30+ years ago I applied with two friends to work in a brand new dollar type store. There was still construction going on. My friends got the job. I didn’t. I think it was because I stepped on some flourescent light tubes laying on the floor.</p>
<p>I am amzaed at the teens in retail jobs who move at the speed of tree sloths. I took my son & his friend to a skating rink last week. His friend’s skate lace was unravelling at the tip & he needed some tape & a pair of scissors to get the lace into the hole. The teens behind the counter just stared at me for a moment until one started looking around desks in a slipshod manner. Ten desks, but not a single pair of scissors to be found. Yeah, right. One teen took the skate & spent a long time trying to jam the lace through the hole. I kept asking if there might be a paper clip or some instrument we could use. Two other slack jawed teens watched the teen with the skate try again & again to jam the lace through the hole. All the while ignoring customers. I had to tell the kids, “This person needs your help.” I really fear for these kids. How will they function in life??? At this same rink, I once asked a teen to turn on the lobby lights so we parents could read while our kids played hockey. He shrugged & said he didn’t know where the light switches were. I suggested he ask his manager. He stared blankly & shrugged again. I had to find a manager myself. These stories are not as dramatic as an employee falling asleep on a bag of dogfood (LOL) but the pattern is widespread.</p>
<p>One of my D’s first jobs was in a pet store. They had a large pile of dog food in the center of the store. When she started there was a male employee who often napped on the pile. He didn’t last long. The owner said that the napping on the dog food was much more a male employee trait. He found the female employees on average to be better employees.
The best one recently was when I needed a dog tag made. I went to a large pet store. The employee told me the machine was broken. Returned later in the week and asked if the machine had been repaired. That person told me it had not been broken. The employee was just to lazy to make the tag.</p>
<p>Personally I think the drug test is a bit of a concern. If your applicant is doing hard drugs like heroin now that’s a bit of a concern, but if your applicant manages to successfully separate his or her private and professional life, why not?</p>
<p>Now even though I haven’t touched the stuff myself, can a person who shows up positive for cannabis defend his use of it, and assure his employer that it would never affect work?</p>
<p>I needed this thread in May! DS did the whole “pick up applications, bring them home, fill them out, drop them off” thing, didn’t speak to any managers, thought I was nuts when I told him to go back and follow up (“What am i supposed to say? If they want to hire me, they’ll call!”), never did speak to any managers and ended up getting one job which will require him to work at most a dozen days all summer. And he got that job in a “cattle call” where he spoke to a decision-maker and they hired about 3/4 of the people who showed up. </p>
<p>Last year he was hired at the second place he applied, I think because his EC was an exact fit with what that store sold (unfortunately, the store closed over the winter). If I could have shown him all your hints to teens who are job-hunting for this year, maybe he wouldn’t have thought I was crazy and would have had a more effective job search. I don’t think he learned anything about his methods being ineffective either; I think he’s pretty much blaming it on the economy (which frankly was 50% of his problem).</p>
<p>Lafalum, I think that this summer it was a bit tougher to find a job. My son filled out a lot more apps. BTW, many apps. are only currently accepted online. He filled out tons of the online apps. and nobody contacted him for an interview. He felt a bit discouraged, but I just gave him some encouragement, and then he found a job. The nice thing about it is that it is close to home, so he is not spending his earnings on the commute.</p>
<p>My son went looking over his spring break, which happened to be one week earlier than the local flagship U’s spring break. It was great timing; he saw a sign for the job, called, went in for interview (bringing his past employment information with him) and was offered the position on the spot - all in one day. I couldn’t believe that his job search began and ended on the first day, no fuss, no muss, and the whole spring break to enjoy without any stresses! Several of his local friends waited to apply for jobs until May, then had difficulty finding decent jobs. This is one case of the early bird getting the worm.</p>
<p>Does anyone know about transfers within national chains? That is, is it easy to continue working for the same “family” even when you go OOS for college?</p>
<p>Galoisien, I’m sure this would depend on the individual stores. You may be promised that you can work at a store in your college town, but it’s doubtful that the college town place is going to hold slots for new people if they have the people they need or have hires from the year before coming back or maybe have multiple people being promised jobs from their hometown stores.</p>
<p>I know a girl that works at a chain in her college town and was told that she would be able to work at the local store here, in her hometown. When she got home for the summer and went to that store, they told her that they had no hours for her. My thought is that you have a leg up on another applicant coming in off the street but not to expect guaranteed employment, unless you hear it from the college town store manager.</p>
<p>A friend’s son worked at a chain near college, and asked about working this summer at his hometown store. They said he could work as a sub, then later they asked if he wanted a 4 hour shift every Saturday? Then the 4 hour shift evolved into an 8 hour shift, plus sub hours during the week. So it worked out for him.</p>
<p>On the theme of advice for the new employee … </p>
<p>I’m writing the evaluation for my now-ex-intern. What I am coming up with is that I should have just fired him when he overslept on the second day of work, and claimed he was sick. I thought he was faking then … I still do. I should have just fired him then and not put myself though this <em>bleep</em>.</p>
<p>So … basic advice</p>
<p>** Start off on the right foot. Be earlier, stay later, work harder, keep your eyes and ears open and LEARN LEARN LEARN.**</p>
<p>And, I ran across this quote yesterday … and it’s so applicable in this and many other situations:</p>
<p>"Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.
J. C. Watts</p>