I work in retail, 30 hours a week in the layby department - we also deal with rainchecks on items and stuff like trampolines, swing sets etc. The biggest problem which has caused my work life too be stressful is the head office or put in another way the people that don’t have too deal with customers.
Back in July we had our ‘big’ toy sale, where you can put things away until Xmas eve. During this sale we take orders for trampolines, motorized cars for kids etc, with the promise it will come in either September or earlier for Christmas. Now this is my second year working in layby during the Christmas season but it’s the same story both times.
The head office receives too many orders during the toysale and it creates backorders…So we get notice from head office that they will be in at the end of september, one or two will arrive (when we have 20+ on order) some time during september if we’re lucky.
Now we start getting calls from customers asking when they can start picking up stock or if it has arrived yet as head office has sent all customers with these orders a letter saying it will be in by the end of September.
In October we get notification that the rest of the stock will be in November 1st and so do the customers, by chance we get a few throughout November cause customers will change there mind about items and cancel there laybys so another 1-2 will be fixed still leaving us with 3/4 of the orders…
In November we get SOME of the items in too fill half of the orders, for those specific items. Now customers have a letter explaining too them that there stock has arrived(even though it hasn’t and also the people that actually work at the store have 0 control over these letters/reminders). So we get angry customers begin too call up middle of November wanting there stock which we don’t have.
Now it’s December 7th we still have 13,000 worth of orders that need too be filled and every day we get customers calling up or coming into the store yelling at us even though we have our hands tied.
The thing that makes this worse is when we call people higher up they tell us start of next week, start of next week…yet the stock never comes. Luckily last year it all came in the end but it was still an incredibly stressful time of year due to the incompetence and lack of preparation for an annual thing.
the other things that makes this worse are in catalogs they still place items that we are sold out of due to the first toy sale, they send customers incentives too pick up stock we don’t have and finally when a customer is standing there yelling at us there is generally some form of cue, and they are holding it up, so other people in the cue get angry because this person is taking forever then they take it out on us.
some observations I’ve noticed 9.9/10 if this was happening outside of work these people would generally not raise their voice at me, also it’s generally short men yelling at the women I work with.
If I step in(which I’ve had too repeatedly this year) they suddenly become a lot calmer(in other words there comfortable yelling at a girl who probably couldn’t defend herself not at someone who could most likely end them).
There are a lot of pressures at Christmas time I try too reduce the stress for people however both sides can be blamed and the one I’ve outlined which I have to deal with at the moment is causing my work life and home life( I take my job seriously, you get paid too work…so while I’m there I work…
I can’t help but take home the stress with me when I leave every day)…sorry if it sounds like I’m whining but companies do nothing too help alleviate the stress of the season either…
but I agree with the points prof x has brought up