Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 5:09 am
Jaz, you might want to think about taking on a shitty job just for a job sake, much like I did with Office Depot. Then when they find out how fabulous you are you may be able to work up through the ranks quite quickly. Good corporate retail managers recognize and reward excellence quite quickly and their management people do get paid well once they make it up there to assistant manager, the job I'm in line for next.
Cov, that is total BS. Once again I am forced to tell you to come to the states. Give up your unholy dependency of that island and do something crazy.
I had a fun day at work today. I came in and overheard Kfir telling a customer that his chair assembly would not be ready until Sunday. I was annoyed so I helped Tony out with some stuff in copy and print and told him that I was going to be busy assembling chairs, (the customer ordered 6) for a bit. Kfir was highly skeptical of my ability to assemble chairs but I told him he was not providing good customer service by giving such a long turn around and that I did quite a bit of chair assembly at my old store and didn't mind doing it one bit. Kfir is a bit lazy. Anyway, I went back to the back to talk to Nate since he's the main furniture guy. He showed me the pallets of furniture he had waiting to be put away and the list of new labels since they just revamped the furniture area this week. I told him, don't worry, I will help with all of it. He was shocked that I volunteered to help. I started assembling the first chair and Nate finished writing the list of tags he needed to print and so I let him finish the chair where I left off and proceeded to type in all the item numbers and printed the labels, about a hundred of them. By the time I was done, Nate had the first chair done and was pretty much done with the second. I started another and we sat side by side and assembled chairs and talked. One of the chairs had a rip in the leather pad of the arm which we didn't notice until Nate had the chair almost all the way assembled. That meant that in the end we actually ended up assembling seven chairs and we marked the ripped one down for quick sale. Then he called the customer and let him know the chairs were ready and the customer was quite happy about it. Then Seth asked me if I would set up the new display for the floor guards and so forth. I said sure and got to hang out with Nate in furniture for a lot longer. I had a ton of stuff left over for top stock from the new product and realized that they must have double shipped the merchandise for the new rack because all my top stock was the same numbers and either labelled the 27th of Jan or the 8th of Feb. I got it all top stocked and Nate made it easy for me by handing me stuff off the freight cart so I didn't have to keep running up and down the ladder. When we got finished we had a nice high five bonding moment and he said it was really nice having someone help him out and to help someone else work in his department today. I told him, "Teamwork, that's what I am TALKING about."
During all this we helped a bunch of customers with furniture questions and so forth. At one point I asked if anyone could check a number for me to see if we had some in stock. No response. I asked again. No response so I walked up to the tech bench to check it myself and two other managers were just standing there talking about a foot away from where they could have easily punched in a six digit number and saved me the trip half way across the store. I said, "What, you guys can't hear me or just choose to ignore me?" One looked a bit taken aback but the other jokingly said he was choosing to ignore me. I said, "Fine, I'll remember this moment with something way less than fondness." They got the picture that I was not happy. I proceeded to make a show of walking back and forth stock checking for the customer without asking and then made sure to rattle loudly by when bringing up the big huge heavy file cabinet that the customer finally purchased. One of them asked if I needed help and I said, "Nope, I got it just fine thanks. I didn't think I would get help if I bothered to ask and Nate is busy with two customers already so I didn't want to ask him even though I know he would have jumped to help, but don't worry, I got it." One got the message. The other, not so much. Went right over his head. Anyway, it's all good.
I just loved getting a chance to work side by side and getting to know another one of my associates that I haven't had a ton of working time with. That was quite fun. Tomorrow, I have one chore to get out of the way and then I am going to help him put that furniture away. I haven't had much of a physical workout at work since I left Emeryville and I think I need one.
Cov, that is total BS. Once again I am forced to tell you to come to the states. Give up your unholy dependency of that island and do something crazy.
I had a fun day at work today. I came in and overheard Kfir telling a customer that his chair assembly would not be ready until Sunday. I was annoyed so I helped Tony out with some stuff in copy and print and told him that I was going to be busy assembling chairs, (the customer ordered 6) for a bit. Kfir was highly skeptical of my ability to assemble chairs but I told him he was not providing good customer service by giving such a long turn around and that I did quite a bit of chair assembly at my old store and didn't mind doing it one bit. Kfir is a bit lazy. Anyway, I went back to the back to talk to Nate since he's the main furniture guy. He showed me the pallets of furniture he had waiting to be put away and the list of new labels since they just revamped the furniture area this week. I told him, don't worry, I will help with all of it. He was shocked that I volunteered to help. I started assembling the first chair and Nate finished writing the list of tags he needed to print and so I let him finish the chair where I left off and proceeded to type in all the item numbers and printed the labels, about a hundred of them. By the time I was done, Nate had the first chair done and was pretty much done with the second. I started another and we sat side by side and assembled chairs and talked. One of the chairs had a rip in the leather pad of the arm which we didn't notice until Nate had the chair almost all the way assembled. That meant that in the end we actually ended up assembling seven chairs and we marked the ripped one down for quick sale. Then he called the customer and let him know the chairs were ready and the customer was quite happy about it. Then Seth asked me if I would set up the new display for the floor guards and so forth. I said sure and got to hang out with Nate in furniture for a lot longer. I had a ton of stuff left over for top stock from the new product and realized that they must have double shipped the merchandise for the new rack because all my top stock was the same numbers and either labelled the 27th of Jan or the 8th of Feb. I got it all top stocked and Nate made it easy for me by handing me stuff off the freight cart so I didn't have to keep running up and down the ladder. When we got finished we had a nice high five bonding moment and he said it was really nice having someone help him out and to help someone else work in his department today. I told him, "Teamwork, that's what I am TALKING about."
During all this we helped a bunch of customers with furniture questions and so forth. At one point I asked if anyone could check a number for me to see if we had some in stock. No response. I asked again. No response so I walked up to the tech bench to check it myself and two other managers were just standing there talking about a foot away from where they could have easily punched in a six digit number and saved me the trip half way across the store. I said, "What, you guys can't hear me or just choose to ignore me?" One looked a bit taken aback but the other jokingly said he was choosing to ignore me. I said, "Fine, I'll remember this moment with something way less than fondness." They got the picture that I was not happy. I proceeded to make a show of walking back and forth stock checking for the customer without asking and then made sure to rattle loudly by when bringing up the big huge heavy file cabinet that the customer finally purchased. One of them asked if I needed help and I said, "Nope, I got it just fine thanks. I didn't think I would get help if I bothered to ask and Nate is busy with two customers already so I didn't want to ask him even though I know he would have jumped to help, but don't worry, I got it." One got the message. The other, not so much. Went right over his head. Anyway, it's all good.
I just loved getting a chance to work side by side and getting to know another one of my associates that I haven't had a ton of working time with. That was quite fun. Tomorrow, I have one chore to get out of the way and then I am going to help him put that furniture away. I haven't had much of a physical workout at work since I left Emeryville and I think I need one.
It was a long day...
I've been puttering around ever since. And I just realized that I'm liable to be late for work anyhow. 