It's a hot mess of fails.

[notalwaysright]

'Kay, was going to put this in the Morons in Managment, but it just covers so much, it's going here.

Fail #1:

A few months ago we failed our audit. This is the internal store audit, not IRS. Part of this I have already covered, so I'll hit the highlights. The store manager (New Manager) did not show up because it was her day off. Audits are, of course, unscheduled surprise visits. Still, she should have come in.

Fail #2:

A couple weeks ago the store had inventory, and we did not make the goal. Predictably, New Manager acted like it was all everyone else's fault. The store hasn't had this high of shrink for years and years. And she doesn't really tell us anything constructive, just "now the store will be considered a high-shrink store. You will all be under a microscope, anything done wrong will get you walked out the door." You know what? That's not helpful. Plus, this has been her reaction to literally everything which has gone wrong since she started. I mean, we're supposed to do our jobs (cashier, cutter, stocker, etc) AND also do lots of customer service to prevent theft. Oh, and every single inch we sell of fabric must be perfect. Okay, I think I do pretty well, so I'm not going to change anything I do. I account for every freaking inch just like policy says.

Fail #3:

We failed our re-audit. Yeah. I heard that all the stuff which was audited was the same exact stuff which was audited previously. There is a huge amount of things which can be checked during an audit (and the auditor doesn't have time to check 100% of it), but the auditor was nice and just re-checked all the stuff we failed. She easily could have chosen all different items. So if New Manager had fixed the stuff we failed last time we would have passed easily. But nooooo, nothing was fixed! We had over 90 days!

Ongoing Fail:

So the company I work for is finally listening to complaints about items being low or out of stock. Of course, they are doing it wrong. They could fix this simply by allowing us more hours to schedule stockers. Anyway, our store is one of a list of test stores who are getting much more inventory to see whether this actually sells, and if it's worth it to stock a large amount more. We are getting 2x or 3x more stock of many things. But here's a shocker... We aren't getting even one single more payroll hour. The store is supposed to sell the items in order to make money and then we will have more hours to cover the extra payroll. Who followed that logic? Anyway, so our trucks are huge, we need to schedule more people, and then we are so terribly overspent on hours that everything else suffers.


TL;DR, Our store has been failing everything, the SM blames other people and doesn't do her job, corporate is stupid.

[Racket_Man]

. Who followed that logic? .

Remember where you are posting. THAT IS CORP. LOGIC. DO more with less and we will STILL complain you are doing it right or good enough.

[XCashier]

But here's a shocker... We aren't getting even one single more payroll hour. The store is supposed to sell the items in order to make money and then we will have more hours to cover the extra payroll. Who followed that logic? Anyway, so our trucks are huge, we need to schedule more people, and then we are so terribly overspent on hours that everything else suffers.

Corporate just does not understand "you have to spend money to make money". We can't get the store up to standard or serve each and every customer if they won't schedule enough people to do the work. Yet they're too shortsighted to see how this will affect future business; they want to make and save money now.

And they want us to keep an eye out for shoplifters. Then what? We don't have any loss prevention people, or any training on what to do when there's a shoplifter.

Not one ounce of common sense, yet they have the six-figure jobs.

[notalwaysright]

For all the scary complicated formulas and statistics and "research" corporate has, I really think they just sat down and said, "so people keep saying we're out of stuff. let's sent the stores some more stuff." Like just having the merchandise in store is all that matters, not extra people on freight day, or stocking, or recovery. And they stopped letting us have a crew come at 4 AM to stock/recover. Now these people come at 8 AM, and only have one hour without customers pestering them non-stop.

We're told not to do anything about shoplifters. You can ask if they need help, but that's it. We have several large, tattooed women on staff who tend to just stand right next to a shoplifter and silently stare at them. This has worked on many occasions, but is generally frowned upon.

[ComputerNecromancer]

On of the big problems with most corporate logic (and far too many non-corporate folks as well) is that they do not understand one, simple *basic* concept regarding statistics.

They see that the "average" (mean) number of customers (or amount of sales, or whatever) is X. Which would require Y staff (hours) to handle.

What they don't get is that this means that *50%* of the time the sales/customers will be *above* X and that means they'll be understaffed!

There are simple ways to analyze the data to determine the staffing required for a given level of coverage (ie so that the staffing will be adequate 75%, 90%, 95% etc of the time)

Of course, the flip is is that if you are staffed to cover 90% that means that there will be a lot of times when the "traffic" is below 90%. Even below 50%. Which means you will have "wasted" staffing costs.

But you can't have it both ways. If you want to have adequate staffing for 90% of the situations, you *will* have times when you are overstaffed for the *actual* traffic.

This is *inherent* in the random nature of customers.

And I do wish consultants had the balls to say stuff like "What percentage of the time do you want to be understaffed for the traffic you get?"

And then explain that zero percent is just plain not possible.

If you only want 10% instances of understaffed, you have to staff for the 90% coverage level.

And they'd need to go on and tell them (based on the statistical analysis) what percentage of the time they'd be *overstaffed given their desired coverage level.

If companies would actually do this sort of analysis (and do it *right*). They'd be able to compare lost sales & customer annoyance from understaffing against "excess" costs from "over"-staffing.

And I bet you the balance ppoiiunt would be at a lot higher staffing (and stocking) levels than going for "average".

[sstabeler]

the thing is, in an annoying number of places, Corporate seems to just consider that if it needs twice as many employees working, then everyone needs to do the work of two people. Oh, and if the customers notice, then everyone gets told off.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Curb shoplifting, you say? Okie dokey, we can't do anything except "customer servicing" them into dumping whatever they'd been planning to steal, or calling the LP lady (if she's even around, and she's useless in a chase situation anyway because she comes to work in fancy dresses and high heels) or trying to pry one of the managers away from their desk.

Well, we could try to clean up the store a little bit, except we're too strapped for time and have too few people to do that. I understand the reasoning--a would-be thief will be more likely to steal from a messy store because they assume there's either nobody working or the people who are working don't care.

Of course, our problems with massive theft in jewelry are not due to the company's decision to remove the jewelry cases from all the stores. They are just trying to make the jewelry department more accessible and inviting. They most certainly didn't do this to cut yet another low-wage position.

Oh, and now we are required to scan outs in cosmetics every day. That is one of the most profitable departments in the entire store and needs to be getting the attention it deserves.

Also we must scan outs in HBA, grocery, household supplies and pet supplies daily. The company estimates this will only take 60-90 minutes most days; that's reasonable.

All this is communicated to us in increasingly direct, to-the-point memos from corporate and management. The word "expect" is used a lot. The company expects, the DM expects, we expect, and so on.

As I like to say, expectations are disappointments in training.

[XCashier]

And they stopped letting us have a crew come at 4 AM to stock/recover. Now these people come at 8 AM, and only have one hour without customers pestering them non-stop.

That's insane! Whose brilliant decision was that? We come in at 5 AM to stock, and can get almost everything out before the customers arrive. We sometimes come in at 3 AM when we're doing a store reset. (Honestly, it's worth the lost sleep to not have to deal with customers while stocking!)

We have several large, tattooed women on staff who tend to just stand right next to a shoplifter and silently stare at them. This has worked on many occasions, but is generally frowned upon.

Why? If it stops shrink, it's brilliant. What corporate doesn't know won't hurt them.

[Android Kaeli]

And they stopped letting us have a crew come at 4 AM to stock/recover. Now these people come at 8 AM, and only have one hour without customers pestering them non-stop.

When I was still working at Random Craft Store I'd be in at 3 or 4 am with the rest of the stocking crew, we got a lot done but then some of the stocking crew were still pitching fits that they had to be at work before the cows came home. So it went from us being at the store at 3 or 4 am to 5:30 am.

Unfortunately this caused a lot of problems with those who, like me, had a second job they had to go to later in the day. This was one of the many reasons (and problems) why I scaled down to one day a week before quitting.

[wolfie]

Not one ounce of common sense, yet they have the six-figure jobs.

Naturally. Remeber basic physics: Power = Work/Time.

Also, two cliches in business: Knowledge is Power, and Time is Money.

Substitute them into the equation and you get Knowledge = Work/Money.

Rearrange the equation and you get Money = Work/Knowledge.

As you can see, as Knowledge approaches zero, money rises to a ridiculous level regardless of how little work gets done. This explains the salaries of the top brass at Corporate.

[raudf]

Think of the WM super centers, where they don't shut down to stock. My oldest and I went into one at 10pm due to "shit happens and we're out of toilet paper." Almost literally.

I had to explain to my oldest why there were pallets of stuff everywhere. It began with, "Well corporate had this 'good idea' and decided that the store should never close. That's fine and dandy, mind, because some of us are night owls. During this shift, they have people that come in and do stocking, because this is a time when there are fewer customers to pester the ever loving daylights out of 'em."

"Okay, so why so few cashiers? It's still crazy busy here."

"Because, son, corporations all have their heads up their asses." I'm blunt with our oldest.

[notalwaysright]

Newsflash? I guess after all that fuss over not having staff in the store before business hours, now we can again! So, a few months ago it was all "we can't have employees in the store when we aren't selling things because all hours are based on selling and you're not selling when the store is closed!" I'm not even going to touch that "logic." Anyways, it was a big deal and everyone was fairly pissed off.

Now, without even a word, there is a crew scheduled for "pre-opening" at 4 and 5 AM. Really, corporate? I wonder if the original change wasn't made by the DM who would have been brand new at the time. You know, come into a new job and make a bunch of changes? And then corporate's like "no, don't do that."

Raudf, when we are forced to stock when the store is open it's... grim. The stockers are hurried, and often are brand new so they don't know anything other than the exact area they are stocking. We get many complaints about how "rude" and "unhelpful" they are. Yes, we're all supposed to do customer service as the first priority, but these people expect hand holding to the extreme. Anything short of "yes of course I can help you with that, and I can also wash your car, pick up your dry cleaning, and paint your house" is unacceptable.

[XCashier]

Yes, we're all supposed to do customer service as the first priority, but these people expect hand holding to the extreme. Anything short of "yes of course I can help you with that, and I can also wash your car, pick up your dry cleaning, and paint your house" is unacceptable.

Oh good grief, yes! So many customers don't know what they're doing, don't want to know what they're doing, they want to be "crafty" but don't want to do any actual work such as measuring, cutting, sewing, etc. It's mind-boggling.

I have even had customers ask -- as in, demand! -- that I do their sewing for them. No way will I ever sew for someone else. I know very well they'll nitpick every step, every stitch, want to know why I'm charging so much, demand silk but only pay muslin prices, etc. I've read enough horror stories on here from craftspeople to know that I don't have the patience to sew for anyone but myself and immediate family.

[dalesys]

... I've read enough horror stories on here...

I've heard enough shrieks as Momma runs her pinkie through the triple needle Singer again...

[Kanalah]

I have sewn through the index finger on my left hand so many times that it doesn't bleed anymore. It hardly hurts. Really creepy for hubs when I'm sewing, because I yelp - I don't want to mess up the quilt - not that it hurts.