It's Pathetic.

My company expects me to be knowledgeable enough about my department to serve our guests with distinction, but no matter how much I beg, they refuse to provide me any information whatsoever.

Case in point: The geniuses in the corporate marketing department dropped a 48 page flyer in today's paper. It's a wish-book for our toy customers. Nobody informed us at the store this was going to happen. We had to find out from customers who came in wanting to know where all these items are that have been featured in the book.

We had no idea what they were talking about, because our store did not carry any of the items in the flyer. I find out several hours into my shift that we only received TWO copies of the flyer for the entire store, and nobody bothered to give one to the toy department people like me who just MIGHT need it in order to serve our guests. The flyer mentions in very small print in only a handful of places that the items are only available at the company website.

The whole shift I was wondering what kind of moronic pencil-pushing bureaucrat-numb-nut came up with this b*s* campaign? Nobody in logistics had any idea where the products were, either. They haven't received any of them.

I was beyond furious. It was a floating-up-on-the-ceiling, looking-down-at-my-body, kind of furious.

Here is what's really sad -- in order to find out information on products and new releases featured by our department, I have to go read the company website, on my computer at home, on my own time. I know that "Big Blue," our competition, copies everything we do down to the last detail, so I go look at their website as well, to find out what my own company is doing.

People ask me when we are going to receive certain titles in music or movies. Since the store management refuses to provide me that information, I have to read up on it at the company website on my own time without pay. I do that only because I truly care about our customers. I don't give a rat's a* about the careers of the leather-chair executives who haven't a single clue what sales-floor work is all about.

W.T.F. kind of b*s* is that?

Even though the company won't pay me any kind of sales commission, the guests expect me to "sell" them when I help them with the digital cameras and video games. People actually ask me what I know about product news and reviews.

I believe I just may have to leave this company and go to work for someone who will pay me enough in sales commissions to make it worth my time to read up on products, trends, and reviews. They only pay me enough to be a cashier, nothing more. Not enough to be tech support or a salesman.

There's an old saying in business: "you get what you pay for." Since they don't pay me much, guess how much they're going to get.