Paying by Check or Useless Piece of Paper

The check, just a piece of paper, with amounts written on it.  Sometimes, it is not even worth the price of the paper its written on.  How this paper was and is handled has evolved and not necessarily for the better.

Back in the early Woolworth days, checks had to meet certain criterion: no starter checks (name must be imprinted on it at least), check number had to be above #200, and checks over $50 needed manager’s approval.  Sounds all so simple, except it was not uncommon to get a bad check.  Checks over $100 or questionable checks were called to verify funds by contacting a check approval service.  The purpose of the companies was just to get an approval code, but sometimes this was not simple as one time I spent over 45 minutes to get an approval code.  Certainly, this was not only not acceptable, but depending on the bank or financial institution that the check approval company had to reach, this length of time varied greatly.  No more than 5 minutes was the norm, but anything was possible.

Of course under this system, we had a large number of checks that had bounced (over 40 of them and total value nearing $10,000).  It was the responsibility of the Customer Service Desk to call on these bad checks approximately once a month.  Calling the customers were both frustrating and unrewarding.  Many times I was hung up on and sometimes no one would ever answer anyway.  Of course, the check file was also turned over to the South Portland Police to handle, but it was not uncommon for them to do anything at all with them.  It was rare occasion when we had someone come into the store and pay on a bad check, but it did happen.

When the register system changed, we also upgraded the procedure for taking checks.  This new system had a little device that was beside the register that was a U-shaped machine where the check was placed on one end of it and it would circle around to the other end on its own.  It was a fun little machine to see operate, but its purpose allowed for checks to processed without having to call them to a central call center.  The biggest difference with this new system is that the little box dialed from its own phone number to whatever financial institution it needed to find out about.  Since only one approval could happen at a time, it was a very slow process especially during the holiday season and back-to-school.  However, no more bad checks and no more calling in checks. Most importantly, we could loosen up our policies regarding what checks couldn’t be taken.  It was like heaven.

Staples, however, came with its own set of problems.  Checks were not limited by any check number, however, all the checks had to have at least the name printed on it.  Staples always had electronic processing of checks, but there were times when checks needed to be called in to a central processing number to get an authorization approval number.  Over the years, the system did get more sophisticated and the system got so advanced that at one point it printed “DECLINED” notices to give to customers when their check was not accepted.  I believe that this is more embarrassing to the customer than just telling them that the check has been declined.  This was not exactly a customer friendly approach.

The big downside to all retailers, and Woolworth and Staples were no exceptions, was that checks over a certain dollar amount required a managers signature.  I have yet to figure out what huge difference this makes as I have yet to find any managers with a built-in check approval system integrated into their bodies.  What’s worse was that at one time, I got written up by a front-end manager when I took a check with a manager’s approval (they signed it) on it and the check turned out to be no good , even though the manager “knew” the customer personally.  This brings up the idea of why should sales associates be liable and get written up for a bad check when the manager was the one who made the call to accept the check in the first place?  I call this just another way that Staples hates its employees and loves to destroy them as often as possible.  Is this any surprise to anybody at all?

Next Up:  Debit or Credit – A Risky Proposition

Paying Cash for Your Stuff

There is nothing worse to deal with in retail than cash.  Its dirty, its wrinkled, it smells, and god forbid you never know where it has been.  What’s worst of all is how different retailers handle it and where they place it in the register.

What irritates me worse than anything are the stores that have the large bills ($50’s and $100’s) laying on the right hand side of the register making them extremely easy to steal by reaching over the register area.  I always believed that these large bills SHOULD be out of site of potential thieves, yet some managers wanted to make it EASY to steal company money.

Back in the days of Woolworth, all the large bills were kept underneath the tray area.  Since the entire tray also contained checks as well as the large bills, fishing for the large bills sometimes took a little time especially i f there were many checks in the drawer.  At least the bills were out of site from potential thieves.  Once a day, two members from the office would go around the store doing cash pickups in the store to eliminate the loads of cash that had accumulated during the day.  This pickup was always around 2:30pm in the afternoon, so that a deposit could be made up and taken to the bank in the mall before 4pm when the mall merchant bank closed.  Sadly, this bank is no longer in the mall, just the ATM outside the door that leads nowhere anymore. Woolworth also did pickups as needed throughout the day as needed and when the pickups didn’t happen on weekends.

Woolworth also handled Canadian money as well and discounted usually around 20% off its face value.  It was always nice to end up with a whole drawer of useless Canadian money at the end of the day with nothing that can be done with it.

Staples, on the other hand, didn’t handle Canadian money and really shouldn’t handle U.S. money either.  When I first started with the company, the front-end manager told us to keep ALL the large bills with the checks.  This meant just zipping them into the check slot and be done with it.  However, as the years went on and the management changed (and not for the better), they were insistent to put large bills under the coin tray.  Being the stubborn bastard that I was, I continued to place the bills in the PROPER location for as long as humanly possible.  In fact, I got written up several times by not following the “policy” that the management wanted me to follow, even to the point of a final warning, which would have led to my termination.    THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WRITTEN POLICY ON WHERE MONEY SHOULD GO—JUST THE DUMBASS DREAMS THAT MANAGERS CREATED TO SATISFY THEIR OWN LAZINESS!!    What really bothered me about putting the money under the coin tray was that sometimes a lot of coins were open and this tray could be VERY HEAVY and easy to dump on the floor.  But this is what they wanted despite being such a hazard!

What is even stupider for this company is that when the drawer had over $500 in it, the register would show a status message at the top of the screen that said “CALL MANAGER – LIMIT REACHED”.  This is great news to anybody walking by the register as it told everybody the drawer was loaded with cash.  It was the RESPONSIBILTY of the managers to remove the cash from the drawer ASAP, but usually it didn’t happen.  In fact, one time the managers waited so long (at least 4 hours) that I had accumulated over $7000 in cash in the drawer.  Certainly, not what anybody should have to deal with.  What made this worse was that I WAS BLAMED for this excessive amount in the drawer!!  Talk about passing the buck!  Management incompetency always run rampart as I will continue to explain in future posts. 

Up Next:  Paying by Check or Useless Piece of Paper

Tax-Exemption: Sales Tax’s Evil Twin

One of the most hated things I always hated about working retail was dealing with tax-exempt transactions.  You may ask why and the answer is quite simple.  Do it right and everything is fine, screw it up and get called to the carpet with much yelling.

So what exactly is tax-exemption? 

It is usually any government entity either state, local, or federal that allows people to buy products without having to pay state sales tax.  There is also another type of tax-exemption known as a “reseller’s certificate”.  Under state law, only business checks and business charge cards are acceptable forms of payment.  Cash, personal checks and personal charge cards are not acceptable forms of payment.

How is tax-exemption processed?

Back in the days of Woolworth, the transactions were handled at the customer service desk at the back of the store.  A photocopy of the customer’s tax-exempt certificate is stapled to the sales receipt and is mailed off to Augusta to be processed monthly.  If all went well, you never heard from Augusta again.  If there was a problem, the improperly handled transaction is mailed back to the store to get straightened out within 60 days.

At Staples, all the tax-exemption was handled at any register and was handled electronically.  A system of looking up a customer’s tax-exempt information was in place that allowed to search by customer name, business name or phone number.  If the customer’s information was not found, it was possible for the manager on duty to input their security code into the register to manually process a tax-exempt transaction.  This always made me cringe because fraud could easily run rampart with this procedure. 

Staples also had a procedure in place that would process tax-exempt cards in the store by taking the customer’s tax-exempt certificate and inputting information in a special computer and create a tax-exempt card at time of purchase.  This system was eventually eliminated because, I believe, too many false tax-exempt forms were used.  The process was changed to the backward procedure of filling out a paper application, having the store mail it to Staples’ home office, they send it to Augusta.  Augusta then decides on the legitimacy of the form, then sends an approval to Staples’ home office, which in turn sends a tax-exempt card to the customers’ address.  Total time for all this could be 8 weeks or longer.  Certainly not user friendly or customer friendly by any means.

What were the consequences of not following the rules of tax-exemption?

This was always kind of a murky question as it depends on the severity of the problem and how often it happens.  I have heard that the states levy fines from about $100 per transaction all the way up to $10,000 for severe cases.  These fines also include the price of sales tax as well that must be reimbursed back to the state as well.  Certainly violating tax-exemption laws cost companies money.

I remember several times at Woolworth when we the customer service people were scolded by being sloppy and costing the store (not the company) money by not going by procedure.  It was always the store’s expense to pay the fines for not doing its job appropriately.

Ironically, I never heard of anyone getting scolded at Staples for not handling tax-exemption properly, but chances are that Staples probably never paid the fines placed against them anyway.  Still, procedures needed to be followed anyway.

It should be noted that Staples’ cashiers were notorious in taking cash for tax-exempt transactions which is the #1 no-no.  I always felt like beating them to death when they did this.

How could someone get around the tax-exemption issue?

The easiest and most popular way is to shop in nearby tax-free New Hampshire.  This not only a popular thing to do, but for many the only way to stick it to the state.

Tax Evader Representative Chellie Pingree

Speaking of sticking it to the state, I have a story regarding Maine’s own State Representative Chellie Pingree.  During her first attempt at running for Congress, her staff made a large amount of purchases in one of our New Hampshire stores.  When her campaign failed, she returned ALL of her unused supplies back to the store I worked in here in Maine.  The problem I  have with all of this is that someone who wants to represent Maine is doing a slap in the face to the state by ducking the state’s sales tax.  The total amount returned was about $300 of miscellaneous merchandise and took quite a while to process because of the sheer number of items.  It is because of this business approach that I will NEVER vote for Ms. Pingree as I feel that she doesn’t represent Mainers, but her own special interests.  If you avoid taxes as a wannabe public figure, then you lose my vote.  But then again, this sort of thing is running rampart in politics today.  Which brings up the question of who can you trust in politics.

Up Next:  Paying Cash for Your Stuff

The Evolution and De-Evolution of the Staples’ Register System

Back in the caveman days of my employment with Staples, the register system was an old monochrome one-piece unit I believe that was a CASIO brand.  These units were somewhat loud and generated heat.  A lot of heat.  In fact one day, the register I had been working on had its display start shrinking on the right hand side slowly throughout the day and by the time I returned from lunch, it had smoke coming out of the back of the unit.  The cashier who was covering my break didn’t even realize that the register was creating a thick black cloud of smoke from its backside.

Safety hazards aside, the register system was extremely primitive, especially when compared to the last register system I used at Woolworth.  In fact, these machines reminded me more of the type of monochrome computers that I had used back in the early ‘80s in high school.  Certainly not state of the art by any means.

Back when I started with the company, it was required to ask every customer if they had either a “Dividends Card or a Tax-Exempt Card”.  The reason this was asked at the very beginning was that these cards had to be processed before ANY item got rung into the register.  Sometimes, it could take a customer as long as 10 minutes or longer to search for a card that didn’t exist.  Sometimes, after a customer said “never mind”, they found the card, but it was too late to process.  After about 3 weeks of absolute boredom and sarcasm regarding the tax-exempt card, I decided to stop asking for it as I figured that less than 5% of customers actually had one.  Over the course of the next few weeks, other cashiers followed my lead and stopped asking for it as well. 

To look up the Dividends card in this system, the cashier could only look up by phone number and sadly mostly local ones at that.  Because of the way the system operated, each register had to have the entire card file downloaded into the register or be triggered by having the customer physically have their card with them.  It was very common to have a register not have the customer’s card info and have it readily available in another.  It was figured that the information was updated just a couple of times a week at best.

This awful system lasted for about 3 years until finally we entered the modern era (or is that error).  The company finally got new registers.  These new registers manufactured by Fujitsu were much more advanced than the previous registers.  Such advancements included having the ability to input the Dividends card or tax-exempt card anytime in a transaction.  With these new registers came new problems, however. 

Amongst the problems included the occasional locking up of the register at random times.  With the old register system, the register would normally lock up after entering 100 items in one transaction.  The new system wasn’t so forgiving as you could be ringing up a transaction then all of a sudden the entire screen would just go blank.  The plus side to all this frustration is that the entire system was a touchscreen system, yet it still had poor reaction at times.

What made the register system worse is that the entire register was web-based, so that it could also be doubled as a time clock, or a Staples.com terminal, or an inventory control screen.  However, the more functions opened up, the more unstable the register became.  It was not surprising to restart a machine at least once an hour just because of how it was running.  Sometimes, it was a very frustrating system.  I will have much more to say in future posts. 

As far the tax-exemption goes, this will be the discussion of my next post.  Certainly not a fun process no matter which company I worked for.

Up Next:  Tax-Exemption: Sales Tax’s Evil Twin