"Not for Employee Use": Why Are US Retail Workers Being Denied Chairs?

[ruet]

"Not for Employee Use": Why Are US Retail Workers Being Denied Chairs?

Standing for long periods of time is part of the job description for servers, cashiers and retail employees – and managers want it that way. In the 1960s, Ray Kroc, the CEO who took McDonald’s from a small-time local chain to a global franchise, had a catchphrase: “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” Today, it’s still uttered by bosses in kitchens and warehouses to deter workers from slacking off – or merely taking breaks.

It’s a uniquely American ethos. Cashiers in Europe, and notably at the German grocery store Aldi, are welcome to sit down during their shifts. Zay said a British friend who had visited the US recently was jarred by the sight of workers constantly on their feet: “Why are they all standing?”

The same rules do not apply, obviously, to people with desk jobs. (Though sedentary workers face their own share of ailments that come from a life of sitting down from 9 to 5.)

“I think it’s a very classist thing,” Zay said. “No one would dare criticize a lawyer for sitting on the job. But in retail or the service industry, when the job is deemed to be unskilled labor, people get irrationally offended when they see you sitting.”

[Hela]

1. Not at Aldi.

Aldi cashiers have chairs/stools. I've always thought Walmart was stupid not to follow that model.

[EYESORE 9001]

5. European ownership - German and English

American business try their damndest to make work suck more than it already does.

[DBoon]

10. Many American retail workers are not in a union

A strong union in places like Walmart would prevent this

[rurallib]

20. Walmart went even further and turned its customers into free workers

who check themselves out, thus getting rid of workers who might lean a little.

[slightlv]

25. Amen, ruralib!

I refuse to use the self-checkouts until they hand me money for doing what the store should be doing to finish out my shopping experience. I don't care if it's Walmart, the grocery store, or anywhere else these horrible things have popped up. It's not a matter of money for me, tho... it's a matter of principle. Enough of a principle for me that my hubby and I often argue over this, which is why we go to the stores separately. He loves the self-checkouts.

[raging moderate]

2. We need to start a letter-writing campaign.

We need to start telling these stores just how we feel about this.

This is terrible!

[Aristus]

3. It's a combination of the Puritanical life-is-work ethos

and the greedy capitalist attitude: “How DARE you take a momentary pause in earning my wealth for me?!?”

[ShazzieB]

23. Exactly.

That's exactly what this is, a combination of both of those things.

The same factors are why we have such skimpy vacation and sick leave policies in the U.S. compared to western European countries, and why we don't get the kind of extended paid maternity/paternity leave that workers in those countries do. It sucks.

[kimbutgar]

4. In Europe employees in retail stores all have chairs if they need them!

I was at a store and saw an older cashier I have seen numerous times and asked her why doesn’t she have a chair ? She said it was against company policy but the next time I saw her she had a chair!

[BComplex]

6. In Wake County NC where the capitol is (Raleigh), all the people who work FOR THE STATE/COUNTY

ABC board, have to stand all through their shifts selling alcohol now because ONE young kid wouldn't get off his stool playing on his phone when a customer walked in, and the customer complained.

The ABC stores hire a lot of older workers, and it is torture for them to stand there behind the counter, not moving for hours. Those little cushioned pads for their feet do absolutely nothing to help the way their legs, backs and joints are degenerating.

Authoritarianism. It's a blight on humanity.

[druidity33]

7. As a cook in a retail coop...

there is no conceivable way we could work while sitting. Our cashiers are frequently asked to check prices from the aisles. The space behind the register is not big enough for ANY chair. A lot of things would need to change for this to even be PLAUSIBLE in the US. Anyone commenting here ever worked in retail?

[Biophilic]

15. Yes, several times and there was always seat to rest if needed.

[druidity33]

24. Well, we got rest breaks...

and lunch breaks. It is a Union job. But there was no space in our kitchen for seats. We needed open paths with no obstructions. Hot pans, you know?

[Biophilic]

27. That makes sense.

I worked in one commercial kitchen. There was no room for stools except early in the morning before things got started. Too much to do once things got going. Very different from retail.

[rsdsharp]

8. Years ago I worked in retail jewelry. At least three days a week, and sometimes four,

We had an 11 hour day — 9 AM-9:15 PM with and hour and a quarter for meals. Only two display cases — the wedding/engagement rings — had places were both the customer and sales person could sit.

There were no rules prohibiting sitting, but most of the time you were on your feet. I would develop callouses on the balls of my feet. They would extend about a half inch into my foot, causing numbness until I could remove them. That was from standing on carpet all day. It would have been worse on wood, or some other hard surface.

[CrispyQ]

9. It's part of the punishment for being a low-skilled worker.

Humiliation & degradation are part of the job. Wait staff, hotel staff, retail, anyone who serves the public, anyone who does a job that doesn't take much skill, if their employer says the customer is always right then you're open for abuse. If you've ever gone through drive-thru & listened to the people in front of you, it's stunning how few are even polite.

[shrike3]

18. This +++

[raccoon]

22. It's not smart to be ugly to anyone who's preparing your food.

[slightlv]

26. I think it's the same for most anyone who works for or with the public.

I've been a County employee and a Fed employee. It's amazing how many people will follow you around for a few hours, just waiting to find you doing something that offends them. It was particularly bad when I was a County employee. Even stopping a couple of minutes to run into McDonalds to use a bathroom could get you reported. I swear, when you become a government employee of any type of gov't, you give up all your rights and liberties until you're long past your shift.

[Freethinker65]

11. Part time mall retail worker here.

Developed a case of plantar fasciitis after months of standing on concrete floors in non-supportive shoes for long periods of time. Honestly there isn't much to do on the sales floor that doesn't require being up and about. Sitting isn't an option. Available stools for times as cashier would be nice. We have lots of retirees working 6+ hour shifts. There are plenty of complaints, but very few about not being able to sit down.

[ret5hd]

12. Why? Because we let them.

End of story.

As soon as we demand to be treated with dignity, we will.

Until then:
stand stoop kneel jump sweat die starve run

until they say you can stop.

[3catwoman3]

13. My very first job, when I was 16 in 1967, was at a J C Penney's...

...in the women's clothing section. If you worked until closing time, all the stock had to be straightened before we could leave - buttons buttoned, zippers zipped, belts buckled, foldable items folded, hangable items neatly hung.

The store manager was a rather prissy guy who always wanted the employees to "look busy." If you worked first thing in the morning, and there were no customers in the store yet, it was hard to look busy because everything had been left in perfect order by the evening crew. We would walk around pretending to straighten clothes that didn't need to be straightened.

Mr. Prissy would not have approved of chairs.

[intheflow]

14. I just encountered this recently.

Went into a newish shop that was absolutely dead. Got into a conversation with the sales clerk who lamented their sore feet. I asked why they didn’t sit for bit, they told me they were forbidden to sit while working! 😳 I do not remember this at any of my many retail jobs in the ‘90s.

[Warpy]

16. Most low wage workers are treated like this

because bosses are permitted to treat them like lazy, shiftless underclass people who need to be whipped into working.

It's one of the ways mediocre men get to feel powerful, by abusing other people at work.

These need to stop being called low skill jobs. There are skill sets to all of them, just not the skill set that will translate to a better job just to another similar, low paid job in the same industry.

[hibbing]

17. The Maestro- Seinfeld

Concerned for a security guard at Susan's uncle's store who must stand all day, George delivers a rocking chair to the store, using his standing as the owner's soon-to-be nephew to override objections. The guard is so comfortable in the chair that he sleeps through a robbery.

Peace

[NewEnglandAutumn]

19. retail pharmacy employee here

We are supposed to get 2 15 minute breaks as mandated by law. I have NEVER seen it happen. We get lunch and if we work through part of our lunch (30 minutes) they deduct it from our pay anyway. People who working the main part of the store do get their breaks. It has been justified to me with the reply 'we let you go to the bathroom whenever you want to'.

[keroro gunsou]

21. Walmart was "required"

By my ADA compliance request to have a chair/stool for me while I worked on register. They passively refused to comply by dragging their over large corporate asses getting me one in the hopes that I’d just quit or get fired. Well, bad news for them, I am a team player who decided to suck it up and hope against hope, they’d do the right thing. Alas, no, they didn’t. And all it took was a rampaging Karen, who misheard my grumbling about how my back was bothering me and turned it into a personal attack on her, and my store manager decided to fire me. And as an extra petty dick move in his part, he made one of my front end managers total up the cart the the Karen abandoned to show me how much I just cost Walmart… and apparently how little I was worth to them.

[lostnfound]

28. I suspect a way to cut health insurance costs

Health insurance is expensive as you get older. They can’t say ‘we don’t want to keep you on payroll if you are old or unfit or have physical problems”.
But the outcome…
And the law related to making accommodations is used to enforce this, if a worker says they ar heaving back problems but could do their job if they sit down, you have a choice between letting them (which means you he to make similar accommodations for others) or not.
Most hr corporates will push you to not make accommodations..

Something like that.

[Skittles]

29. enough with this "unskilled" stuff

EVERY job requires skills, fuck these elitist assholes