“I’m here to work, not to pick up girls.”

Gruneberg asked for a position as the club’s swimming instructor, to which Voyenne gleefully produced a picture of four beautiful women clad in swimsuits. “What do you think?” he asked. “I’m here to work, not to pick up girls,” replied Gruenberg—and with that he had passed the test. From an article in Monocle magazine’s Mediterraneo

Exploiting Other People’s Pain and Suffering

“Well, part of me says, ‘I don’t care.’  This is a moral issue.  If you have people working for you who cannot make enough money to live on, you don’t have much of a business plan.  Your business is really exploiting other people’s pain and suffering.” Writer and columnist Barbara Ehrenreich, quoted in Time magazine

Curiosity doesn’t kill cashiers

One day, while I was training a cashier at the same drug store chain, she made a common beginner’s mistake. I said, “Let me show you what went wrong.” She said, “No, just tell me what button to push or who to call.” “But it’s very simple; if I show you what went wrong, you’ll

The Serial Killer Salesclerk

Have you ever gone into a store or to a customer service counter and the clerk just stared into space like a zombie?  He or she didn’t greet you or smile, or asked if you needed help, or even say what your total was when they rang you up?  I’m not saying the extreme opposite

“Please say no! Please say no!”

Years ago, I worked for a national drug store chain as a clerk.  We had a manager and several shift managers.  Our nightly closing tasks included rounding up the shopping carts from the parking lot and making bags of ice.  Every evening, the closing shift manager (let’s call him Mason) would come up to me