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Titles/TANK the worst place on campus

 
Old 09-20-2012 at 06:29 PM   #1
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Old 09-20-2012 at 06:31 PM   #2
Leeoku
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It is a self sustainable business for them... Have you tried looking for used books first?
Old 09-20-2012 at 06:41 PM   #3
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You should apply for a job at Titles and treat all customers with love and respect so no one goes on Macinsiders and rants about it !

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Old 09-20-2012 at 06:57 PM   #4
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At the beginning of the year when everyone is scrambling for books, I agree. Wait a little while when things die down a lot more and I found them to be quite helpful, as long as you don't ask them overly specific or technical stuff that I don't see why they would know anyways
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Old 09-20-2012 at 07:37 PM   #5
Allan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arjunbhaga View Post
I went 6 times in one day to the TANK, and they hadn't even unpacked the boxes.
That's a bit excessive, give them a day at least. They are obviously swamped with orders at the beginning of the school year.

That's like complaining about the post office for mail being late during Christmas time.

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Old 09-20-2012 at 07:43 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arjunbhaga View Post
I just wanted to say, that when shopping at the TANK or Titles....the employees literally know nothing! They are rude, and get frustrated with your questions...AND: books are never available! I went 6 times in one day to the TANK, and they hadn't even unpacked the boxes. It is totally incorrect, this is where universities make a mistake...all they care about is money.
First of all, its not possible for some employees to know where every single book is located, whether its in or not, when it will come in, where the boxes are located in storage, or when they'll be unpacked. Not to mention some Titles employees are hired for the book rush and may be new, and already dealing with job stress from having randoms ask them questions they don't know the answer to. Your best bet is to ask somebody at the counter (info desk in titles, back desk in the tank) or random 'important'/'knowledgeable' looking senior staff.

Secondly, if they were rude (I doubt they actually were), its very likely because you were asking something that could have been researched and figured out beforehand. If you clicked through all your courses, hit find my textbooks, printed out or wrote down the names and all that stuff, went to the tank's book list and store map, found the appropriate section, and finally failed to find the particular book, then that's the time to ask. You may have done this, but many don't and decide to just naively ask a orange shirt with no effort.

Lastly, don't go back more than once a day. When I've asked for info on stuff the typical response is 'check back next week' (this is, of course, asking an experienced person, not a random orange shirt). In general titles isn't really needed because 80% of your books can be found online for 1/3 of the price.. titles is there more as a convenience. (exceptions: coursewear)

tl;dr:

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Old 09-20-2012 at 08:03 PM   #7
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I find them to usually be nice and helpful. I did have one bad experience though. Beginning of first year, I asked an employee where something was. She shrugged and pointed me to a different employee. That employee pointed me back to her. She was extremely rude about it - meanwhile, I was just doing what the other employee said. She flat out did not want to put any effort into helping me. The guy next to her took pity cause I guess he saw the look on my face, and actually directed me to someone who helped.

I get that they are stressed, but a good employee should *never* give attitude to a customer, even if the customer is being a jackass (Which I was not). But it happens. Overall I think they are pretty good and friendly. There was only that one incident.

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Old 09-20-2012 at 08:55 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanC View Post
First of all, its not possible for some employees to know where every single book is located, whether its in or not, when it will come in, where the boxes are located in storage, or when they'll be unpacked. Not to mention some Titles employees are hired for the book rush and may be new, and already dealing with job stress from having randoms ask them questions they don't know the answer to. Your best bet is to ask somebody at the counter (info desk in titles, back desk in the tank) or random 'important'/'knowledgeable' looking senior staff.

Secondly, if they were rude (I doubt they actually were), its very likely because you were asking something that could have been researched and figured out beforehand. If you clicked through all your courses, hit find my textbooks, printed out or wrote down the names and all that stuff, went to the tank's book list and store map, found the appropriate section, and finally failed to find the particular book, then that's the time to ask. You may have done this, but many don't and decide to just naively ask a orange shirt with no effort.

Lastly, don't go back more than once a day. When I've asked for info on stuff the typical response is 'check back next week' (this is, of course, asking an experienced person, not a random orange shirt). In general titles isn't really needed because 80% of your books can be found online for 1/3 of the price.. titles is there more as a convenience. (exceptions: coursewear)

tl;dr:
That is probably one of my biggest pet peeves EVER. Asking someone else something that you could relatively easily look up yourself

And yeah, to the OP, you should go work at Titles, in the Tank, during the September rush. Seriously, and then you can try getting all the boxes unpacked within an hour of their arrival and on the shelves, while trying to show students where all of their books are when 90% of the time all they need to do is follow the signs (granted, sometimes the sign for the specific course is missing, or the books aren't there, but 90% of the time when people ask all they need to do is follow the signs).

Also, about the money grab statement, as someone mentioned Titles is entirely self-sustaining. Your tuition dollars do not go to Titles. Your entrance scholarship, however, was likely partially funded by Titles. It's not in Titles' best interest for your books to not be available, but there's only so much room on the shelves, and a ton of people in the class, so there needs to be restock-time. It also depends on the publisher and whether or not Titles has physically received boxes of books.

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Old 09-20-2012 at 10:55 PM   #9
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"Posts like this frustrate me to no end. First of all, coming six times in one day is ridiculous. Secondly, you happened to pick a day where staff were moving ALL of the first year textbooks to the Tank. So yeah, they were just a tinsy bit swamped. Unpacking your particular books are not the first priority, go back the next day and try again. It's not the end of the world.

I would love to see people with your attitude attempt to work during rush period and then try to complain.

And actually, I DO know what I'm talking about and I DO know where things are and how to handle things. Don't expect rush employees to know these things, ask to speak to a senior employee or a manager. Clearly not a hard thing to do. Thanks."

- From a Senior Cashier at Titles.

I pretty much agree with the above and everyone else, people need to ctfd. If you don't get why dealing with hundreds of idiots everyday might get some people frustrated, then you should experience a job in customer service.
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Old 09-20-2012 at 11:16 PM   #10
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never had trouble locating books at the tank- 1 time they were sold out of a book but it was easy to order and i had good customer service, also reasonable number of cash registers open- i stood in line this year at humber for an hour and a half because they only had 2 cashes going and the line went all the way around the bookstore
Old 09-21-2012 at 12:14 AM   #11
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haha... this seems like the exact customer my roommate was telling me about last year!
Old 09-21-2012 at 09:08 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
I pretty much agree with the above and everyone else, people need to ctfd. If you don't get why dealing with hundreds of idiots everyday might get some people frustrated, then you should experience a job in customer service.
Excuse my ignorance but didn't they know about the hundreds of idiots when they signed up for the job?
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Old 09-21-2012 at 09:23 AM   #13
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Originally Posted by Afzal View Post
Excuse my ignorance but didn't they know about the hundreds of idiots when they signed up for the job?
Not necessarily. For one, it's actually astounding how incompetent some people can be, and many people aren't aware how draining it is to deal with that all day every day. Honestly, some people walk into Titles or the Tank, not even knowing what classes they're registered in, let alone what books they want, and get annoyed when the staff can't immediately tell them where their books are.

For another, unless they have changed it, it's the same application to be a rush cashier vs to be one of the rush employees on the floor, and you just get assigned wherever. So it's very possible there were people who wanted to be cashiers to largely avoid dealing with things like that, but ended up on the floor.
Old 09-21-2012 at 12:27 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by starfish View Post
Not necessarily. For one, it's actually astounding how incompetent some people can be, and many people aren't aware how draining it is to deal with that all day every day. Honestly, some people walk into Titles or the Tank, not even knowing what classes they're registered in, let alone what books they want, and get annoyed when the staff can't immediately tell them where their books are.

For another, unless they have changed it, it's the same application to be a rush cashier vs to be one of the rush employees on the floor, and you just get assigned wherever. So it's very possible there were people who wanted to be cashiers to largely avoid dealing with things like that, but ended up on the floor.

Uh, you're incorrect. Rush cashiers are quite literally hired to be cashiers. Everyone, including the senior cashiers, gets scheduled to work the floor sometimes. We're all trained to do it and are all aware that it will happen.
Old 09-21-2012 at 02:07 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by sarahsullz View Post
Uh, you're incorrect. Rush cashiers are quite literally hired to be cashiers. Everyone, including the senior cashiers, gets scheduled to work the floor sometimes. We're all trained to do it and are all aware that it will happen.
I said "unless they changed it". That is how it was when I applied. I handed in an application, and was not told until the first training day which I would be doing.
I know the cashiers are hired to be cashiers and sometimes work on the floor, my point was in response to Afzal's comment about the people applying knowing what they'll have to do before the apply. You could apply wanting to be a cashier and end up working on the floor 100% of the time.



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