Working in customer service, you’d think that all, or nearly all, of the stupidity that I deal with on a regular basis would come from the customers I deal with. Actually that is far from the truth. In actuality, much of the stupidity I deal with comes from my “superiors.” Believe it or not, I have been sent to work at several locations all over the Bay Area.
So far the manager at one station simply is never available…at all…ever. At the location I started working at, the manager spends more time on her cell phone, either talking or texting, than doing her work. She is quite candid about this. She has no qualms about letting people know that her calls and/or texts are of a personal nature, in fact, she carries on about her family drama at work on a regular basis. She is, on average, two and a half hours late to work every day, it takes her about two hours or more to run any errand. She flaunts these facts as if she were a queen. When I tried to kindly mention these facts to our regional manager, when she asked me about it, she became agitated and defensive saying, “The numbers speak for themselves.” The location of this store means that a monkey can run it…of course the numbers are good!
I moved to another location whose manager displayed violent tendencies. Again, the regional manager asked my opinion of my new manager. I expressed concerned about those violent tendencies. Again she became agitated and defensive, doing absolutely nothing about the issue. Sure enough, this manager’s violent tendencies came to a head resulting in tragedy and a law suit against the company, as well as the termination of said manager. This left the store WITHOUT a manager for a week. (We certainly can’t count the non-English speaking idiot with one brain cell that they call an assistant manager…)
Now we have a new “manager.” She has taken the liberty of completely rearranging the store so that nobody can find anything. We have nothing in stock, what we do have in stock is under lock and key so we cannot access it. Our customers are livid, yet we are at fault if we cannot make them happy. The new store policy is to card EVERYONE for tobacco and alcohol. So, when my 80 year old regular customer comes in to buy his pack of cigarettes that he gets EVERY DAY, I have to now ask for his ID…EVERY TIME! Do these people get upset and offended? Of course they do, and I don’t blame them! I have no business asking anyone over 40 for an ID for tobacco! This woman expects me to CALL her to get an ok to let an 80 year old man buy cigarettes without an ID! How ridiculous is that!
Let us recap: two of the managers I’ve seen here severely neglect their stores, one was violent enough to put his store in danger, and this last manager deliberately and purposely hinders her employees’ abilities to do their jobs. Which is worse?
Stupidity often comes from within a company. If the regional manager would just look at the idiocy that is happening around her, or at least listen to what her employees are saying, perhaps something could get done. Addressing the violent tendencies of the previous manager here could have prevented a lot of heartache for this company. Addressing the slacking of the manager at the other location could also prevent a lot of heartache for the company, but I’m sure the higher ups have no intention of doing so. It seems that this company would much rather clean up a mess AFTER the fact than prevent the mess from happening in the first place.
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