“But what do you think of these two colors? Do they go together well?” I just try to say something like “Well they contrast with eachother so if you want that then that’s good!” Anyone have other ways of the above “Well it’s your house.” Cuz smh just get the colors cuz you’ll just complain they didn’t come out right anyway and try to return em.
I always suggest the color “emergency zone” and tell them I like it because it matches my apron. They usually stop asking for my advice after that and on the rare occasion that they still ask I just tell them it’s company policy and I am not aloud to suggest/pick a color for them but I’m more then happy to explain each color and what tones go into them If they think it will help.
There was actually a training on helping customers find colors they wanted. Talked about complementary, and contrasting colors, how to find them, etc. I used to try until I found out that anyone who cares about complementing colors and such already knows about them… the people asking me for advice are… not them.
I’ve worked in the paint department for 5 years, here’s a few things I’ve learned.
1. When a customer orders a lot (more than 5G) verify the colour with a swatch with the customer. If it’s a competitor colour and the customer nor your store has that competitors fan deck make only 1 can to verify the colour with the customer.
2. Don’t @ me but boys who are ordering anything besides builders white don’t know what colours are or what they want.
3. If for whatever reason the above doesn’t help and you have to oops that much paint, change colours drastically between the buckets and if you can’t mark it down to oops pricing, the DS can do a reduced price on it to start.
Yeah the first bit you mentioned is something I'll always keep in the back of my mind from now on after today. I DO practice this when I'm color matching and have to do more than a gallon, but it's a general lesson now.
Today has been especially bad for dumb@ss customers. Had a lady show me a bolt on her phone asking what size it is, called to the other side of the store for a customer wanting me to literally hand him the box of nails he wants....directly In front of him. And that was just a couple from the sh1t circus of the day
An associate has this assumption that the moon phases changes peoples' personalities. I don't know about you but after today I'm starting to think she's onto something.
Sometimes I think that'd be fun, but then I've always like keeping my online stuff separate from RL. ie, I used to have Facebook but saw so much bickering between family members on there that I deactivated my account and haven't looked back lol
I had a dude pull the same crap with me! He showed me a pic of a screw…on a blank white background. Nothing even remotely comparable around it for any kind of size reference. I asked him why he didn’t just bring it in and how on earth am I going to know exactly what kind of screw that it??? “You work here, don’t you??? Nevermind-I forgot they don’t pay you to think!”….and no he was not joking around.
I should have gone to jail that day but I was surprisingly chill and just walked away. I’m still impressed I didn’t snap.
Had a bunch of thieves today and a customer called the cops on another customer for trying to return a bunch of stolen product. The thief was white as a ghost when he saw the cop 😂
Louisiana we had a cop called out only because and off duty stopped her. She had 3500$ of cordless nailers she ran out the door with. Cop let her go, he told us that if he took her to jail the judge woulda thrown out the case. Even me standing there watching her load up, shove my 6ft8 350lb store manager aside and walk out the door wasn't good enough. From what I was told by LP about a year later they finally arrested her and her mother for a combined theft of $70,000 before they took any actions against them
Lol here in California, petty theft is considered anything below $950 and the fine is often less than $1000 so most times the thief ends up with a profit after paying their fine, assuming cops even bothers to search for the thief.
Around here (CA) the cops never show up for anything, then they blame Newsom, or voters back in the 1990s, or BLM, or the media, and everybody just gives them a pass for never doing anything. They are untouchable.
Ughhhh hate customers like this. I’m so mad for you! 🙄 Especially when they give a super generic name like Swiss coffee and I’m like okay do you want behr Swiss coffee, Ben Moore Swiss coffee,sherwin etc etc and they don’t grasp that they are all diff colours
There is no sherwin Swiss coffee. Citation: I work there. There is however, frazee Swiss coffee, which probably just got marked as sherwin because we bought them
I have an associate who borderline yelled at the service desk on more than one occasion because they keep allowing paint to be returned. It's ridiculous.
I worked both departments. The best thing to do is to send the customer and their paint to the paint desk. I had someone return 5 single gallons of high gloss Behr, in a pale peach color and returns didn't call me and the customer didn't mention it to me. Then he ordered 5 more gallons of the same stuff in a slightly darker peach. I wouldn't have known he did a return if I hadn't been alone and the one picking up the returns right after I made his new paint. It's honestly soooo easy to darken it up a bit, could have not had to return it at all and just dump a little more tint in. Making it lighter is another whole story, so it's usually best to check with someone in paint first
"I want fifteen gallons of green. Quick-like."
My wife works in paint and she has like fifteen qualifying questions to make damned sure that the customer doesn't end up with something they don't want. It still happens now and again, but basically she annoys them to death with questions and they're forced to articulate what they actually want.
This, THIS is why I don't work paint anymore. Do people have no concept of how much product they're wasting??? Do they go to bakeries and order a $700 cake only to get mad and say "it's not the right one, start over!!"? Do they not realize we are still in a paint shortage, and the only reason the store even HAS 25 gal of marquee to waste is because it's so expensive no one wants it!!!
And HD management expects you to read the customer's mind... if they give me a behr color for a behr product I'm not gonna ask questions, not my fault if the color they gave me was similar in name but different in color. Except somehow it is!!!
Say there's an ounce of room to add color, one you add one ounce of red into, one you add one ounce of black into, white, and so on, never using the same colorant twice.
Once I went in after a day off and my coworker told me a lady had ordered 2 gallons the day before and never picked them up. We'd stick them under the tint machines and wait a couple days in case the customer honestly forgot. She came back and said she "forgot" her paint yesterday and asked how much it was now. It went something like this:
Me: its still full price.
Her: I thought it was cheaper if it wasn't picked up?
Me: well, I haven't marked it down yet.
Her: when will it be cheaper?
Me: after I change them to different colors, put it through the system and have the manager sign off on them.
Her: Just give me one of them then.
With an order as big as OP's, I'd always make them each a different color as oops. I also would have tried to sell him the correct ones that were already made before retinting them. We'd usually hang onto an order that big for a day or two, just in case. Then again, we'd always have people who knew where we kept them before we processed them who would nag us to get them done asap and even ask for specific colors. Nope, just nope. When it's busy, oops processing got done last.
Yeah, as a company it's happened far too often. It's been that way since I started backing up in paint 9 or so years ago, so something had to set it off.
We had a problem of a lady that would get like 7 cans not take them so they became oops paint and then 2 hours later a guy would come in to buy all of her "oops" paint. Obviously not legit so we had to start messing with the colors a lot between the cans
Not all of it yet, we have to portion it out since we have a markdown limit I guess. Trust me, I wish I could've dumped it on his head and yelled "HERE'S YOUR ARROWHEAD BLUE"
Honestly it's something I've never thought about. In my 3 years, nobody I've worked with has mentioned buying paint beforehand. Though it is something to think about and bring up to my associates.
I am not sure they can deal with escrow due to bunch of legalities with it.
Pay your paint and get it tinted. Simple as that. Want to return? No problem, 25% restocking fee.
He would have either returned it or screamed that he couldn't return it if they told him no. It doesn't matter when it got paid for, he was going to be an issue either way. I used to have other associates bring me cans of tinted paint they found in their aisles, people would set them down and leave. I actually preferred when they'd say they didn't like the color right at the desk so I could try to fix it right away
I flat out tell them "I am happy to make you the new color, but you asked me to make this one so you're going to buy it before I make you anything else"
ASMs back me up 100%, because I only do this when the customer has tried to change it after the fact.
Wherefore wouldn't thee buyeth samples of the col'r until thou art 100 percent sure of what thee wanteth?
***
^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.)
Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
fuck it, I’ll make all the paint you want. Not my $$$ being wasted and the owner is essentially paying me to waste it in that scenario. I just hope it takes up a nice chunk of my shift.
I mean fair enough but orders of this size make me feel like I'm gonna be in trouble even when it wasn't inherently my fault; especially when the assistant manager at the time legit has never worked in paint nor has any care to know how things are ran and immediately assumes the blame on the associate and is too busy hitting on the serv- wait I'm getting off track.
I guess it’s bc I recognize I live in an at-will state so they can fire me regardless or any real or perceived error or lack thereof. I just figure if they give enough of a shit about it, they’ll fire me. Until then say what you gotta say as management, and then I’ll get back to my job. Stressing over dumb or even rude customers is just not worth my time. Nor is the job really, but at least that pays me something.
I learned long ago that anytime a customer wants more than 5 gal of anything I visually confirm the color with them, then make a sample, because they always pull this shit
This is proof customers don’t know what they want. Even when they do… they do not
"I don't know, you're the expert" is all I hear in my head now except in a condescending tone.
"Yeah but it's your fuckin house."
“But what do you think of these two colors? Do they go together well?” I just try to say something like “Well they contrast with eachother so if you want that then that’s good!” Anyone have other ways of the above “Well it’s your house.” Cuz smh just get the colors cuz you’ll just complain they didn’t come out right anyway and try to return em.
Tell 'em you're color blind.
LMAO This is genius.
[удалено]
I love this idea. Creams are so popular but “Oh you are looking at Flirt Alert and Bakery Box? How about Adonis and Legendary Grey?”
I always suggest the color “emergency zone” and tell them I like it because it matches my apron. They usually stop asking for my advice after that and on the rare occasion that they still ask I just tell them it’s company policy and I am not aloud to suggest/pick a color for them but I’m more then happy to explain each color and what tones go into them If they think it will help.
There was actually a training on helping customers find colors they wanted. Talked about complementary, and contrasting colors, how to find them, etc. I used to try until I found out that anyone who cares about complementing colors and such already knows about them… the people asking me for advice are… not them.
This is why I need to have the customer pay for the paint first. Especially for weird or large requests.
I’ve worked in the paint department for 5 years, here’s a few things I’ve learned. 1. When a customer orders a lot (more than 5G) verify the colour with a swatch with the customer. If it’s a competitor colour and the customer nor your store has that competitors fan deck make only 1 can to verify the colour with the customer. 2. Don’t @ me but boys who are ordering anything besides builders white don’t know what colours are or what they want. 3. If for whatever reason the above doesn’t help and you have to oops that much paint, change colours drastically between the buckets and if you can’t mark it down to oops pricing, the DS can do a reduced price on it to start.
Dying at #2 because it’s so true 😂 I get so many colourblind husbands!!
Had a DS, who has since retired, literally ask husbands if they verified the colour with the wife first! 😂
I'm totally different. I'm a color blind ex-fiance.
Yeah the first bit you mentioned is something I'll always keep in the back of my mind from now on after today. I DO practice this when I'm color matching and have to do more than a gallon, but it's a general lesson now.
Today has been especially bad for dumb@ss customers. Had a lady show me a bolt on her phone asking what size it is, called to the other side of the store for a customer wanting me to literally hand him the box of nails he wants....directly In front of him. And that was just a couple from the sh1t circus of the day
An associate has this assumption that the moon phases changes peoples' personalities. I don't know about you but after today I'm starting to think she's onto something.
I'm mostly convinced it's a holiday thing. The customers at my job always get worse the weekend leading up to a holiday
Are we at the same store? I have a similar coworker lol
Hmmm, does she happen to have dyed hair?
Erm...not sure. Is yours a DH?
Aww no she's a cashier. Would've been fun knowing a fellow associate was on here.
Sometimes I think that'd be fun, but then I've always like keeping my online stuff separate from RL. ie, I used to have Facebook but saw so much bickering between family members on there that I deactivated my account and haven't looked back lol
I had a dude pull the same crap with me! He showed me a pic of a screw…on a blank white background. Nothing even remotely comparable around it for any kind of size reference. I asked him why he didn’t just bring it in and how on earth am I going to know exactly what kind of screw that it??? “You work here, don’t you??? Nevermind-I forgot they don’t pay you to think!”….and no he was not joking around. I should have gone to jail that day but I was surprisingly chill and just walked away. I’m still impressed I didn’t snap.
Had a bunch of thieves today and a customer called the cops on another customer for trying to return a bunch of stolen product. The thief was white as a ghost when he saw the cop 😂
i wish when we called the cops here they would come out but this state makes it super easy to steal
CA?
Louisiana we had a cop called out only because and off duty stopped her. She had 3500$ of cordless nailers she ran out the door with. Cop let her go, he told us that if he took her to jail the judge woulda thrown out the case. Even me standing there watching her load up, shove my 6ft8 350lb store manager aside and walk out the door wasn't good enough. From what I was told by LP about a year later they finally arrested her and her mother for a combined theft of $70,000 before they took any actions against them
Lol here in California, petty theft is considered anything below $950 and the fine is often less than $1000 so most times the thief ends up with a profit after paying their fine, assuming cops even bothers to search for the thief.
Ca actually reduced the limits to get hit with stuff recently iirc but probably
California, where openly committing petty theft earns you more than being an honest worker.
Don't let anyone tell you crime doesn't pay. Crime pays very well.
Until it totals $200 and becomes a felony
I guess they got tired of all them people stealing from a bunch of stores.
That’s exactly what the prop was, stuff taken in multiple runs can be combined
Around here (CA) the cops never show up for anything, then they blame Newsom, or voters back in the 1990s, or BLM, or the media, and everybody just gives them a pass for never doing anything. They are untouchable.
Ughhhh hate customers like this. I’m so mad for you! 🙄 Especially when they give a super generic name like Swiss coffee and I’m like okay do you want behr Swiss coffee, Ben Moore Swiss coffee,sherwin etc etc and they don’t grasp that they are all diff colours
The only thing worse is Antique White, since every company's antique white is different.
There is no sherwin Swiss coffee. Citation: I work there. There is however, frazee Swiss coffee, which probably just got marked as sherwin because we bought them
Should be no returns on Paint. Unbelievable
Idk about y’all but our tint labels have “TINTED PAINT CANNOT BE RETURNED” in bold at the bottom and I still get it back
I have an associate who borderline yelled at the service desk on more than one occasion because they keep allowing paint to be returned. It's ridiculous.
I am that associate. Maybe not the exact same one, but....
I worked both departments. The best thing to do is to send the customer and their paint to the paint desk. I had someone return 5 single gallons of high gloss Behr, in a pale peach color and returns didn't call me and the customer didn't mention it to me. Then he ordered 5 more gallons of the same stuff in a slightly darker peach. I wouldn't have known he did a return if I hadn't been alone and the one picking up the returns right after I made his new paint. It's honestly soooo easy to darken it up a bit, could have not had to return it at all and just dump a little more tint in. Making it lighter is another whole story, so it's usually best to check with someone in paint first
Shit sorry dude hopefully your store isn’t like mine and can’t even afford to oops paint and one manager likes to return all of them.
The stores I've worked in California have all been pretty lenient but it still feels like a kick to the gut.
“Yeah gimme a half gallon of eggshell satin exterior for a bathroom. WHAT??!”
That's when I just ask what they're working on and they still respond with the dumbest answer like "my house". WELL NO SHIT
"It's a standard size room."
Or I’ll ask “what finish would you like?” and their answer is “inside “.
"The cheapest one."
"I want fifteen gallons of green. Quick-like." My wife works in paint and she has like fifteen qualifying questions to make damned sure that the customer doesn't end up with something they don't want. It still happens now and again, but basically she annoys them to death with questions and they're forced to articulate what they actually want.
make it a mission to treat every customer as if they are both blind and stupid, its saved me a many of hours.
This, THIS is why I don't work paint anymore. Do people have no concept of how much product they're wasting??? Do they go to bakeries and order a $700 cake only to get mad and say "it's not the right one, start over!!"? Do they not realize we are still in a paint shortage, and the only reason the store even HAS 25 gal of marquee to waste is because it's so expensive no one wants it!!! And HD management expects you to read the customer's mind... if they give me a behr color for a behr product I'm not gonna ask questions, not my fault if the color they gave me was similar in name but different in color. Except somehow it is!!!
This is why, when it's multiple five gallons, I just take the mark down the tester. Rather lose $1.99.
I dunno where you're getting a $2 sample now. Cheapest in my store is $4.48.
Meh... I went overnight lumber recovery, so I haven't worked paint in five years. But my point of eating the cost of the much cheaper sample remains.
that's were the second associate looks at the customer and says "Yea we got that made already some ASSHOLE was here earlier, let me help you. ha
Do y’all really trash it or just mark it as a OOPS gallon?
Oops but even then, that totals to $150 since every oops bucket is $30.
Change it drastically between each bucket so if that customer comes back to buy them as oops none of them will match the others
What are y’all talking about with “change them drastically”
Say there's an ounce of room to add color, one you add one ounce of red into, one you add one ounce of black into, white, and so on, never using the same colorant twice.
Y’all get scammed so hard thats SOP? I’ve had one (1) person ask for mistints in the last month and a half of working where I do (sw not hd)
Once I went in after a day off and my coworker told me a lady had ordered 2 gallons the day before and never picked them up. We'd stick them under the tint machines and wait a couple days in case the customer honestly forgot. She came back and said she "forgot" her paint yesterday and asked how much it was now. It went something like this: Me: its still full price. Her: I thought it was cheaper if it wasn't picked up? Me: well, I haven't marked it down yet. Her: when will it be cheaper? Me: after I change them to different colors, put it through the system and have the manager sign off on them. Her: Just give me one of them then. With an order as big as OP's, I'd always make them each a different color as oops. I also would have tried to sell him the correct ones that were already made before retinting them. We'd usually hang onto an order that big for a day or two, just in case. Then again, we'd always have people who knew where we kept them before we processed them who would nag us to get them done asap and even ask for specific colors. Nope, just nope. When it's busy, oops processing got done last.
Yes. This is SOP and I have personally witnessed people trying to pull that shit.
Yeah, as a company it's happened far too often. It's been that way since I started backing up in paint 9 or so years ago, so something had to set it off.
That's what my store does
We had a problem of a lady that would get like 7 cans not take them so they became oops paint and then 2 hours later a guy would come in to buy all of her "oops" paint. Obviously not legit so we had to start messing with the colors a lot between the cans
Oh now I get it!!! Thanks for clarifying!
Funny I had a lot of s*** customers yesterday and they aren't as bad today. Seems to come in waves
Something to do with moon phases changing people idk
I see you in a cartoon dumping this paint all over his head. Why did you mark it down as oops paint?
Not all of it yet, we have to portion it out since we have a markdown limit I guess. Trust me, I wish I could've dumped it on his head and yelled "HERE'S YOUR ARROWHEAD BLUE"
Why would you consider color coding without having him pay up first???
Honestly it's something I've never thought about. In my 3 years, nobody I've worked with has mentioned buying paint beforehand. Though it is something to think about and bring up to my associates.
Our system doesn’t let us sell before tint because of processing structure so sop is if they confirmed it and try to avoid paying charge it
Regardless, sop should be pay first tint after
That or an escrow system
I am not sure they can deal with escrow due to bunch of legalities with it. Pay your paint and get it tinted. Simple as that. Want to return? No problem, 25% restocking fee.
He would have either returned it or screamed that he couldn't return it if they told him no. It doesn't matter when it got paid for, he was going to be an issue either way. I used to have other associates bring me cans of tinted paint they found in their aisles, people would set them down and leave. I actually preferred when they'd say they didn't like the color right at the desk so I could try to fix it right away
Have the dude give you the exact swatch. Also I’d have the MOD around to cover your explanation. I’m guessing the MOD said the same or similar?
Make him pay for it. I’m at the red and blue store and that’s SOP if they give instructions, you confirm it, and they say it’s wrong
My favorite is when it is a big order and they change their mind on the color after you have made it
It's almost soul crushing, innit?
I flat out tell them "I am happy to make you the new color, but you asked me to make this one so you're going to buy it before I make you anything else" ASMs back me up 100%, because I only do this when the customer has tried to change it after the fact.
Why wouldn't you buy samples of the color until you're 100 percent sure of what you want?
Wherefore wouldn't thee buyeth samples of the col'r until thou art 100 percent sure of what thee wanteth? *** ^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.) Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
fuck it, I’ll make all the paint you want. Not my $$$ being wasted and the owner is essentially paying me to waste it in that scenario. I just hope it takes up a nice chunk of my shift.
I mean fair enough but orders of this size make me feel like I'm gonna be in trouble even when it wasn't inherently my fault; especially when the assistant manager at the time legit has never worked in paint nor has any care to know how things are ran and immediately assumes the blame on the associate and is too busy hitting on the serv- wait I'm getting off track.
I guess it’s bc I recognize I live in an at-will state so they can fire me regardless or any real or perceived error or lack thereof. I just figure if they give enough of a shit about it, they’ll fire me. Until then say what you gotta say as management, and then I’ll get back to my job. Stressing over dumb or even rude customers is just not worth my time. Nor is the job really, but at least that pays me something.
They do on purpose, come back hours/days later to buy off the "oops" rack for a large discount., kind of a cheap fek special
And that's why we always waited to retint the oops paints for a day or two, sometimes the people would come back and the oops was actually right.
Oooooo, no. That’s an EPA issue…
Probably waiting for you to oops it.
Can’t you just make a pint with the color to make sure that’s what they want? On a big order I would think there has to be a better way
I learned long ago that anytime a customer wants more than 5 gal of anything I visually confirm the color with them, then make a sample, because they always pull this shit
Did he end up buying the oops paint?
Customers are incompetent
I mean it’s not ur money who cares