The new store is a really nice upgrade and much larger. The place is mildly messy but no worse than any other thrift store (people are jerks in terms of putting stuff back on the hangers, etc and I can't always blame workers for this). Not a stenchy, dirty place as some thrift stores quickly become, not that that would deter me. I've also gotten spoiled going other places, because I forgot how much really worn merchandise they put on the racks at Goodwill - really faded, nubbly, stretched out stuff. Plus a lot of the basic stuff is up to $5 base (more if it's name brand or fancy). I can get new sweats on sale for $5, why would I pay $5 for some ten year old ones with shot elastic? So yeah...a bit bummed on that, but I get it cost of overhead goes up. The coats were still really affordable (got a trench with the tags still on it for $189 for $9, a fall Guess coat for $15 and a floor length suede hooded vintage coat with faux fur lining for $10).
My biggest issue is with service. I went to spend a gift certificate once. Not a single employee knew how to put it in. They messed around with it for 20-30 minutes, made phone calls to supervisors, etc before I gave up and just paid for my items. Not the end of the world, but annoying.
The most recent time I went, the store wasn't closing for an hour. Now, I worked in retail for years - the store closing at 8pm doesn't mean you go home at 8. It means you do what you can to clean up early, but you deal with the fact that - yes - the store is still open and people are going to shop and - yes - you will have to do some things after they leave and you lock up.
As soon as I walk in I hear a woman loudly complaining about more people coming in (there were already maybe 6-8 people shopping). This set the stage for a non-stop string of complaints from several of the way-old-enough-to-know-better employees about how all of the shoppers were basically terrible people because THEY NEED TO GET HOME, etc etc. Over and over. For over a half hour. Including them pushing past people to pick up or arrange things. The one lady stood in my way for probably five minutes because she was picking up some things and had me backed in a corner. She looks at me, sneers and says "well, I'm not trying to be in your way but I have stuff to do. I'm not staying here all night." Oooookay. Or you could just take ten seconds to let me out of the corner and keep doing what you're doing. Mind you, I was just standing there calm faced saying nothing, and she still felt the need to snip at me.
Then 20 minutes before close, a woman comes from the back that I assume from her attire/demeanor was a manager. She says the store is closing in 20 minutes and people should be sure they have their purchases up to the front in 15 minutes. Then she disappears into the back again. Fair enough. I try not to be that still-shopping-while-the-store-is-literally-closed person that my mother is. But within two minutes the two older women start loudly, nastily repeating the same thing to the shoppers and then one of the women starts walking from customer to customer telling us we need to go to the register NOW because they need to close. One elderly lady asked "oh, I need to go up now?" She was confused since the (possibly) manager had just told us something different. "NO NOW" the employee returns. THEN THEY START SHUTTING LIGHTS OFF with 18 minutes to close. My ass would have been fired for any of this behavior when I ran a store but okay...
So I go up to the register and the woman ahead of me is reviewing some of the things in her cart. She didn't immediately notice the person ahead of her was done ringing out. One of the same older women is now at the register helping bag. She loudly, snottily tells this woman "NO, NO, IT'S TIME TO GO NOT TO BE LOOKING AT CLOTHES. I NEED TO GET HOME. IT'S TIME TO GET YOUR STUFF AND GET OUT." Holy crap. The poor woman just looks at me and makes this sort of shocked, embarrassed face and starts putting her stuff on the counter. I could tell from the customer's accent that Spanish was her first language but her English wasn't hard to understand. The older woman acted like she was completely unintelligible. Kept being like "WHAT?!" really loudly and mumbling stuff to herself.
To her credit, the cashier - a teens to early 20s girl - was very sweet and professional. But the whole rest of the experience was just terrible. I get it. You want to go home. Everyone at work does. You still do what you need to do to keep your customers happy within reason and you certainly don't complain in front of them. These ladies really don't seem to like or want their jobs and unfortunately they're deterring customers. It's too bad because I always thought the staff at the old location seemed nice, so I don't know if I never encountered these folks or what. read more