Okay, so, the new boss has been in place nearly two weeks now. Of course, I spent the first of those weeks in Florida...and can I just say I wish I was still there? This has been a horrid week, and it's not over yet: for the first time in nearly six years, I am required/expected/sorry to have/ to be present this Saturday.
That didn't take long, did it?
This was, sadly, expected. It's just not natural to work in retail and get every weekend off. For reasons I don't pretend to understand, nearly half of our week's business is routinely compacted into two days. (You say you don't have time to shop on weekdays? Me, I don't have time not to. You'd have to pay me to havigate our aisles on a Saturday, when it can take ten minutes or more to get from one end of the store to the other...and we're small as grocery stores go, just a shade over 2,000 square metres of sales space.)
On the plus side, it seems to be just every other Saturday I'm expected to work, with certain exceptions due to particularly hot ads, and I'll get Wednesdays off in weeks where I work the Saturday. That's not too onerous. It's still a damn sight better than working for 7-Eleven. Except for vacations, I got three weekends off there in five years.
Also, it sounds like I am getting a raise, which is certainly welcome.
It has been an adjustment with this new boss...not in a bad way, necessarily (except to reiterate that I really don't handle change all that well)...it's just a totally different management style. Before, I was left to manage my department on my own, for the most part. Not so much anymore. New boss has certain ideas on how much product ought to be ordered. I'm not sure where these ideas come from. Certainly not from his old store, which did about half our volume. Suffice it to say my shelves are groaning and my freezer is--well, best not look in there, it's like a teenager's closet. In my darker moments I feel as if "my" department has been stolen from me, not least because I'm now expected to focus on dairy and leave frozen, for the most part, to my assistant. (We'll switch roles in three months: this isn't a demotion.)
I see advantages if I take off the bitch-glasses: the department looks beautiful when it's jammed full and I kind of doubt I'm going to run out of very much very often. (But will anybody take the time to rotate anything, when doing so means taking forty units off a shelf to put up eight?) And concentrating on dairy, always my strong suit anyway, should make life less stressful (though it sure doesn't seem like it yet).
We'll see how this all washes out. As I've said, change and I are not friends, particularly unnecessary and ill-advised change. But I'll adapt. I always do.
3 comments:
Frickin work, who ever thought of this system?
I'm with you man, going through some wicked "integration" stuff at work as well. The tornado is swirling and we are all looking for a place to hide.
Sorry to hear about working Saturday's Ken. I used to work at a place where we got Sunday's and a day during the week off - having two days off in a row certainly helps one get more rest than just have two seperate days off during the week.
in my department i'm just waiting for them to see how you can't just snap your fingers and expect sales to soar. tons more fresh product was brought in on the weekend than we needed and anyone could tell you that. Clear your freezer - March 15th is the day you can clean up and save big with reduce stickers - trust me
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