I used to work in a returns dept for a big manchester computer parts reseller ( better not say who ). And the attitude at the time from the boss/management sums it all up really "just get the job done and i dont care about your problems. This department doesnt make us any money, in fact you loose us money... so if you dont stop siding with the customers and issuing refunds some of you are being replaced with people who know how to do what they are told " : This came from the boss almost word for word.
The returns department to them was just an evil that had to be endured, we were understaffed and constantly harrased by the the sales staff and their super ego's about their customers being "unhappy with the service and speed it up you wasters". We usually had maybe 2 people working in the department at a time due to the pc building team manager stealing staff to help him out. We had to answer a 60/min pc "helpline" as well as the normal returns telephone ( both rang constantly ) as well as staff the returns counter ( busy constantly ) AS WELL as test and deal with RMA's that came in by post. We were supposed to get a 30min lunch break but this never happened most of the time and if the boss came down and there was a queue at the counter he would go mental ( in front of the customers ) and call us all sorts and say we were lazy.
Another fun thing we had to endure was "monday morning" when we would open the door to the dept and usually find a huge pile of pc bits filed up on the counter. This was left by the sunday staff ( the counter sales was open but the returns dept wasnt ) who had simply replaced stuff on the spot for customers and dumped the old bits on us. No rma numbers , customer details or anything. The boss would always come down first thing and go on at us to "get it tested and back into stock before 10!" Some of the stuff wasnt even ours, and sometimes it was incomplete or physically broken so worthless and should never have been taken back in the first place. Guess who got it in the neck? yup we did, not the sales staff.
I expect not a lot has changed in these sort of business's, the management HATE the whole returns department idea... it costs them money and they get nothing back for it ( in their eyes anyway ).
You were treated as a bonded slave and pretty much anything you said was ignored. You would be fired on the spot and rehired the next day quite often. This was the sort of place that would fire someone and then fabricate "warnings" and such to get out of any legal actions you might try to pull on them. The whole of the upper management were lying scheming scumbags who would sell their grandmothers hair if they could. The ONLY thing that meant anything to them was money, morals and decency could take a running jump.
I wouldnt mind but the business was doing great and it wasnt as if things were on a knife-edge. It was simple greed.
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