On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 14:00:33 -0500, "G.E.R.R.Y."
wrote:

....accidentally sent the first reply too soon.

In article , Nate B
wrote:

seems happy and well paid for what he does

Anyone who uses "retail" and "well paid" in the same sentence can't be
taken seriously. ;-)

I think it really depends on the store you're in. Most companies have
good policies, it really does come down to whether the manager of the
store is a complete moron or not. Finding one that isn't is rare. To
the original poster: your best bet is to talk to people at the store
you're planning on working at.

I don't know how low minimum wage is where you are, but, up here in
Canada, I could weep for anyone dead-ended in any kind of retail job,
Home Depot or otherwise. The poor (pun intended) devils are working for
the same kind of money that I earned in my twenties, back when it was
actually a living wage /and/ /you/ /could/ /even/ /save/ /a/ /little/.
Now, a young, single person couldn't possibly live on the hourly rate
HD pays, /even/ /if/ /they/ /could/ /get/ /forty/ /hours/ /a/ /week/.

I always find it amusing when someone in one of these jobs takes it
overly seriously, as if this is the only job they'll ever have. That's
not to say one shouldn't try to do a good job. I worked at a craft
store for minimum wage and tried to keep on top of what most of the
major items in the store were for so I could help customers out, but
when you're spending every free second making sure every item is
perfectly placed, brown nose with management all the time, and
complain about any coworker that doesn't live up to your standard of
perfection, your time would be much better spent going to business
school so you can at least get paid well for acting like a manager.

The suits who run these corporations wouldn't get out of bed for the
kind of money they pay their front-line workers. Then, those same
arseholes bitch about how impossible it is to find /and/ /keep/ good
staff. Duh!

I have yet to work at a retail store/low end job where the management
actually cares about the employee, or has any clue how to run the
business they're in. I don't deal well with idiots telling me what to
do [i.e. a manager telling me to run credit cards from people who
didn't own them, to not have line holdups and keep people happy "Oh,
it's all right, my wife/brother/boss said I could use their/company
card to buy this!". Or assistant managers telling us to do things the
manager above them told us not to do], thus I never could hold a job
down at one of these places.

Maybe if they paid less for never-ending training for constantly
quitting workers and used the same money for living wages...

I was told at one of the companies I worked for that they were losing
money for the first 90 days of an employee working there due to
training, etc. I lasted a little longer than that, but not much. The
average employee turnover there was about 3 weeks. They're replaced
all the managers there now, and there's still a huge turnover.

Gerry