Ringtones

When picking out a new ringtone for you phone, one should be kind to those around them.  For example, the tone for a text message should be short and sweet.  A nice ping or bing or chirp, for example.  IE, not a 20 second song clip.  Why you may ask?  Because, typically people will carry on some kind of conversation using text messages.  This results in the selected tone being played, over and over again.  I think one can see how this is going to get pretty annoying, pretty quickly.

Just a thought, one can choose to utilize this advice or not.  But, don’t say you were not warned!

Read the Manual

I have probably bitched about this before, but I am going to bitch again.  Mainly because we have had countless customers in the store who have had this problem.  The problem, as you can figure out from the title, is “not READING the f-ing manual”.

One customer asked if we had a radio scanner over one month ago.  We had one, so she asked us to hold it for her to come and pick it up.  She comes to the store and decides that she wanted the thing programmed.  Ok, she never asked for that, but we can do that.  She said that she would run a couple errands and come back.  We program the scanner.  She never shows up to get it.  Two weeks later she calls again asking about the scanner.  It is here we tell her and she asks surprised.  She also stated that no one called to tell it was done. (You can probably tell what we are dealing with here!) She finally comes in the store and purchases the scanner.  Two days later she calls to say that she can’t make it work.  Holy shit!  We finally tell her that she can return the scanner or keep it!  See, this is the 5th time that we have dealt with this woman and radio scanners.  Everytime we have ended up with the woman claiming the it is broken or doesn’t work right.  It all boils down to NOT READING THE MANUAL!

Televisions are the absolute worst.  We get calls on the phone and people comping to the store all the time that have no idea how their TV’s work.  Why?  They don’t read the manual.  They call bitching because, through no fault of their own, their TV will not display what they want it to.  Either the cable, satellite, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc, etc.  They have not looked in the manual to figure out how to make the TV work.  For some reason they think that it will be easier to call some random guy at an electronics store than to take a little spare time and review the features and functions of their new, expensive TV’s.  They are just completely baffled by the things.

Salmonella

A few years ago I was in the middle of an outbreak of salmonella at the youth residential treatment facility where I was working.  It started innocently enough, a kid vomited in the middle of the night.  Anyone who has worked with kids will know that one kid vomiting is not an uncommon occurrence.  The kid was not feeling well, so another staff member and myself helped him get cleaned up and back to bed.  As it was my “Friday”, I left that morning to enjoy the weekend.

Upon my return two days later, there were many kids vomiting.  The staff working at night were overwhelmed with sick children.  We did the best we could to take care of them, but we knew that something was different about this illness.  It was nasty and spreading fast.

The next day the nurse was alerted to the number of students that were sick.  And by this time the staff were also ill.  She reported this to the Medical Director, a local doctor, who informed the CDC.  We had a significant percentage of our population sick with the same illness.

Well this kicked off an invasion of medical people.  They were mostly nurses and medical students recruited from the state university.  They began an investigation into the cause of and origination of this illness, which by this time had been identified as salmonella.  It was a horrendous mess.  They wanted to know anytime anyone got sick with anything.  They also wanted multiple stool samples from students and staff.  They sent these really nice military style stool sample collection devices.  They were complete with a nice little white “cowboy hat” from stool collection.

In the end, the “researchers” concluded that the milk was to blame.  I came to my own conclusion, but it was different from the “official” ruling by the CDC.  Fortunately, I never became ill even though several students vomited around me and I am pretty sure that I at some point came into contact with body fluids on accident on at least one occasion.

The recommendation from the CDC was that we do a complete sanitation of our campus.  Then we also needed to implement a stringent hand washing program.  In a few weeks we were salmonella free.  But I still have lasting memories of this time in my life.  Salmonella is not a fun sickness, but fortunately it only last a week or so.  If it was longer, I fear that it would kill people left and right.

Now there is a peanut butter and peanut paste recall.  I was watching the news and imagine my angst when I realized that I had eaten one of the products on the recall list.  Not a fun realization after having seen the effects of salmonella on so many people.  I am hoping that I don’t get ill, but I am not that worried at this point.  This is due to the fact that I ate the product over a week ago and I am hoping that if I was going to be sick, I would already be sick.

My recommendation to anyone worried about this outbreak is to go to the site above and see if you have any of the foods on the list.  If so, get rid of it NOW!  It never hurts to clean you house, especially any areas where people touch things often.  My wife, the nurse, says that we should all wash our hands during the day.  The trick is to not be excessive about it.

More Employee Troubles

Seems that the “norm” around here is to immediately do nothing a soon as the “boss” leaves.  Well actually the owner seems to be supporting this behavior as near as I can tell.  He is afraid that we are going to “offend” the employees if we actually make them do their work!

So, here I am, stuck in the middle.  The owner wants certain things done and the employees are not completing assigned tasks.  Somehow I am need to correct the behaviors of the owner and the employees at the same time.  For some reason, the owner has no trouble getting on my ass about things, but when I assign a task to the employees and it is not getting done after I go home for the evening, he says nothing.

I am a little stuck!  I have had several discussions with the employees, but since this is not supported by the owner, my talking is for nothing.  Yes, I have also had discussions with the owner about the situation that he is creating for me, but this is not changing.  I am just getting pissed off.

Another problem is actually one of the employees that likes to take some of the ideas to the owner for implementation.  These are things that I have been pushing for for some time.  Now, the boss has said several times that we should listen to what the “kids” have to say, because they are young and “in-touch” with the younger crowd.  That’s fine, but when your veteran manager tells you that we should do something and you don’t, then don’t do it when the “new employee” says that you should.  The manager will just think you are a dumb asshole.  You should also remember that it was someone else’s idea first and quit running around telling everyone what a genius the new employee is.

Creative People

For the people who work in retail stores.

Have you ever noticed that people are very creative.  A problem will arise at their home or workplace.  Now the prudent thing to do would be to consult a person who could help them properly solve the problem.  What actually happens is this.  The use their superior intellect to use and come up with a solution on their own.  Now there is a problem with this tact.  They usually come up with something that doesn’t exist.  They will then enter a retail establishment and demand to be sold this mythical item.

Now, anyone can see how this will cause problems.  And it also reinforces my claim that, “The Customer is NOT Always Right!”.

Digital Camera Battery Shopping

Just a little reminder when shopping for a battery for you digital camera.  If you use the following description, WE CAN’T HELP YOU!  This is a quote, “The battery that I need is small, kinda square, rectangular lithium one.”  WTF?  That pretty much describes half or more of the batteries that go into digital cameras.

So if you are looking for a digital camera battery, at the minimum you need to know the make and model of your camera.  It may be okay if you bring in the battery, but sometimes they don’t cross-reference well.  It works best if you bring the camera and battery into the store.

The Customer is Always Right

I know that the old saying is, “The customer is always right”, but anyone who has worked in retail knows that this saying is incorrect.  It should be “The customer is sometimes right” or “The customer might be right”.  The only thing I know for sure is that the customer is not “always” right.  They can’t be.

Here is an example.  The currents owners of this store have owned it since 2001.  When they took over the store the POS was changed and all records of customer purchases prior to 2001 are in the possession of the previous owners.  So, anytime a person comes in that purchased something from this store before 2001, we can’t tell them anything about it.

A “customer” came in who, at some point before 2001, had purchased a refrigerator.  He wanted one that was comparable to the one that he had, but he didn’t know what brand it was, what size it was, or what the model number was.  Basically all he could tell us was that it was white and that it was indeed a refrigerator.  We looked on his account for previous appliance purchases and found a purchase for a 6cf refrigerator, but that was not the one that he was looking for.  We asked him if he could go get the make and model of the refrigerator, but he just wanted to argue.  He insisted that the owner had delivered the appliance, so we had to have a record of it.

Needless to say, this conversation was going nowhere fast.  We couldn’t produce a record that we didn’t have and he wouldn’t back down.  We had a problem.  The problem was, no one could tell the guy that he was full of shit and was remembering something that didn’t happen.  This is because of the motto, “The customer is always right”.  Well I call “Bullshit” and I say we start a new movement in retail.  One where we get to tell idiots that they are idiots.  Also, we need to stop letting assholes treat store employees poorly.  But, we need the general public to start helping, because they are the ones who just sit and watch while innocent store workers are berated by poorly behaved shoppers.

Pirates of the Amazon

Jason Calacanis Twittered about this not long ago.  Pirates of the Amazon is a firefox Add-On that puts a “download for free” button/link on Amazon.com pages featuring media that is availble from Pirate Bay!  The pirate in me says, “AWESOME”!

On the other hand, the business person in me says, “I don’t know”.  I have the feeling that since it is adding the button/link to download for free as opposed to paying for the media, that it must be violating someone’s copyright.  This is certainly an area where I am torn.

My younger self would have used this in a heartbeat.  I will probably still try it out, but I will certainly not download anything.  I run a business that relies on people not getting media for free.  That said, I still think that the holders of copyrights often go too far.  Not necessarily the artist, but people who pretend that they have the artists best interests in mind.

People spending less

Over the last month, we have noticed that sales are down in our electronics business.  Basically people are not buying things that they don’t need.  Lets admit it, you don’t “need” a wireless router in your home.  You can keep swithing the ethernet cable back and forth between the computers in your home.  Sure, you can’t wonder around the house, but do you really “need” to?  The answer seems to be “NO” for more and more people.

They also don’t “need” to replace that older computer.  They may sit waiting a little longer, but parting with the $500 for a slightly better model is not a necessity.  A laptop would be a nice replacement for the aging desktop system, but the laptop cost money.  Money you are spending on something else, like bills!

This is actually the first month that we have seen declines in sales.  I don’t think that it will be the last though.  One thing that may help is that Christmas is coming.  People tend to lose their minds at Christmas.  Society puts so much pressure on gift giving, that people spend money they don’t have.  Not everyone does this, but enough of them do that it ends up in the retailers favor.

One area of the store has been better than the last few month, video rentals.  We have been renting movies like crazy.  I think that people are renting movies instead of doing other more expensive activities.  Also the movie selection has been a little better than the last few months.  There is also the weather to thank.  So some reason the weather on the weekends has not been all that great for the last couple of months.  When this happens, we get a flood of people looking for movies to rent.

Cordless Phone Crack-Up

Yesterday we had the conclusion of a 2 day troubleshooting event for a cordless phone.  Day One, the customer brings in the handset of a cordless phone that she purchased over the weekend.  Seems that the phone wouldn’t do anything, even after being placed on the charger for 12 hours.  One of the owners of the store told her that we would be glad to check out the phone, but we would need the base unit also.

Day Two, the customer brings in the handset and the base unit.  Notice I didn’t say the power adapter.  You know the part that you need to make the phone work at all.  I looked around the store and was able to find a power adapter that went with this model of phone.  I set everything up, placed the handset in the base and the light indicating that the handset was charging came on.  I decided to let it sit for a little while and charge.

After, half an hour, I picked up the handset and nothing.  The handset felt heavy enough so I was sure that the battery was in the handset.  Just to make sure, I opened the battery compartment and everything looked fine.  When I turned the phone over the battery fell out.  Turns out the battery was plugged in, but not well enough for it the make contact.  I really had a good laugh about that and when I showed everyone else I could find, they had a good laugh too.  After plugging in the battery properly, the phone worked fine, of course.