Profanity warning…..
I mentioned, a few posts back, that the woman who is now managing the department might not be the right person for the job.
Yah, about that….
Last week we had a sale on two brands of mulch that ended on Wednesday (May 11th). In addition the week was predicted to be absolutely lovely, weather wise.
Either of those factors makes for a busy as hell day. The two of them combined meant for a fucking busy week. And it was predictable that it would be like that. They were predicting that weather for the entire 10day forecast ahead of time, and that sale on mulch had been ongoing for over a week prior.
Every single, experienced, person in the department looked at that and was groaning (or swearing) in anticipation of how busy we were going to be.
Except, apparently, the department head.
Last week was also the week that the store was scheduled to have the floors polished. Why now and not mid-winter I don’t know (well, I DO, but yah….). This means that there are people in the store from the time it closes to the time it opens. And typically, when this sort of thing happens several departments will pull one or two people (the department head and maybe an additional person) off of their scheduled shift and have them work “overnights” to get stuff done that is hard to do while there are customers in the store. As long as it’s not a busy week this isn’t the end of the world.
Last week was not a good week to pull someone off schedule to do overnights. It was a really BAD week to pull TWO people off schedule to do overnights.
She did it anyway. Resulting in the rest of the department getting fucking pissed.
We were swamped all week, even after the mulch sale ended, just due to the lovely weather. Having had that additional one or two people, AS SCHEDULED, would have made a significant difference in our ability to cope. Even though one of them was one of the useless new guys, I could have at least sent him out to help people with mulch and help with the heavy stuff freeing up someone else to help customers inside the building.
Tuesday was such a fucking mess that I ended up in frustrated tears infront of a customer, who was pretty damn horrified at the mess he walked into even before that. And the rest of the week wasn’t any better. The one more useful newbie ended up BY HIMSELF in the department for 2.5hours on Monday because of it.
I KNOW we had customers leave pissed off. I KNOW we had customers who were mad cause they waited for 15-30 minutes for an associate to get free to help them.
I’m HOPING that they used the receipt survey to express that.
Cause not only did the department head make the decision to pull herself and one of the useless newbies off the schedule to do overnights (why him I have no idea, useless is the keyword here, I saw just how much work he was doing the night I closed last week), but then the assistant manager approved it as did the store manager. I SUSPECT that what they did was take her word for the fact that there was plenty of coverage and didn’t check it themselves.
Tuesdays the store manager has an “open office” day. Where us employees are supposed to feel free to approach her about problems.
I don’t normally take advantage of such. I’d MUCH rather deal with issues on a much lower level TYVM.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking up that offer to have a chat. Cause last week was fucking ridiculous. And it didn’t have to be.
Does not sound like a good situation all the way around.
Waiting to hear the “rest of the story” and hope it has satisfactory ending.
I was unable to catch the store manager this week, however she is aware that I’d really like 5 minutes of her time. I’m hoping she’s already aware of the issue, I know the dept head was griping this week about how they’re all on her case…..