This I Believe
There are three main reasons to be kind to retail workers. Of course, there are hundreds of reasons, but these three sum it up pretty well. The first is a bit shocking, so read with caution.
The customer is not always right. In fact, the customer is so rarely right, that the original phrase seems downright childish. And it is. The phrase “the customer is always right” is nothing more than large corporations exploiting their employees, and taking away their right to stand up for themselves. I believe that this phrase is one of the most dangerous tools of employee manipulation out there.
From childhood, people have had this phrase ingrained into their heads, telling them that no matter what the circumstances are, they are the only important person in the customer-employee interaction. This notion is, of course, ridiculous, because while
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Cashiers, retail workers, and servers are downright tired. The average shift for one of these people is six to nine hours long, and most of them get payed $7.25 an hour. That’s not much. That’s especially not much when they’re doing the exact same task over and over again for unappreciative people.
Whenever this argument is brought up, there are scores of protests. Things like “Retail workers aren’t allowed to complain, they chose that job!”, and “Why don’t they just quit?” or even, “I worked in retail and trust me, it isn’t bad!” Obviously, these arguments have a time and a place, but those times and places will barely ever come up in a fair and balanced argument. The reason for this is that these protests stereotype the “Retail Worker” so heavily that they don’t really pertain to anyone actually working on minimum wage.
Every person who belligerently uses these points is clearly thinking of only one type of retail worker. That being the lazy tennager who only wants the job for some extra cash. This stereotype is so incredibly off the mark that it is almost
Understanding the basic concept of minimum wage is important for every single individual. We all live in this world together and it is obvious that there is an order. In order to continue our lives and afford our basic needs, we all need to work and gain wealth. As the old adage says ‘‘There ain’t a such a thing as a free lunch.’’ We need to give up on something that we like to get something else that we like. That’s why, every single individual in the society face trade-offs. However, people have different status. Some people work as employees and some work as employers. In that case of minimum wage the trade off is between employees and employers. Employees work for employers in order to gain money and afford their minimal living expenses whereas employers give up on their money and pay for employees because employers take care of their need of labor. Employers pay for their workers who we call employees and employees gain hourly money. The calculated minimum money that they gain in an hour base called minimum wages. Besides, there is this cycle that everyone actually works
...vers. Better people won't work for minimum wage, but better people make for stronger companies. And what of customers? There are price elasticities of demand to consider in this argument. They are not relevant at Costco, and Trader Joe's is good value for its competitive niche, but many Americans are perfectly willing to pay a higher price for better quality. Yes, there are other considerations not mentioned here – the effect of minimum wage on overall inflation and things like that – but the article is a great starting point for understanding the complexity of microeconomic analysis that goes beyond the superficial analysis we often see in the media.
Industry Overview Some 400,000 specialty retail stores operate in the US with combined annual sales of $350 billion. CAGR 2002-06: 5%. Market is dominated by large players like Best Buy, Toys “R” Us, Gap, Sports Authority, etc. The market size of some major product categories.
From the perspective of the retail employee, the world is always ending. The store is always a mess and the customers are always rude. There have been countless stories and memes about the types of customers that retail workers have had to deal with, whether it is the “Can I speak to a manager?” haircut, obnoxious prepubescent
For the holidays, mostly every store changes their store hours. Instead of opening at a decent time in the morning, 10am, throughout the week most stores open as early at 6am and close at 11pm. Even on Sunday “the day of rest,” most stores change their hours. Employers have to wake up even earlier and stay even later, to try to clean up the mess that was left behind. You would think on the weekend people would like to sleep in late because they wake up early during the week to go to their job, but instead they wake up early and head out the door.
The shockingly low minimum wage in America is borderline unethical. Since the minimum wage was established in 1938, there’s been controversy about how much it should be. It was originally set at an amount that would allow workers to maintain a minimal standard of living (30 Days). Since then, the minimum wage has been raised 22 times, but this hasn’t been enough to support the same goal. Not only has inflation made minimum wage worth significantly less, but the cost of living has gone up. Two thirds of American citizens support raising minimum wage again (Mantel, 76), but some still oppose it, saying it would hurt jobs and the economy. Although raising the federal minimum wage would most likely cause some jobs to be lost, it should be raised because of the positive effect it would have on poverty rates, the economy, and the individuals living on it.
They may argue that jobs and benefits could be cut and could reduce desire for career advancement, but they are wrong. The Congressional Budget Office projected that a minimum wage increase from $7.25 to $10.10 would result in a loss of 500,000 jobs. In a survey of 1,213 businesses and human resources professionals, 38% of employers who currently pay minimum wage said they would lay off some employees if the minimum wage was raised to $10.10. 54% said they would decrease hiring levels. People get laid off from jobs every day due to money budgets, lack of professionalism, or illegal actions. Companies do what’s best for their investment regardless, if minimum wage goes up or not. Whether they were to lay off people there will be extra workload divided among the employees left, which is more than they are getting paid for. That could lead to the company having to pay their employees
First, when shopping, a big factor that will impact a customer 's experience is the customer service. Whether it’s from a simple “hello”, or an employee going out
Minimum wage was created as a price floor to protect workers from employers that wanted to provide them with low paying jobs. Cooper explains that “during periods of high unemployment many workers are forced to take lower paying jobs.... because there simply are no other options available to them.” Workers do not have any power during periods of unemployment. Employers can easily abuse their power and they will. Businesses try to make the most amount of money possible, meaning they will pay their workers little to nothing to increase their profit. Thus, the idea of Minimum wage contradicts itself because it is the reason for the high unemployment rate in America. Consequently, forcing workers to take low paying jobs because the supply of jobs is so
The minimum wage being too low has been a public issue in America for generations. Basically, the debate includes two different opinions. Firstly, people who want to raise the minimum wage, and second, people who would rather is stay the same. The overwhelming majority of liberals are on the side that favors a raise. Additionally, a somewhat smaller proportion of conservatives favor the change as well, but for different reasons. The liberal opinion on raising the minimum wage is based on the idea that putting more money in the people’s pockets, will stimulate the economy, and decrease poverty. The problem that conservatives and liberals alike have with this, is that a few direct consequences are proven to apply when raising wages. Some proposed consequences include unemployment, inflation, and unfairness to higher educated people. Another main point is that raising the minimum wage is thought to helps small business by increasing worker satisfaction. This issue of minimum wage has become increasingly popular and important in current times, as president Obama has proposed the idea of raising the minimum wage of contract workers to 10.10$ per hour (about a 30% increase from the current 7.25$ per hour minimum wage). A large number of people consider this wage hike unnecessary due to the fact that today’s value of minimum is higher than it has ever been since the 80’s, and because the wage hike comes at too high of a cost. All things considered, the issue of raising minimum wage is not a battle of political parties and their agendas, its really a debate between everyone.
Many critics claim that that raising minimum wage increases unemployment, especially for unskilled workers, and harms small businesses, including grocery stores and restaurants. The argument declares that companies such as these rely mostly on unskilled workers for labor, and if the minimum wage increases, then their profits and, therefore, hiring would decline, creating a...
The saying, “the customer is always right” isn’t always necessarily true. Most of the time, the sales associated is correct. However, it is still important to treat costumers with respect, even when they are wrong. Another important skill to have in order to survive retail is to remain patient with costumers. It can be frustrating when a customer messes up a display or leaves clothes on the dressing room floor. Dealing with grumpy customers can also be challenging. Nonetheless, a worker must remain calm and accept that the job entails sometimes dealing with difficult situations and
Customer service by definition is the ability of knowledgeable, capable, and enthusiastic employees to deliver products and services to their internal and external customers in a manner that satisfies identified and unidentified needs and ultimately results in positive word-of-mouth publicity and return business (Lucas, 2012, pg.7). In other words, it’s making the customer pleased so that they keep doing business with you all while making sure that the employees get along and work together well. In every business there is a form of customer service. Unfortunately, it is not always excellent or even decent. Some businesses just either don’t care or possibly just don’t have the training to deal with some of the obstacles that come with dealing with customers on a daily basis. I’ve been in the restaurant business for over 13 years and I can tell you that there are skills that some are born with and others need training on, yet either way they should be used whenever interacting with customers.
It is from time to time hard to determine where a job has its place when it comes to a white collar or blue collar job. Understanding these types of jobs can help make a conclusion such as how to label a proper job which in turn affects the life and social class of a worker. The term refers to the white dress shirts of male office workers mutual through most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as to blue overalls worn by many manual laborers. Blue collar jobs are the jobs that the person performing the job does manual physical labor working with one’s hands and gets usually gets an hourly wage. The second kind of jobs are the white-collar jobs, in which the employee does clerical work and draws a salary at a fixed rate.
“Customer service is the experience we deliver to our customer. It’s the promise we keep to the customer. It’s how we follow through for the customer. It’s how we make them feel when they do business with us. -Shep Hyken”. (Morris). Most people know that there is inadequate customer service and excellent customer service. What separates the two? The way you take care of your customers is what will separate the two. If one has attitude and treats the customers in a way that they do not matter most likely they will not come back to the company one works for. Therefore, the company is losing sales. One main