i've been thinking a lot recently abt how different my current job is to my first job and how much more i like it and why, and it really just comes down to like. basic humanity. at the hardware store, it was a really intense "time to lean time to clean" mentality, we weren't allowed to chat with the other cashiers even during slow days, we couldn't get caught reading/drawing/goofing off while on cash, we weren't even allowed to leave the corral. at the supermarket, we're expected to take our time w the customers and talk to them. the managers and other departments come out when they're bored to come chat w us! i read the local paper during slow hours and draw in between customers, and its great! everyone is also just really nice and friendly which is fantastic, i can't name one person over there i don't get along with
and i happened to remember the first meeting i had to go to for the hardware store lmfao. i showed up in uniform bc there was no indication that it was a meeting instead of a regular shift, we were basically told to go stock the shelves/face items for an hour (? still not sure why. they did this to all of us and it did Not need to be done) and while we were paid for that time i was NOT trained for it, so when customers came up and asked like "hey wheres the plumbing section" i had to go "um. i don't know :) let's go find someone else" and had no way to deal with it when they inevitably got really fucking mad w me for not being able to help them
and then when the meeting finally actually started, it opened w the manager going "ok i heard some of you had some things you wanted to discuss!" and a couple of the other cashiers reading off a list of issues they wanted to address. none of which were actually addressed. it was shit like "when you guys come down to customer service and immediately disregard the policies we've just explained, it makes us look like the bad guys and gets us treated very poorly by future customers" "ok well are we supposed do about that :)"/"you need to give us our breaks on time. if managers have to be in charge of telling us when we're allowed to go on break, they need to make sure they're not hours late when doing that" "well we're really busy so sometimes we forget but i guess we'll try :)"
... yeah. if i had been a little bit smarter at the time, i would have realized 2wks in that this was a baby union, we were being exploited and i was abt to have the shittiest fucking summer lmao
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