A typical boring day at Sam's Club: and What I Do About It

Sam's club is a really good place to work if you just got out of school or are in school. It is a place where you can thrive as a worker ant, going from hour to hour making due, serving the member. But there are times when you get really slow traffic and it becomes outright boring. When this happens what do I do? How do I go on in total boredom. Or what seems like customer service frozen in time.

1. I find random stuff to do. I mean really random stuff. The first thing I do is look for someone in charge. If there is someone, I pester them for something random to do. If that does not work I read whatever is on the Wal-Mart Wire. If I feel that it is too boring to hear what Lee had to say or I cannot find anyone who pretends to be in charge, I zone--basically I grab a bunch of card board out of my aisles and throw it in the bailer, which usually is full and needs to be bailed. Then I wait for something random to come up on the radio and then I do whatever I need to do. However, on Sundays all times stands still. Everything moves at the speed of snails and it get so bad that I can clock the rate people chew their food in the cafe.

2. I push carts. Though I hate doing this, when I get really bored, it is a good time killer. Sam's Club is doing mediocre in sales and it is mainly due to the fact that Cost Co has three stores surrounding Sam's club and they are the competition. So when I push carts, I basically want to have a to do list before I leave.

3. Electronics needs cover because their is a lot of thievery that goes on over there. In actuality there is nothing we really can do about this except notifty Management that there is someone 'supicious' in the electronics department. I usually have fun with this and scare the bejesus out of theives by getting on the intercom and prompt "Scan and record electronics". In actuality I do not even think all the cameras work except for the ones near the cash registers.

4. I rip on members in the break room. Everyone has their own story. Like today, there was this one member that tried to run over my pallet jack and say I "was moving" when I was stationary. Then to add icing to the cake they tell me, "Members have the right of way". There was another case last week when this lady asked for a mixer when I was covering electronics. Now mind you, mixers are in a different department. She wanted an egg beater. I told her over the phone to give me a minute to walk over to the mixers because I had to cover electronics. She then began to yell at me saying that "no I should know the prices right now; do not give me excuses". Now at this point I was trying to tell her the prices and describe her the mixers and she just started to yell at me some more while I was trying to get her the price for the item. First I mentioned the Magic Bullet Tm blender, but she just kept yelling and she knew what she wanted from the beginning but did not say anything.

For more info on what antics go on in retail stores, see "Pretending You Care" by Norm Feuti. This is a definative book on what retail employees and sales associates go through at department stores.

5. I wander around the store when it is really, really slow. I have to say this is something we are all guilty of at some point. Even some managers do it. Afterall, during a recession, who wants their hours cut? Unless you are totally bored and stuck in the tobacco cage where all time stands still, the answer should be no.

6. I cover other positions. I have done a variety of positions at Sam's club. I have done Night Merchandising, Center Section, Recieving, Hard Lines (My normal section) Electronics, Marketing, Tire Center, Greeter, Cart Pusher, and Demos just to name a few. When Membership does not know what position I am pretending to be that day, they just call me by my first name. :p

Well I will wrap it up here for now. We have a lot of positions at Sam's Club and I will probably do some more in the future. Time will only tell.