9 things i learned while working at officemax.

After a year and two months, two different locations, eleven different managers, and gallons of tears shed, I finally quit my job at OfficeMax. Here’s a few things that I picked up in my time working for Big Depot* (tm).

*yes, OfficeMax and Office Depot are the same company, so don’t even ask.

1. People do not see cashiers or floor workers as people. They view them as actual machines made to do the customer’s bidding.

Customers will often do things like start quickly reciting their phone number when your hands are clearly away from the register, or give you change after you’ve already opened your till (and it’s not even the RIGHT amount of change, so you’re stuck looking like you can’t do basic math), or become unreasonably frustrated when you don’t know everything there is to know about the pens they’re buying. It feels like they forget that they’re not talking to a machine or a robot, but an 18 year old girl who is doing her best to please you while also dealing with her own emotional turmoil.

2. Managers and big corporations really don’t see you as a human. They see you as a number, whether you are a consumer or an employee.

If you’ve never worked in retail, you’re lucky enough to never have experienced the “I need you to get your numbers up” talk. The pushing is constant — managers breathing down your neck to use “open-ended” questions that don’t give customers the choice to say no, writing up reports about how poorly you pitched the 2-year-protection plan on a printer. Higher-ups consistently bothering you to make sure you make sales that night. It’s not even about taking care of the customer; it’s about making sure the customer walks out having put as much money in Big Depot’s pocket as humanly possible.

3. Employees that try to upsell are heavily pushed to do so, and often they don’t even really think you need the product they’re trying to sell you.

Do you want in on a secret? No, Karen, you really don’t need the $8 protection plan on your printer. The real reason I’m pitching it to you is because the other day I didn’t pitch it to a customer and my manager wrote me up for it. I’m constantly being asked how many Rewards members I’ve signed up, and how many more I can get by the end of the night, and are you recommending the 2 for $10 paper? Are you pitching our new Ink Subscription Service? Stapling your business cards to people’s receipts?

So anyway please just spend the extra money on the plan so my boss stops riding my ass.

4. Your managers are never your friends. As chummy as they seem, in the end, they are still the boss, and you are still their employee.

I cannot discredit any of my OM managers for what they did for me — however, I can discredit them for having the largest control complexes I’ve ever had to bear witness too. More than once my assistant store manager would make a “joke” along the lines of “I am better than you, I am above you, and until your name badge says Store Manager I will forever see you as inferior.” So maybe she didn’t say it in as many words, but I could see in her eyes that she meant it. And at the end of the night, when you’re all done cashing out tills and making jokes and you’re headed out the door, you and your coworkers are just a bunch of strangers who stumbled upon the same job application.

5. Profiling is not only encouraged by large corporations but training on said profiling is required. Employees are often forced to use stereotyping in order to identify thieves.

I’ve been uncomfortable about this since it was introduced to me. In OfficeMax mandatory computer training, we were told what a thief looks like, what behaviors they exhibit, and how to follow them around our store without letting them know we’re following them. While monitoring behaviors makes sense, I would often find myself being told to “give a customer EXCELLENT customer service” because they looked dirty or homeless, or they had a strange demeanor. I’ve been victim to the other side as well — more than once I’ve been casually followed around retail outlets because of the way I dress or my haircut or the people I’m with. I know that’s why because I exhibit none of the behaviors of a thief — I’m simply browsing.

All I’m saying is, if you think that employee is keeping an extra special eye on you, you’re most likely right. And it’s most likely for the reason you’re thinking.

6. Putting up with sexism in the workplace is something that is expected of you if you are a woman.

Nasty remarks from customers, men going through my check out line calling me condescending names or assuming I don’t know things, even customers walking straight past me when I offer help to request the assistance of my male coworkers. Constantly while I was at work I would experience casual sexism, and any time I mentioned it to a higher up, I was essentially told that it was just something I had to deal with. “That’s the life of a female retail worker.” Shrug.

I’ve had men ask my about my weight, men hit on me even after learning I was way underage, men touch my hand or shoulder as I freeze up because what can I do? I just have to bite my tongue and take it. Can’t exactly tell the customer that he’s an invasive cunt and he needs to back off.

7. The greatest wisdom often comes from the unlikeliest of people and places.

I couldn’t tell you how many nights I spent sitting in the cash office with my customer service manager, watching him count out tills and spilling my guts to him. Or how many times he watched me fall to pieces in the middle of a work day because of issues I was having with my mother. I never intended to go to him for advice, but again and again I would find myself enlightened by the thoughts he had to offer on my situation. Sometimes being an open book can get you some hard truths that you didn’t know you needed.

8. The largest factor in whether or not you will love your job is the people you work with. The right people can make the wrong job 10000% more bearable.

My coworkers and I never got overly close — I was a bit of an oddball from the large body of them, so I didn’t ever catch the invite to game nights or birthday parties. But they were some of the funniest, goofiest people I’ve ever met, and during the bad weeks where every customer seemed out to get me and I just couldn’t live up to the store’s goals, I could count on my coworkers to make the job worth staying at.

I do regret the way I quit for this reason — I just kind of left them. I’ve only talked to 2 of them since.

9. When you have a gut feeling, sometimes you just gotta go with it.

Sometimes, after working a job for over a year, you take a look in the mirror and realize you’re not where you want to be. “Hanging in there” can only get you so far — sometimes, you get a feeling in your stomach that things need to change. And that feeling is usually right.

Maybe, if I could go back, I’d quit differently. Or I’d take the safe route and stick around. But when your instincts are that loud, and your heart is telling you that it can’t live through another day of mindless cashier work, you just have to take a leap of faith.

Anyway, Office Depot fucking sucks.