Ignorant Manager:
The other day, I was actually really busy doing work all day. I just finished putting out a bunch of stock, and I took a minute to check our mail. We've been getting a lot of e-mails regarding furniture being discontinued and such, so I wanted to keep up on that.
As I was reading over an e-mail, my store manager came up and automatically snapped, "Don't you have something to do?"
I gave it right back to her: "Uh, yeah, I'm checking the mail."
She really needs to lay off. She just automatically assumes I'm slacking off now. You need to find out what I'm doing before you snap at me or question me.
It really was stupid of her to say anything to begin with because I couldn't do anything that wasn't work-related on that computer anyway. All sites are blocked except for our company's. You're just making yourself look like an ignorant
Low-Staffed:
People have been quitting left and right [Can you blame them?]. Right now we have three people who have put their two weeks in (one of which is in our department), and they're not hiring anyone to replace any of them. In fact, corporate suggested we don't hire anymore people and just use the staff we have to fill in the empty spots [As if we don't have enough to do already.]. Boy, this is starting to sound like a typical business shortcut to me: "Let's save money for our company by burning out our employees. Let's work them until they're within an inch of insanity."
Right now they've sent the entire ladies' coats department down to Shoes "until further notice." What does that do to us upstairs? Well, let's see: The upstairs includes Baby Depot, Youth, Linens, and Ladies' Coats. They've already gotten rid of the Ladies' Coats manager (last year; she now works in Sportswear and occasionally Linens), sent the youth department manager downstairs to Sportswear, and my department manager is running Youth and Baby Depot. Now that they've sent everyone from Coats downstairs, we run that department, as well. We're already low-staffed in our respective departments, so you wouldn't have wanted to see the situation this weekend.
We always get a lot of buses from Canada every weekend. Last weekend was like Christmas time (our store made $85,000 and we got about 20-25 buses), and this weekend was only slightly less busy. It was still back-to-school time since a handful of schools in this area didn't go back until today. There weren't many of us upstairs to begin with, but they made three of us put in backup drawers (including me). Luckily, I didn't have to ring that day because they pulled me at 1:00, but the others did. I did, however, have to go down and help bag. How many people were left upstairs that day? Two. One in Baby Depot; one in Youth (which was one of our Baby Depot people). On a Saturday. Are they insane?
When my manager had to go to dinner, I came back up to take her place in the department. I was running around like crazy the rest of my shift. I helped one person after the next and almost every one said they were searching for 15-20 minutes, looking for someone to help them. At least they were understanding of my plight, but I am only one person, and this is just ridiculous. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be the only person running most to all of the upstairs on a busy day.
On Sunday I had to run a backup drawer a few times, so my manager and one other person were left to run the entire upstairs. Yesterday, I was by myself from 7:30 on, but there were only three of us between 1:00 and 5:00. Granted, it wasn't overly busy yesterday (busier than I thought it would be though), but it's still stupid.
I wish a lot of customers would write to corporate complaining about this. They shouldn't have to rely on one person to help them all out. Needless to say, it's not fair for me to be pulled every which way all day and hear the potential whining of someone who had to wait a half hour to get help.
Thankfully, last night, one of the managers noted to a coworker that she thought I was doing a good job and am a good worker. It's nice that someone is noticing and not always assuming I slack off. Makes me feel like my work isn't completely unappreciated and thankless.
Drawer Mishaps:
As I said above, I had ring on Sunday as a backup. Unfortunately, I must have made a mistake somewhere because my drawer was $120 over. I've run a register hundreds of times at Dollar General, and I've never been over that much. In fact, I couldn't think of anything I could have screwed up on, so I was hoping it would be determined to be an electronic mistake.
Nope. It was apparently something I did. Now I'm getting written up for it. One more time, and I'm out the door. Quite frankly, I would rather not risk my job for something like this. Ringing on that register is a secondary job that they've required for us now. I'd so much rather be exempt from this. I can just go back to being a permanent Baby Depot associate. I'm also afraid to say anything because I don't want this situation to be misconstrued as purposeful so I could be excused from the registers. It's touchy. I just would feel more comfortable in a safe zone. I'd rather not touch their money at all if I can help it.
...And Styes:
All this stress has apparently caused a nice physical representation on my face now. I don't have one or two styes but three. I have one in the corner of my left eye and two on my right: one in the corner and one in the middle. My eyes have been so sore and puffy. Yesterday, my left eye was starting to bruise up underneath. One of my coworkers said I looked like a druggy. I could barely keep my eyes open, and they were somewhat bloodshot and watery. Like I needed this...
They're not quite as sore today, but they're still a little puffy and watery.
So there's my week/weekend in a nutshell. Can you see why I want to pull my hair out or jump off a cliff?
2 comments:
Hrm. Well, I don't think they're going to be in any hurry to fire you. They need your warm body.
Frankly, I'd put in applications in other places. There are better places to work retail than a place that has two people for an entire floor, one of which is in a department where people constantly require assistance.
try a warm tea bag on your eye it will help reduce the stys.
Post a Comment