Me Lately

This post is just an update on what I have been doing lately. Of course, you who read my work every week can tell that I try to keep up with my writing. But what I do when I’m not writing can sometimes be annoying. Take the company I work for as an example. I have been with the company just over a year and the people I work with are great. But the way this company (corporate leaders) think doesn’t always make sense.

Here we are soon to be entering the month of July in Florida and this is what they decide. Pack up all the fall and winter stuff and send it back to the warehouse. Sounds good right? Now what I find humorous about this is that they just sent us a truck full of long sleeve winter stuff. Hmm… And now we’re sending it back after we went through the whole process of receiving it and placing it on the store floor? And the plan is that I last heard was, this merchandise will be at the warehouse for six weeks. Six weeks? That’s it? All this work of picking, scanning, packing, and loading for only six weeks? Hmm…

Well, we haven’t finished boxing everything up yet because we ran out of boxes. The truck that we have at the moment is now full of what we had packed. So, now they have to send us a new truck with more merchandise in it, hopefully not winter, and process it so we can have an empty truck to load more of what we packed. Because our store is an outlet I understand the variety of product that we keep in it. But, wouldn’t it make more sense to not send us a truck at all for a couple of weeks instead of packing up the bulk of what we have and send it out for a short time?

All the work and man hours that we have put into doing this project could have gone to a complete straightening of the store. See, like many other companies now they expect one person to do three jobs at one time. We are not robots. Things don’t always get done the way they should when too much pressure is put on one person. So, sometimes in a big store, things get neglected because time also runs out. That’s why the company should allot more hours for people to work the store floor on a regular basis. And not expect one person each shift to do it all.

This makes me wonder if anyone in the corporate offices have ever worked an actual store before? The employees I work with bust their butts to get stuff done and it never seems good enough. I know a few other people who work for other large companies too who bust their butt but are rarely appreciated for it. I do have to say though that my managers I have now who I work under show their appreciation more than before. That’s all employees want is to be respected and to be told that their hard work is appreciated. Not constantly getting a whip cracked at them.

This brings me to a thought that a coworker of mine said to me the other day. He’s about twenty some years younger then me and it made sense. He pointed out that some people in the older generations might say that someone his age doesn’t want to work because he quit a previous job. When the reasoning for quitting was that the company again was expecting one person to do way more than any one person should be expected to do. He was tired of putting up with the demands that they had. I of course wrote this in a politer form than the way he expressed it. But you get the idea. He’s right though, eventually a good working person is going to get tired of the corporate crap and quit.

And you know what? It is possible that the greed that the corporate positions have for their own pockets is what is making the average person hate their job. The thinking that companies have now is that there is always someone who could use a job so who cares about the good employees they already have. As long as they make money, that’s all that matters. It’s sad but I believe it. That could be why there are so many miserable people out there. Big corporations just don’t care about their employees anymore.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to hear what your employee family is saying? Understand what might work better on the storefront instead of always focusing on the personal greed of the company? I see sad faces of employees a lot when I’m out shopping. The unwillingness to greet people with a simple hello and a smile. It could be something more personal but I think a lot of it is because companies are so demanding. There is more push and demand everywhere then there is, we did it and thank you for all your hard work.

Well, there is something else that bugs me the way big companies have been. And it’s been like this for years now. And in my thinking again is that it’s all about greed. I understand that goals are important but some logic is sometimes missing. My issue is reaching certain numbered goals that corporate sets without a full understanding. For example; the foot traffic in our store varies from day to day. We are not the type of store that will have everything you need. Every store has their regular shoppers and there will be new costumers from time to time.

If you have let’s say ten regular shoppers who come in once a week and maybe two new shoppers each day, that is 24 shoppers in a week. Now, the regular shoppers already have credit cards so now you have to solicit the 14 new shoppers. Your goal for the day is to get ten successful credit applications. Seven of the fourteen say yes, let’s save some money. Two of those apps are denied but the other five are accepted. Now the other seven just don’t want another credit card. So, now you didn’t make your goal of ten, you only got five. Each week this negative score can hurt your store.

To me, it’s a bunch of crap! It’s corporate greed and they didn’t get their bonus. The customer’s who didn’t want a new credit card still bought a few items but paid cash. So, how is this fair to the employee and the store because the shoppers didn’t want a new credit card? Credit should not be forced. Not all people can get or even want a credit card for fear of dept. Same as asking for emails. That is something personal to some people and they don’t just hand it out.

To me, making unnecessary quota requests and penalizing someone for not reaching it is crap! Again, setting goals can be healthy but if it isn’t reached, someone should not suffer because of it. Instruct them to keep trying and maybe inform them of a better way to reach the goal. A helping hand is better then a slap in the face in my opinion.

Well, that’s all for now on this subject. Please feel free to tell me about some things that you might have dealt with in the workforce. I do wish for you all to have a wonderful week.