MonkeyBusiness Management Secret #28

TURNOVER

Industries that rely on a small store-front building space, such as fast-food or specialty retail, are notorious for rapid turn-over in their ranks.

Those industries also happen to be the same ones that a trained monkey could work in. So what's the connection? Here's the deal: managers at the district level and above know full well that any bozo with half a brain could replace them. The problem, therefore, is how do they protect themselves from better people rising up from below?

The solution is simple -- TURNOVER.

Here's how it goes: work the people underneath you like dogs and give them impossible goals to meet. Then let them get burned out or pissed off and leave. Once they're gone, hire a new sucker (oops) I mean replacement.

It happened to me once when I worked a store management position for a certain dollar-store chain. By the time I realized what had happened I was already kicked to the street in disgrace. Since then, I have observed it happen to almost all of the other store managers I knew at that company. Lately it seems that the manager at the fast food establishment I work at is falling victim to the same scam. The district manager and the franchise owner, from what I can see, are masters at it.

The store manager is running around bugging everyone to achieve service levels that are physically impossible to meet in a real world. The owner and the district manager and pressuring him to meet those numbers, just like they did to all the previous managers before each got fired. I know this because a former manager once told me exactly how they dealt with him, and they are doing the exact same thing to the current manager.

What's worse is that sh* rolls down hill. Store managers who are desperate to keep their jobs work the hell out of their crews, and when the impossible goals aren't met, the store manager simply tells upper management that it's the crew's fault. The manager then replaces the crew.

While all of this is happening, district and regional managers rest at ease, knowing they are secure from any ambitious up-and-coming person who could very easily replace them. The turmoil of turnover keeps them safe.

Order Now! Operators Are Standing By!

Here's an interesting website I found during my Internet travels:

INFOMERCIAL SCAMS DOTCOM [link]

People write reviews about infomercial products they've purchased and post them on the website. Some of the horror stories almost made my hair stand on end. Many people got charged several times for the same product on their credit card. Naturally, the companies are nowhere to be found when people try to get their money back.

Here's one that will curdle your milk:

"Video Professor" is suing to have the names, addresses, and IP numbers of any online critics revealed, so he can individually sue them for libel in Federal court. Last I recall, personal opinion was supposed to be protected by the First Amendment. So when an unsatisfied customer posts a negative review, "Video Professor" acts like WHINING PUSSY and sues them in court, wasting our government's time and money with a frivolous lawsuit. Every time I see "Video Professor" on TV with his puppy-dog cuddly smile and pitch, all I can say is "shut up, ya stupid pussy!" and change the channel.

Video Professor Sues His Own Customers [link]

Consumer Affairs wrote an article laying out the facts [link] behind the suit. They quote the Professor, and in his own words he comes off as a whining, whimpering, titty-baby weanie.

It amazes me that we fight wars on drugs and terrorism, yet we allow slimeball companies to get by with taking people's money.

Here's the real kicker: both Wal-Mart and Target in my town have special sections where they feature infomercial products. When I examine several of them up close with my own eyes and hands, it amazes me just how shoddy most of the products are. Stuff that I thought looked pretty cool in the infomercial tended to look like total crap under the bright lights of my local store.

Only in America!

Power Moves

Much is afoot at the shop lately.

"C," one of the managers, was fired yesterday. The official reason was given as unacceptable performance results of the operation -- the rest of us who are in-the-know found out through our channels that "G" the co-manager campaigned heavily to get him whacked (you may recall my earlier post, "Whack-a-Mole," detailing how "G" has made plans to get rid of people.)

It seems that "G" has made good on his threats to start whacking.

"J," a member of The Grrrl Pack, used to be a really nice person to work with. Since she got red-shirted however, the promotion has gone to her head and she has been ordering people around like General Patton on steroids. She really pissed me off today. I've heard other people grumbling about her as well.

If she doesn't back down, I guarantee that a couple of other people in the shop are going to take care of it for her, whether she likes it or not (so says one of my sources on the grapevine.)

Blast From The Past

There's nothing like a vintage commercial to remind us of all the bad business practices of years gone by. Take this Flintstones commercial for instance. Filled with chauvinist misogyny, it blatantly pitches cigarettes to kids. Only in America!

The Plot Gets Even Thicker.

Yesterday the District Manager privately interviewed several people (including me) and quizzed us about our understanding of the company harassment policies. She filled out questionnaires and had us each sign them. She told us that corporate was making her conduct an investigation.

She wouldn't mention specifics of course, but judging by the way she phrased her questions I strongly suspect somebody complained about favoritism in the appointment of "My Grrrls" to their shift leader positions. Of course we're all paranoid now, wondering if anyone fingered any of us individually for a harassment charge.

As for me, I'm kind of pissed off. All I want to do is give my job 100% and go home in peace. I don't have time to worry about, or deal with, whiny-babies who can do nothing else but create drama. I have an idea who it might be, but right now I'm laying low and keeping my ear to the ground.

The Plot Thickens

Earlier I mentioned that two of "my grrrls" had been promoted to shift leader.

Here's the scoop:

Several people in the shop who have been there longer are torqued off about having been passed over. The rumors I had heard were that the franchise owner himself specifically requested that "my grrrls" be appointed, over the desires of the manager and the district manager. I don't blame him really, they are pretty cute.

The truth is though, aside from being cute, "my grrrls" are very intelligent and capable, and from what I have seen of their work, they're a heck of a lot better than the other bozos who got passed over. I just think it's all pretty funny. I'm going to school part time, so I have other career plans. It doesn't particularly matter to me who is shift leader.

Past experience in management has taught me that although there can be unfairness in promotions at times, often when a person is passed over it's for good reason. Whenever I've been passed over, I've always taken the hint and either worked to improve myself, schmooze more, or find greener pastures elsewhere. At the moment I freely admit it's my own fault I haven't gotten very far in the business world.

The positive thing is that I've learned from the past, and I'm working to change things.

Invasion of the Zit Zombies

In an earlier post I had ranted about working with the teenagers in the shop, during the evening shift.

I met up with one of my shift leaders in our neighborhood the other day. She normally works the day shift with the rest of us adults. She mentioned that she had to drop by the shop that evening to get something, and saw that the kids were completely screwing things up. She had to clock in, straighten them all out, and get the operation back on track again.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who can see things for what they are. After having seen those kids in action myself, some days I consider it a miracle we still have any customers at all.

Lookin Fine.

Two members of the "grrrl pack" (my favorite group) at the shop got promoted to shift supervisor recently. This week they received their new supervisor shirts. I've been teasing the hell out of them.

I tell them how much I liked Demi Moore in her sharp Navy officer outfit in the movie "A Few Good Men." I tell them how much I have a thing for ladies in uniform. Sometimes when "J" goes by I'll hum the tune "Hail To The Chief." She just laughs and tells me to shut up.

Actually, I'm proud of my grrrls. They don't know that I admire them. I hope they do well. They've been through alot of hell in their lives, they deserve a little status and respect.

Like, OhMiGawd.

Corporate officers were visiting today.

You'd think that Emperor Palpatine had just arrived from the Death Star, with Darth Vader and a garrison of Storm troops in tow. The store manager was all running about like a chicken with his head chopped off.

The District manager spent the entire morning moving everything around on the shelves and on the counters. Like it really matters to the overall success of the operation as to where the chili crackers are. If anything, all she did was slow things down -- we had to hunt around to find stuff when we needed it. Golly gee -- wish I could get one o' dem high fancy ed-yoo-ma-kayshens in Bid-ness so as I ken be smartful like that.

Folks, it's time for me to fess up.

Here's the main reason why I haven't gotten very far in the world. I have an intense dislike for overly pretentious corporate ICE-holes. Especially those who deliberately foster an air of "bow and curtsy" when they arrive. Especially those who think they are geniuses for showing the rank and file how to do things they already know how to do. Especially those who wave their college degree around like a sacred talisman, but couldn't remember the first thing they learned while getting it.

IT STINKS.

The shop is all abuzz of late. It seems that "M," one of the more stalwart members of the crew, experienced a fall from grace lately.

The management forgot to let him have a break one day and he let loose on them about it. It was a big to-do. Since "M" is a smoker, I suspect it had something to do with a desperate need to get a drag. Word has it that yes, it is indeed the case. After the argument he was no-call/no-show for a couple of days. Therefore, he has been removed from the schedule and put on suspension.

Here's what I really, really, cannot understand. Is it such a terrible thing to miss a smoke for a couple of hours that you engage in anti-social behavior and more or less loose a job over it? What's up with that non-sense?

I have made many mistakes during the course of my life, but there is one thing I'm really proud of -- I never got in the habit of smoking. I'm very proud to say that I give my employer a full shift of work for what he pays, and my employer never has to worry about me wasting time smoking somewhere when I should be working. I don't cheat my employers out of worktime just to satiate a nic-fit.

I have lost count of the times that I've seen smoker co-workers run outside to smoke right in the middle of the busiest parts of the shift. Their selfishness and lack of consideration for me and for our customers just appalls me at times. Selfish, lazy, and WEAK-willed, they are. At the end of their lives, these people are going to be hooked up to all sorts of equipment, gasping for air with swiss-cheese lungs. While they're doing that, I'm going to be playing with my grand children in the yard. I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THE FOOLS, WHATSOEVER.

I believe it was Steve Martin who summed it up best during one of his classic comedy routines, where a person asks "mind if I smoke?" to which someone else replies "I don't know, MIND IF I FART?"

WORMS.

This evening The Mrs. and I went out to eat with our kids. The whole time we were there at the restaurant, a group of fools stood against the wall closest to our table, yammering into their cell phones like they were God-Almighty C.E.O. emperors of the world. If there's one thing that really annoys my wife and me to no end, it's rude a*h*les with cell phones.

Let's think a little about this scenario, shall we? Let me talk to all the cell phone owners of the world who like to strut their stuff hollering about their big business deals into a little box while everyone else is trying to eat in peace. Here are some things to consider:

1. Nobody gives a flying F* about who you think you are, or about your dumbass business deals.
2. If your business affairs have made you into such a desperate slave to your telecom devices that you can't or won't enjoy a public meal in peace with your friends, then GUESS WHAT? YOU AIN'T NOBODY. YOU AIN'T RUNNING THE SHOW. THE SHOW IS RUNNING YOU.
3. Do you really want to show people how important you are? Do you want to know how to demonstrate REAL brass balls kind of POWER? Here's how you do it -- TURN YOUR PHONE OFF, AND MAKE THE WORLD WAIT while you finish your meal and then move to a private location.
   
4. Make your lackeys handle the phones FOR you, back at the office. THAT, my friends, is REAL power. Otherwise, if you waste half your life with phone to your ear, you ain't J* Sh*
5. Last but not least, when the GRAVE WORMS are eating your sorry A* in the casket below ground, they're going to ignore your cell phone. Worms love flesh and bone of dead idiots who thought they were really something, but they have no use for electronics.
   

I found a website that features a document you can download and cut into little cards to give out to a*h* cellphone users.

http://www.coudal.com/shhh.php [link]

Yeah, What HE Said.

"I've always said, to my kids and to anyone who'll listen, that the key to happiness is fooling yourself into thinking that what you do matters."

-- Anonymous Lawyer.

Women! Ya Can't Live With 'Em, and......pass the beer nuts!

Call me old school.

Mamma brought me up to expect proper behavior in ladies. I used to go by that training for many years. Nowadays, I’m cosmopolitan enough to know that we live in a day and age where women are free to explore their masculine sides. Often in quiet moments as I observe the women make attempts to do this, I find their human candor to be oddly refreshing. There is no better example I can give than my female coworkers at the fast food business I work for.

With all their beauties and their crudities, their graces and their warts, their curtsies and their grunts, I find them to be absolutely adorable. No matter how much they may irritate or annoy me, I always consider them to be “my girls.” When the staff on shift is fifty percent male or more, they pretty much mind their P’s and Q’s. When the staff on shift is predominantly female and the males get busy with their own things, the females interact, clash, unify, coalesce, and move about with the disorganized beauty of the flows and currents in a vigorous brook.

Often men mistakenly believe that locker room talk is a “guy thing.” What they fail to realize is that while they are comparing notes about an individual woman and her relative willingness for certain activities, women compare notes about the relative lack of finesse, talent, or length that an individual man may or may not possess. Once you get them going, the women will describe this with all the frankness of a linebacker, while blithely shuffling fries into paper sleeves and capping lids on drinks with all the tender loving care of a mother feeding her child.

At times, the girls can really make me blush.

This afternoon “J,” one of my favorites, stepped behind the wall between the kitchen and the counter. She had a desperate, miserable itch that could be ignored no longer. She reached into her clothing, and with an earthy grunt, vigorously relocated offending undergarments into their proper position around sensitive places. Like a gentleman, I tried to be sure I gave her the privacy she needed by looking the other way and pretending not to notice. “Mama Kitty,” the female shift leader on duty at the time, shouted “J! Stop groping yer chick bits and get back up here to help out!”

Yikes. Never would I dare say such a thing, but I guess you can get away with it when it is woman to woman. By the way, they don’t call her “Mama Kitty” because she’s like a mother cat. One of the girls clued me in to the real meaning of the name, which is cruder and far more ribald.

“S” is another one of my favorites. For a brief time she used to be a model, but life and children got in the way of that dream, and she’s desperately trying survive while working the drive through. She’s part Latina, part Native American, part Caucasian, and the blend gives her a deeply enchanting, spellbindingly exotic look that still shines through her fast food hat, headphones, and baggy restaurant shirt. She has faded gang tattoos that have been reworked and redrawn into less stark images, yet when she takes change from the redneck construction workers, she stands tall with all the pride, majesty, and grace of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She is Mother Mary personified.

Whenever “S” opens her mouth to speak to the customers, I hear the kind of cheer, warmth and tenderness a new mother would give to her infant child. Then, on a dime, she can whirl around and give a stern warning to a female coworker who bothers her. “Back off, b*!” she says, and you realize that Mother Mary can command the very lightning of the sky. Today, she stepped up to the grill and laid out a line fresh beef to help Matt while he had to step away temporarily. “Mama Kitty” called her to help up front, and sweet little “S” shouted back “hold on a minute, I’m still playing with Matt’s meat!” She looked sideways at me and winked.

Of course, as I wax eloquent about what I love in these ladies, I conveniently forget all the times they sorely bother me. But with “my girls,” I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Corporate Mergers I'd Like To See.

In the wake of the Exxon/Mobil deal and the AOL/Netscape deal, here are some corporate mergers that would be interesting to see:

Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W.R. Grace Company merge to become "Hale Mary Fuller Grace".

Polygram Records, Warner Brothers, and Keebler Crackers merge to become "Polly-Warner-Cracker."

3M and Goodyear merge to become "MMMGood."

John Deere and Abitibi-Price merge to become "Deere Abi."

Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining merge to become "Zip Audi Do Da."

Honeywell, Imasco, and Home Oil merge to become "Honey I'm Home."

Denison Mines, and Alliance and Metal Mining merge to become "Mine All Mine."

Federal Express and UPS merge to become "FED UP"

Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will merge and become "Fairwell Honeychild"

3M, J.C. Penney and the Canadian Opera Company will merge and become "3 Penney Opera"

Grey Poupon & Dockers Pants will merge and becomes "Poupon Pants"

Knott's Berry Farm & National Organization of Women will merge and become "Knott NOW!"

Cessna Aircraft and the Whirlpool Corporation are merging to form "Cesspool."

Stock Advice.

One of the basic criteria most investors use when buying stock in a company is the performance of management. Some investors will even go so far as to examine the personalities and decision making strategies of executive running the companies they have equity in.

Here's an example of a company whose management obviously doesn't have anything better to do with their time.

T-Mobile has sent a cease and desist letter to the operators of the Engadget Mobile weblog demanding that they stop using the color fuschia in their logo, saying that it is trademarked and that it causes confusion in the marketplace. Read the article here at Wired News. [link]

I sure wish I could get paid millions of dollars a year just to sit around writing letters demanding that people stop using my color.

In an industry as fast paced, complex, and highly competitive as telecommunications, its a good thing to know that someone out there is paying attention to such vital, do-or-die details like the color pink. They must have taken a class about color as part of their Harvard M.B.A. curriculum.

If I were an owner of T-mobile stock, I would think long and hard about why I even have it.

Although the issue is minor, I take it as an intuitive sign that T-mobile management spends too much time in their offices, and not enough time in the trenches managing the company. I take it as an intuitive sign that they sorely lack marketing knowledge. Consumers care more about such complicated arcane things as GOOD SERVICE, than they do about logo colors. Time that management spends untwisting their panties about logo colors is time they could spend designing and producing better products and services that consumers want.

I can just imagine executive reports to the shareholders: "we added value to your investment because we earned our over-inflated salaries by spending hundreds of thousands on attorneys to defend the logo color."

Another blog article I found on the matter mentions that yes, T-mobile sales are declining and they are struggling for subscribers. What sense does it make, then, to give a rat's ass about the color when all the rats are leaving the ship before it sinks anyway?

I think it definitely would be time to sell.

Whack-a-Mole, part two.

In an earlier post I mentioned that the general manager had been speaking publicly about his plans to "whack" or get rid of some real losers we have at my workplace who are really dragging down the organization.

Yesterday afternoon I had to work with two of them at the front counter during one of the busiest times of the week. I only have two words for them -- SLOW and STUPID. Normally in a workplace situation I ignore the incompetent people, letting them draw management scrutiny away from me and on to themselves while I go about my business.

In this case however, their incompetence really got in my way, and after having to see grumpy customers all day looking daggers at me wondering where their food is because my helpers were slow morons, I finally had to turn to the manager and beg for someone to help me who knew what they were doing. Lowly and subhuman as my job is, I still take pride in giving my best efforts, and when other people screw me up it really bothers me.

One thing is certain -- whenever I regain my place in management again, I will be absolutely certain to avoid hiring teenagers. If I hire any teens at all, they will have to be perfect enough to walk on water. There are precious few of those. I used to criticize our competitor for hiring mostly people from his ethnic group, but now I understand why. His people work hard and they learn quickly, while American middle class white teenagers are lazy, slow, stupid, and dishonest.

As much as I don't want to admit that, it's the gospel truth.

Here's Your Sign...

Bill Engval is one of my favorite comedians. His most famous catch phrase is "here's your sign..." It refers to the act of putting a sign on someone's back that says "idiot," when they say something that sounds normal, but on further analysis reveals how stupid they are.

For example, I overheard this conversation in the drive through today:

Customer: "about the bacon and cheese baked potato -- what comes on it?"

Cashier: (silence)

Cashier: "bacon and cheese, ma'am..."

My mental response: "well ma'am, it comes with diced and sauteed porcine filet, with lightly braised fromage zests, garnished on the side with cream gently aged in cultures, as well as congealed milk solids."

(trans: bacon, cheese sprinkles, sour cream, and butter.)

HERE'S YOUR SIGN.......

Grumpity Dumps.

I've been feeling really crummy the last couple of days.

My home life is really bothering me, and mortality is staring me in the face, mocking me with fiendish laughter about all of my life's failures. I'm feeling the torment of some desperate needs I've had for many years that have gone mostly unfulfilled. At age forty two, everywhere I look I'm reminded about all of my most humiliating mistakes and failures, and I feel terribly, terribly alone in a house full of people.

Most of the time it's all merely a dull ache in the background, but the last couple of days it's been like a giant stone pressing down on my shoulders.

We're A "Hi-Tech" Company

MonkeyBusiness Management Secret #27

"WHACK-A-MOLE"

This term refers to the practice of newly installed management to go through an organization's ranks and whack anyone off the payroll they don't like, often for mundane reasons like "he talks too much," or "he plays video games at home."

Once this is accomplished, management goes through a hiring spree to appoint people they think will support them and their regime. Management thinks they are "cleaning house," or "revitalizing the organization," or "infusing fresh blood," yet they are sadly deluded. Like the global Communist revolution in the 20th century, basically all that happens is that one set of inept idiots gets replaced by another set of equally inept idiots.

A new manager is in charge of the restaurant where I work. He is committed to turning the place around, but doesn't see that our lower numbers are due to a heavy increase of competition in the area over the last couple of years. More establishments have moved in, and customers have more places to choose from, not to mention the fact that gasoline prices are sky high, so fast food goes by the wayside in most people's budgets.

This manager repeatedly talks to us about who he wants to get rid of. Even as the other manager is in the process of being transfered out, this new one is already making plans about who he wants to whack, and keeps mentioning it in public. He's either incredibly stupid, or he's playing a subtle game of intimidation.

I know full well what his game is. Homey don't play dat. I'll do the best that I can to keep from getting whacked, but this place isn't the only job in the world.