Why I Prefer Warehouse Work Over Retail

February 27, 2020 — Kaye

So far, I’ve lasted seven months at my warehouse job The job I do full-time is easier than the one I did part-time. Only needing to keep up a certain rate makes it hard.

I sincerely never expected to think of working in a warehouse any better than retail. I made the switch for a higher wage and because retail is for extroverts, but I still expected to have my soul sucked out of me and dread going every day. While nothing will ever make me enjoy waking up early, I don’t hate my job and while I can’t say I look forward to going (it is ten hours of work, after all), I don’t dread being there.

Obviously, this is very subjective. There are people out there who feel the opposite way: can’t stand warehouse work, but are great in retail. As for why I particularly like it (besides getting paid more):

  • No customers. I won’t lie. This is the biggest reason I hated retail. Too many people! I worked as a cashier and, unfortunately, the management thought I was great at it. Too many people in too short a time and too much interaction. No, I really don’t care to idly chat with this person. I just want to ring their stuff, so they can pay for it and get out! I can’t talk that much out of my mouth. At least, not small talk! It’s boring. Heck, part of why I wanted to work on the floor was to get away from this. The other part was not wanting to be confined to a small space (though this didn’t change with my current job, I’m too busy to notice most of the time, and I don’t need permission to leave that space).
  • Too little staff and leaving late. There’s a reason closing shifts are the most hated, but I grew to hate every shift. It seemed like we never had enough people. I remember there was once two cashiers scheduled for the entire day, meaning the floor people would be counted on as backup. I hated that. Of course, warehouses can have too little staff, but so far, my experience with my current job has been sometimes, too many people show up! My day always ends at 6pm, when I’m scheduled. I’m not obligated to stay later to continue cleaning. Speaking of cleaning…
  • No cleaning up after people. This is the second-biggest reason, and it’s why I don’t give two cents about automation coming into retail. Customers are freaking slobs! Our store looked like a tornado struck every night! And shockingly, it rarely was the kids. Really, who raised these people? My mom would’ve destroyed me if I didn’t clean up after myself in someone else’s space. I still wish they banned food! Warehouses are definitely not sparkling and spic-and-span, but cleaning up the warehouse is not part of my job! The most they ask is to keep our stations clean and that’s fine with me since, you know, I’m working in that spot and the trash likely came from me.
  • Break schedule. I suppose it makes sense my retail job had no regular break schedule since consistent scheduling doesn’t exist in retail by any sense of the phrase. But it actually helps the day go quicker. There were also times you couldn’t get a break because there was no cover. On two occasions, I’ve been one of only two staff members in the entire store. And the second time was pure chance because I wasn’t scheduled. The keyholder that day called me in and I said yes. She didn’t say she had no other staff with her whatsoever, presumably because it would’ve sounded like a guilt trip. I must respect her for that.
  • Always something to do. This one is more about desk jobs than retail. I had two desk jobs and they were boring as boring could be. I spent more time warming the chair than doing work. And it wasn’t laziness. There was sincerely nothing to do but talk, which, as I already said, I cannot do for long periods of time. It wouldn’t have been so bad if entertaining ourselves was allowed when there was no work to be done, but that wasn’t the case. The expectation was to sit there and do nothing until something popped up for you take care of. While I don’t want more work than I can handle, I don’t want the polar opposite either. If you’re going to have me here for the majority of the day, give me enough work to fill that time! Anything that takes more effort than keeping my butt in a chair. Being on my feet all day isn’t fun, but I’ll always take it over sitting in boredom for the same amount of time. Keeping busy (and good socks and shoes!) prevents me from noticing the pain.

None of this is to say I never get frustrated at my job. There’s no day without some kind of problem: computer freezing, jammed cubes, heavy stuff, the conveyor not working, needing to search for tiny items, exact same items with multiple different SKUs (I want to imprison the people who do this!), the scanner not scanning. Anything the causes me to mess up my time fries my nerves. I also learned way more varieties of sex toys than I ever cared to know. But none of those problems, as annoying as they are, result in me staying past 6pm or leave only two people in the whole warehouse. Plus, it’s fun to think that sometimes, computers are freaking stupid.

Of course, most warehouse positions are physical and can’t be done after a certain age. While I’m okay with my job, I still overall prefer something less physical that could keep me just as busy (or allow me to entertain myself when there is no work) so I’m not bored out of my mind. Maybe it’ll come someday. Maybe not.

For the present, I’ll be happy with what I have.

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Ninety Days Working

October 24, 2019 — Kaye

Today is my 90th of employment at my warehouse job. Woohoo!

I also finally turned in my resignation notice to my retail job. I am no longer on call. I am not their employee anymore. One of my former managers recently posted how much the store looks like trash after she visited, and while the unexpected validation was unnecessary, I consider it reassuring of my choice. Ironically, and funny, the store finally got a new store manager one day after I quit.

What is so special about ninety days? First, and most importantly to me, I think it’s safe to say I’m… safe. If I haven’t been fired by now, I don’t have much reason to expect it. Second, it means I’ve finally managed to hold on to a job that’s not retail. Granted, at three months, I was proclaiming I love my retail job too, but that was before the store fell into the deepest pit of hell. Even back then, the store had some problems I simply didn’t have enough experience to see yet, but no workplace is perfect.

The most significant difference to me is the pay rate. I know there’s more a job than money, but let’s face it: we all have bills to pay. But I’m not talking solely about base pay. I’m talking about where it goes.

In retail, I started at $9/hr. Three years later, I left at $10.41. That would be a big deal if not for two facts: the extra dollar came from a temporary promotion (company policy forbids withdrawing a raise), and new employees with zero experience (like I started with) for the same position would be hired at $11/hr. Unsurprisingly, that contributed to some of the employees who had experience jumping ship (not that most of the new ones stayed for long). The other matter is you get a twenty cent raise once a year. In other words, if my state’s minimum wage hadn’t risen this past summer, I would’ve gotten a 41 cent raise in three years.

Meanwhile, at my warehouse job, I got a 75 cent raise. Please refer back to the title of this post.

Three years to get a raise of less than half a dollar or three months to get a raise of 3/4ths of a dollar? Tough choice.

Yes, I realize that depends on the workplace itself rather than the industry, but that doesn’t invalidate my point. I’ve been told there’s often a better chance of making more money by switching jobs than switching positions in a job. Which means I likely will have to leave my warehouse job someday if I want more money. For now, it works for me, so not someday soon.

180 days – six months – will be in January. Let’s see if I can leave this year with this job.

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Not Prime Time

September 25, 2019 — Kaye

Alternatively: Amazon Is Guilty Of Many Things, But Your Bad Shopping Habits Aren’t One Of Them.

However, I felt that was too long for the title box.

I recently purchased Amazon Prime, though for half of the discounted monthly price instead of the regular price. For whatever reason, they gave me an offer to extend the trial, so I’m currently getting two free months of Amazon Prime. The only benefits I really care for are the fast shipping and the discounts. Yes, I know you get free shipping if you spend over twenty-five dollars, but I said fast, not free. Not that I’d subscribe to Prime if I had to still pay for shipping.

Anyway, I searched for some reviews on Prime. The general opinion is it’s worth it if you shop on Amazon a lot, you live in a rural area, or you have a child. Of course, some people think Prime is trash, and that’s a valid opinion too. Online shopping is a luxury, after all.

But among the bad reviews, something I couldn’t help noticing is a lot of people claimed they saved more money after cancelling their Prime subscription because they didn’t shop as much for items they don’t need.

Amazon is no saint – big duh – but if you were needlessly buying items you didn’t need solely to make use of Prime, that’s not their fault.

Amazon does the same of any company that offers paid subscriptions. Yes, they make it easy to shop (ex: one-click button), but the same can be said about any store. I used to be a cashier, and I lost count of how many times a customer with an overloaded cart told me they came in for only one item. There’s no difference between doing that with Amazon and any other store, physical or virtual. We put extra stuff in the waiting aisle because we want you to buy more.

Yes, it makes it easier, but ultimately, it comes down to self-control and that’s never on the store. I’m not sitting on a high horse. I’m guilty of buying more than I came in for. I didn’t become a big shopper until I started working in retail, and I really just wanted to use my employee discount. But that’s still my fault, not my job’s. They’re not responsible for my shopping habits.

Now, yes, it makes sense to avoid something that makes you feel an unnecessary urgent need. I’d say cancelling Prime or avoiding a certain store is exercising self-control… if you can admit you were the cause. If someone blames their habits on Amazon, or any other store, they’ll merely take those habits elsewhere after cancelling Prime.

As for myself, I’ve had Prime for seven days and haven’t made a purchase since, despite wanting to. I haven’t seen anything I care to buy. I was interested in Amazon Fresh, but that’s an additional $14.99 per month, and shipping still costs a fee, so screw that. I doubt I’ll keep Prime for a year, but it’s going to prove useful for Halloween. Yes, I still wear costumes. No better candy than free candy!

Edit: Amazon Fresh is now free for Prime members and Prime Video has the entire Pokemon series, so I will be keeping that membership, and switching to a yearly subscription when I can afford to do so.

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Goodbye, Mi Amiga

September 3, 2019 — Kaye

Yesterday, my favorite manager – and my friend – told me this would be her final week.

I knew she would quit eventually because she previously mentioned her intentions to return to school. But to my surprise, that’s not why she’s quitting. Her reason is one that surprised me.

She’s tired of the store manager.

The surprise isn’t so much the reason itself as it is being the one she’s leaving. She is genuinely one of the kindest and most cheerful souls I’ve met in my life, and she’s the last person to complain about anything. Even when she does complain, she smiles through it, like she’s trying to brush it off. I knew of her frustrations, but I didn’t know she felt that badly.

I admitted to her I considered returning to being part-time for the seasonal period and she vehemently advised me to remain on-call and ask periodically if I need more work. She worked at this store for four years – since the day it opened – and it was her first job while the manager that eventually pushed her over the edge has been there for less than a year. Were there ever a clear example for the expression of people quitting bosses instead of jobs, this would be it.

I wished her well in life, and I know wherever her next job is, she will be excellent, and hopefully, with better management. While I am sad about her leaving, she unintentionally taught me a lesson in telling me so: never waste your time.

Most people cannot quit without a back-up plan, including myself, and after my experiences this past summer, I’ve been working three jobs out of fear of being fired. However, one has been nothing but trouble since the start due to payroll (they still haven’t paid me for the first day I worked, despite I brought it to their attention no less than four times and was told the problem was fixed, and it’s possible they no longer have the record of the day), lack of breaks during shifts as long as nearly twelve hours, smoking, and ultimately being stranded due to the travel required. I’m not the only one with those struggles at the job. The long-term employees have also expressed them.

The other job is my retail job, which I’ve wanted to quit for over a year due to the store essentially being a sinking ship and paying the least of any job I’ve had, but kept because I have history there, they’ve never screwed up my paycheck, and I genuinely love my co-workers.

The problem is juggling three jobs makes it hard to commit to the one I care about most. However, I’ve been at that job for only 39 days, which is not long enough to fully commit to it and quit the other jobs. While I have no reason to believe I’ll be fired, I thought the same with the two jobs I had in June, and that obviously turned out poorly (one involved a manager attempting to intimidate me due to being nearly twice my size and required getting a police officer involved to retrieve my stuff; the other dismissed me for not being social enough and worrying more about learning the job properly; my school faulted me for both, and I’ve since disassociated with them as a result). I’m too afraid to risk having a false of security again, and want to stick with the newer jobs for at least a year. But I also do not want to waste my time like my friend feels she wasted hers (“four years down the drain”), nor do I want to burn the history I have with my retail job. Even she advised me to always have a back-up plan.

Granted, the job I want to commit to is nothing like the jobs I was fired from, namely in that you get fired if you don’t do your job and you don’t spend the majority of your shift (think seven out of nine hours) doing literally nothing while being expected to pretend you have work to do. However, I feel that’s not sufficient reason to believe I’m safe. For all I know, they could decide they dislike how I style my hair and fire me for that (yes, people do get fired solely because a boss dislikes a trait or feature about them; US laws do not protect against that if it isn’t a protected class and most states are at-will, so employees can be fired at any time for any reason that isn’t illegal in written law; it’s one of the reasons I never want to join management, no matter how long I work somewhere, as that’s a level of coldness that’d keep me awake at night).

I don’t know where my friend will go. I don’t know where I will go. But wherever we do go, I hope there’s a bright future for both of us in the places we want to be in our lives.

“People leave managers, not companies” – Marcus Buckingham

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Jealousy: Co-Worker Edition

March 23, 2019 — Kaye

Because I already have a post titled Jealousy that’s more recent than I thought.

I’m just going to make this a confession post and admit it: the green-eyed monster is real.

Yes, I’m jealous.

I’m jealous of the manager who gets to work with her boyfriend and her best friend, train the latter, and was able to get her best friend hired for said reason (her boyfriend was already there). She gets to spend all her breaks and most of her shift with him/her/them as a result. I once did have a good friend of mine at work during 2017’s seasonal period and it was awesome! I miss her being there so much, but she moved on to a better job, so I’m not unhappy she stayed. I just miss having my friend work with me. I’d kill to be able to work with my best friend or my boyfriend, and being able to share a job with both would be an absolute miracle I’d thank fate/destiny/whatever every day for.

I’m jealous of the co-workers who get nearly a week off, and who get a weekend day off. I work every weekend, and even when my schedule was limited due to school, I never had half a week off, let alone nearly an entire week. I can’t get a weekend off unless I request it and the request is approved. I can’t remember the last time I did have a Saturday or a Sunday off, let alone both. I think I’d cut my arm off just for the privilege.

Yes, I enjoy money, but I also enjoy having my sanity intact and having time for anything else instead of having to force it because I’m dead tired. Call it “adulthood” if you want. My sanity is still slipping and I feel nothing for my job but my frustration. I do not care about customer service. I do not care about cashiering. I don’t even care about being on time (though I still am). Honestly, I just care that I get through and go home. The only reason I haven’t left is I’ve found nothing that’s worth leaving for. Any retail job would be the same, and retail is utter trash.

Stay out of retail, kids.

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