Pit of Despair

[notalwaysright]

Well, we kinda have to keep the old break room. It's not that simple, but bottom line: we got a door. So no, the room isn't really bigger, but... DOOR! And it's a locking door! Excited about that. We got a new cutting counter, and I'm on the fence if I like it or not. I'm hoping it's just that I was very used to the old one, and change is hard.

It's just creating so much trouble, we should have closed. Serious. It's amazing that this is a national company with hundreds of stores, because based on this project, you'd think it's run out of somebody's basement.

People overreact so much. One lady ranted and raved to my coworker and said that she was "so mad, she could scream!" Mostly people keep saying "oh, you just remodeled recently!" And it's like, it's been about three years ago, and that was a small remodel. I have had a few very sweet people, though. One lady said she just knew it was going to turn out great. I guess that sounds small, but she was so nice. Another today told be she works for a large grocery chain which remodeled in the past year and she knows what we're dealing with. So that's it. It's a totally new ballgame each day, and add to that the general unhappiness with certain management, and fun times ensue.

[raudf]

Had my own fun with renovating while still opened. The Wall-Nut.. err mart, I worked at was just barely a 24/7 store when corporate decided it simply had to be a super center. This meant they needed to first expand the building, which meant the Bud's next door had to die. It's lot was merged and they built on the grocery side. During all of this, they still had the store open. They hired people for set up crew, of which I was one, and had us moving the damn store around on a daily basis.. with it still open and SC being stupid to the point of suicide.

They could have at least had us building gondolas during the slow period of the day, but noooooo.... I don't know how many times we had to halt a peg board drop MID DROP, because a stupid idiot customer just had to have something that was right on the other side of the isle. Rather than go around construction, they walked right through the gondola and back to their buggies after getting said item. Peg board is not light. It's even harder to stop once you start dropping. And yes, we had the isles blocked with safety tape. It was like a challenge to the SCs, daring them to be stupid. (I seriously started humming that song a few times when it would happen.)

I think it's a misnomer to call it a "Grand Opening," if you never farking closed in the first place.

[notalwaysright]

I think it's a misnomer to call it a "Grand Opening," if you never farking closed in the first place.

We're also going to have a Grand Opening, though it was even more silly for your store which was a 24 hour store and never technically closed even at night, lol.

This remodel rant is mostly aimed at the crew who is working overnights. Other than the contractors, everybody is an employee at another location of the same company. These people are not great. I have heard that they are super mean when they come in at night. "You have to get the store cleaner, we can't take half the night cleaning up after you!" True enough, we're supposed to have each section completely spotless before they can move it. And we really are doing pretty well at keeping it nice for the remodel crew. Even when the uber-boss came to check she said it looked great. So all the whining is uncalled for. And they leave the place in shambles. I'm talking, a whole aisle worth of merchandise dumped in a pile on the baseboard.

They also eat on the pattern table, and leave disgusting crumbs and sticky patches all over. Today I found two water bottles forgotten on shelves, and a whole bunch of planograms shoved on top of merchandise instead of where they should go, posted in a clear plastic shield on the side/back of the fixture. It's a giant pain if those get lost, and why do they think no one will move them for 12 hours? They leave hand baskets of junk on the cutting counter. Not just stuff which was in the wrong spot. Merchandise, garbage, pegs, labels, you name it. Today they left fixtures in aisles, so that many were blocked at one end. They will say they finished a section, and it's just a lie. Maybe the pegs are in, but half of the stuff which goes on them is still back in the old location, so that doesn't count as done.

[notalwaysright]

The Big Register Move happened last night/this morning. Woooooooooow. The registers weren't working until about 7:30 AM, and we open at 9. The whole front of the store was a compete disaster. It would be hard to describe, but picture a bunch of random fixtures right in front of the doors. There was junk (electrical wire, large dust bunnies, misc tools, etc) on the floor by the doors. It was like walking into a flea market after the zombie apocalypse.

People walked in looked so confused. It really didn't look like we should be open, the store was not in any condition to be shopped. Again, aisles had random fixtures partly blocking them. We got a bunch of hanging signs (which are yay!) but they put up signs for the price checkers... Why is that a problem you ask? Because they haven't been installed yet.

[notalwaysright]

The price checkers are here, and they work and everything. We also got mesh bags, instead of hand baskets, which haven't gotten much use. Nobody realizes they are supposed to use them to shop, they assume (and it's a reasonable assumption) that they are for sale.

We got two new registers, which brings our count to nine. The layout is actually better, and the few positive comments have been directed at that. We have a true cueing line, off to the side of the doors against the wall, instead of directly in front of the doors. The line used to trail around, blocking all sorts of things including customers entering the store, seasonal, and floral. Now it doesn't.

The mood is still tense, as we're about a week behind schedule. Even though it's not our fault we still are hearing only negative. If you would believe New Manager, we're literally the worst store in the whole company in everything. I'd like to say that those people who work at a certain time of day are the only one's who hear this little pep talk. New Manager only ever opens, she has closed once in over six months. This is not at all how it should be. Managers should work ALL shifts, that's not just my opinion, that is policy. She hardly ever comes out of the office. She calls out all the time. But of course the go backs need to be completely finished each night, no matter what. The store needs to be cleaned, period. We need to improve our customer satisfaction, there is no excuse. She talks about people behind their backs. She rolls her eyes. She is very bi-polar, seemingly okay one moment and snappish the next.

I used to just think she was a bad manager, but now I really loath her. And you know what? If our store is really failing so hard, I would put the blame 100% on her shoulders. Since she's not really new anymore I believe I will rename her to Raging Bitch. (RB)