Just Call Me "Stinky"

Here's one from the "must have been something I ate" department.

All day long while working at the store, I was passing some really nasty, god-awful, tear-gas, chemical weapon, exhumed corpse smelling, farts.

It made giving "great guest service" almost impossible. I had to keep myself a couple of steps back so people wouldn't smell it. I tried real hard to control the emission, but sometimes it would force out while speaking with guests. Talk about embarrassing.

I've tried Beano. That stuff just makes me worse. I'm not exactly sure how to handle it. But then again, I guess it's my way of giving back to the community for all the times people have been really nasty to me. Considering that, I don't feel quite so bad after all.

Six Sigma: Another Hairy Pair

Take a long, hard look at the logo for the Six Sigma Quality Management Program. Is it just me, or is there some phallic symbolism built into it?

(HEH! HE SAID "LONG AND HARD," HEH-HEH...)

My New Program, "Seven Zagma"

A Pox On Them All

A few years back when I was manager of a dollar store belonging to a certain chain headquartered in an Atlantic coast state south of the Mason Dixon, honchos would assign me to secret-shop from time to time. One of the things they would have us do is purposely and outrageously provoke a clerk to gauge their reaction.

I thought that this was absolutely despicable.

Retail clerks have enough naturally occurring stress in their lives and on the job. They don't need some overpaid stuffed shirt executive sending people in to antagonize them even further.

I'm still in retail, and so many times I can spot these secret shoppers a mile off, it's sad. Some are real slick and get by me, others are definitely not. I can tell who they are because they follow the exact same script every time they come in. When a real, legitimate customer is unhappy, I know how to handle them and help them to be satisfied. It's the ones who literally go out of their way to specifically insult me and refuse every effort to make them happy, even when I'm offering them the farm, that I can tell are the shoppers sent in to antagonize. They use the exact same words, fling the exact same insults, complain about the exact same policies, ask the exact same questions about the exact same merchandise, in ways I can tell that the average customer wouldn't even really care about.

Let me say something to retail executives who send in antagonistic secret shoppers:

I curse you.

I curse you and your spies, I curse the filthy lucre blood money used to line your paycheck earned from the blood and suffering of third world laborers you outsourced your production to. I curse you to an eternity of hell working the complaints counter in a department store. I curse you to an eternity of injured backs, pulled muscles, high blood pressure, hand callouses, toe corns, and hardening veins in your feet. I curse you to an eternity of nasty people shouting profanities at you.

I curse you, executives.

[spit].

I'll Use Small Words So You Can Understand.

The other day I asked a customer if I could help her. She giggled and said "no thank you, I'm trying to find my husband -- I'm just lost." To make a joke I said "maybe you should try Hare Krishna..." (referring to the come-on line used by cult recruiters in the 60's.) The guest laughed and continued on. She was middle-aged and appeared to be college educated, so she got the joke.

My co-worker was standing there, looking at me quizzically. "huh?"

I had to explain to him the whole deal behind Hare Krishna and the 60's bit. He still didn't get it. Never mind.

My buddy "J" who works in Assets Protection then told me that I have to realize that even though educated people like me and him understand it, most of my humor is WAAAAY over the heads of people in the store, including management. "You and I know, but the rest of them just think you're weird."

It's sad, really, it truly is. Are people that ignorant these days?

Sit And Point

A weekend or two ago I had the pleasure of assisting the flow team work out a shipment. As usual, "Mz. Waffle-boot" logistics director was sitting in the cafe drinking her coffee and chatting with "lipstick and purse" store manager while directing the work over the walkie. (I use the term "Mz." because in her case "Mrs." or "Miss" would be a drastic misnomer.)

It really gets me how the corporate office puts up with that. Other places I've worked, executives would really kick the manager's keister if he wasn't out on the floor moving his groove thing. One thing is for certain -- the only constant in life is change -- and one of these days corporate is going to change around enough to where somebody is going to start wondering why these women are standing or sitting around so much.

Size Does Matter.

After a two-year long study, The National Science Foundation announced the following results on Corporate America's recreational preferences:

1. The sport of choice for male unemployed or incarcerated individuals is BASKETBALL.
2. The sport of choice for male maintenance level employees is BOWLING.
3. The sport of choice for male front-line workers is FOOTBALL.
4. The sport of choice for male supervisors is BASEBALL.
5. The sport of choice for male middle management is TENNIS.
6. The sport of choice for male corporate officers is GOLF.

Conclusion: The higher you are in the corporate structure,

the smaller your balls are...

Union Busters.

My buddy Fred told me he saw an interesting notice on the bulletin board the other day.

It was an anouncement demanding the presence of all the team leads at training classes held at the district office. They were going to be told how to deal with unions, and how to keep union organizers out of the stores and the company.

Ah, yes. It's union busting season again.

Here's what cracks me up. Fred's company brags all the day long about the zillion-bejillion-gozillion dollars they donate to charity. But when it comes to giving their floor associates a few measly cents an hour in extra pay, it's major heresy.

Fred's company spends millions of dollars on P.R. about how they're a socially responsible company. Then they spend God knows how much paying lawyers to help them keep unions out. The cashiers and stockers are paid less than the garbage collectors and janitors in this town, hell--even the convenience store clerks earn five more dollars an hour than they do at Fred's company.

Fred tells me the cashier line at his company is a revolving door of people leaving the company right after they start. Why? Because his company won't pay. When people can get better money by walking, they'll do it in a heartbeat. Then the managers at his company scratch their heads and wonder why their customers aren't satisfied well, and they can't keep employees.

Yep, I tell ya. It's real rocket science, folks. I don't gots me an ed-ya-muh-cay-shen with a fancy M.B.A., so I doesn't know what I'm talkst 'bout.

Odds And Ends

Cousin Ralph

Every 28 days or so my wife jokes about being visited by "Aunt Flo." When I catch a flu bug and want to toss my cookies, I talk about being visited by my "Cousin Ralph." All day yesterday Ralph was right there with me at work. Luckily I didn't toss anything, but Ralph was sure trying to bug me.

Grow Up, Dork

I worked the electronics counter again this weekend. As usual, we had a continual parade of phone calls asking if we received any more NintendoWii's. It's like your kids asking you over and over "are we there yet?" "NO! Dammit! stop asking!" I want so desperately to tell these hopeless losers to get a life, and go exercise or spend some time with their families, instead of letting their brains rot sitting in front of a damn video game. These people are so stupid. They are letting a Japanese game company jerk their chain around with an artificially created shortage of game consoles.

She Might Chip A Nail

The store manager called over the walkie to have someone retrieve a heavy item stored on an upper shelf in the back room. She said she can't operate the forklift. Another reason to apply equal opportunity. She is such a "token," it's not even funny. One of these days, some cranky, scrappy new executive at corporate is going to make store managers to do some actual work, and when that happens, this chick is out of luck.

Monkey Business Office Lingo #9

DEJA MOO -- [Day-Jah Mu] noun. The distinct feeling you've heard the same bull before.

More Inconvenient Truth

A friend of mine used to work for Family Dollar Stores. We'll call her Jeanie.

Jeanie shared with me a website containing employee opinions about F.D. from surveys.

http://www.vault.com/companies/company_main.jsp?product_id=6569&co_page=10

Read them and be forewarned. Don't walk -- RUN, when anyone from there tries to recruit you.

New Addy For The Link List

http://www.retail-sucks.com/index.php

This is a bulletin board, or forum, for retail employees who will tell it to you straight without all the corporate bullshit you see in the commercials.

Monkey Business Management Secret #15

First, I need to quote to you some *legitimate* management advice:

“Hire the best. Pay them fairly. Communicate freely. Provide challenges
and rewards. Get out of their way. They’ll knock your socks off.”
~ Mary Ann Allison

Next, let me tell you how to turn that into a Monkey Business Management Secret (tm).

"Hire the next person that comes along. Keep them in the dark. Give them impossible tasks. Punish them for failing. Micromanage their every move, and stay in their way. Then they'll give you what you pay for -- mediocrity."
~ Monkey Business Manager

Big Box Mart

Check out this funny video about my life in retail.

Big Box Mart
|Funny Jokes at JibJab

The "Coffee Cup" War.

"Lemmee 'splain....no, there is too much. Lemmee sum it up..." (~Inugo Montoya, in The Princess Bride)

OK, I'll bring you up to speed. Somebody at work keeps throwing away my coffee cups. I buy one from the dollar store, use it at work, leave it under the counter, and the next day it's gone. I've gone through four cups. After loosing the third cup, I started to keep my new cup and my creamer in a box under the counter. I wrote a dire warning on the box, stating that if anyone threw out my cup again I would personally hunt them down and throw it at them.

All hell broke loose.

People saw the note and complained high and mighty. I had to sit and listen to a scolding from the store manager and the H.R. director. My note qualified as "threat" speech, and under company guidelines I was given a write-up with a final warning (meaning, "one more mister, and you're gone.") I protested about the cups. They completely blew it off. They said that the cups had been thrown out when cleaning the counter. It's all my fault for not keeping them in my locker, taking the bar code off of them, and putting my name on them. Nobody in the store will come clean and tell me who's been doing it.

Needless to say, I am royally pissed. I would have thought it was common sense that a ceramic coffee cup sitting by the coffee maker just might be some one's property, and that common decency would lead people to respect another person's property. I see now I was wrong.

Yesterday, I discovered the fourth one disappeared. Before I left that night, I poured a puddle of coffee on the counter and left the carafe on top of it. Today I am off, so I'm going to let them stew on that for awhile. I'm going to go in early to work tomorrow and do some shouting. Whether or not I remain there after this week remains to be seen. Stay tuned.

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.