...and there's not a lot we can do about it.
Customers have completely trashed the place. Fabric bolts are all messed up, placed where they don't belong, or thrown on the floor. Customers look at dozens of bolts and leave the ones they don't want on the floor or dumped on top of other merchandise displays. One of the AMs spent an hour straightening the holiday quilting fabrics at the front of the store and making it picture-perfect, only to have a SC go through it, throwing bolts of fabric on the floor here and there and leaving it looking like a garbage heap.
I spend most of my time running around putting fabric away and trying to straighten shelves, and constantly interrupted by customers. Half the questions could be answered if the customer would turn around and look, the other half regard things that I have little knowledge of. They're disgusted that I don't know about every craft or hobby our store caters to. That's because I have to work for a living, have a family to care for and don't have the time, money or energy to peruse every hobby known to mankind. And so many people want to start some fancy new project, but they don't know how to do it, what kind of fabric to use, or how much (naturally, they never bother to take measurements of whatever they're working on.), what other materials they need, etc. Yet if I don't know exactly what they want, I'm the idiot.
Most of the mess could be avoided if people would pay attention to what the hell they're doing, and return things back to their allotted shelf space if they don't want them, rather than throw them on the floor or ditch them somewhere else in the store. "Yeah, I'm making a mess, but it's your job security!" cry the SCs. No, no it's not, and I'll tell you why. We only have so many payroll hours a week. The vast majority of which have to be spent serving customers, with only a few allotted for cleaning. The horrid mess the store is in is well beyond the cleaning hours we have. If we spend more time cleaning, there's less time to serve customers. If customers don't get speedy service, they walk out without buying anything. If too many customers walk out, we don't make enough money and our hours get cut. So no, you trashing the store =/= job security.
I would love to be able to bring in a dozen coworkers after hours to just go through and straighten the place out. I'm sure we can get it looking as beautiful as it was the day before opening day within 6-8 hours. And it'll stay looking that beautiful until...let's see...about an hour after opening the next day.
Yes, I'm aware that cleaning the store is an exercise in futility. But it's embarrassing to work in a place that out of order. And there's no need for such an awful mess if people could only be a little more careful.
Of course, you know the SCs who make the biggest mess complain the most about the condition of the store, as well.
Customers have completely trashed the place. Fabric bolts are all messed up, placed where they don't belong, or thrown on the floor. Customers look at dozens of bolts and leave the ones they don't want on the floor or dumped on top of other merchandise displays. One of the AMs spent an hour straightening the holiday quilting fabrics at the front of the store and making it picture-perfect, only to have a SC go through it, throwing bolts of fabric on the floor here and there and leaving it looking like a garbage heap.
I spend most of my time running around putting fabric away and trying to straighten shelves, and constantly interrupted by customers. Half the questions could be answered if the customer would turn around and look, the other half regard things that I have little knowledge of. They're disgusted that I don't know about every craft or hobby our store caters to. That's because I have to work for a living, have a family to care for and don't have the time, money or energy to peruse every hobby known to mankind. And so many people want to start some fancy new project, but they don't know how to do it, what kind of fabric to use, or how much (naturally, they never bother to take measurements of whatever they're working on.), what other materials they need, etc. Yet if I don't know exactly what they want, I'm the idiot.

Most of the mess could be avoided if people would pay attention to what the hell they're doing, and return things back to their allotted shelf space if they don't want them, rather than throw them on the floor or ditch them somewhere else in the store. "Yeah, I'm making a mess, but it's your job security!" cry the SCs. No, no it's not, and I'll tell you why. We only have so many payroll hours a week. The vast majority of which have to be spent serving customers, with only a few allotted for cleaning. The horrid mess the store is in is well beyond the cleaning hours we have. If we spend more time cleaning, there's less time to serve customers. If customers don't get speedy service, they walk out without buying anything. If too many customers walk out, we don't make enough money and our hours get cut. So no, you trashing the store =/= job security.
I would love to be able to bring in a dozen coworkers after hours to just go through and straighten the place out. I'm sure we can get it looking as beautiful as it was the day before opening day within 6-8 hours. And it'll stay looking that beautiful until...let's see...about an hour after opening the next day.

Yes, I'm aware that cleaning the store is an exercise in futility. But it's embarrassing to work in a place that out of order. And there's no need for such an awful mess if people could only be a little more careful.
Of course, you know the SCs who make the biggest mess complain the most about the condition of the store, as well.

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