You know those days where things just....go wrong? And people are awful?
Yah. Today is one of those days.
So heads up. This is a rather long rant/vent post because. GAH. Today has been a day.
Like it's never fun to come into work and find chaos.
And come into chaos I did.
First it was just 'minor' things. Aka things I wasn't directly involved in.
Like my VP manager informed me that first, they called the people in charge of filling our new soda machine asking where our sodas are.
Because corporate has decided once again to sell sodas for customers to buy at the register.
Which is something we had had available when I first started working here like...almost 9 years ago. But they discontinued it pretty soon after I started. Like I think that little fridge at the front of the store was gone within the year.
But now they've decided to try again.
And last week? I think it was last week? Time moves weird at work. They finally had the company come in and bring in their nice fancy branded fridge to place on the end of our middle register.
And the dude who brought in the fridge said that he would contact the seller people who are supposed to bring in our sodas....only we hadn't seen anyone.
So VP manager decided to take it upon themself to call whoever they needed to call and basically said "Hey, are you guys going to give me sodas as we've had this fridge for a week now and if you're not going to bring us product I'm going to unplug this thing and move it so I can place other product we can sell here there instead."
*shakes head* I don't know why they needed to be that dramatic about it, but it did get results. The sodas were delivered before I even entered the store.
Which VP manager spent the next little while setting up the fridge and putting the product in it and such.
And *exhales*
VP manager has just been...antagonizing today. Forgetful. It's felt a bit like babysitting an eager puppy because they forgot their keys, they couldn't remember how to access certain things on the computers, had struggles with a few things on register.
Which on the one hand makes sense because they've been out for the past couple of months for medical issues and this is basically their first week back in the store since Aprilish.
So yah remembering things is a thing.
But apparently they haven't forgotten how to call various people to get results.
As the second thing the VP manager did was reach out to our DM.
Why? Because our 3rd party cleaning crew tried to walk out on us this morning. Said they were quitting. Why? Because apparently they hadn't been PAID in WEEKS.
Which, because we're working through a third party, we don't pay the cleaning crew that comes in. That should be the company that they're working for that pays them.
And apparently it's not just this crew experiencing issues. It's multiple crews that have had this problem of not getting paid.
And VP manager wasn't going to stand for that. (which I agree that's so stupid of the 3rd party to do this.)
So VP manager reached out to DM who reached out to the necessary people within corporate to have them reach out this third party we're contracted with to figure out what the heck is going on so that they can make sure all the cleaning crew are getting paid for the work they're doing within our stores.
So yah...we'll see what comes of that. And I wish we'd been informed earlier than the day the cleaning crew said they were walking out on the job. But hopefully the situation can be salvaged.
Fast forward to me checking our emails because our Head Manager is out of town and I'm in charge of checking our "customer satisfaction' while they're out and answering any 'customer complaints' that may come through the surveys people are given to take.
And we had a 'recovery moment' that needed to happen.
Which is dumb because yes the customer rated us a 6/10 on the survey but they said in the comments that the main reason they gave this score was because the product they need to buy has been consistently out of stock and they understand that it's a problem with manufacturing as multiple locations besides our store have also been out of stock of this mysterious item. Even the competition has been out of stock.
So like....there's literally nothing we can do for this customer because we can't magically poof the item they want back onto the shelf.
But I responded with an email. Said sorry for the inconvenience. Asked for further detail on which products the customer was looking for and promised that we'd double check our inventory to make sure our counts are accurate and we'll work to get the product in as soon as possible.
*exhales*
And right as I finish answering that email, I get called over to our birds to help an old lady buy a couple of finches to take home.
As she loves listening to the sounds they make and such.
and like there were no red flags at all in this interaction.
But then the cashier called me up after the customer had checked out and informed me that one of the old lady's grandchildren had let it slip that apparently their grandma comes in every year to buy a couple of finches but then after a couple of months.....she lets them go.
Aka. Releases them into the wild.
And I'm just like....beyond irritated to hear this news. Because while the finches aren't exactly tame...they're not wild birds. They have no knowledge of living outdoors. They've been raised by breeders. They weren't wild caught.
So basically I just got told that this old lady basically sets the birds free to let nature kill them.
And there's not much I can do since the customer had already left the store. Like if this is a yearly thing I could keep an eye out for next year when she comes in again to pull the same stupid stunt.
But at the same time...she may go to a different store. She might come in on a day or time where I'm not there. And who knows which workers of mine will still be here a year later....and there's no guarantee that whatever note I may leave would still be there a year later....
So yah that's frustrating. Gah.
And then soon after that, around lunchtime.
I answer a phone call from our 'favorite' nightmare grooming customer that we've been dealing with for the past month or so.
As a bit ago this lady came in to get her dog groomed with us.
But grooming ended up refusing to groom the dog for a multitude of reasons.
1. Dog was ancient. Like 14 years old.
2. Dog was blind.
3. Dog was severely matted because said dog hadn't been to a groomer since 2019.
And with matted dogs you usually end up having to shave said dog to get the matts gone.
Old dog skin is extremely fragile and it's easy to cut the dog by accident if the dog twitches at the wrong moment. -I know because we had a flurry of incidents earlier in the year where old dogs were taken in and then they got caught because the skin was too thin and that was its own nightmare in of itself-
And like being blind? Definitely not a good idea to stress the dog out in an unfamiliar environment.
So for both the groomer's safety and the dog's safety the dog was refused.
Of course customer got upset. Customer threw a fit. But we couldn't groom that dog in that condition.
*exhales*
Things went wrong when our Head Manager decided to give our DM a heads up about this. That we might be receiving a complaint from this customer about refusing to groom her dog. That way the DM could be aware about it and such.
*exhales*
Unfortunately our new DM is very much into the 'make the customer happy, recover the interaction' type of mode right now.
And told us to 'make it right' with the customer.
Like...what do you want us to do? We can't groom this dog because it's too high of a risk. Like the only way to get the dog groomed would be to knock it out (which we can't do) and shave it.
Which Vet hospitals can do that. But we can't do that.
I don't know how it ended up with us offering to send the dog to a different place to get the groom and us covering the bill for the 'inconvenience' we caused the customer.
But that's what we've been trying to do since that point. Where we were trying to get the dog into the vet clinic inside our store and have it shaved there.
The main reason given is that we felt bad for the dog. Like the dog hasn't been properly groomed in TWO YEARS. And we were seeking to help the poor thing feel better by giving him a hair cut.
Even though the vet clinic wouldn't do as good of a job as a regular grooming salon at least the dog wouldn't be matted anymore.
EXCEPT it's been a struggle and a half to get said freaking dog dematted.
Mostly because the owner doesn't speak English as a first language so there's been a fair bit of miscommunication happening. Like we call...she doesn't answer. We leave a message. She never gets back to us. We call again. Try to tell her the appointment. She doesn't answer. Doesn't respond. Then calls after the fact and wants to know why we aren't doing things....it's been a nightmare.
It doesn't help at all that there's a statewide grooming shortage where it's hard to find groomers who are available to take in dogs especially dogs with special needs (old/blind/matted is not a good combination) as it would take an experienced groomer to deal with it.
But like we finally got the dog scheduled and the owner to agree to come in to get the dog shaved at the vet office in our store.
Only the dog never got shaved at the vet clinic.
The customer had been assured the dog would be shaved by 3pm.
By 4pm the clinic hadn't even started shaving the dog.
So frustrated, the customer came and took the dog back before the clinic could do anything.
Like lady. We're covering the cost of this freaking groom for your poor neglected dog. The least you could do is have patience and recognize that vet clinics can get busy with sudden emergencies and while your dog needs to be shaved it's not an emergency else you would have brought the dog in sooner than TWO YEARS after the his last groom.
But noooo the customer refused to wait and was upset that things didn't happen as she was promised.
So our head manager had to again call around and see if there was anyone in the valley who could groom said dog.
And they finally settled on a place where the appointment would be today. And that we would cover the cost of the groom at this place and such. I believe via phone payment.
And the lady called earlier this morning before I came in to ask where she was supposed to take her dog as apparently that 'hadn't been communicated to her.'
Though I'm pretty sure it had been if the freaking lady would just listen to her voicemails. *exhales*
So the manager on duty at the time managed to find the name of the place and let the customer know where she was supposed to go.
Only when the customer arrived at this place....the person there apparently had no idea what the situation was -even though it should have already all been worked out- and the person at this place was unwilling to groom the dog until they knew what the form of payment was.
Which again, I do wonder if the struggle was part of this lady having an accent with her english and there just being miscommunication.
But yah...the lady called again extremely frustrated that her dog had been denied once again. And I had to deal with her for a good twenty minutes ranting at me over the phone. Like she didn't want me to call the salon place to figure out what was going on.
No she wanted me to give her number to our head manager and have our head manager call her directly to figure this out because she's tired of being yanked around. (like lady we're tired of you causing us problems we would love to get you out of our hair and never hear from you again.)
Like she's making all these demands on us and it's just left us all loathing her. Like we're only trying to groom the dog to help him feel better. But she's one of those people where if you give her an inch she tries to take the whole farm from you. Milk you for all you got and gah. I just hate people.
If she'd just shut up her mouth and have patience we could have had her dog groomed at the clinic over a week ago. But noooooo.
And like. I told her that she wouldn't be able to reach our Head Manager as they're out of town on a much deserved vacation and won't be available until next week.
But she still insisted. "No give her my number, have her call."
I was like "She's out of cell range currently in the mountains. We can't reach her."
Like lady, get your self centered head out of your butt for two seconds and think. Would YOU want to be called on YOUR vacation by an Angry Customer?
NO.
Neither do we. Neither does our head manager and I will NOT give you access to someone's personal phone number when they are on VACATION.
*exhales*
The customer was like "I want to pick the salon I go to and then have you guys pay for it."
Which after talking to the grooming manager and the VP manager they agreed that was fine.
At this point we just want her out of our hair. Want her to never darken our doorstep again. Like we all regret trying to help the poor dog out and definitely do not have good feelings towards our DM who got us into this nightmare of a mess by insisting that we try and 'make it right' well ha. It's just been one problem after another.
I am curious to see if this nightmare customer does manage to find someone to groom her dog. Because it took a while for us to even find the one she was supposed to have gone to today.
*exhales* But yah. It was...irritating to listen to this lady. Like it's your own stupid fault that you neglected your dog and made it difficult on everyone's end. If you had just gone and gotten the dog properly groomed you wouldn't be dealing with this mess and we wouldn't be dealing with this mess.
But the problems didn't end there. Oh no.
It's just been a day of difficult customers. Because I ended up trying to help an older lady figure out how to install and activate the store app onto her phone.
As we have an app for the company where if you have an account with us you can get discounts online and such from said app.
Like...I don't get where customers get the idea that we know how the app works. We never interact with said app unless we've installed it for our own use or we have customers use it to indicate they're here for storepick up. But setting up an account? Nope. Haven't had to do it.
But I did my best to help said customer.
But it felt more like the lady just wanted someone standing there to make sure that she did it right. She didn't need 'help help' in the least and anytime I tried to scroll through her phone to figure out what the net step was she'd get upset at me for 'ruining things' and 'doing this and that'
*exhales* It was a trial and a half to deal with her especially when trying to explain how the membership worked and how to book appointments....
Like I wasn't even halfway through my shift yet. And all this drama had already occurred. XP
Add into that the fact that a customer discovered one of our toilets was clogged in the woman's bathroom and they pulled out a bunch of 'tags' from products in our store that a little thief tried to flush away -which didn't work because the tags were huge and cardboard-
And yah....just...not a good day.
It ended with me helping the third person our VP manager had called today as VP manager noticed that the modem that controls like...all the electrical stuff in the store in it's little room was getting far too hot.
Which...that's nothing new. That room always gets too hot. Just like a few other rooms on that side of the building get too hot in the summer.
But VP manager wasn't going to stand for it. He was concerned the modem might short circuit or such for being so hot and so called in a work order to get the AC looked at.
So the fixit guy showed up like half an hour before I was off for the day (as thankfully I wasn't closing tonight because I would probably scream if that was the case)
And he was like "Do you know what's going on?" And I was like "Yep. VP manager was concerned about this room here being too hot."
And maybe I should have stopped there. But me being my helpful self I was like "This whole corner of the building consistently has problems cooling during the summer and heating during the winter."
And he was like ()_() WHAT?! That wasn't mentioned in the work order! Show me.
So I did. I showed him our New Arrivals room and our ISO room for animals. Where the temperature was showing beyond the parameters they should be set at (as the animals should be at 77 degrees and it was showing 79 and I've seen the room in the 80s before) also showed him the breakroom that was also hot as well as the area where the computer system was that the VP manager had been concerned about.
And the dude was just flabbergasted.
Like this is a recurring issue. But to my knowledge...no one has ever put in a work order to get this corner of the store fixed and he was just surprised about that. And was worried that this might be a bigger project than initially anticipating depending on what the cause of the system not properly cooling was.
Because if it was mechanical he could figure that out easily. But if it was like sensor related then it would be harder because that's all electronic and should be done with the sensor people instead of him.
So yah....I didn't meant to complicate things but I do think he appreciated me being up front and giving him far more detail on the issues we've been having here.
Turns out that at least part of the issue was mechanical with the AC unit on the roof and my other manager informed me that most of the rooms were feeling a lot cooler now that he's fixed that.
So hopefully that will continue to be a good sign and the rooms won't feel like a sauna anymore. *fingers crossed*
It's definitely been a day though.
I really don't want to have to go back tomorrow to work another mid shift.
But hey....at least I'll be away from the store for the weekend so that's something. I just have to survive tomorrow.
Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!
-Sarnic Dirchi
No comments:
Post a Comment