In an attempt to circumvent the holiday shopping madness, I made for the stores today to get some gifts out of the way. While I was overall disappointed in the selection of merchandise and the ridiculous prices, what struck me the most was the most blatant attempt I’ve ever seen a retailer do in an attempt to cash in on the almighty dollar.
I stopped at two separate Gap stores today in my shopping. The store on North Avenue was crowded, ransacked and unshoppable, so I quickly left. In my haste, I forgot to grab a gift there, so after my other excursions I hit the store at Broadway and Belmont, where I once spent working one of the 5 holiday seasons that I was with the Gap. I was bored with the clothes, some being repeats of previous year fashions, which were borrowed from the year previous to that. Again, the store was off the hook as if it were the week before Christmas, and I discovered why: it was their Friends and Family weekend. Finding the sizes I was looking for was tough, and while there were plenty of associates to help me and make recommendations I found their knowledge to be lacking. I did end up trying two things on, but I hated the way they fit and looked, and was also disgusted by the killer dust bunnies that floated through the fitting room area. In my time, had I been the manager that had a fitting room looking like that, my head would have been on a platter.
I managed to get my gifts. I stood patiently in line (yes, patiently, with nary a grumble) for a good 15 minutes. Finally, it was my turn, and upon arriving at the counter I realized what was taking so long. Only two of the four registers were open, and the young guy who was ringing me up seemed to be struggling with the register. It took him 10 minutes to ring up my 2 items. He couldn’t figure out how to apply the discount coupons I was using, he didn’t know how to ring up a gift receipt, and he had to swipe my credit card about 5 times, as it appeared he was having issues running it through. It was obvious he was not a seasoned cashier, and a poor choice to put there on such a busy day. I ended up telling him to skip the gift receipts, and although he tried vainly to say, ‘No wait, I can get them for you,’ I was embarrassed at how long it took me at the register, and could feel the heat from the dozens of eyes on me from customers waiting behind me. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
And then I saw the sign, sitting right there on the cash wrap. Bold letters that stated, WE WILL BE OPEN ON THANKSGIVING DAY, 12p-5p.
I was immediately appalled and stunned, and commented aloud, ‘You’re not seriously going to be open on Thanksgiving, are you?’ To which the dark haired manager, who happened on by right at that moment, chirped sweetly, ‘I wouldn’t joke about something like that! Of course we are!’ It was so off the cuff, as if she just had said ‘Of course we carry jeans and sweaters.’ I was pissed, and actually snapped to no one in particular, ‘That’s the most ridiculous and absurd thing to do. There is no reason to be open on that day,’ and I turned to leave. The poor cashier at the register could only say ‘Have a nice day’ as I headed to the door.
But as a retail manager, I am disgusted. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to be open on Thanksgiving. I mean, it’s not like this is new in retail, WalMart and Target and KMart all have stupid Thanksgiving shopping hours. Because instead of allowing their staff to spend their day with their family, they’d rather try to cash in. But now the Gap is doing this? I could only imagine if, when I worked there, my DM asked me to do that. I would have told her to fuck off.
I mean, the whole retail shopping season has spiraled to complete out of control heights. For example, my company has instituted this crazy edict that all stores are to be open from 6am to 11pm on Black Friday, not to mention the 9am to 10pm hours we are supposed to run from December 13-December 23. While some stores will have the traffic to necessitate such hours, I’m in a neighborhood of a college town north of Chicago. I mean, some of my customers are surprised we are open on Sunday at all, so I’m sure the payroll we will be wasting to stay open late will not be offset by sales during theses late days. Meanwhile, I’m not allowed to have a day off during that last 10 days before Christmas. In fact, in the month of December I will have exactly 3 days off. One of those is Christmas Day.
Needless to say, I know retailer nationwide want to do everything in their power to make up for what a terrible year it has been. I do to, but within reason. But running the staff ragged with long days and stretches, and now taking holidays away from people? i still long for the days when i was a kid, and everything was closed on every major holiday, and a lot of places were closed on Sundays as well. Now, we’ve evolved into this capitalist insanity that deems it necessary to grab every buck we can at every moment we can at the sacrifice of our employees. Way to alienate and discourage retail workers everywhere. I will tell you this, if my company ever tries to suggest I work on a holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas… oh the hell I would raise!
So here I am now, making my plea to retailers everywhere. We need to get our morals and values back. We need to follow the lead that Crate & Barrel and a small minority of retailers have made a commitment to doing- staying closed on all major holidays, keeping shopping hours in check, and hell, pay people a little bit more for all of the hard work and shitty customers they have to deal with. These are not unreasonable requests. Every retailer I have ever worked for, payroll was the number one thing they bitched about every time. So instead of extended hours that down pay in the end, or being open on Thanksgiving, scale it back a bit. It’s high time to draw the line, or else we’re just going to spin ourselves deeper into this economic black hole we are already stuck in, and next time it may just be too late.
Rants of The Misanthrope and other musings 