Don’T Blame Sales Clerks For Ineptness

I have to take the side of the kids.

I don’t want to. They can be so clueless, so utterly useless, these young sales clerks who stand like zombies.

Because of them, shopping this Christmas was especially taxing. I spent an entire weekend trying to find a camera with all the features desired by my wife.

Are all young new-hires sent to the electronics department to break in, or was that just my imagination? In two solid days of scouring the stores, I came across but one clerk who knew the merchandise and was eager to tell me about it. I thanked him profusely and asked why with his knowledge and people skills he chose to work as a store clerk and he said simply, “My employer treats me well.”

A new study of shoppers found that upon entering a shopping mall — just entering, not even shopping — the average man’s blood pressure rockets up like that of a jet fighter pilot in combat.

Having undergone a quadruple bypass, I understand only too well how stress affects my fellow man. That said, I must add that young clerks aren’t alone to blame.

While I don’t relish defending them and I certainly don’t condone lame excuses for poor performance, in fairness I feel that I must speak on their behalves.

Such ineptitude isn’t spawned in a social vacuum. These aren’t genetically inherited traits. Sales clerks used to be knowledgable and dedicated professionals. Some still are. Young people devoid of these attributes didn’t just materialize in our stores out of thin air. Poof!

Their incompetence is a reflection of the familial and cultural environment and — above all — the business climate in which today’s young sales clerks have evolved. How else could it be?

We consumers, parents, adult society, and especially business, all share in the shame. It is a disgraceful problem that has been growing like a cancer for decades.

The very first column I wrote 25 or 30 years ago was about the scandalous way some businesses exploit entry-level employees. I researched and worked on that column about a week before I turned it loose. It reported the ways in which far too many Spokane employers — especially in restaurants and retailing — jerked around vulnerable young workers on their hours and benefits, paid them a pittance, gyped them out of time and wages.

I know it was happening then. I’ll wager it is still.

Oh, the brazen hypocrisy of business operators who use young helpers shabbily yet expect the employees to treat them well in return, to care about the business and its customers, and to perform at a high level. These operators like to wrap themselves in the flag of “free enterprise” and whine about how tough it is to be in business.

“If you were in business,” such types are fond of saying, “you’d know how hard it is to make ends meet, and provide good jobs for people.” Oh, the times I have been rebuked thusly.

Well, the fact is, I was in business. And I do know how hard it is. I went broke. Lost my savings, my house, my car, my dog. My health suffered. My wife and I voluntarily signed a “deficiency judgment” so that we would not have to declare bankruptcy and for years we both worked and saved to pay the bank for a business we no longer owned. Oh yeah, I know how tough business is.

But that’s no excuse for treating employees as though they don’t matter much. Because if we do that, they won’t matter much. And we will have only ourselves to blame.

The point is, if the system isn’t working for too many of our less-skilled and less-capable workers, especially entry-level youth, they won’t work well within the system. It is long past time to re-examine the system.

If workers receive livable wages, preventive health care, training, and other considerations due every person in a society which values working for a living, then we will try harder and work smarter. All of us — business included — will pay less for welfare and withheld health care, business will make more money, and consumers will get better service.

The bottom line is, sales clerks do matter. Either stores recognize that, or we can get used to shopping on the Internet.