I Remained Calm Why? (LONG)

[SourRobot]

This happened yesterday.

About an hour before closing time I had a customer come over. She wanted to do some returns and asked if she could do them at my register. Since she said she needed to return some bags I told her to go ahead. The first bag she returned my register would not recognize, and it turned out that she was over the 180 day limit, so even though she had paid 80 dollars for it she would only get 25. She kept asking if there was a way I could override it and I kept telling her that no, she would only get the amount that the register was showing, and that it was our store policy. I even turned the receipt over to show her that it was on the back. She came up with the excuse that she or her mom had called and asked about that and that the people on the phone had said that they would get a full refund (a.k.a., she was making it up). I kept telling her no.

So she held onto that, deciding that there was no point in even returning it if she couldn't get a full refund. Then after that she pulled out a pile of clothes and wanted to return all of them, so I spent the next ten minutes matching things to their receipts and giving her refunds.

After all that I had to help her find a bag for her friend and a wallet for herself, while she's just flapping her gums at a mile a minute. Just as I thought that she was done, she asked me again about the bag that she couldn't return. She asked me if she could possibly speak to a manager about it.

So yeah...you can pretty much tell what happened there with that, even I saw it coming. I called a manager and explained to him on the phone what was happening and that her return was over 180 days. He asked if she had her receipt, I said yes, and he said to just override it so that she could get a whole refund.

What is the point of these policies if the managers aren't even going to enforce them?!

[Flood]

Policies are there so that managers can show customers that they're special by ignoring them.

At least, that's what it looks like from here.

[mariamousie1]

Or the policies are there to make the managers look good by overriding them, and the employees that attempt to enforce them look like jackasses.

I'm in a hospitality program at my college, and one of my teachers was talking about several points that make a good manager. One of them was "backing up your employees". Very important.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I'm in a hospitality program at my college, and one of my teachers was talking about several points that make a good manager. One of them was "backing up your employees". Very important.

Please to be cloning your teacher?

[mariamousie1]

Please to be cloning your teacher?

Yeah, it's a shame my teacher isn't a manager, eh? Well, actually he kind of is in the school's restaurant, but he's more of a supervisor. The managers there are students as well.
He told us a story about when he worked in a restaurant once and had to throw out a couple for being drunk and abusive. They came back in and talked to the manager, who had seen the whole thing. The manager not only let them back in, he gave them a free meal. My teacher took off his apron and walked right out.

[SourRobot]

Or the policies are there to make the managers look good by overriding them, and the employees that attempt to enforce them look like jackasses.

Yes, I'm sick and tired of looking like the bad guy who says no to everything that the customer wants to do. I really wish they'd program the registers in a way that you can't override it when it won't allow you to make late returns. When your return is over 180 days customers are really not supposed to return it at all, but they're lucky that the register will even give them something back sometimes.

I'm in a hospitality program at my college, and one of my teachers was talking about several points that make a good manager. One of them was "backing up your employees". Very important.

And only a few of these managers exist, none of them being at my store.