"De-Motivator" Posters.

And Now...DEEP THOUGHTS, by Jack Handy.

Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk
ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside
me either. Just pretty much leave me alone.

Monkey Business Management Secret #19

When handling the hiring and human resources in your business, sometimes it's good to use QUESTIONAIRES.

************************

MEMO: PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEE ASSESSMENT

Subject: Prospective Employee Assessment
To: All Managers

The following guidelines shall be used when hiring new personnel:

 - Take the prospective employees you are trying to place and put them in
   a room with only a table and two chairs.  Leave them alone for two
   hours, without any instruction.  At the end of that time, go back and
   see what they are doing.

 - If they have taken the table apart in that time, put them in
   Engineering.

 - If they are counting the butts in the ashtray, assign them to Finance.

 - If they are screaming and waving their arms, send them off to
   Manufacturing.

 - If they are talking to the chairs, Personnel is a good spot for them.

 - If they are sleeping, they are Management material.

 - If they are writing up the experience, send them to Tech Pubs.

 - If they don't even look up when you enter the room, assign them to
   Security.

 - If they try to tell you it's not as bad as it looks, send them to
   Marketing.

 - And if they have left early, put them in Sales.

This -N- That, number 7

Giving The Devil Her Due, redux... In an earlier post I had mentioned maybe I should give "Mz. Waffleboot" some benefit of the doubt regarding her abrasive behavior, since the kind of people she has to work with on the Flow Team are some real idiots. I was thinking maybe I've been unreasonable, looking at her personality all wrong.

I had an experience a couple of days ago that set me straight.

I was talking briefly with some guy that I hardly know on the Flow Team, just making chit-chat. I asked him how things were. "Hey, life would be fantastic, if only [Waffleboot] was gone!..." he said, very emphatically, without a care as to who was listening. Ohhh....Kkkaaaaayyy....I guess that was pretty clear enough! Seems I'm not the only one who has the same viewpoint.

There's A Hole In My Bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza...(#2). Our company has a very strong customer service ethic. For that reason, they've placed electronic call buttons all around the store, so that guests can get help on those rare occasions they can't find us. Here's the catch: corporate doesn't allow us enough payroll to fully staff the floor, so most of the time we're helping two or more guests at a time, when we're not stocking a backflow of freight, running price checks, carryouts, and trying to finish our zoning before close. Small wonder then that the number of button pushes have gone up. Corporate gets unhappy when customers use the guest assistance buttons, and boy do they tell us.

Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but I thought our goal was to help as many guests as we can -- so if I wuz one 'o dem super-duper hie ed-juh-ma-kated eggs-ek-you- tif types, I would actually WANT the customers to push the buttons, so I could be sure I've helped them all. It just gets me -- they put the buttons in, but they don't want the customers to have to use them. W.T.F.? What kind of chicken-scratch bullshit logic is that?

SAY WHAT, NOW?....Another joke-wad called me up while I'm at the electronics counter cryin' about his PlayStation-2. He scratched a disk, and wanted to know how to fix it. He said that a tech support guy told him to put "vaginal cream" on it, and he wanted to know what I thought. I kid you not...I am not making this up. I told him I had no idea, and that he'd better talk to Sony, the manufacturer. Either somebody was playing a joke on me, or there's some people out there who really are that stupid. I'm praying they're not elected to public office.

Alas Poor Yorick, I Knew Him.

"To be, or not to be?....that is the question..."

"bari quipi boni."

Earlier I had mentioned making a personal study of consumer electronics so I can be more effective with the time they're making me spend behind the electronics counter at work. I think that I've decided to chuck that idea, and spend time boning up on my resume, instead. (get it? boning!)

To be a retailer, or a banker, that is the question. I decided that come hell or high water I'm going to break back into banking. It's going to be a trick, but I'll do whatever it takes.

Lately at the store they've been working out all the Halloween merchandise. They've got some cool stuff this year. Talking skeletons, the works.

Sphinctre Pucker Factor -- Elevated.

We had an inventory done the other day, and naturally we had corporate stuffed-shirts coming out of the woodwork, crawling all over the sales floor. All the store team leaders were edgy and uptight. Nobody wanted to be seen making any kind of mistake or looking stupid. Spare me, people.

WE'RE SHORT-HANDED LATELY.

Our store is really lacking in the personnel situation. We need people. Our hiring process is basically a revolving door of people day in and day out. Only the really innocent and the gluttons for punishment stay.

Everyone else who figures out what they're really in for turns tail and leaves faster than you can say "panicked American helicopters lifting off from the embassy roof-top in Saigon."

Money Where My Mouth Is

In recent weeks they've been making work the electronics counter more and more. Nobody else wants to do it, few people in the store are passably capable of salesmanship, few people in the store even remotely have any idea how to answer questions about electronic products. So, for the three or four of us who can even remotely satisfy the preceding criteria, we are permanently banished to a life sentence in the Siberian wasteland of the electronics counter.

Repeatedly management tells me to learn about the product category so as to serve the guests better. Ok, I'm fine with that. Train me then. Provide me with all the information I need to successfully serve my guests in this position. What's that? You don't have any, you say? Hem and Haw? How in the hell do you expect me to perform a job satisfactorily if you don't give me what I need to perform it? What kind of b* s*t is that?

To top all that off, they brought someone in from the outside to fill the specialist position I had applied for, and when he started he knew even less about the department, if at all, than I did. Are they seriously trying to piss me off to get rid of me?

Be that as it may, since I am unable to go elsewhere as of yet, the onus is upon me to make the best of a crappy situation. At least I have work, even though I think the whole situation stinks. I've got to take the lemons and make lemonade. I am most definitely NOT doing this for the company, since they've made it clear they don't care about me. I am doing this completely for my own benefit, and if the company just happens to benefit from what I do, so be it.

That being said, I am now taking the time to educate myself about the Consumer Electronics category. I'm reading as much as I can online through the Internet, and I have subscribed to trade publications in the industry. On my own time, without any pay, I'm going to study this material and learn it well enough to serve my guests, who I genuinely do care about, even though the company wants to profit from my efforts without providing adequate tools, recognition, or compensation.

After I have completed that, when the time is right, I shall take my knowledge and experience elsewhere to someone who will appreciate it, or possibly even start a business of my own, where I can pay myself what I believe I am worth, and to hell with the college preppy stuffed shirts who run the store. I've been in retail since I was fifteen. I know enough technically to be a district manager for someone. I even know enough how to be an obnoxious, abrasive, Neanderthal jerk just like many DM's I have seen.

For now, I may be Joseph languishing in a cell, interpreting dreams for the Pharaoh's butler and baker, but I swear to high heaven there will be a day when I shall ride the Pharaoh's chariot and wear his signet. [Gen 41:40-43]

Monkey Business Management Secret #18

"EXIT COUNSELING."

Concerned about the welfare of those employees with families you just laid off?

Not to worry! Just hire a third party consulting firm to prepare a booklet with "money-saving tips." Give the booklet to the unlucky losers as you hand them their final checks. Include such shining gems of wisdom as "don't be shy about dumpster diving," and "move somewhere with a lower cost of living."

Then, after the public backlash, blame the third party consultant. While you're at it, be sure to read how Northwes Airlines did precisely what I just mentioned, in this article at BloggingStocks Dotcom. [link]

Monkey Business Management Secret #17

The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day the Japanese won by a mile.

The American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.

The consultant's finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering. After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the American team's management structure was completely reorganized. The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.

The next year, the Japanese won by two miles!

Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.

Boldly Going Nowhere......

"DAMMIT, JIM! I'M A DOCTOR, NOT A BRICKLAYER!"

For some reason, why I don't know, people think that just because I'm working the electronics department I have an encyclopedic knowledge of every single gadget and device sold in America.

I am there to cashier. Period, nothing more. I am not a technical support engineer. Nowhere does it state on the counter that I am one, or that we offer tech support.

Yet every time they send me back there, I get some joke-wad on the phone crying that their X-box won't work, demanding I tell them how to fix it. Or I'll get some air-headed Sierra-Club Ex-Granola Hippy Caddy-driving Soccer Mom who just bought a digital camera from us the day before, and she doesn't know how to use them (or computers of any kind) and she wants me to give her complete lessons over the phone.

C'mon lady -- do you honestly think that if I had any engineering training I would be wasting my time working here?

"IT'S WORSE THAN THAT -- HE'S DEAD, JIM!"

Every day I find out another person is gone from the store. It's really starting to creep me out. The other day, my buddy "J" from Asset Protection left, as well, to focus on his day job for the government. Now I have no one to talk to. The girl who used to bake the cookies at the snack counter just perfectly, the way I liked them, left this Spring for Florida. The Bodacious Blonde team leader I had a chippie for left last Spring to move back to California with her boyfriend. I found out about more people gone this week -- I am really bummed out.

There is one good thing however -- the Equal Opportunity Token team leader who thought she was "all that and a bag of chips," who chapped me for getting more product out for the guests who were asking for it, is also gone. I won't miss her shrieking over the walkie just because we don't answer her calls the split micro-second she releases the button.

"SENSORS INDICATE THAT IT'S LIFE, JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT."

Right now I'm just laying low, watching things in the shop develop as they go. All sorts of people are getting promoted around me, I saw another announcement just today. I decided I'm not going to submit myself to another humiliating and embarrassing round of hoop-jumping for a position just to find out through the grapevine after the fact that I'm not wanted. I'm going to go where I AM wanted. At the very least, if I stay, I'm not going to beg for anything. I've had enough of that baloney. So....I'm just going to watch, observe, take notes, keep a secret C.Y.A. file, and bide my time until I know for certain what to do next.

"DAMAGE CONTROL IS EASY, JIM -- READING KLINGON, NOW THAT'S HARD..."

The card-board baler was left full by the back room team when they left today. The evening L.O.D. asked over the walkie if anyone knew how to empty it and make a bale. Having worked with all sorts of balers in the retail business since I was 15, I offered to help. She asked me if I had been properly "certified." I told her no, but I knew full well how to press the up and down buttons. Not good enough. She said leave it for the morning crew.

Words cannot express how unhappy it makes me feel when these people patronize me and treat me like I'm stupid. If the company thinks I'm too stupid to handle pressing a button, then I'm too stupid to do anything else for them.

Whenever I quote philosophy or the arts to my coworkers, they all tell me I'm too smart to be working there. I usually reply that management thinks I'm too stupid to do anything else.

"YA CANNAUGH CHANGE THE LAWS O' PHYSICS, JIM."

My coworker "D" was telling me how he had come up with some ideas to improve the zoning process we go through in the evenings recovering the store. I think his ideas are excellent -- they really would improve things, in my opinion. "D" told me how he had tried to discuss them with management. They just listened to him, smiled, and said "that's nice." Nothing changed. I told "D" that in this company, there's three ways of doing things: the right way, the wrong way, and the "company way." Trying to change "the company way" is like trying to tell the Earth to stop spinning or the sun to stand still.

Not gonna happen.

Giving The Devil Her Due

I've ranted on and on about "Mz. Waffleboot," but recent events have forced me to take a look at things through her eyes just a bit.

More and more, I'm starting to realize the a large number of the back-room people she has to oversee are complete, absolute, total, illiterate, dumb-ass idiots. I've met a good number of them, watched a number of the work, and have had to waste valuable time fixing the screw-ups they leave behind on the shelves after they stock.

Lately they've been making the evening people conduct shelf audits, in preparation for inventory. So many of us have come across places that have been mis-labeled or stocked incorrectly, necessitating the expense of time and effort switching things back around to match the shelf plan-o-grams. We've had to haul large amounts of merchandise to the back, because of over-stocking against the plan-o-gram.

It's become evident to us on the evening crew that the freight team is either too lazy to read labels, or are too illiterate to read them. Many of us are really pissed off, because much of the shelf discrepancies are blamed upon our zoning at night, when we know full well it's the freight crew screwing it up.

If I had to deal with a huge crew of dumb-asses like "Mz. Waffleboot" does, I'd end up just as abrasive and obnoxious as she is.

And Then There Were None....

It's like one of those old time movies, where the characters disappear one by one, eaten by aliens or zombies or whatever, and the remaining people are left to wonder what's going to happen next.

Since I started working at "Big Red" last Autumn, so many people I got to know and work with have come and gone. Not a day goes by when I come to work, ask around for someone I haven't seen in awhile, only to be told they're gone. People leave for a number of reasons -- a better job, going back to school, quit in frustration, or got fired over something.

As many years as I've worked in retail, I should know by now that turn-over is the nature of the beast. Still, at times, it can be just plain UN-NERVING. When people around you disappear and are all replaced by strangers, it's hard to keep from wondering if some rogue government agency is grabbing our people in the back room, stuffing them into a van, and replacing them with pre-programmed drones. It's just down-right eerie.

The last few days or so I've been looking around on the sales floor, and realizing that I hardly know anyone there. Retail is a business where you really need to have a social system built outside of the workplace, because no one is around long enough for you to build one inside the workplace.

It's Just an Accounting Error...Honest.

When I worked at a bank and somebody's cash drawer came up short a significant amount, we couldn't get away with just shrugging it off as being a mix up in the numbers.

Ace Hardware, it seems, has gotten away with just that. It's only a small error, just a trifle really, only about $154 million, give or take a few hundred thousand or so. (read the article at USA Today.) [link] Ace was on the verge of converting from a retailer owned cooperative to a for-profit-corporation when all of a sudden, lo and behold, $154 million is missing from the balance sheets.

Interesting coincidence.

How does one loose $154 million, and not even notice until a couple of years after the fact? Seems to me a couple of people need to loose their accounting licenses, and more than a few executives need to be looking for another job. Obviously, neither will have to.

I'd really like to know what I have to do to get a corporate job where I get to keep my position and perks, in spite of loosing $154 million. At the bank, if I lost more than $7.50 in a day I would get a write-up, with a possible suspension. What do I have to do? Sell my soul? Join the Mafia? Run for public office? Do all three, but not necessarily in that order?

Is The Word Stupid Written On My Forehead?

There's a particular team member who always seems to be on a fishing expedition whenever she and I converse. She'll make certain subtle statements of opinion, and then guage my reaction. She'll remark about a fault or a shortcoming of some member of management, one that is generally agreed upon by everyone as being true but remains unsaid, and phrase it in such a way as to evoke a response expressing frustration with the fault.

I realize that I'm not any kind of enlightened master of The Power Game, otherwise I'd be an executive VEEP by now, but even a sales floor doofus like me can recognize a trap like this one in a conversation. Lady, how stupid do you think I am? I mean, come on.

I always try to gracefully avoid subjects like that and move the conversation quickly to different topics. I learned from hard, bad experience long ago that anyone who pretends to be a sympathetic friend while striking up discussions about managerial faults is only out for one thing -- to stab me in the back.

Homie don't play that.

A couple of years ago I had some training in conversational hypnosis, for a sales position I held at that time. Right now I'm working on formulating some responses to those fishing expeditions that will use the person's energies against them.

In the words of comedian Ralphie May, "sometimes you just gotta 'Tai Chi' these things" -- redirect your oponent's strength and use it to defeat them.

Seagull Strikes Again.

The district manager was in the store the other day. It was one of those types of corporate visits I like to call "The Seagull Visit."

It works like this: the executive or officer swoops in swiftly, screeches alot and makes a lot of noise, lays out a lot of droppings all over the place, and then swoops out just as quickly as he came in without so much as a "by-your-leave," or even a "thank you for your dedication."

This week the guy blew a gasket because the clothing on our softlines tables weren't folded "crisp" enough.

W.T.F.?

Yeah, I can just imagine it now: "you know what Doris, the edges on these folded shirtS are out of alignment to a microscopic degree. That's just awful. As a casual shopper, just I can't handle that -- I'm going to go to the competition."

PUH- LEEEEEAZE.

What do I need to do to get paid a corporate salary, with perks, Enron-style hidden stock options, and vacations, just to be able to fly in and dog people about their garment sleeves. Ah yes, that would be the life for me.