You're not going to believe this...but

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

today I went searching for the cheapest dovetail jig and went into a few local outlets trying to find the cheapest.

Anyway went into this shop which was an agent for B&D mainly but sold other brands. This 17/18 year old came up to me and said...can I help.

I pointed out I was after a dovetail jig,he picked up a trend catalogue and was flicking through the router bits section, me was mystified,got fed up and pointed out to him it was a jig not a bit,he then pointed to one corner of the shop and said...the only jigs we have are on display in the corner, when I looked he was pointing to Jigsaws I turned to him and said...did you blag your way into this job and walked out of the shop.

Jesus! how the hell do these people get the jobs?

[Alan Holmes]

You should have gone to B&Q

[OG]

What's the problem ? B&D don't sell dovetail jigs, so why should he know about them?

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Its a bit like this...

If you walked into any tool store you'd expect the sales assistant to have at least a bit of knowledge as to what a certain tool,piece of equipment is.

The fact that its a B&D store doesent come into it.

Its a bit like walking into a Vaccume cleaner repair shop and asking for a set of brushes for a certain vaccume cleaner the sales assistant should be able to know what cleaner you're on about,otherwise he's in the wrong game.

Now do you get my drift? Too many outlets are just taking on staff who havn't got a clue about the merchandise they're selling.

In my early years of employment if you didn't have the knowledge of what the particular job entailed you never got the position,they wanted someone with experience in that line of work.

[Ken]

the old saying comes to mind----Pay peanuts---get monkeys.

ken

[Andy Hall]

You answered your own question in your opening sentence.

If a retailer is going to meet this requirement, how do you imagine that he will have the revenue and margin to support experienced and knowledgable staff who would be paid more than minimum wage?

You can't have it both ways.

Cheap does not equate to getting good service......

[Andy Hall]

Quite. The reason that that happens is because of customers' expectation of paying low prices.

Good service does not come at the cheapest places, there isn't the margin to support it....

[Peter Lynch]

This is the school holidays: from the age that the OP estimated the kid to be, this may just be a holiday job. If that's the case, he may well be just a relative of the store manager or simply the only one who walked in and said "gizza job".

Instead of berating the boy, would it have been so hard to at least be pleasant and maybe even educate him a bit?

Pete

[Partac]

I agree. Where does all this experience that you expect the boy to possess come from? If we don't allow the young ones the time to gain the necessary experience, what's going to happen in, say, 5/10/15 years from now when all the older experienced staff have moved on/died/gained promotion etc.? If enough people come in and give him a hard time, he'll probably think "stuff this", and go out on the streets and be a rent boy or sell drugs or something equally more rewarding.

[Phil Anthropist]

There was a time when a dissatisfied customer would complain to the shop manager who is responsible for employing the right calibre and training their staff. These days many customers just treat the shop assistant, who is often a part-time recent school leaver, on the minimum wage, trying to support themselves and paying their way through university, like shit. We all have to learn. What did being rude to the shop assistant achieve? Why didn't you ask to speak to someone more knowledgeable and experienced?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Reminds me of an incident. I was away from home in an location I didn't know and needed a vice. Had noticed a Halfords and thought it possible they might have one. Of course, couldn't see one, and was just pondering what sort of amusing reply I was going to get from the sales assitant when I asked for a vice. So I walk up to the counter and say "I'm looking for a vice", to which he responds quite genuinely with, "Advice about what, sir?". That wasn't one if the responses I'd bargined on ;-) Anyway, left Halfords with a very nice Record vice, which I considered to be quite reasonably priced.

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

And they can only afford peanuts because of the type that spend many hours looking around for the lowest price, rather than the best value for money.

[Autolycus]

They're perhaps the only ones prepared to put up with gratuitous abuse from barely-literate oafs - and I have heard of some examples of that sort of person trying to buy tools.

[R D S]

Worse are the types who spend hours in store asking questions, then buy online.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Thats true,some in here as well.

[tinnews]

... and posting on usenet, see the OP's spelling of vacuum! :-)

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Why didn't you ask to speak to

More to the point why didn't the shop assistant ask one of his collegues did they stock the item in question.

That would of saved my time and his.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Tsk! when the fire starts, the wood creaks.

[Phil Anthropist]

Probably because they were pondering whether to tell you to f*ck off, but thought better of it since that would have meant the sack.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

I should of guessed you'd come up with a reply like that as I've turned the table on a more appropriate thing he should of done in such a situation.