[REPOST]

This is a little long. Sorry.

When I was in college, I worked for a mobile carrier in a mall. For a young person, it was great money. I was the assistant manager, which was a fancy way of saying I was in charge of most of the store paperwork.

[A few months before]

One morning, I opened by myself and a guy approached me asking for a specific phone and kept balking at the price, asking if I could ā€œcut him a deal thoughā€. I was confident we were BY FAR the cheapest in the area, so I told him ā€œIf you bring me a better deal, Iā€™ll be it!ā€. The guy does another lap, talks to other stores, and comes back. ā€œCome on, there is nothing you can do? Can I just get a case?ā€. I smile and say, "Sorry thatā€™s the best I can do today, but can I get your number in case we get a sale that brings the price down? (This sometimes actually did work). His entire demeanor changed and he handed me paperwork out of his bag and showed me his Id. He was from corporate LP (loss preventions). Apparently my store ranked top in the state for ā€œexcessive discountsā€ and ā€œexcessive wasteā€. He then hands me a document showing all of my ā€œfriends and familyā€ discounts. So I flip open my phone (YES IT STILL FLIPPED) and showed him all the names on the list are in my phone, thus ARE friends and family. He thanks me and says heā€™ll stick around to talk to my boss and one other team member.

Since smartphones arenā€™t really a big thing at the time, the LP guy starts talking to me about my job, and I ask him a little more about what exactly flagged our store. Turns out the other two people he wanted to talk to had more than 30% of their transactions marked with that discount code and our store seemed to ā€œloseā€ lots of inventory. Store practice was that if you open an accessory and it was damaged in shipping, you just throw it away and grab another one. Turns out there is a process you need to follow. He showed me the form and said "you really should be between x and x a month to be considered average.

He then interviews my boss and co-worker who couldnā€™t prove that their discounts were accurate and they were let off with a stern warning. From then on, I took on the responsibility of tracking inventory and warning the team when we were getting close to the monthly limit. Like a miracle, cases stopped breaking for the rest of the month with these announcements.

[Fast forward]

I open by myself again one morning. I older gentleman approaches me and starts screaming at me about being a ā€œheartless bastardā€ and asking ā€œhow the hell can you do this to people?!ā€. I look at him puzzled. ā€œSir, I have no idea who you are, so you canā€™t possibly be mad at me specifically. Lets go sit over there and have a quick chatā€. As soon as we sit down I look at him and he starts crying and shaking. ā€œI donā€™t know what to do. Iā€™m gonna lose my houseā€. He goes on to tell me his son had gotten 10 ā€œfreeā€ phones from my store and the monthly bill was roughly $800 plus tax. ā€œsir, if your son started an account with us, there is nothing I can do without him coming to the store.ā€ The dad shows me a photo in his wallet and explains that his son lives in a home because heā€™s too old to take care of him. Heā€™s visibly disabled. He was already barely getting by paying for his house plus his son to be taken care of. My heart dropped as I figured out what had happened. My co-worker had sold the phones to his son while they were on a ā€œmall outingā€ with his group home.

Furious, I go back to the store and void the entire order. I instruct the dad to bring me every phone he can find. Anything not in the store that day would be marked as stolen. I write up the inventory report and mark all of those phones stolen for the time being.

Co-worker comes in and I say, ā€œdonā€™t bother clocking in. I saw your order from last night. Just know that itā€™s voided. If you pull ANYTHING like that again iā€™ll make sure youā€™re fired. Take the rest of the weekend offā€. He argues for a moment, but leaves.

25 minutes later (and early for his shift) my boss shows up saying he heard what happened. I show him all of the paperwork and explain what I did to solve it. Irritated, he looks at me and says something like ā€œyou know you canā€™t do that right?ā€. He then argues with me that I had no right to void the order and ā€œthe contract was the contractā€. Confused and angry, I say ā€œlook, I will not sit by and allow people to be taken advantage of like thatā€. To which he replies, ā€œIf you donā€™t like the way we do things here, you can leave.ā€ Shocked, I walk back into the store where he tells me HE is taking care of all of the paperwork to ā€œfixā€ my mess. Quietly I rip up my inventory report with a smile and tell him iā€™m leaving for the day.

I call a friend who said, "why donā€™t you just get an IT job (what I was going to school for). He then calls a recruiter and sets up an interview for the next morning. Bossā€™s little push gave me the drive to just go for it. I nailed the interview and get the job. My now ex-boss texted me shortly after and said ā€œHey OP, youā€™re late.ā€ to which I replied, ā€œno, I donā€™t like the way you do things thereā€. Silence.

[Fast forward a few months]

Both the boss and the co-worker were fired for theft. You see, with the unexplained ā€œmissingā€ phones and with no one watching inventory, LP quickly took interest in the store again. Turns out the ā€œbrokenā€ cases were actually team members GIVING AWAY inventory to close sales. So when I was there ā€œbalancingā€ inventory and giving warnings, it was letting them know just how much they could steal and get away with it. Without me there they just did whatever the heck they wanted. From what I hear, they were escorted out by security and all.

So in the end, I was pushed to start the career of my dreams. They have a record.

Thanks for sticking with me, sorry it was so long.

  • Izzy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Nice work. There is just something seriously wrong with some people. Working retail in general is a nightmare. Both because of co-workers and customers.

    • dystop@lemmy.worldOPM
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      1 year ago

      sometimes the managers too. and sometimes corporate.

      like you said retail is just toxic.