Aggravations

[CiggyStoreClerk]

Ladies who do not carry purses or wallets and instead keep their cash...in...Their....BRA. Umm...huh? I've also seen women whip out cell phones, ID's, credit cards, keys (ow), anything you can think of...from their bras.

I must say, I've been guilty of this a few times
It happened when I'd go to a really crowded bar. I didn't want to carry my purse because I was afraid that something would get stolen or it'd just plain get lost.
Also, I didn't wear pants, I wore skirts, so I didn't have pockets to put a wallet in.
However, I always made sure to discreetly take my money out instead of making it a great big production, the way it sounds like the women you see do it.
Also, I never kept change in there, that always became a tip for the bar maid

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Layaway

Layaway is an evil, evil service invented by SC's to make retail workers' lives a little more hellish. Here's the thing: the idea of layaway is to pay off something a little at a time. But now we have these things called credit cards that allow you to do the same thing. If you can't get a credit card or don't have good credit, then I would seriously re-evaluate if you NEED that $150 D&B purse with matching $80 Ralph Lauren ensemble.

No you can't but clearance items in layaway. Somebody might actually want to buy that and take it home with them today. No you can't put jewelry on layaway. No you can't put furniture on layaway. Yes, I made these rules specifically to make your life difficult. Please feel free to yell at me. I haven't cried in a good 20 minutes.

When I was the Admin, I had the joyful task of calling people when their layaway was due. Then, if they didn't pick them up, pulling them, scanning the merch for markdowns, and putting it back. "You didn't pick up your layaway on time. No, I will not go and find everything that was in your layaway. Sorry, that got marked down, so you may actually have to take that to a register and BUY it. We try to encourage that behavior in this store."

(One woman had approximately 80 items on layaway. She would come in once a month to add a few things and take more off, each time pay the $5 fee. It was all baby merchandise. She was pregnant, and had picked out all the baby stuff she wanted. If she got it as a gift, she took it off the layaway. This went on for 4 months until she finally had the brat. In the end, she got a handful of the stuff, and the rest went back on the floor, by now deeply discounted.)

I hear you on that. We got rid of our layaway almost 10 years ago. I still get people asking me if we do layaway.

I understand one of the purposes of it is to make more expensive items available to people who can't pay the full price all at once, but people abused the hell out of it, not picking up items when they were supposed to and then bitching when we returned the items to the shelves.

Not to mention it also can cost you sales in the end when people who want to buy the item right away see it's out on the shelf and then leave and do all their shopping elsewhere. Actually we weren't out; they were all put on layaway.

That being said, I got my bike on layaway. I paid a few dollars down and then saved up my money until I could pay it off in full. It's one of those things that's nice when you're the shopper, but a PITA when you're the retail employee.

[chainedbarista]

One woman had approximately 80 items on layaway.

here i was, thinking that TEN items would be an excessive amount. why didn't someone check how many items she had and put a stop after a certain amount? logic tells me that very little of that would end up being purchased, under the circumstances. i take that back, under ANY circumstances.

someone at corporate needs a round or three on the rack for that particular policy; layaway is absurd-you can afford it or not.

[zzapp the witch]

In my family the cleavage is called the First National bank. Both my mom and my sister are mad cause mine can handle larger deposits. I don't do it when the money would get all sweaty and gross though, even that grosses me out.

[AdminAssistant]

here i was, thinking that TEN items would be an excessive amount. why didn't someone check how many items she had and put a stop after a certain amount? logic tells me that very little of that would end up being purchased, under the circumstances. i take that back, under ANY circumstances.

someone at corporate needs a round or three on the rack for that particular policy; layaway is absurd-you can afford it or not.

We didn't have any limit on the number of items set by corporate, and that manager was a total pushover. Nice guy, though.

[Kogarashi]

Re: Layaway

I did get good use out of Layaway once. I was working at Wal-Mart for four months of my pregnancy to bring in an extra paycheck to try to cushion the blow to our wallet from the baby's arrival. I was leaving at the 8 month mark to go on indefinite leave (essentially quitting), but they handed out bonus coupons for the holidays to the employees at that point. The effective start date of the coupon was the day after I was scheduled to leave, but the Personnel Manager helped me figure out that I could still use it if I used it on a Layaway item, since that would allowe me to use the coupon on the last day I worked there. Loophole, I guess.

So we grabbed a computer desk I'd been wanting and put it on Layaway, and on my last day of work I picked it up and paid for it with the happy 10% employee discount and 20% employee coupon. ::dance::

[TryNotToBeThatOne]

I have used Layaway once. And you better believe that I was quasi-religious about going in & making my weekly payment on those lovely, lovely boots. The clerk seemed surprised that I put them on layaway & then *gasp* actually finished paying for them.