5 ms·

It seems to me that working retail has gotten a lot worse since the recession. I worked retail after high school before deciding to go to college, and then work

by krstck 13y ago

It seems to me that working retail has gotten a lot worse since the recession. I worked retail after high school before deciding to go to college, and then worked the same job on summers home from school. What was interesting was that between when I started that job in 2005 and when I left for the final time in 2010, my coworkers went from being mostly high school and college kids to all sorts of folks of varying ages and backgrounds. That was the most telling sign of the recession to me. I strolled in to pick up my job where I'd left off in 2010 and I remember every single day people asking for job applications. I had thoughts like, why would you want to work here? This is a job for kids! But we even had a PhD biologist for a while. Conditions have been deteriorating for a while now. Extended hours on holidays, terrible scheduling, and peculiar "performance measurement" tools. At my particular store, they adopted a system of tracking how many transactions a cashier performed per hour and then penalizing them when those transactions exceeded a certain number. The thought was that if a cashier rang up so many customers an hour, then some of them had had to wait in line and the cashier was at fault for not calling backup. (What backup? And what if they were just a really fast cashier?) Another was the obsession with collecting customers' email addresses. Cashiers were expected to collect so many email addresses a day or week or whatever or be threatened with losing their job. My silly, between school semesters little retail gig had become very stressful towards the end because of the obsession with these metrics and a general attitude of "I could fire you today and have someone cheaper by tomorrow".

fretless 13y ago
They probably don't have to say that stores are closing everywhere. Every week there's news about possible store closings. This week it's Staples and Safeway, last week it was Guitar Center, before, Pennys, Best Buy, Disney Store etc.
- krstck 13y ago
  I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, shopping in a physical store location is mostly a terrible experience these days and I greatly prefer to shop online. But on the other, these big box stores have long been the providers of many a teen's summer job or somebody's second income or just something to keep someone afloat between "real" jobs, so I hate to see that source disappear.
mox1 13y ago
I'd like to point out that this story takes place in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. $10 / hour goes a lot further in Kansas than it does D.C. I think a lot of people could live OK in the Midwest on $10 / hour. I wish more people would move away from the super high cost of living areas (California, New England, ...etc) and "vote with their feet" so to speak. If 10% of the populations of Cali and Massachusetts moved inward, I think that would drive house prices down and wages up. All the rich people are still around to buy stuff and no poor people left to work retail.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  > I wish more people would move away from the super high cost of living areas (California, New England, ...etc) and "vote with their feet" so to speak. This is (and has been) happening for years now. Poorer people are reverse-migrating from the denser parts of the country to the Sun Belt. And it's a problem. The high cost of living in many of the "desirable" parts of the country is artificially created by government regulation of housing (as well as other markets, thanks to the propensity of densely populated municipalities to be run by liberals). But with the services sector growing, it makes more sense for poorer people to live near the wealthy people (who are going to be in the desirable parts of the country), since those are the people who can and will buy services. It's very different from, say, manufacturing, which is far more location-independent. I firmly believe the problem of high cost of living can be solved through more sensible housing policies and efficient public transit (among other things). See this (quite short, at 64 pages) book for more details: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078X... It's the services sector that is and will continue to be the most difficult to replace with outsourcing and automation (see Moravec's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox). It only makes sense that we try to create as many jobs as possible in this area. By lowering housing and transportation (and other) costs for people in the service industry, they can offer their services at a lower cost, allowing more people to purchase those services, which will drive down unemployment.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
I had the same experience at Whole Foods Palo Alto as a cashier, 2008-12. WF management can take asking about the Whole Planet foundation and shove it up their ass.
glesica 13y ago
I've never understood the management attitude that seeks to create such an environment, because workers just end up rebelling against it in hidden ways. I worked in retail in college for a truly terrible company. The work environment was awful and exploitative, but the company wasn't very good at things like inventory control. So, largely in response to this, the people in the stock room would literally throw probably 10% of the merchandise that came off the trucks directly into the garbage compactor. If that's good business, then there's something seriously wrong with our economic system.
- pjc50 13y ago
  It's the sort of company where the people in charge enjoy subordinating their employees, and aren't themselves subject to good metrics. They can spend their time bullying the staff at the expense of shareholders. The Protestant management ethic doesn't help here - the belief that if the rank-and-file are happy, they must be getting away with something and must therefore be screwed harder.

by krstck 13y ago

fretless 13y ago

They probably don't have to say that stores are closing everywhere. Every week there's news about possible store closings. This week it's Staples and Safeway, last week it was Guitar Center, before, Pennys, Best Buy, Disney Store etc.

krstck 13y ago
I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, shopping in a physical store location is mostly a terrible experience these days and I greatly prefer to shop online. But on the other, these big box stores have long been the providers of many a teen's summer job or somebody's second income or just something to keep someone afloat between "real" jobs, so I hate to see that source disappear.

mox1 13y ago

I'd like to point out that this story takes place in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. $10 / hour goes a lot further in Kansas than it does D.C. I think a lot of people could live OK in the Midwest on $10 / hour. I wish more people would move away from the super high cost of living areas (California, New England, ...etc) and "vote with their feet" so to speak. If 10% of the populations of Cali and Massachusetts moved inward, I think that would drive house prices down and wages up. All the rich people are still around to buy stuff and no poor people left to work retail.

w1ntermute 13y ago
> I wish more people would move away from the super high cost of living areas (California, New England, ...etc) and "vote with their feet" so to speak. This is (and has been) happening for years now. Poorer people are reverse-migrating from the denser parts of the country to the Sun Belt. And it's a problem. The high cost of living in many of the "desirable" parts of the country is artificially created by government regulation of housing (as well as other markets, thanks to the propensity of densely populated municipalities to be run by liberals). But with the services sector growing, it makes more sense for poorer people to live near the wealthy people (who are going to be in the desirable parts of the country), since those are the people who can and will buy services. It's very different from, say, manufacturing, which is far more location-independent. I firmly believe the problem of high cost of living can be solved through more sensible housing policies and efficient public transit (among other things). See this (quite short, at 64 pages) book for more details: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078X... It's the services sector that is and will continue to be the most difficult to replace with outsourcing and automation (see Moravec's paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox). It only makes sense that we try to create as many jobs as possible in this area. By lowering housing and transportation (and other) costs for people in the service industry, they can offer their services at a lower cost, allowing more people to purchase those services, which will drive down unemployment.
- sliverstorm 13y ago

ZanyProgrammer 13y ago

I had the same experience at Whole Foods Palo Alto as a cashier, 2008-12. WF management can take asking about the Whole Planet foundation and shove it up their ass.

glesica 13y ago

I've never understood the management attitude that seeks to create such an environment, because workers just end up rebelling against it in hidden ways. I worked in retail in college for a truly terrible company. The work environment was awful and exploitative, but the company wasn't very good at things like inventory control. So, largely in response to this, the people in the stock room would literally throw probably 10% of the merchandise that came off the trucks directly into the garbage compactor. If that's good business, then there's something seriously wrong with our economic system.

pjc50 13y ago
It's the sort of company where the people in charge enjoy subordinating their employees, and aren't themselves subject to good metrics. They can spend their time bullying the staff at the expense of shareholders. The Protestant management ethic doesn't help here - the belief that if the rank-and-file are happy, they must be getting away with something and must therefore be screwed harder.