Don't Work in Retail

Retailers are one of the biggest providers of jobs in North America.  Did you know over 4.5 million Americans worked in retail in 2017? The average age of the retail worker is about thirty-seven, they make about $22,000 a year and it’s pretty evenly split between men and women, although over seventy-five per cent of clothing retail jobs is occupied by women?  But here’s something you may not really know...working retail really, really, really sucks! 

Here are some reasons to avoid retail like the plague!

They own you! 

They may not say it in the beginning, but they own your ass.  Don’t wanna work Sundays?  Too bad...you work ‘em because John the boss doesn’t want to.  Need the weekend off to go see a festival? Nope.  I hope you enjoy all the Insta posts your friends are uploading because that’s the closest you’re going to get to that concert.  Wanna book some time off in the summer for your friend’s wedding?  Go ahead, but when you get back everyone is going to hate the fact that you left them to go out and have fun.  Seriously, I don’t understand how Wal-Mart or Target can tell you how to live your life but they do.  Why?  You’re afraid to lose that job?  Guess what?  It’s retail, and there are tons available.  Splurge.  Go on.  Do it.  Quit that job so you can LIVE YOUR LIFE!

Management.

Do you want to know why Dave has been the dairy manager for the last two years? He’s the only one that stuck around.  Retail managers are not qualified to be management.  They just stuck around long enough to work their way up the corporate ladder into middle management.  Oh the mediocrity.  Do you really want to work under Dave?  He might have the experience but that doesn’t translate into a good leader.  You know you’re much better at the job, but who cares? Dave’s your boss and you do what he tells you to do and sometimes that means working hard enough to cover up Dave’s deficiencies.  Don’t worry, he “has your back”.

The pay. 

Oh they tell you that story at you in the very begging.  “Julia’s only been here for two years and she’s already top rate”.  You usually start off part time at minimum wage, and most stores offer wage increases every one thousand hours. Do the math...part time is 25 hours a week average,  divided by one thousand hours...it’s going to take you 40 weeks of working to get your raise. Will it be a dollar an hour more?  Yeah, no.  Most likely you’re going to snag a good thirty cents.  You need to work into full time to get the benefits and the top rates.  How long to you need to dedicate yourself to this career to make $18 an hour?  Three years?  Five years? That’s too long to wait until you are properly compensated for your skills and labour.

Colleagues. 

Retail work environments are worse than high school.  Were you bullied in high school?  Be prepared to get a second or third dose at your shiny new retail job.  Oh and the ones that will bully you, will probably be the biggest dog fuckers in the department, and you’ll have to work twice as hard to pick up the slack.  Then when the shit starts to roll down hill, you can expect to get shit on for all your hard work while Danny over there gets to bully her way to the top, all the weekends off and doesn’t even do the job.  Don’t worry, all those extra hours you put in making up for her do not mean squat.  Also, see about days off above.

Customers. 

People are the worst.  It’s a fact.  People are lazy and will get you to do all the shopping for them.  “Where is this” “Where is that?”  No one wants to look for anything anymore because, guess what?  That’s YOUR job so get off your ass; put a smile on your face, prance yourself down aisle five because Mildred the regular needs her panty liners.  They will complain to you even if it’s not your job, your department or your fault.  Customers will walk into a store, lock eyes with the first employee they see, barrel over and start with their demands.  Basic etiquette is missing in today’s society, so why would you want put yourself on the front lines?

The environment.

All retail environments are the same.  They always preach team, but you’ll never see management taking part in that team.  They like to say things like “It is what it is” or “My hands are tied”.   Any and all creativity will be sucked out of you.  Have a good idea?  No you don’t because once you tell Dave the boss, it’s now his idea and he’ll get all the accolades. Don’t like that or how you were treated?   Don’t put up a fuss.  They want you to drink the kool-aid, because they did and look at them, they are so happy.  Everyone that works here is so happy.  We do favours for everyone; everyone does favours for us because we are one big happy family.  Not feeling well today and you’re thinking about calling in?  They might be nice over the phone but that environment breeds resentment and you can guarantee that you’ve fallen down a rung or two on the ladder of opportunity.  Did they call you in and you had plans so you said no?  Another rung descended.  Unless you say yes to pretty much anything, you will be disregarded and labelled a “problem employee.”  Don’t even get me started if, god forbid, you have an issue with another colleague or your boss because it will all get swept under the carpet.  A good employee is an employee that doesn’t make waves.  Shut your mouth, show up and do your job, because if you don’t, someone else will.

Retail...it owns you, pays shit, managed by morons, occupied by resentful colleagues, and is often frequented by angry customers in an environment laden with anxiety.  Kids...stay in school.

By Dennon S. Stein

Is it fresh?

I've been around the Grocery business since I was a baby.  When I was a kid, I'd help my dad close up the produce department, which led to a summer job shagging buggies, which led to a full time job and now here I am, forty-one years old with twenty-six years in the business and completely disenchanted by the industry, the "professional" environment and most of all, the negligence.

I've worked for a variety of meat shops; Restaurant supply, big box chains, small butcher shops, retail grocery stores and mom and pop shops.  Basically, I've been around the block.  I've heard, seen, smelled, and participated in about every meat department malfeasance on the books.  I started in the industry when it was still OK to smoke in the shop, which is going back a few years.  I remember a time when my boss would be smoking a cigarette, cutting a lamb and then resting the half burning stick on the cutting block all while assisting a customer.  We've come a long way since then you'd like to think, but you would be wrong. There are still meat practices and procedures that were used fifty to sixty years ago that are still commonplace today and most of them shouldn’t be.  Here are the most accepted meat department malpractices prevalent today.

Cross contamination and grinding different species in the same grinder without cleaning.

There are an assortment of meat minces; beef, lamb, veal, pork, buffalo, organic beef, chicken, turkey, organic chicken, and free from pork, just to name a few, and, they are all ground in the same meat grinder.  The best practice is to have two or three different grinders for different species, but costs for these machines are in the tens of thousands of dollars, so most departments have just one.  You would think that the next most logical method would be to clean out the grinders in between species with a wash/rinse/sanitize method, but most of the time, that doesn't happen.  Of all the meat departments I have worked in, with the exception of one, none of them have done this.  It's actually disparaged.  they say it takes too much time so you get a wet rag at best, wiping the inside of the grinder, smearing around all the bacteria.  Or worst of all, which is the most common practice, they just dump them in and grind them through, slap it onto a tray and you are none the wiser. I'm sure you don't want bits of beef in with your chicken or some pork in with your organic beef? Cross contamination is pretty disgusting if you don't eat certain foods because of religious or health reasons or even severe allergies.

Taking old product and re purposing it.  

This is hugely common in all the departments I worked in, with the exception of two.  Maybe you're feeling like meatloaf for dinner tonight and the butcher down the street makes a delicious one that you've had on more than one occasion.  The meatloaf is one of the easiest ways to merchandise old ground beef and pork.  Most shops leave their burger out for two days on average for regular sales and after that, they pull them and reuse them in other things like meatloaves, burger patties, meatballs, and even "fresh" sausages.  The product you think you are getting fresh for dinner tonight has actually been sitting out on the shelves for about three or four days before you decided to purchase it and maybe you've decided to leave it in the fridge for an extra two so how old is it when you put it to your mouth?

Re-wrapping product and selling it as fresh.  

Another standard process where the meat cutter will cull the case for old or unsellable product and re tray it and put it back in the case for resale.  It's done every day, but most departments do not backdate their stock, and once again, it's put back out as fresh where it may have been out in the case for two or three days previous. Some shoppers don't even look at the product, they just look at the date and if they think it's fresh, they might sit on it in the fridge for an extra few days after buying it, so once again, how fresh is it when you actually decide to cook it?

Marinating old product and selling it as fresh.  

This is another routine method of merchandising product and even up selling it as a high end meal option but most departments use this as a method of masking old product with chicken being the biggest culprit.  Chicken can only sit out in a meat case for two or three days depending on the cold chain, and most of the time, chicken that doesn't sell is marinated, then put back out as a fresh product at a higher price, so again, when the consumer purchases "fresh" product, they are most likely buying product that is about to turn.  Ever had a marinated chicken leg and felt a bit... off?  Old chicken masked as fresh product will make you a little ill, and sometimes you won’t even think of it.  I worked in a restaurant supply business that brought in a huge order of boneless skinless chicken breasts and when the order arrived, they brought out a kiddie pool, filled it with water and added a bucket of bleach.  They then proceeded to dump all the chicken breasts in this "bleach bath" to clean them up a bit before distributing them to high end restaurants in the area.  

Hiding or removing best before dates on old product and reselling it.  

Be very wary of any meat department that has nail polish remover in or around the desk or wrapping machine.  This is used to wipe off the printed best before dates so a new tag or sticker date can be added to extend shelf life.  Another trick is just not dating them at all.  You have no idea when it was packed on or if and when the best before date has passed.  The product still looks good the packaging is intact but is it fresh?

In store specials, manager specials and department specials.  

These are the specials that didn't make it in the flyer, bonus specials if you will.  Not always a bonus though.  Most of the time when you see these specials it’s because the manager has over ordered their inventory, and they need to reduce it for a quick sale without having to sticker it off.  It's pretty normal to have these types of specials but if you see a shop or department that has half of its stock on special that might mean that the manager is unable or too incompetent to follow proper ordering techniques and the inventory is close to turning.  Product that has been sitting in the back, even though it is still sealed and properly stored, still gets old, so by the time those specials make it to your plate, is it fresh?

Huge sums of food waste.  

Meat shops and departments can be quick to throw everything away.  Most of the product is unsellable, and has to be disposed but there is a high percentage of food that can and should be donated to the local soup kitchen.  One department I worked in for two years had an average of $400 dollars a day in food waste, and especially after holiday periods, those numbers skyrocketed to $1000 a day.  Let’s do the math, an average of $400 times 365 = $146,000 a year on the low end. Even if we were able to salvage ten per cent of that product, it’s still a significant dollar amount of meat product that is served much better in a soup than in our landfills. 

So the next time you wander into a meat department, a butcher shop or a grocery store, ask yourself or better yet, ask your butcher "Is this fresh?"

By Dennon S. Stein

I QUIT!

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.  That's what I've been doing for the last 24 years and no more dammit!  Yup...that's right!  I gave my boss the ol' middle finger and walked out the other day.  Gave up a great paying job with benefits, good hours, great people...errr.  Shit.  sounds like I'm a big fucking idiot right?  Like, why in the hell would anyone actually give that shit up?  Well because I had a boss from hell.  That seems to be the story of my life actually.  I can't work under idiots, narcissists, moody and ignorant people.  That's just it.  It took me my whole working life but I've figured it out.  I don't like to work and serve people.  I mean, I did it and I did it with fucking flair, personality and style for fuck sakes, I had to to make it worth it for the past 24 years, right?

Ok, to set it up for you here it is;

Party on Bangla road

Phuket Elepant Rescue

I had just quit a shitty job as a meat cutter the winter before, went on this huge "life changing" adventure to SE Asia where I got right out of my comfort zone. I travelled solo, met strangers, swam with sharks, did pub crawls, fed elephants and I told myself that I wouldn't go back to that shitty industry.  I did and you want to know why?  Because it's easier.  It's easier than following your passion.  It's easier to wake up at the same time everyday, eat the same food everyday, see the same people everyday and make the same paycheck everyday.  It's easier.  I've fucking had it it with easy.  Easy really hasn't brought me anything besides anxiety, unhappiness, stress, self doubt and sore muscles.  for what? For someone else's business to flourish.  For someone else to enjoy life.  Nope not me.  I'm done and this blog post is just the first step in my new life.  A life full of fun, hard work, failures, successes and etc. a all for myself.  To be quite honest, it really scares me...but not as much as having to go back into that industry ever again.