Same old song and dance...
So, after my daring crusade against a megalomaniac tyrant, things calmed down around the rug department. We were back working our schedule, a sense of camaraderie was flourishing, work was getting done, November was one of the most awesome months this place had seen (not that I benefited from it, despite selling the same amount of product as anyone else, the value of my sales was severely lacking :pouty face:). Then...December.
After much mending of bridges with the sales force of the store at large, we were pulled into a meeting by the manager of another location, Ms. "Pat" who rallied us and gave us so much support in our darker days, calls us into a meeting with the head honcho of the whole store. We are then cut down like dead wood on a cold fall morning. It was merciless, we were talked at like we were the scum of the store and the department's failings were all our fault. We're doing bad? Supposedly some sales people accuse us of selling down, pointing out lesser, cheaper product to customers clearly interested in higher end stuff. BULLSHIT! That's exactly what we've seen the sales people doing! Oh, but don't try to defend or rebuff these statements, senior, we don't want to hear excuses.
Excuses? Pardon-fucking-me? You're tearing us down with baseless accusations, I don't want to sit here and take it! But, damage done. The end of the meeting turned lighter and we were told we were going to be a study-case, to see if we could run this thing on our own, splitting the duties of a manager between us (though no raise or compensation for such of course!).
But December starts showing a major decline in traffic and by extension sales. Pat wants to know why our numbers suck so bad...no one's coming to even look, that's why, we can't work with what we don't have! "Why do you think that is?" Oh, I don't know, you cut off our advertising and also attempted to break our spirits? Where was the supportive lass who had our backs a month ago?
Turns out...the upper echelon wanted Theresa gone as well but didn't have the necessary criteria to let her go, it was always a case of he said/she said. So they used us, goaded us into taking action against her, and once she was gone, but the numbers didn't suddenly skyrocket, turned their fury onto us. Oh, and the meeting regarding we were going to be the team without a manager for a while to see if it worked? Complete farce.
A man whom I shall call (for anonymity's sake), Allan, was introduced to me by Pat on New Year's Eve as the new boss. Just like that, here you go, a new manager. No warning, no head's up, just, BAM! New boss.
Now, I'm not saying we should have had any say in the matter, but after telling us we were going to operate without management, and the the guy with seniority was going to hold the reins so to speak and perhaps one day even step into management, suddenly dropping a guy on us comes as a shock. Especially when you find out later that at the time of the meeting where we were told we were going to do things our way on our own, Allan was already in the process of getting set up in his new territory. Pat fucking lied to us. Upper management deliberately kept us out of the loop on the matter. I'm so tired of this second-class citizen shit.
Okay, whatever, on a personal level, Allan ain't so bad, we'll deal.
One week later, Allan calls into a quick private meeting. After some pc "what do you guys think of current changes?" bs that he actually doesn't care if we have an opinion on or not (because I expressed mine and he shot it down pointe blanc), he tells us this mind-blowing shit: If we don't sell more than 30k individually three months in a row, he's gonna let us go and if we're late (though he failed to define "late") three times within a month he's gonna let us go. One week he's worked with us. Doesn't know how the market is here, hasn't gained a feel for our customer base, hasn't observed our routines at length or come to understand our individual situations, and the bastard is giving us ultimatums. At the worst time of year mind you!
This is the first quarter of a new year, everyone gets tight with their dollars considering tax time is coming up. We (us three, not Allan) reviewed the previous years' numbers and lo and behold! there's a significant potential for at least one, if not all of us, to fail his decree by April.
In December, no one hit 30k. Not one of us. What happens if something like that happens again, purely by the lack of patronage? Now, Allan said he doesn't want to get rid of anyone, he doesn't want to spend the time training new people...but with a statement like the one he just issued, it sounds like he's setting us up for failure so that he can easily let us go and then bring in and train his own crew. Why work with a bunch of people already stuck in their ways? I've been in this position before...new boss pressures the current team, either into submission, or out the door so that they can get things done on their own terms.
I accepted this job because I was unemployed. That was the third time I faced unemployment at length. I've been laid off three times (twice from the same company!) and fired once in the last ten years. My luck with employment appears spent. I've been looking for work more along my desires and skills since I accepted this job. New management and this culture of secrecy and backstabbing remind me of why I never wanted to be in retail again and only make me further regret taking this job.
Supposedly 80% of the workforce as a whole in the U.S. is looking for another job...I bet a big portion of that percentage are in situations like mine. Tired of bullshit.
After much mending of bridges with the sales force of the store at large, we were pulled into a meeting by the manager of another location, Ms. "Pat" who rallied us and gave us so much support in our darker days, calls us into a meeting with the head honcho of the whole store. We are then cut down like dead wood on a cold fall morning. It was merciless, we were talked at like we were the scum of the store and the department's failings were all our fault. We're doing bad? Supposedly some sales people accuse us of selling down, pointing out lesser, cheaper product to customers clearly interested in higher end stuff. BULLSHIT! That's exactly what we've seen the sales people doing! Oh, but don't try to defend or rebuff these statements, senior, we don't want to hear excuses.
Excuses? Pardon-fucking-me? You're tearing us down with baseless accusations, I don't want to sit here and take it! But, damage done. The end of the meeting turned lighter and we were told we were going to be a study-case, to see if we could run this thing on our own, splitting the duties of a manager between us (though no raise or compensation for such of course!).
But December starts showing a major decline in traffic and by extension sales. Pat wants to know why our numbers suck so bad...no one's coming to even look, that's why, we can't work with what we don't have! "Why do you think that is?" Oh, I don't know, you cut off our advertising and also attempted to break our spirits? Where was the supportive lass who had our backs a month ago?
Turns out...the upper echelon wanted Theresa gone as well but didn't have the necessary criteria to let her go, it was always a case of he said/she said. So they used us, goaded us into taking action against her, and once she was gone, but the numbers didn't suddenly skyrocket, turned their fury onto us. Oh, and the meeting regarding we were going to be the team without a manager for a while to see if it worked? Complete farce.
A man whom I shall call (for anonymity's sake), Allan, was introduced to me by Pat on New Year's Eve as the new boss. Just like that, here you go, a new manager. No warning, no head's up, just, BAM! New boss.
Now, I'm not saying we should have had any say in the matter, but after telling us we were going to operate without management, and the the guy with seniority was going to hold the reins so to speak and perhaps one day even step into management, suddenly dropping a guy on us comes as a shock. Especially when you find out later that at the time of the meeting where we were told we were going to do things our way on our own, Allan was already in the process of getting set up in his new territory. Pat fucking lied to us. Upper management deliberately kept us out of the loop on the matter. I'm so tired of this second-class citizen shit.
Okay, whatever, on a personal level, Allan ain't so bad, we'll deal.
One week later, Allan calls into a quick private meeting. After some pc "what do you guys think of current changes?" bs that he actually doesn't care if we have an opinion on or not (because I expressed mine and he shot it down pointe blanc), he tells us this mind-blowing shit: If we don't sell more than 30k individually three months in a row, he's gonna let us go and if we're late (though he failed to define "late") three times within a month he's gonna let us go. One week he's worked with us. Doesn't know how the market is here, hasn't gained a feel for our customer base, hasn't observed our routines at length or come to understand our individual situations, and the bastard is giving us ultimatums. At the worst time of year mind you!
This is the first quarter of a new year, everyone gets tight with their dollars considering tax time is coming up. We (us three, not Allan) reviewed the previous years' numbers and lo and behold! there's a significant potential for at least one, if not all of us, to fail his decree by April.
In December, no one hit 30k. Not one of us. What happens if something like that happens again, purely by the lack of patronage? Now, Allan said he doesn't want to get rid of anyone, he doesn't want to spend the time training new people...but with a statement like the one he just issued, it sounds like he's setting us up for failure so that he can easily let us go and then bring in and train his own crew. Why work with a bunch of people already stuck in their ways? I've been in this position before...new boss pressures the current team, either into submission, or out the door so that they can get things done on their own terms.
I accepted this job because I was unemployed. That was the third time I faced unemployment at length. I've been laid off three times (twice from the same company!) and fired once in the last ten years. My luck with employment appears spent. I've been looking for work more along my desires and skills since I accepted this job. New management and this culture of secrecy and backstabbing remind me of why I never wanted to be in retail again and only make me further regret taking this job.
Supposedly 80% of the workforce as a whole in the U.S. is looking for another job...I bet a big portion of that percentage are in situations like mine. Tired of bullshit.
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