Happy Christmas

                                            What I saw when I went to clock in yesterday

                                                             My Assistant Manager


I was told to clock in as soon as possible.  It was 12:30 pm...it was her and the Receiver to deal with the annoying grumpy holiday shoppers.  There was one call off and no one would fill in despite claims of everyone wanting more hours. My ASM had been at work since 6 am to put out the freight truck.  The whole freight team went home.  She didn't get a lunch until 1:30 pm.  Neither did the Princess. 

At 1:30 another manager clocked in.  At 3, the Princess clocked out. 

My ASM was nice enough to stay so Brian and I could also have a lunch.  Then she left.

No less than THREE employees called during grumpy, mad customer time to find out when they worked next.  I put them on hold indefinitely.  My lines were in excess of ten people at certain times.  I had customers asking me questions from the clothing department WHILE I had lines in excess of ten people and I watched Brian run to and fro dealing with load outs, customer service, and legitimate customer phone calls. Not one of the employees calling for their schedule would bother to come in to help out.  They also didn't seem to be bothered that they were on hold indefinitely because we didn't have TIME to deal with their bullshit.  The schedules have been posted for THREE WEEKS!!!!

Once Brian and I finally got a breather, I suggested that we refuse to tell anyone when they work unless the schedule hasn't been posted ahead of time and just hand out write ups when they don't show up for work.  I work with adults.  I believe every single person is at least 20 years old.  Old enough for some accountability.

The call off was legitimate.  Jason's mom had fallen and broken a wrist.  He had to go to the ER. She's in her seventies.

There was one hour with sales in excess of $2,500 and NO BIG TICKET ITEMS.  This means I was a very busy girl taking off ink tags and throwing away hangers. 40 transactions per hour doesn't sound like much until its only one register and every customer comes up to it with some or several articles of clothing that need extra fussing over.

The store finally closed.  I took the cash drawers back to the office and began counting.  Brian drove the stupid Massimo around back and parked it in the back room.

And then, more fun.

The garage door we use to get the forklift in and out of the building would not close.  It broke. A brand new, one month old door broke.  The manual over ride was no help.

We called in the other ASM who is on loan to us while we are Manager-less.  He also fails to get the door closed.  He calls the service number on the door.  The company is located in some town none of us have ever heard of and an emergency service call is $800.  The reason the door won't go down is some mechanism inside the roll has jammed it up. 

After 45 minutes of fiddling, it miraculously closes. The boys paint a sign that says not to open the back door. 

My husband was nice enough to buy me a fifth of vodka once I made it home.

Wonder how today will go with no back door or forklift?

This Week in Retail

These things happened.

1. I watched an Assistant Manager sniff an electric heater and declare that it smelled "yummy." Smelled like a heater to me...worse, I had to smell it to see if, indeed, it did smell "yummy."

2.  I watched a co-worker inflate an inflatable deer toy....and the valve stem was between the deer's back legs...there was no foot pump included.  I just looked up and there was her head between a deer's back legs. Ummmm...wow...I thought this was a family oriented company?  She asked me what I thought...I said "I think it looks like you're blowing a deer."  No sure what else I could possibly think.

3.  Aforementioned Assistant Manager then told a different co worker to "Make sure all the balls are hanging to the left."  Ummm?  What the fuck?  Turned out there are Santa hats over the signage in the clothing department and he wanted them all hanging to the left...yep...wow.   I never would have guessed.

4. A customer spent four hours in a Tractor Supply Company store. Yep. Really. She arrived when I did, and left four hours later...midway through my shift with an overflowing cart full of clearance junk and a hitch packer. No idea what exactly took four hours to look at...but...um...wow.  I have a hard time killing four hours in there and I work there.

5. The Spurminator made an appearance to drop off something for a customer and berated employees' forklift skills. Um, sir?  I know a few tales about your mad forklift skills.  You took down the flaps at the back door with a forklift.  And you encouraged someone to move three tons of feed stacked vertically with a forklift and the ensuing disaster made the back aisle wall come down.  Umm...two tons is pushing it on that thing..it gets really light in the rear end...and that's the drive end.  So let's not talk shit.  The worst most of  us have done is ripped open a random bag and gotten the thing stuck in weird places, not brought down a wall with feed pallets.

6.  An Assistant Manager and I raided the Princess' secret food stash. Yep.  She has a file cabinet drawer FULL of cookies and assorted goodies.  Apparently she is constantly eating....PLUS she has the break room fridge full of things with her name on them.  Wonder if she's counted her cookies?  Assistant Manager seemed to believe they were quite yummy!  He also nomed a block of cheese cloaked in a  bagel wrapper that had her name on it.