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This year is an anniversary divisible by 10 for my workplace, so they're having a "Birthday" Celebration. They didn't have one 10 years ago or 10 years before that, as far as I'm aware. I suspect Ted pushed for it, but I don't really know.
The organizing for this event hasn't been very well done. Ted had 3 or 4 employees working with him at the main branch to organize their event. They got t-shirts, did a radio ad, newspaper ad, but forgot that they could put an insert in with statements. They're having food and ice cream. And they're handing out prizes and trinkets.
Here at our farthest branch, though... We weren't given much direction. We weren't given a budget, but when BM came up with a dollar amount, Ted got nervous. He said that was more than any other branch was spending, other than the main one. Well, we're the biggest branch other than the main one. Ted eventually said it was fine, but we shouldn't spend more than that. So no extras or frivolities.
We don't have the budget for a radio ad. We're going to put an ad in the local shopper, but not the bigger area newspaper. We remembered to do statement inserts last month. We're getting all our food and drink at a superstore, so we're going super cheap. BM is going to bring his grill. The hot dogs are the only thing that need to be cooked, for food safety reasons.
We're doing a drawing for gift certificates bought from local businesses, heavily skewed towards businesses that have accounts with us. We also have a bunch of knickknacks and things that are gathering dust because they're cheap and we don't want to give them out. We're going to put them out on a table and let people take them.
The t-shirts arrived at the main branch this week. They put ours in the mail. I'll be amazed if we receive them in time for the event next week. We were asked to wear them for the event, but not to work afterwards. Not even on casual Fridays. But we were encouraged to wear them "out and about" in the community. I told a coworker that I have a new painting shirt. Because meh.
BM is off today. We're pretty sure he didn't buy the gift certificates yet. We're only open half a day Monday the 3rd, and obviously closed Tuesday for the 4th. For non-USAians, Independence Day aka the 4th of July is a huge holiday for us. Especially in small, conservative towns like ours. Especially in the chilly north of Minnesota, where we only have a few holidays where it's warm enough to be outside and celebrate. The 2nd through 4th are "Patriotic Days" with the Main Street blocked off. Vendors, food trucks, games, bouncy houses, music, parades. We've got all that small-town celebration stuff. All this is to say, if BM didn't get the gift certificates yesterday, he probably won't be able to get them until Wednesday, the last day before our event. I hate this kind of BS of waiting until the last minute.
Also, Ted has been saying for months that we're finally going to get social media accounts. The main holdout had finally retired. The gal who was hired to replace her was happy to run our social media accounts. But nothing happened. Ted went over things with our IT guy, or so I heard. BM indicated that the bank's social media accounts were dead in the water. A few days later, the gal who was going to be in charge ot the bank's social media accounts quit. I don't know if it's related, but I suspect so, at least tangentially.
The whole thing has felt half-assed. And poorly communicated. BM doesn't seem to think of this as a way to draw in new customers. But he views newspaper ads the same way. And apparently, many of the upper management and the IT guy don't see social media as important for gaining or maintaining customers, either.
There's also the little thing of it being the bank's X0th anniversary, but when the current bank bought the old one almost 15 years ago, they'd just celebrated their 100th anniversary. I expect we'll have a lot of the older customers commenting on that. "I bet old [Original Bank President] is rolling over in his grave." etc.
The organizing for this event hasn't been very well done. Ted had 3 or 4 employees working with him at the main branch to organize their event. They got t-shirts, did a radio ad, newspaper ad, but forgot that they could put an insert in with statements. They're having food and ice cream. And they're handing out prizes and trinkets.
Here at our farthest branch, though... We weren't given much direction. We weren't given a budget, but when BM came up with a dollar amount, Ted got nervous. He said that was more than any other branch was spending, other than the main one. Well, we're the biggest branch other than the main one. Ted eventually said it was fine, but we shouldn't spend more than that. So no extras or frivolities.
We don't have the budget for a radio ad. We're going to put an ad in the local shopper, but not the bigger area newspaper. We remembered to do statement inserts last month. We're getting all our food and drink at a superstore, so we're going super cheap. BM is going to bring his grill. The hot dogs are the only thing that need to be cooked, for food safety reasons.
We're doing a drawing for gift certificates bought from local businesses, heavily skewed towards businesses that have accounts with us. We also have a bunch of knickknacks and things that are gathering dust because they're cheap and we don't want to give them out. We're going to put them out on a table and let people take them.
The t-shirts arrived at the main branch this week. They put ours in the mail. I'll be amazed if we receive them in time for the event next week. We were asked to wear them for the event, but not to work afterwards. Not even on casual Fridays. But we were encouraged to wear them "out and about" in the community. I told a coworker that I have a new painting shirt. Because meh.
BM is off today. We're pretty sure he didn't buy the gift certificates yet. We're only open half a day Monday the 3rd, and obviously closed Tuesday for the 4th. For non-USAians, Independence Day aka the 4th of July is a huge holiday for us. Especially in small, conservative towns like ours. Especially in the chilly north of Minnesota, where we only have a few holidays where it's warm enough to be outside and celebrate. The 2nd through 4th are "Patriotic Days" with the Main Street blocked off. Vendors, food trucks, games, bouncy houses, music, parades. We've got all that small-town celebration stuff. All this is to say, if BM didn't get the gift certificates yesterday, he probably won't be able to get them until Wednesday, the last day before our event. I hate this kind of BS of waiting until the last minute.
Also, Ted has been saying for months that we're finally going to get social media accounts. The main holdout had finally retired. The gal who was hired to replace her was happy to run our social media accounts. But nothing happened. Ted went over things with our IT guy, or so I heard. BM indicated that the bank's social media accounts were dead in the water. A few days later, the gal who was going to be in charge ot the bank's social media accounts quit. I don't know if it's related, but I suspect so, at least tangentially.
The whole thing has felt half-assed. And poorly communicated. BM doesn't seem to think of this as a way to draw in new customers. But he views newspaper ads the same way. And apparently, many of the upper management and the IT guy don't see social media as important for gaining or maintaining customers, either.
There's also the little thing of it being the bank's X0th anniversary, but when the current bank bought the old one almost 15 years ago, they'd just celebrated their 100th anniversary. I expect we'll have a lot of the older customers commenting on that. "I bet old [Original Bank President] is rolling over in his grave." etc.
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