Stupid Is, As Stupid Does #2

My buddy "Fred," who works at a competing retailer, likes to get together and talk "shop" with me from time to time. Just this evening he was telling me about the Customer Service Manager at his store.

Fred told me that this evening he happened to walk by the podium where the CSM (or GSTL, in my company) does their paperwork, record keeping, and cash handling for the cashier's drawers. The CSM had left a box filled with all the customer's checks from the evening sitting out in plain view, unattended, where anyone could just swipe it and run.

Since my buddy Fred possesses half of a brain more than what his managers possess, he quickly covered the box with a plastic bag and hid it under the podium, and ran over to tell the CSM about her mistake. The CSM just shrugged her shoulders, and said "...So?" It used to be that the things Fred tells me would utterly amaze me. They don't anymore. There are people at my company who are just as stupid, and who do exactly the same things Fred tells me about.

For those of you who don't fully realize the enormity of the situation, let me spell it out. I used to work at a bank. The bank gave me training on how to spot the things that thieves and Identity Fraud artists do. All I would need is one check, and one check only, out of that box Fred saw, and I could do quite a bit of damage.

• With a clear specimen of the customer's signature on the check, and the account number, I could then drain the account the next time the bank opened. I know how to get around most banks' requirements for I.D. Even if I didn't know that, I could still find a teller young enough and green enough who couldn't tell a fake I.D. from a hole in their head. I know how to do all this without getting my real face visible on surveillance cameras.
  
• Using the customer's address and phone number printed on the check, within a matter of days I could find out their credit history, their social security number, their driving record, what credit cards they hold (and the numbers of each), who their kids are, where the kids go to school, the kid's grades, the kind of food they eat, the type of clothes they buy, the prescriptions they take and the doctors they see, their email addresses, their utility balances, where they travel, their pension information, their military service records, criminal and court records, and the list goes on.
• Using the customer's account number, I could hack into their online banking if they have it. If their bank offers online imaging of their canceled checks, I can do this whole same routine for every person or business the customer writes a check to.
• If I was lazy and hired a corrupt private investigator, I could have all this information in hours, if not minutes, rather than days.

THIS IS NO JOKE. I AM DEADLY SERIOUS. I TRULY CAN FIND THIS INFORMATION, AND I'M ONLY A BARELY TRAINED BYSTANDER. IF I WAS A PROFESSIONAL CROOK, I'D BE SITTING ON A BEACH IN MONTE CARLO BY NOW.

Let retail executives be warned. There are two major retail companies in the Oklahoma City area that handle their customer's privacy matters with the skill of a four year old. Your employees have warned your managers constantly, to no avail.

Fred and I just finish our Starbucks coffees, and laugh our asses off.

Monkey Business Management Secret #14

WRITE A BOOK.

If you want people to think you're some kind of business genius, write a book. After all, if somebody goes to all the trouble to write a book, they must really know something, right? And if a publisher goes to all the trouble to print it, that must mean it's all true, right?

Be sure to pepper your book with liberal doses of business catch phrases, like "paradigm shift," "data mining," "value-added," and "water shed." I'm not exactly sure what watersheds have to do with business, but when you speak of a "water shed" moment in your management technique, people are very impressed. They probably don't know what water shed means either, but they'll assume that you do, and therefore must be very smart.

When it comes time to make up a title, just fill in the blank in this phrase "Who moved my ____?" You can also use something that involves mouse traps and cheese. Here's a list of good phrases to include in your title:

The Changing Role of [insert your topic here]

[insert your topic here]: Adapt or Die.

Reinventing [insert your topic here]

Don't Get Left Behind [insert your topic here]

Best Practices in [insert your topic here]

Road map to [insert your topic here]

When writing the book be sure to go on and on as much as you can about how change is going to happen, it's inevitable, and companies who resist change will get left behind. Then recommend that companies advertise about how they stand by old fashioned values like "quality" that never change over time. Tell your readers to hire consultants and form "competitive advantage teams." Don't forget to mention "competitive intelligence," or SPYING. Tell them to hire a private investigator to find out all the phone numbers and email addresses of all the board members at your competitor.

Be sure to add a legal disclaimer in small print, mentioning that the advice in the book does not replace the reader's responsibility to consult with professional legal and financial counsel before making any business decision. Anyone hair brained enough to drive a company in the direction that a book points to is definitely going to need a good lawyer later on.

Last but not least, include a picture of yourself riding on a yacht. It doesn't necessarily have to be your own yacht, just a picture of you on one. You don't have to mention who it belongs to. Fill out a list of personal accomplishments. This is where you can get really creative. Lets say that the closest you got to Harvard was spending a few years working the pizza joint down the street. You can tell your readers that you spent several years in contact with Harvard educators. You get the idea.

After that, just sit back and let the book royalties roll in. Sign yourself up for whatever celebrity endorsements you can find, speak at every graduation ceremony and quilting bee you can find, and play lots of golf. You've got it made.

Ask Me No Questions, I Won't Tell You No Lies.

Often I've remarked about the bizarre nature of customer psychology. Here's another aspect of it that I came across recently, that I will give you an example of. I call it the "Truth Or Dare" syndrome. It works like this. A customer picks up an item that has been marked down for clearance. They see the product is something that's still very good, and the price is a steal. Instantly, they get suspicious.

"How come this is marked down so much? Is there anything wrong with it?"

Now, here's the catch. Often I try to tell them the truth, where the product is perfectly fine and we're only clearing it out to make way for some other model or type that we decided to carry in its place. When I tell the truth, they refuse to believe me. They think I'm pulling something over on them, and look at me like I'm some kind of used car salesman who has just been released from prison.

"No, really. What's wrong with it?"

"Ma'am, it hasn't got anything wrong with it. Really. We're just changing product lines." The customer puts the item back, and says "never mind."

When I tell a lie, an interesting thing happens. "Well, ma'am...the delivery truck was involved in an accident on the highway, and ran into another truck that was carrying toxic waste. A small amount of the waste spilled onto the product, but by the time the shipment arrived, we couldn't tell which ones had been touched. So we just clearance priced the whole lot to get rid of it....." My nose grows longer by the minute.

"Oh -- is THAT all that's wrong with it? I can clean it off in no time. I'll take one!"

Oh well...c'est la vie.

More Than We Needed To Know.....

The other night after closing, the M.O.D. (manager on duty) called a team huddle.

"Now guys, I know that Spring has sprung, love is in the air, and y'all are dating and what not. Lots of talking is going on about who is getting some, who's not getting enough, and who's getting too much.....We had a situation where a customer overheard two team members criticizing a female associate for her attitude and her social activities, so to speak, or whatever....Guys, we need to be careful."

"We don't know what's really going on with each other, we don't know the kinds of things each of us has to deal with on a daily basis, so don't be judgemental of each other. We're supposed to be a team here....and if you just HAVE to discuss confidential things, for heaven's sake look around the corner and see who's there, for crying out loud. We can get into a lot of trouble over the things we say, so watch it."

People laughed when she talked about team members getting some. I was tempted to pipe up and say that they would be surprised to know who's getting what, from what I've been hearing, but I decided that discretion was the better part of valor.....

This And That.

My God, You Weren't Kidding.

My wife went into the store yesterday when I was at home. When she came back, she told me she saw the waffle-boot toolbelt flannel shirt logistics manager I had been telling her about. My wife now knows I'm serious when I ranted about the uh....person. I told my wife that the woman rides a motor cycle, as well. "I believe you now," My wife said. "I wouldn't want to fight HER in a dim nightclub....yikes."

The Times, They Are A-changin'

"JR" on the hardlines staff is an enterprising young man (translation: he's a complete horndog.) Yesterday I saw him scribbling something on a piece of paper in the middle of the aisle. "What's that?" I asked. "Did you score another phone number?"

"Are you kidding? Phone numbers are passe. They are SOOO last century. Everyone uses MySpace and LiveJournal now. She gave me the address to her profile page."

I see. I stand corrected.

It Bears Repeating.

Last week I had to go in at 4 a.m. to help set ad signs for the Mother's Day shopping week. Naturally, almost the entire makeup and H.B.A. department was on sale. I had millions of signs to do, and progress was slow. The store manager came up, watched me for a minute, and said "is that all you've gotten done so far?"

"Yes ma'am, it is."

"Then I think you had better hustle..." she walked off, went to the coffee bar, and sat down.

I was furious.

If you're in such a hurry, madam, perhaps you'd like to get up and lend a hand? Perhaps you'd like do demonstrate how I can go faster? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that you would chip a nail and get your hands dirty. It's a good thing you get paid an executive salary just to watch us and tell us to hurry up. I would never have figured that out on my own. Silly me.

I said it before, and I say it again. If I ever end up as a corporate executive, and I see one of my store managers doing the "stand and point" method, I swear on a stack of ad circulars that I will go put tools in their hands, swiftly kick their ass, and tell them to get to work or go home forever.

I will make no allowances for gender, either. If they can't hack the physical labor of moving stock around on the floor, I will kick them and their make-up filled purses out the door. Pronto. I'm an equal opportunity ass-kicker.

And that, my friends, is an "inconvenient truth."

Food for Thought.

Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.

Been There, Done That.

How many "big box" retail managers does it take to replace a light bulb?

One, but first he has to watch the training video three times.

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Monkey Business Management Secret #13

WAFFLE STOMPERS.

My buddy Fred and I have worked retail for a number of years. We work for competing companies, but we often get together to "talk shop." This week we discussed a management trend that some companies tend to lean towards frequently, in spite of their public denials to the contrary.

Fred told me that over at his company, they would bend over backwards to promote minorities into management, only for the reasons that they need the tax credits and they need to stay out of legal hot water. When it comes to women in management, Fred tells me that his employer has a tendency to promote mostly those women who are very curt, abrupt, abrasive, patronizing, arrogant, and very "man-ish" in their dress and their behavior.

Fred thinks that his company understands a reality that many people don't want to admit. Regular women are too nice, compassionate, and caring to make it in the viscious jungle of upper management. To kill two birds with one stone, companies like Fred's will eagerly promote flannel shirt wearing, tool-belt toting, waffle boot wearing, motorcycle riding lesbians to upper management, because they get things done, when other women are doing their makeup in the office or planning their shopping.

Fred told me something his store manager shared with him once.

"If you want to please the customer, charm their shorts off, and make a sale, hire a woman. If you actually want to get things done, hire a man. If you want to kick ass, take names, and leave them cowering in a corner, hire a lesbian."

When Fred told me that, I couldn't help but think about a person in management at my store who fits that very profile. The funny thing is, everyone in the store absolutely despises her. What she doesn't realize is that while she may possibly get up to Regional management, her abrasiveness will automatically disqualify her for the CEO chair. She'll never come within miles of it.

I believe that's what Al Gore calls "An Inconvenient Truth."

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."