#door greeter

So I’m a door greeter/occasional cashier at a sports and outdoors place and just......geeze. 

I’ve recently had a woman storm over to me in a huff. She got about four inches from me and said very angrily, “I just wanted to let you know that we’re very upset and we’re never coming back here!” 

First things first. This threat does absolutely nothing. Actually it makes me less motivated to help you out. Second. Telling me your concerns does very little. I am not a manager. I am literally just the person standing at the door. I won’t be able to give you a discount or anything that usually solves the ‘You just lost a customer’ tantrum. Come to me and say ‘I’d like to speak with a manager, please.’ and I will get someone who can do those things. 

Regardless, I respond, “Oh no, I’m very sorry to hear that, is there anything I can do to help you?” And she says “We just came from the BBQ pits. We found one that we liked, and we were going to pay for it now, put it on hold and then come back later. And they told us we couldn’t do that!” 

Now.....this is 100% correct. Our store very specifically states that we don’t put anything on hold after it’s been paid for. If you want to put the grill on hold and then come back later to pay for it and pick it up, that’s another story(Even then, we only keep things on hold until the end of the work day.) There have been too many instances where our back room is filled with merchandise that we can’t sell because it’s already sold, but we can’t get rid of because we can’t get in contact with the person who bought it. 

I tell the woman that whoever helped her was correct and that that is our store policy. I was still working around the syllable “But-” to tell her that they could just put it on hold and not pay and end up with pretty much exactly what they wanted, when she throws her hand up and just storms out. 

Let me just say right now, I am the friendliest person at my work. Constantly smiling, positive attitude, trying to help the customers leave happy. But that just kills me. I’m trying to help you. I WANT to help you. I’m going to help you. Have some patience and just let me finish my sentence and both of us will end up a lot happier. 

I’ve noticed that this happens so much!

As people walk in part of my job is to push our store’s credit card. “Hi there, would you like to save $15 today?” Is the opening line. Most people just say no and keep walking. But every now and then someone says “How?” And I start on the next part of the pitch. (”Awesome! All you have to do is apply for our card. If you get instantly approved, you get $15 off your purchase!”) I have timed those two sentences. Because I say them to literally every customer, I’ve gotten to say it exactly the same every time. It takes 8 seconds. Not around 8 seconds, exactly 8 seconds. I am cut off so often when I say “Apply for-” Either verbally, with people sheepishly saying a quick ‘thanks but no thanks’, and more commonly, non verbally, where people just walk away, letting me just trail off mid sentence and get over the fact that I have been snubbed for the 13,425,443 time that day. 

This is INFURIATING! So many coworkers from other departments will pass by and witness one of those instances and tell me that they could never work the front door because of that very reason. Or the very least, they’d give up on trying to push the credit cards. 

But here’s the thing. 

I can’t just stop. My managers want me to ask everyone who comes in the door about the card. I know that you’re in the store to do your shopping and get out and you don’t want to be heckled, which is why I take on the very understanding role. You don’t want the card? That’s fine. You don’t want to apply? Don’t have time? Just got one from JC Penny’s? Building a house and they told you not to apply for anything right now? Cool. Awesome. Congrats. I don’t want to ruin your credit score or make you late for whatever you’re going. I am perfectly fine with being told “no.” 

Last night she was questioning my favorite door greeter, asking if she chased a customer asking for his receipt. I was standing right there when this all apparently happened. The door greeter, I'll call her Ginger, was standing by the carts, mopping the floor, and she turned around and asked the guy for his receipt. He stopped outside and she took two steps to get outside and she checked it. And you always know who the asshole customers are by what Ginger says. If she has to say "I'm just doing my job, I have to check", you know they're giving her a hard time. He said "You think I'm stealing it???" So the jerk I guess called in and complained about her.

I just don't think if it was any other manager it would even get brought up. But it's almost like Toto can't wait to bring down the hammer on employees. My first dealing with Toto was the exact same way, her accusing me of something I didn't do. I just have never seen any other manager tell Ginger what to do. Only Toto. Just for once I'd love to see one of the other countless managers question Ginger about her job because they never do. (And maybe that's a bad thing, maybe that proves they're not doing their job. But it also looks like Toto's got it out for people by being the only manager who tells everyone they're not doing good enough.) It's just any other manager also probably can see her gold badge, indicating she's been there for over 20 years now and would realize she must be doing something right.

In the end, Ginger was doing her job and did nothing wrong. Toto said "We'll talk about it on Sunday and deal with it then." as if there was going to be disciplinary action taken against her. She doesn't have enough time to deal with it now but we'll make the greeter worry about it on her day off until then! :) Ginger told the manager that I saw what happened and Toto said she'll ask me on Sunday about it. I said I'm not here Sunday and told me to write a statement as she walked around the corner. Like, really? A statement? She's taking some asshole's complaint way to damn seriously. I'm not writing a statement for something that seems to be blowing way out of proportion. How ridiculous.

Toto walked away and Ginger was visibly upset. She was telling me how her father was still in the hospital and I could tell she was trying not to cry. And earlier when I was on my lunch, Toto scolded Ginger because a mop was on the ground.

Before I left though, Toto came back and said she had time to talk about it. Toto asked me what I wanted to say. I made it simple. "She didn't do anything wrong. She was mopping-" and then Toto cut me off and told me I could go clock out and get off the clock.

I clocked out and got my stuff. I walked by and heard Toto say she shouldn't have been out by the carts mopping, that's not her job.

EVERY door greeter goes out by where the carts are. Every single one. Whether to put a cart away, fix a rug, or mop up.

If she doesn't mop up, who will? You don't have enough maintenance people ever hired and even if you did, they can't stand at every door to make she the floor stays dry. This is why I said, the week they opened the store, that it was stupid that they had tiled ground instead of carpets like at the other store. Constant maintaining of tiled ground in a place where it snows for 6 months of the year is like, the biggest shortsightedness I've ever seen from this place.

I'm sure the store manager would love to hear a manager tell an employee that they should ignore a safety hazard to do their job. I'm sure that'd work out swell for Toto.