First, the woman supervisor was extremely rude to me unjustifiably.  She tried to create policy where no existed.  Nowhere is there a coupon limit posted in store or located (easily) on their website.  Therefore, the policy really does not exist.

 

I saw this type of event happen many times over the years at Staples.  However, unlike Shaw’s, the supervisor was NEVER rude to the customer despite sometimes not satisfying the customer.  As far as I am concerned, this woman supervisor should be terminated.  Shaw’s is no position anymore to lose customers or have people like me making postings like this explaining how bad the customer is treated.

 

Shaw’s like Staples is desperate to keep customers, but creating hidden policies that don’t exist is no way to retain customers.  Hopefully, Shaw’s unlike Staples will correct their problems and unhide their policies and post them where all can see them.

 

This is a lesson that both companies could learn from.

 

Pay for Nothing?

So here we are.  The government has shut down, people are furloughed and soon if this is not solved it will trickle down to state levels.

 

The plan that Congress has is to pay these workers regardless whether or not they actually do any REAL work at all.  On top of this, they can apply for unemployment benefits as well.  Does this mean that they would have to look for a new job while collecting a paycheck from their government job at the same time?

 

Anybody else see a problem with this?  Why should government employees get a free pass to get a government pay while robbing states of unemployment benefits?

 

While I like government employees being unemployed, I don’t care for them to double dip into funds that they don’t deserve either of.  My suggestion is that if any member of Congress votes for this foolishness than I say that we the voters send them to the unemployment line without getting a government check anymore.  It’s time that we slim down government, but not at the expense of paying them for doing nothing.

 

However, comparatively that evil company Staples is top-heavy with executives that should be let go as well and not given a check for doing nothing, which is the way the company has been operating for years.  Their plan for existence is to eliminate store employees to pay for the corporate people.  Just walk into any of their stores and you will see what I mean.

 

This is exactly what I did last week while I was away on a family trip.  This is the reason why there was no post last week, but anyway I have visited this particular Staples store annually with basically the same results.

 

I walked into this particular location, which I won’t identify except to say it is in New England as I always would.  At no point, was I ever neither greeted by anyone nor was I asked if I needed any help.  I stayed in the store for about 20 minutes to see if anyone would ever come around to ask if I needed help.  It never happened.  In fact, I never saw an employee on the sales floor until I got to the door where I found just the unoccupied cashier and 4 (yes 4!) gray shirt managers talking amongst themselves while ignoring everything around them.  Nobody, not even the dumb looking girl cashier acknowledged me on the way out the door.  It was apparent that the store was run without employees and was held together with incompetent management that just didn’t care.  It will be interesting to see what happens next year when I visit this location that is assuming that the location is still in business next year much less the company still in business.

 

Maybe a Staples shutdown is in order.

 

The $15 Question – Staples NOT Exempt

Last week around the country, fast food workers went on strike demanding a wage increase to $15/hour.

 

While in concept this sounds like a wonderful idea, the strikers’ message was to the wrong people and certainly for the wrong reason.

 

First off, these strikers should have been striking in front of the corporate offices of the companies they work for, the offices of the shareholders, or the offices of the board of directors.

 

Doing their striking in front of the restaurants in which they work is just proof by how misguided these people really are.

 

While there are some of the restaurants that are corporate owned, the vast majority of them are owned by franchises.  These franchises control things like hiring and wages of the employees.  Of course they could pay everyone what these strikers want, but in doing so prices would have to go up considerably or so they say.

 

Beyond the franchising fees that the local owners pay the corporate offices, these restaurant locations usually do a pretty good take of profit.  So where does this money go?  Again, it usually goes into the hands of shareholders, board of directors and to other non-deserving people.

 

What usually happens is that the daily moneys are deposited in a bank account, that the company usually withdraws most of it leaving just enough for the store to pay for its expenses.  This is the way it worked back when I worked at Woolworth despite that the company was not a franchise, but a corporate entity.  However, the concept remains basically the same.  The local store must live within its budget to pay its employees and pay its other monthly expenses.  And yes, all expenses such as lights, electricity, water were all paid by the local store not the corporate office.

 

Of course, these restrictions in budget meant that when money was scarce, hours were cut of the lower end employees like me while the higher paid employees still had all their hours sucking out all the budget money.  So realistically, strikers should also be angry at their peers when these people lose hours to fellow employees.  Again this is another misdirected group that the strikers should be angry at.

 

It was not just Woolworth that had to live within a budget in my work life, the horrible company Staples was even worse in that regard.

 

Way back when I was hired $9/hour was considered the minimum for full-time employment.  This is also about the same that workers at fast food places get whether full or part-time.  Ironically, I spent the first 6 months of my career with Staples working on average 35+ hours a week, but getting just part-time pay.  Sadly, I was given NO back pay for all the time that I was really working full-time at part-time pay nor was I ever given a raise after my probationary period as was required by the company at the time.

Over the next 12 years, I was given a total of about $1.50 in raises over that time period, leaving me nowhere near the $15/hour that the striking workers are asking for.  In fact, during my last 2 years of employment, I was told that I had reached a “dead end” and that my raises would be just a “couple of pennies a year”.  This is hardly a working wage nor a cost of living adjustment.

 

So where does all the company’s money go?

• Other floor people such as department heads, front-end supervisors, money room person and other non-managerial positions.  Granted at Woolworth, I was trained as both a front-end supervisor and a money room person, but I was NEVER even offered a chance at either of these positions.  Apparently, Staples wanted to suppress my career with them.
• Big bonuses for management.  At one point, I heard that one low-end manager got a Christmas bonus of $5,000.  Imagine what the high-end managers got.  Imagine that the hourly employees get NOTHING in bonuses EVER!!!
• Corporate paper pushers.  The do-nothing people in the company need to get paid something for doing nothing all day.
• The Board of Directors.  Do some of these people ever been in a Staples store before?  Hey, they get paid anyway even if it is with stock shares.
• And lastly, all the other corporate people hired to do nothing.  These are the people who will lose their jobs when the hierarchy falls apart in the company because they were never needed in the first place.

 

As anyone can see from this posting, it is not just the fast food workers getting screwed; it is anybody in the service oriented industry.  However, the only way the voices will really be heard is if the people take their protests to the people who steal the money that rightfully entitled to the employees and get rid of the slackers once and for all.  Until this is done, any protest will fall on deaf ears and will continue to be laughed at by all the media outlets.  It is up to everyone to fight the corporate injustice.

 

 

It’s All About Respect

As young children, we are usually taught to respect others.  I say “usually” because not everybody gets it.  Or maybe they just don’t care at all.

Consider this scenario from earlier this week:

I was out at the local Walmart (not my favorite place, by the way).  I was in line at the self-service register when these 2 young guys in their early 20’s decided to step ahead of me and stand behind a customer just finishing their transaction and start using that register immediately.

Of course, they cut in line and didn’t care.  So when I got my chance to use a register, I passed them and commented to them that I didn’t appreciate their rude behavior and they should have waited their appropriate turn.  Their response was virtual silence except for a couple of grunts.  It is sad that these 2 idiots showed no respect to me whatsoever and didn’t follow the rules.  What’s worse about this was that the employee who was watching these registers never said a word to these guys and just ignored them.  She certainly wasn’t doing her job as far as I was concerned.

After I finished my transaction and was walking out to my car, an elderly guy was backing out of a handicapped space without even realizing that I was walking behind his car.  Yes, he almost ran me over, but thankfully I was able to get out of the way before I got hit.

Both of these incidents within minutes of each other made me wonder:  Am I invisible to everyone or do people just don’t have any respect for me?  It could be both but I think the latter is more of the truth.

Granted, given that this all happened at Walmart, the home of the welfare recipient, it was not surprising that people were out and out stupid.  I dare anybody to get help in the store and get somebody who actually knows what they are talking about.  It will never happen.  Walmart is stupid and that is the customer is stupid.

 

Now consider when I go to anyplace and if I am walking behind someone, how many times I end up with a door in my face.  Simply put, people don’t look to see if anybody is behind them to hold the door open for.  Maybe they are too busy on their little phone or texting somebody or just not paying attention at all.  So, where did all the respect go or was I just not seeing the reality until recently?

 

I feel that I was more blinded by reality when I was employed because I always felt that everybody should be respected and they respected you.  It was also that if you treated a customer badly, chances were that the customer would make a complaint against you.  Been there, done that way too many times while employed at Staples, but not hardly at all during my years at Woolworth.  The reason is probably that the clientele at Woolworth was similar to that of Walmart, the blind-eyed uncaring customer.

 

So where does the respect disappear to?  Is it a cultural thing or is it dependent on where a person is and who they are around?  Sadly I have seen people who are really friendly when I worked with them, but when they are no longer employed they become unfriendly thus disrespectful.  While I have tried to stay respectful to people, I can’t help but get angry when people are disrespectful to me.  Do I see any change of this respectfulness in the near future?  I believe not at all by a long shot as people will still disrespect everyone no matter what.  This  probably explains why Walmart has never hired me because I still respect people.

 

When Health and Company Policy Collides

Last week, it was reported that an 87 year old woman in Bakersfield, California died because the nurse who called 911 refused to give CPR to a woman who needed it.  According to the nurse, she could not provide that service as she was not allowed to do so because she was prohibited in doing so.  Sadly, the woman died on the way to the hospital because of the fact she didn’t get the assistance she needed.

What’s worse in all this is that the woman’s daughter was satisfied with the care that the elderly woman received from the senior living center she resided at.  It seems so wrong that a daughter would be satisfied with a policy that would allow a person to die rather than get the help that was required of them!

Now, of course, you may wonder what this has to do with Staples in any form whatsoever.  Well, fellow reader, Staples actually put me in a position where policy collided with the health of not only me but the well-being of other employees and customers shopping in the store.

So here is the scenario:

Around my sixth year of employment with Staples, the store manager Terence was a fairly deaf and downright stupid manager.  This plays into the context of exactly into what happened.

On one particular night, one of the security deactivation pads mounted underneath one of the cash register stations decided to go ballistic.  The pad decided to make constant “Thumping” sounds at a rate of one every 5 seconds.  These were not low volume sounds, but loud annoying sounds that began to give me a headache.  After about a 1 ½ of putting up with this pulsing problem, I decided to disconnect the wire to the unit under the counter.  Thumping stopped and sanity was restored.  That was until deaf Terence realized what I had done.  Since this register was the furthest one from me, it was rarely used and I felt not concerned that it would be an issue of what I had done.

Terence thought otherwise.  Ironically, about a year or so earlier, I received the ok from the then-manager that it was perfectly acceptable to disconnect a non-functioning unit, which at that time was doing the exact same thing.

The next day, Terence made it a point that he write me up for my ignorance of the equipment and disobeying “store policy”.  The irony was that 2 different managers would have 2 different attitudes regarding what I did.  To make matters worse, as I later researched, there was NO company policy regarding what I did despite Terence’s anger at me.

Of course, a couple of weeks later, the same piece of equipment were acting up again so I did the same thing.  Once again, I got written up and given a warning of termination if I did this again I mentioned to this idiot manager that I disconnected the item for the sanity and health of myself and others.  He didn’t buy that and I told him to stand in one spot for hours listening to that sound and see how he felt.  He didn’t like my attitude on that, but he pushed me way too far.

About a week later, a technician came into the store to fix the defective pad (replacing it, actually) and I asked if I did the right thing by disconnecting.  His response was that I DID do the right thing and actually saved the equipment from doing permanent damage to itself.  Unfortunately, Terence stood firm on what he did by writing me up and that stayed in my permanent record for the rest of my employment with the company.

Sadly, years later, this incidence would come back to haunt me when I had my grievance against the company when it would be used against me in my claim against the company.  I will have more details about that in a future post.

So overall, the nurse and I took completely opposite directions in dealing with “policy”.  I stand behind the fact that what I did was to save my health, the nurse decided to not help an elderly woman to save her job.  This all comes down to the question:  Is the health of someone worth the price of violating “policy”?  I say it is and I would do it over and over again if ever given the chance.

Would I ever recommend anybody else doing the same thing I did?  Most definitely and I would let anybody know that NO such policy exists otherwise.  I bet the dead elderly lady thinks that there is no policy that realistically the nurse would not have saved her life.

I always believe that health should trump policy no matter what, real or as in Staples’ case every time create lies and deception.  Then again isn’t that what this blog is all about in the first place.