Doomed To Repeat Them.

You know the old saying about people who don't learn from mistakes of the past.

Everywhere I've worked in retail, it's always the same. Corporate slashes payroll budgets in the first three fourths of the year, to cover for the final quarter. In doing so, however, they create conditions that drive their business away. Let me give retail executives a word of advice, if they want to keep their customers:

1. DO NOT cut payroll on the WEEKENDS.
2. DO NOT cut payroll on the WEEKENDS.
3. DO NOT CUT PAYROLL ON THE WEEKENDS!!

Weekends are the busiest time for general retailing, yet for reasons that just mystify me, companies do their worst budget cutting for that time frame. What happens is the remaining staff cannot adequately meet the needs of customers and handle the additional work load. Customers go away unhappy, and business is lost.

Of course, executives blame the clerks, saying they should work harder faster, but evidently they forgot their college economics classes. There's a concept called "Point of Diminishing Returns," meaning too much or too little of something is not necessarily a good thing. Cut payroll far enough and it becomes a PHYSICAL impossibility to complete the workload, no matter how hard the clerks try. Punishing them for corporate stupidity just diminishes morale, and then all the decent clerks who truly care for the customers leave for better employers.

What I would give to be able to get this through executive's heads! It's so simple, how can they not see it?

I Am Locutus, of Borg.

Digging around in the supply closet where they keep the PDT scanners and the walkies, I found the ear clip head-sets that go with them. So, I kyped one, attached it to my walkie, put the ear piece in, and adjusted the mini mike boom. I was good to go.

I wore the headset all during my shifts the last two days. Of course, I looked absolutely ridiculous. It didn't matter, because I was having fun with it. Customers looked at me oddly when I answered walkie calls as if I was talking to someone who wasn't there.

I'd go around pointing my PDT scanner at co-workers, fingering my head set, and pronouncing "I am Locutus, of Borg! Resistance is futile!" Sadly, only the Star Trek fans on the crew knew what character I was talking about, everyone else just thought I was being crazy as usual.

I Would Never Lie To You, Kid.

This evening I was zoning in the health care section, in front of the pharmacy.

Our pharmacy has one of those public blood pressure machines sitting next to it. This evening a kid climbed onto it, stuck his arm into the cuff, and pushed the button. The cuff started to puff up, grabbing onto the kid's arm. When he couldn't get his arm free, the kid started to freak out and panic.

His mother and grandmother turned back around, noticed what happened, and pushed the release button. They scolded him for messing with the machine, trying as hard as they could to keep from laughing. They told him the machine was only for grownups, and if he kept playing with it he wouldn't be able to get away from it.

I couldn't resist.

I pitched in and said "that's right. The machine will hold you prisoner and you'll be kept here in the store long after everyone's gone and the lights are out. That's what we do to kids who play with the machine..." His eyes got big as saucers. His momma covered her chuckles. "See? You heard the man. Now get away from that before we leave you behind...."

Some poor kid is going to have nightmares, I'm sure.

Monkey Business Management Secret #12

Stop, Thief!

The day before yesterday we had a "crew" trying to work our store over. The A.P. guys had been watching them come in and out. They knew we were watching them, yet the kept trying all day long to jack us. That evening I was zoning domestics, and my buddy "J" from A.P. tells me that one of them is in the store again, so I tail her. As a regular floor associate I'm not allowed to do that, according to company rules, but I do it anyway because I hate professional thieves with a passion. Punks just piss me off.

She figures out I'm on her tail and tries to shake me, eventually walking back up to me to ask my opinion about the stereo she was holding, which we both knew she was trying to walk out with. It's one of the older dodges in the book: the "get friendly with the guy who's tailing you" routine. She hands me the stereo and asks me to ring her up at the camera counter, which we were close to, but she had to go get a couple more items.

I wait for a couple of minutes and when I knew she had ditched me I checked for her further down the isles. She had left the building. This same scenario happened earlier in the day with one of her confederates, whom we had seen in a car with her. We got them both on camera. They managed to get some small items, but not the big stuff.

They gave me a "good job" card for the recovery (which was about $250) It's posted in the breakroom.

I Wish We Could Have One of Those At My Work.

Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints. Music composed by Esko Grundström.

Monkey Business Management Secret #11

"Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that, you've got it made."

-- George Burns.

News Travels Fast.

It seems that my company isn't the only one that's been dealing with an elevated sphinctre pucker factor lately.

I heard rumors that our competition, "big blue," is now requiring their people to wear khaki slacks and polo shirts in their corporate colors (like we do.) It's so funny -- years ago "big blue" was held up as the business to match. Now, just about everything my company does that's progressive, "big blue" turns around and copies.

What's the matter "smilie guys?" Can't come up with any more good ideas, so you have to borrow from everyone else? Or is it because your corporate attorneys advised you to minimize the possibility of a floor associate wearing anything that Rev. Al Sharpton can legally roast you over?

I bet your founder is rolling in his grave about now.

sphinctre pucker factor -- ELEVATED.

Lately out of no-where, management has become hysterically ANAL about anything we say to each other in the building and on the sales floor. They've announced that any kind of slang, metaphors, or lingo are forbidden at all times, not just on the walkies.

Yesterday they made the softlines staff go through every T-shirt in stock and remove any of them that had any kind of suggestive remark or advertisement for alchohol. (Interestingly, they didn't take out all the ones with skulls and dragons -- I would have thought those would be offensive to the Christians. I suspect that they don't care about Christians, just the left-wing liberals, like the kind who demanded the firing of Don Imus.)

The H.R. director mentioned to me in passing yesterday that when she spoke some pop lingo to her co-worker, one of the store team leaders raked her over the coals. All she said was "peace out, homegrrl, I'm going to hop in my crib." (For all you humorless, hysterically anal, hopelessly-out-of-touch "Type A" managers and executives out there, the literal translation runs as follows: "Fare thee well, my good friend and lady in waiting, the day is far spent and eventide approacheth nigh, wherefore I shall hie thee hence toward mine dwelling, for 'tis the end of my labors this evening.")

THIS COMPANY LOVES TO BRAG ABOUT A "FAST, FUN, AND FRIENDLY" WORK ENVIRONMENT, yet lately I see that it is all just mere hypocrisy -- pretty words we speak to potential employees but never really mean. The hypocrisy makes me want to puke. I hate, with a purple passion, all humorless type-A people. They should all just jump off a cliff and leave the rest of us to live in peace.

I Believe In Magic.

It just HAS to be magic. I don't know how else to explain it.

I worked the electronics counter today. Every time I'm back there, empty carts just accumulate all around the department. No matter how many times I drag them all up to the front of the store, they reappear all over the place when I'm back in the department.

There must be a space-warp wormhole at the front of the store that these carts fall into, and they teleport back to the electronics area. It's either that or they mate and give birth to new carts when I turn my back on them.

OK, WISE-GUY.

I was "zoning" in the sporting goods department towards the end of the evening. (No, I wasn't spacing out....that's corporate double-speak for straightening the shelves.) I had just spent some time working through the soccer section when my buddy "J" from Asset Protection walks up to me and says "Hey! How many times have I told you to stop playing with your balls in public?"

IT NEVER FAILS.

This cute little co-ed thing picks out an ornate dresser set and has me and a co-worker bring it up front on a freight flat so she could check out. At the checklane my co-worker follows his hunch and asks the girl per chance what type of car she has. She tells us that she has a little Honda.

('DOH!)

My co-worker tells her that it's not going to fit. She hops onto her cell phone. "Daddy? What do I do?" He tells her that he'll have to come back for it in the morning with his truck.

I wondered to myself "at what point when you were driving your little bitty scooter over here did you decide to buy heavy furniture?" My coworker gave me a sideways glance that almost had me rolling on the floor. Maybe this girl should keep up with her schooling, and then she'll get a brain to think with someday.

IX-NAY ON THE INGO-LAY.

Once again they got onto us for using radio lingo. It makes me laugh. This company brags about being progressive. If radio terms facilitate effective communication amongst the staff, what harm is there? I thought communication and getting the job done were company values.
Evidently, they aren't. It has to have been those whiny, moaning, babies in softlines. They complain about EVERYTHING. If it were my store, I'd tell those ninnies over there to shut the heck up and get back to work.

Monkey Business Office Lingo #8

BRAND:

1) noun. Name given to a product by its manufacturer.
2) noun, as euphemism. Abstract concept involving the entire identity of a person, place, thing, or organization as it is perceived by the public as a whole. An ideogram or over-all Gestalt linked to said person, place, thing, or group in such a way as to cause anchored feelings and associations.
3) noun, as corporate double-speak. Literally meaning "our way of doing things." When an employee proposes an idea that a manager doesn't like or can't steal credit for, said manager will often state to the effect the idea is not part of the "company brand." [translation: your idea sucks, and I can't claim credit for it, so we won't adopt it.]

Case in point: Often our work involves the use of walkie radios. We'll use radio-style phrases such as:

• "ten-four, I copy."
• "Johnny, what's your ten-twenty (location?)"
• "Rick, can you give me the four-one-one (information) on the lunch schedule?"
• "Breaker one nine, it's the Silver Desperado, I'm Westbound and down, peggin' the double nickle, catch ya on the flip-side, over. (Attention please, this is ME and I'm headed home because I'm done for the day, taking it safe as I drive the speed limit, and I'll see you next time we work together.)

During a group meeting on the sales floor management told us there had been complaints by humorless idiots on the staff and we were no longer allowed to use radio terms. The official reason she gave was that those words were not part of "our company brand."

Stupid Is, As Stupid Does.

I have a buddy who also works in the retail industry. Let's call him Fred.

Fred works for a nationally known "big box" retail chain. He often tells me about things that go on over at his company. Some of the things he describes simply amaze me.

Fred tells me that the customer service managers at his store allow cash to build up in the registers all day long, never removing any of it until the drawers are closed down at night. Having worked for retail companies who would threaten their employees with public execution if they ever let their drawers go over a few hundred dollars, I found this to be inconceivable.

"I'm serious as a heart attack," Fred tells me. "Just last night, they had me checking on a drawer in the express lane that had a two, maybe three inch thick stack of twenties in it." (Having worked at a bank and handled big money before, I estimated the dollar amount he described to be at least $6,000 if not more.)

"That's not counting the huge stack of hundreds, fifties, and checks that were in it, too." Fred continued. "Just think of all the names, addresses, and account numbers listed on those checks...and the electronics department! Don't even get me started about THAT register..."

"What did you do?" I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"I told the customer service manager, like I've done a zillion times before, and she just blew me off, saying that's just the way they do things. It really made me angry -- it's neither right nor fair to expect a low paid cashier to be responsible for that much -- it also puts his life in danger. If word gets out on the streets that the express lane has that much money on a given evening, that's just begging a robber to come in and point a gun at the poor cashier." Fred was ticked off beyond measure at the thought.

I recalled the register layout over at Fred's store. The express lane registers are wide open -- with nothing to protect the drawer from a "Till-tap," or grab-and-run with the cash. I also thought about the possibility that if one of Fred's co-workers were disgruntled, they could hop onto the Internet and post on a website or blog for all the world to see that a major retailer in the Oklahoma City area lets their cash accumulate in the drawers. 'DOH!

(Well, by golly shucks -- I would never advocate that anybody give out such information. It could happen, though, if management ignored the employee's complaints long enough.)

"I'm afraid of what could happen, really I am," Fred told me.

A Word Of Advice For All You Executives.

This is a special post for all those business executives out there who really think that they're something special, and that everyone else around them is a turkey.

Let me tell you a story.

A certain Roman named Gaius Germanicus was born to an Imperial household, and was destined to take the reins of leadership from his father one day. When Gaius was very young he accompanied his father on military campaigns. Soldiers nicknamed him "little-boots." In his adolescence his father died suddenly; many people suspected he had been poisoned by a rival, Tiberius.

In the years that followed, Gaius was shuttled from one relative's household to another, until he ended up as a ward of none other than Tiberius. Over time Tiberius arranged for the banishment or destruction of any of Gaius' relatives who had any proximity to the throne. Tiberius took great delight in humiliating Gaius at every chance he could. For years, Gaius hid his true feelings and thoughts. He served Tiberius in his household with every amount of loyalty he could muster, if only to stay alive.

One fateful day, with the help of a friend in the Praetorian Guard, Gaius managed to have Tiberius killed. Since the people of Rome hated Tiberius, they welcomed the event, and The Senate granted Gaius the right to inherit Tiberius' estate. Not long afterward, Rome declared young Gaius their emperor.

What finally happened to the cute little soldier boy who became Emperor?

You see, the Latin word for "little boots" is the word "CALIGULA." After his enthronement, Emperor Caligula went on a rampage of vengeance and reprisal against all who had harmed his family -- no one was spared until the very last drop of blood was shed. After that, Caligula ruled Rome with an iron fist and showed no mercy to anyone who dared to question his rule. He went down in history as one of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty despots ever to rule the Roman Empire.

So you see, dear executives, let me remind you of something Bill Gates once said: "Be nice to the nerds. One day you'll end up answering to one."

Be grateful you're surrounded by turkeys. If you were surrounded by anyone better, they'd have your head, and you'd be singing the "Enron Blues."

Have Your Cake And Eat It, Too.

A doctor, a lawyer and a manager were discussing the relative merits of having a wife or a mistress.

The lawyer says: "For sure a mistress is better. If you have a wife and want a divorce, it causes all sorts of legal problems."

The doctor says: "It's better to have a wife because the sense of security lowers your stress and is good for your health."

The manager says: "You're both wrong. It's best to have both so that when the wife thinks you're with the mistress and the mistress thinks you're with your wife -- you can go to the office and actually get some work done."

Monkey Business Office Lingo #6 and #7.

Reverse Logistics. noun. 1. Term used by "big box" retailers who have their own supply chains referring to the process of sending product back to the distributor for credit. (If you're talking about returns, just say RETURNS, dammit! Do you call your expenses, reverse income? Should we start referring to complaints as reverse compliments? Is forgetting something reverse learning? Where does it end?)

Smart -- adjective. 1. PREFIX attached to nouns so as to suggest the objects have something to do with technology, usually done by managers desperate to sound "hip." (Smart labels, smart shelves, smart cards, smart tags, smart carts, smart software... Adding an RFID circuit to a label does not make it smart. Nor does adding a computer to a piece of equipment. )

(Can a smart label call me a dumb-ass if I slap it on the wrong carton? If it could, it would then be a smart label, as well as a smart-ass label. Can a computer make a decision that it was not specifically programmed to make? Not yet. Until that time comes, the only things that can be considered smart (having intelligence) are people, and, if you ask me, not all that many people qualify either.)

[quoted from Inventory Ops Business Humor.]

"Is It In, Yet?"

They had me work in electronics the last couple of days. Everybody and their uncle came to me with eager, hope-filled puppy dog eyes asking if we had received the new DVD release of "Charlotte's Web."

"No, no, no, NO, NOOOOOO! A thousand times NO!"

"Why not?! It was released today, wasn't it?"

"The release date is when the discs leave the factory. It is NOT the day we put it on the shelves!"

[Paint me gold and call me Oscar! Jeeeez people! Get a freakin' life! It will get here when it gets here! Go home and smoke some of the weed that you upper-middle class snots never admit you grow in your basements! Better yet, play a board game with your spouses and children, instead of wasting away your eyes and brains in front of your over-priced plasma screens...]

Invasion of the Zombie Hypno Shoppers

Marketing research has shown that when people go shopping they enter a kind of altered state the resembles a slight hypnotic trance. Retail companies attempt to take advantage of this effect by constructing spacious vestibules or foyers placed between the front door and the rest of the store. The unconscious implication is that you leave the unhappy rational world behind as you go through a archtypal "transport tunnel" and emerge into another bright, happier, and more fulfilling world of shopping.

The fun part comes in when you get a chance to watch people as they pass through the vestibule and enter the store. Many times you can see the change in their state occur almost instantly as you observe the changes of muscle tone in their faces and bodies . Their eyes go from a hurried, alert look to a more dazed, zombi-fied look.

What's really fun is watching them bump into each other and then half mumble their apologies, while they stand there trying to figure out where they want to go next. As I bring up empty carts to stack, I'll offer them to customers as they come in. Some of them are so deep into their state that they never hear me talking to them from a couple of feet away. I have to literally walk right into them almost to get them to see I'm offering them an empty basket.

Yesterday I saw a good case. I had pushed a stack of empty carts up to the front of the store, when I saw a lady coming in with a cart. I stopped where I was and waited, so she could go around me. Instead, she just kept pushing forward, staring right at me almost, and them smashed right in my stack of carts. She quickly snapped out of her reverie and apologized.

"Oh, I'm sorry sir. I didn't see you standing there." There was clear space all around me at least twelve feet in all directions. She was looking straight at me, yet she couldn't see me.

Every time a customer tells me that they always buy too much whenever they come into the store, I always joke with them, telling them it's all a part of our special customer shopping hypnosis program. They always get a good laugh out of that. (Of course, little do they know.....)