12/12/01 3:14am
Target Report...

First things first, thanks to everyone who sent in their analysis of my dreams last week. I'd put them up, but they're all along the lines of "You're f'ing crazy" and "Here's an analysis, you're f'ed up." It makes me feel good to know that so many of you care about me and put some serious thought into my strange dreams. Thank you. Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

A lot of people ask me about Target, and how I like it. I usually respond with "It Sucks." But I wanted to go a little deeper and tell you why it actually sucks. So, I thought I'd give you a little job description and bring you inside my job, and tell you what my day consists of. I'm going to bring you closer than you ever wanted to be to Target. Alright, not that close, but I'll give you a sort of rundown on what I do. Sort of like "Being Patrick Pramas."

Guest Service
I just recently got asked to help out a few nights a week at Customer Guest Service. 95% of the transactions are smooth, but the other 5% are pure Hell. Let me tell you, it is rough. We have a pretty strict return policy at Target. If you don't have your receipt, we don't do returns or exchanges. This leads to a lot of conflicts. I am going to make a generalization by saying that Women are the Devil. If you've ever worked in retail and tried to tell a woman that they can't return something, you're inviting death. No matter how many times you tell them they can't do it, they will yell at you even more. They get petty and catty most of the time. First night I'm on guest service, a guest wants to exchange a pair of boots for a pair one size larger. She didn't have the receipt, so I told her that I couldn't do it. She begins to flip out(I almost can't blame her, the policy is rough, but I don't make the laws, I just enforce them). She asks to speak to a manager, I bring up my Cashier Team Leader, or CTL. He backs me up and says the same thing, so then the CTL leaves, and the lady comes back and continues to yell with me. The phone rings, usually it's one of the cashiers, I pick up the phone, and she slams the hang-up button, and yells, "Don't you go answering another call, you're WITH ME NOW." At that point, I'm getting very testy, and she eventually leaves. That's just one story. I already have a handful of good stories in 3 days of guest service. There was another lady that was furious that a "Cambodian Boy" gave her the wrong print cartridges, and wondered "if we made it a practice to hire foreigners to work in our electronics section." While she's throwing out these racial slurs, her 7-year-old daughter is looking at her. What a loser. A real winner by all accounts. I can't wait for the Christmas season to be done so I can get out of guest service.

Hardlines 2
Hardlines 2 means that I work in the upper level in everything that is not clothes, mainly Domestics, Stationery, Furniture, Housewares, and HBA. I like working mornings more than nights, because in the mornings, we mainly do pushes, and at nights, we mainly do zoning. What do these terms mean??

  • Pushes: Basically "pushing" stock from the backroom and onto the shelves. This is one of my favorite things to do.
  • Zoning: Market Basket people call it "breaking down." Just basically pulling everything on the shelves forward to make it appear nice. I hate zoning because 1) it's the most boring work when you're by yourself, and 2) No matter how well you zone, it's just going to be ruined an hour later.
  • Team Lift: This is the promised land for Hardlines 2. This is the best. We look for this. Basically if someone needs furniture, we're supposed to use two people to get it, put it on a flat bed, bring it up to be checked out, and bring it to the guest's car. My buddy JT and I are always walking by furniture in hopes of this. Why?? It gives us a break, the whole process usually takes about 20 minutes, and we hang out and crack jokes the whole time. JT and I have mastered this slacker technique so well we call ourselves "Team Lift." We go to great lengths to try and get 4 or 5 people to help out with a little end table. We shoot out the same lines over and over again such as "Don't be a hero, let me team lift with you", and "Safety first, the more people we have, the safer it will be." This is by far my favorite part of the job.
  • Reshop: When people return things to guest service, it has to be put back on the shelves, and that is what reshop is. Putting the returns back in the right spot. This is done throughout the day and ranks somewhere between zoning and pushing.


    • So, why do I have this job you might ask. Well, I really like the people. I have a blast when I'm with my co-workers, and they're all really cool people. NO responsibility. There really is no responsibility, and it's an easy job, I believe my "Team Lift" partner JT said it best when he said, "the hardest part of this job is figuring out how to properly space your breaks." Haha, I couldn't agree with him more. That's what we do, we figure out when to place our 30-minute break and our 2 15-minute breaks on weekends. We debate the intricacies of a well spaced-out break schedule to a schedule where you delay your breaks as long as possible. It's really sad.

    I like the job, and I've had some good times in my 2+ months there. In fact, I'll give you a list of my Top 2 moments at Target thus far:
  • 2) The time the freight elevator door dropped on Jimmy, and he hurt his shoulder pretty bad. It would have been higher on the list, but I didn't see it happen. But he did follow up with the classic,

    • Jimmy: You smell that?
    Me: What?
    Jimmy: I smell a lawsuit.
    Good stuff
  • 1) At Target, they have escalators for the carriages, and they get stuck frequently, and one time, it got stuck, and JT and I went to go check it out. JT was showing me how it worked, so he was squatting right in front of it, and he turned the key to get it working again, and bam, there was a cart right near the top, and it came at him fast. In fact, he got knocked over and if you've seen these things, the carriages don't stop until they get completely off the belt, so it was up against JT, but it's back wheels were still in the pegs, so it pushed him back, and then the front of the cart started rising up, because the back wheels were still being pushed, and from my point of view, it looked like the cart was rising up and that it was going to eat him. Of course, I didn't try to help him, I just watched and laughed while it happened. HAHA, sorry buddy, but that's probably the greatest Target moment yet.


    • Well, I hoped you enjoyed my little Target rant, and I hope you have a decent idea of what I go through in a day.

    Does your job suck? Any great job-related moments, Contact me about them, and I'll put them on Pramas.com. Later everyone...


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