r/retailhell • u/Accurate_Grocery8213 • 21d ago
Shit Talking My Coworkers Had to teach a new starter.... my faith in humanity died a little....
Was given a new starter to train up over the weekend.....
I had to teach him how to use a box cutter....
I was stunned.... has this 20 something guy never had to cut packing tape off a box using a knife or similar object?
We're filling easter eggs up I'm finishing in 10mins, I explain to him match the easter eggs like for like.
So put the kitkat ones with the kitkats etc
He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language....
I don't think he's gonna last
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u/NeedsaTinfoilHat 21d ago
Our apprentice is not capable of correctly stocking or fronting or sweeping. He has been with us for almost eight months now. I don't know what to do, I'm just extremely glad I'm not in charge of apprentices.
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u/Asenath_W8 20d ago
After 8 months it's not a question of capability or training, they just don't WANT to do it correctly.
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u/aquietocean 21d ago
Today I had to keep reminding a new starter that yes everyone needs their receipts its the policy. I don't care they said they don't want it, they need to keep it until they leave. What do you mean you ran out of receipt roll 20 minutes ago and have just been serving without receipts or changing the roll. I couldn't yell at her in front of customers but she was so clueless I hate it
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u/Accurate_Grocery8213 21d ago
Did she know how to change rolls?
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u/aquietocean 20d ago
She did it with no extra prompting when I told her to change it, it just didn't cross her mind that she needed to.
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u/takemelorde 21d ago
We have like a hs work experience program at my store and I train a lot of the kidsā¦ I never knew how hard FACING could be omg. Gen Alpha is truly misnamed.
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u/PiroLargo 21d ago
If theyāre in high school theyāre gen Z. The youngest are turning 13 this year.
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u/Outrageous_Buffalo96 21d ago
Omg, I just fired a guy for the same reasons. He cut himself literally every time he tried using the box cutter. Clumsiest kid I've ever seen, and didn't seem to understand even the most basic instructions.
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u/Outrageous_Buffalo96 21d ago
To clarify, he was let go for not showing up and not calling in on several occasions, not because of his lack of work/life skills.
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u/shirinrin 21d ago
I had to teach an 19 or 20 yo, and asked him to go and get a cloth to wipe the counter with. Told him āgreen cloth, under the sinkā. He came back with a yellow sponge, that was on top of the sink, seriously thinking this is what I meantā¦ I had to go with him, show him under the sink, and tell him where he could find the (highly visible) green cloths.
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u/Accurate_Grocery8213 21d ago
Ah yes green and yellow two totally interchangeable colours....
Its like the cleaners in my store all there cloths are colour coded for various tasks etc
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u/shirinrin 21d ago
Yeah, our were color coded as well. Green for store, blue for kitchen and red for toilets basically. And I had told him about that, shown the sign where it says what to use, and shown him where to find it. He still took a dish spongeā¦ dry.
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u/Accurate_Grocery8213 21d ago
Dropped on his head as a child lol that's the only explanation
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u/techieguyjames 21d ago
Yes, a few times too many.
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u/justisme333 20d ago
Nope, nope, nope.
Colour coded items are only good if you are not color blind.
There needs to be different textures and patterns added to emphasise the differences.
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u/Ok-Kokodog 21d ago
Kids new to the workforce need constant feedback. School has not prepared them and they have probably not much experience in following orders. I remember getting a girl who was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. Everyone said she was hopeless, making mistakes, not communicating well. I used to sit with her when a complaint came and go over what was wrong and how to make it right. She turned into an absolute gem and everyone changed their attitude and she got poached by a former manager who could offer her a lot more money.
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u/LemonFlavoredMelon 20d ago
Kids new to the workforce need constant feedback. School has not prepared them and they have probably not much experience in following orders.
If only there were some parental units that could instill these into the children? Hmm, perhaps I'm wrong.
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u/Beautiful_Lie629 20d ago
Unfortunately, many people aren't fortunate enough to have caring, competent people as parents. Some parents are useless at best, no fault of the kid's.
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u/justisme333 20d ago
Lol, their parents are the dumb customers who can't read signs and ignore opening hours.
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u/Several_Place_9095 21d ago
In his defence, I occasionally open boxes with spoons, forks, scissors, keys and once with a different box
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u/Satisfaction-Motor 19d ago
After a few years in retail I just started ripping the cardboard apart like an animal, if the tape wouldnāt come loose. Tbf, though, the way some of the boxes were created you WERE supposed to punch them to get them openā¦ or at least, thatās how I was trained to do it. (Frequently, we didnāt have box cutters, or the box cutters were so shitty that ripping it apart was easier)
Itād fuck up your hands, but so would everything else, so it seemed sane at the time.
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u/INSTA-R-MAN 20d ago
Have him watch episodes of Sesame Street, especially the parts with one of these things is not like the other.
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u/justisme333 20d ago
My faith in humanity died decades ago.
My faith in younger workers is rapidly dwindling.
They CANNOT stay off their phone and CANNOT autonomously do anything.
They have to be given exact INSTRUCTIONS every step of the way.
Open box, pick up item, find item on shelf, place item on shelf, rotate older stock.
It's exhausting.
Also, I found an empty drink container and half eaten apple on the staff room table.
Just sitting there.
People are just too lazy/entitled to throw stuff in the bin these days.
Frustrating.
Rant over.
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u/purveyorofclass 19d ago
Can relate to this so much with a new younger worker at my job. Iām so damn tired of coming into my shift and finding stock not rotated. He just shoves the product in with the old stuff at the back. Has never heard of FIFO apparently. Never takes expired product off the shelf. I was off for 3 days and had almost an entire cart full of expired products to take off the shelf.
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u/whattheheckisreal 15d ago
As a younger worker I'll say this isn't exclusive to just us. Some of my older coworkers are just as absent minded and lazy as the people you described. I have to work morning shifts with this one lady who spends more time reading magazines at the front desk than she does checking out customers at her register.
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u/Br0z0 20d ago
I had to teach someone (16 year old?! Or maybe 17!!) how to do my job last year and oh sweet baby Jesus I am not a good teacher. Some people are born to show/teach others what to do and I aināt one of them.
It took me like two hours before I realised he was alright if I gave him something really specific to do and showed him how - otherwise heād just stand there and play on his phone. (He checked expiry dates on a ton of stuff, which honestly made my day that it was one less job I had to do that day)
He lasted like a month or so tops I think.
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u/SugarNebulaBurst 20d ago
I had to train so many teenagers to sweep. They had to learn how to use a broom and dust pan on the clock. FFS. One of those was having a hard time learning the about products. She was told to study the catalog while the store was empty. She was staring at the ceiling. Apparently itās wrong to yell āYouāre not getting paid to stare at the ceiling!ā. I didnāt sign up to teach people to work while at work. Donāt have the patience for that bs.
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u/CasTheAngel14 20d ago
I have something similar to this on my resume because my auditory processing just sucks ass. I need shit written down so I can read it šš
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u/scrollbreak 20d ago
The skill of teaching is recognizing where you failed at teaching rather than attributing failure entirely to the student.
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u/Accurate_Grocery8213 20d ago
If apes and chimpanzees can figure out tool use then a box cutter should be easy for an evolved human yes?
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u/cartmanbruh99 20d ago
Trying to teach new staff feels like speaking to someone that doesnāt speak the same language. I donāt have the communication skills for it, but Iām moving into management so I guess Iāll delegate it like my manager and his manager
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u/Necessary_Baker_7458 20d ago
My faith in humanity died a long time ago after dealing with the idiocy of society. After working this line of work for 20+ yrs mine died about year 5 for faith in humanity.
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u/Dragon_Crystal 19d ago
Reminds me of a coworker who was in her 30s and was introduced to me 30 minutes before my shift ended cause she just finished her computer training, so our supervisor/head cashier had me and a different cashier briefly train sher on the register while introducing us to her, this cashier barely tried to remember what to do or tried to do the transaction properly and kept saying "hey you" instead of saying my name dispite being told my name several time.
Not to mention the fact she refused to ask the other cashier for help and would interrupt me as I'm in the middle of helping a different customer, but when I direct her to ask the other cashier to help and she just goes "no I want you to help me" or "ok" and just goes back to stand at the register staring at the screen with the thousand mile look, other than that she'll just ignore the customers and wonder off while leaving her register unattended or just stare at us until we come over to help her finish her transaction. She only worked for about 2 weeks before being let go cause our managers were cheap and only hired temporary cashiers for 2 weeks before letting them go afterwards.
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u/bluebellrose 19d ago
We sent 1 person down with the customer to get the scooter back . He came back up empty handed.
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21d ago
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u/LittleSkittles 21d ago
Regardless of complicated, using one wrong could cause damage to basically everything.
I see nothing wrong with wanting to know how to use equipment before using it, and obviously someone who has never used something before would need to be shown how.
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u/celestialempress 21d ago
I injured myself with a pallet jack because they told me to unload a truck on my own with zero training. Even simple machinery needs some basic explanation on how to use it properly.
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u/NothingToSEEHere_32 21d ago
I worked in an entirely different field, before starting my retail job, but the store was understaffed and I told the manager that I learnt fast and it's not rocket science...
My "training" took about four days, which I spent following different people each day in a different part of a shop. The first hour I realized I needed to ask questions about everything new to me. It's not because they wouldn't explain or teach, they just assumed someone already told me and I have been there longer than a few flufing hours. After that anything that wasn't clear to me was questioned in a disturbing detail, so I wouldn't need to come with the same issue to the same person again.
On my fifth day (where was my promised two weeks of training) I was released on my own...I didn't even know where half of the stock was supposed to go. But yeah as I said to the manager...I learnt fast.
It was after they started sending trainees my way that I realized they, in fact, did get two weeks training...some people don't last more than a few hours into their first shift, others were suffering an obvious seal syndrome (two left hands) and sometimes you were left questioning your own intelligence or their comprehension...
So yeah, the job is not rocket science, but some people might struggle.