It’s a common query, heard throughout the day. When you’ve just come in, it’s a reasonable question. You’re happy to go and have a look and find out. And now you’ve looked and know that there are in fact, none out back.
When you - six hours into your shift at this point - get asked, ‘well how do you know unless you look?’ you’re less than pleased. But the customer wants to feel acknowledged. So you say you’ll double check and march off to the back.
And there you stand, just inside the door. You nod to your mate, check your phone and just do nothing in particular for an amount of time that seems appropriate, before returning to say ‘you definitely don’t have any,’ and ‘sorry for taking so long, just wanted to confirm that stock control were chasing it.’ Customer placated, job done.
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Here’s a common truth about retail: It it’s not on the shopfloor, you can’t sell it. So it’s no good having stuff out back is it. |
 
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For anyone who has never actually worked in a shop, ‘the back’ is a mythical place. A expanse of unlimited stock capacity. Like that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but full of crisps.
What treasures the area beyond those swing doors must house. Everything you could ever want and more.
These people have never heard of just in time logistics.
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So, for the uninitiated, what is actually out back?
Bins full of rubbish.
Rubbish that won’t fit in the bins because they’re already full.
Empty cardboard.
A bag of shopping that a customer said they’d be back for but no one is sure what their name was or what they look like, or even how long they’d be, and no one wants to take the risk of putting it back, just in case they come in.
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The clocking-in machine. A filing cabinet (won’t have the form you need). Mop and bucket. Pricetag origami. Stepladder. A pallet truck. Henry Hoover. |
A noticeboard with a last week’s rota, some tatty inspirational quotes, and not enough drawing pins to hold it all together.
A handset that someone has left not charging, even though the charger is right there.
Mismatched shelving and brackets.
A staff member sitting on a step looking lost while the nice lady who’s been there forever is saying nice things to them.
Twelve boxes of the same line because someone a few years ago got confused between items and cases when they put the order in and they haven’t shifted.
And yes, OK, so maybe there is an unworked delivery. But, here’s the thing, the customer wants something that’s right on the bottom of the cage, and you’d have to unstack the whole thing, then restack it all and anyway you were going to work that section after your break, and the customer didn’t even say please, so let’s just say you’re sure there are in fact none out the back.
