‘Bill Paying, Benefits Providing Job’ is the shorthanded acronym in title, and after a profoundly satisfying sales day Saturday ($7300+) that might be reflected in next Friday’s commission vs. just hours check, I’m smiling at how a major Southeast retailer’s (MSER) best day ever can become a half-disaster and bite it in the arse.
After cranking my own production at $1000/ hour level from 6am-2:00, I put Nautica department into great shape even before Jack got there for late shift, and the Vineyard Vines people killed it; guy who managed to transfer there from Suits a couple months ago was glorying in a $16,000 day. Retail really is a helluva lot more fun when you’re filling bags, reducing ALLLL that merchandise on tables, or, if you’ve kept your numbers decently close during some *really* lousy recent weeks, looking at possibility of ‘getting out of the hole’ commission-wise. The kicker for me was, everything that many of my retail compatriots/’accounting hour payroll units’ and I discussed about system blowing up came true.
Under almost any circumstances, Best Days Ever can cause logistical problems, like God-sent rain that goes beyond healing parched ground to powerful flooding. In the run-up to its semi-annual big-bigger-Bestest Sale, my major Southeastern retailer employer wound up having to pack pods– at the FAR END of our mall– with customer pre-sales. This massive success comes just after *another* (and confusing for many) major sale, and most importantly, one week after average full time employee hours (35-36) were trimmed down to minimal 31. The ONLY explanation possible for such a reduction was corporate greed, the willingness to pick thousands of employees pockets just because they can.
Don’t think for a SECOND that didn’t blast to the forefront of my brain-Attitude when, at the end of eight hours slinging it large yesterday, management made it known ANYBODY could have AS MUCH OVERTIME AS THEY WANTED if willing to help with (essentially) the unhappy mob wanting those products they’d set aside for almost two weeks from those pods NOW.
In text language it would look something like: 😦 u gt 2 b fking kdg!
That MSER has used clipped hours (4x this year) and minimal staffing– until recently when a bunch of inefficient part-timers was added– without regard to how it affected the Loyalty that strong organizations are built on. Experts agree that keeping good/happy employees who help customers are the best assets for a company, but when you turn that on its head–Company first and damn the hind end– you don’t DESERVE loyalty, and customers will catch that one way or another. Knowing I’d had a heckuva great day on numbers, even got one of those All-Important credit applications, saying no thanks! to obviously unpleasant overtime was a no-brainer. Don’t just say, “Employers are treating everyone like that now,” and expect that to salve any wounds. “What goes around comes around” is legit.
The Panthers are on a streak, Cam seems to have his head on properly, and with defense putting up a consistent show of strength, they go cross-country to take on the 49ers, who are more than tough at home. Panthers win this one, the talk of playoffs will definitely be more than a whisper. For a football team’s season, that ‘Winning cures’ axiom is a fact. With the family gathering killing spectre of a *still unannounced to the peasant masses, at least in schedules, 8 pm opening on Thanksgiving*, that MSER might not be looking at a full team effort to keep the winning rolling.
Glenn S.
CDTalent Enterprises 