Wag More, Bark Less

[Typed on June 31, 2008]


So today was the day that corporate was supposed to come. I closed last night and the entire eight hours I worked was focused on the young men's denim. Of course, it hasn't been touched in weeks, so it takes me the entire time to get it all done. When we did the last floorset, whoever was working on the denim wall scooted some styles over instead of leaving them spread out and kind of at an angle--how it is pictured in the floorset visual document.

I tend to notice things and see how long it takes for someone else to notice and fix it. The last floorset when we re-did the denim was on June 22. The denim hadn't been fixed in literally 39 days. THIRTY NINE DAYS!! That's almost 6 weeks. It's absolutely absurd! Also, there has been a ceiling light fixture out for seven days and no one has sent in a maintenance request. I'm not going to do it because I'm always the one to do things and it is ridiculous! It was about three weeks before I finally gave in and did a maintenance request on the neon "PS" sign in the window being half out. And above this neon sign is a vendor graphic for Etnies shoes. We don't carry shoes anymore and we very very rarely receive any Etnies merchandise, so it shouldn't be up in the window, let alone anywhere in the store! We used to have lots of vendor graphics in the storefront window because we had such a large window and nothing to fill it with. We even had a shop of clothing on that side at one point. It was not shoppable and a bad move on our visual department's behalf. Back to the point, this sign should not be up, and we took down the rest of the signs almost a year ago. It has literally almost been a year and no one has taken it down. I'm not going to give in on this one. I'll update on the situation if anything happens; don't expect any updates.

So I was working on the young men's denim wall all day yesterday and after some deep cleaning and straightening by Kinsey and Sam [way to go!], all that was left was the junior's denim wall. Our boss said it was okay for me to scoot my shift up an hour so it went from 9-6 to 8-5. I got to the store, did the paperwork [extra thorough I might add] and looked at the promo sheet to see what the sales were. Nothing changed in the last two days, but I wanted it to be absolutely perfect for when our District Manager and Regional Director come into the store. Our boss didn't double check on our other manager's setup of the sales and it took me 45 minutes or more to fix everything. After this I printed off a new sheet with the same sales on it to make sure everything was perfect. Turns out, I forgot to sign the denim skirts. When our boss came in this morning to be there for the meeting, I asked her to go over it and make sure that the skirts were signed. Can you guess what she didn't do? Typical.

The head honchos were supposed to be at our store around noon. When time crept close, I was over halfway done with the junior's denim wall and we got a phone call. Apparently our District Manager sent another manager a text saying, "We're not going up North anymore. Call Cascade [us] and Bellis Fair and let them know. Will explain later." So basically they weren't coming after all. After re-arranging the schedule so that our boss could be there for the meeting, they didn't show up. So now she is doing a half day on Saturday and I have to work eight straight hours. Honestly, coming in early, tossing and turning all night and getting absolutely no healthy sleep, and now having to work a lame shift on Saturday is absolutely for nothing. So what happened?

A manager from the Bellingham store called and left our District Manager a voicemail because she didn't answer her cell phone [honestly, if I was a District Manager, I would always answer my phone and always ALWAYS show up when I said I would and if I couldn't, I would call and personally explain why]. So we're all in the dark about what's going on. I called one of the first stores on the list of visit and asked if she showed up. The manager said that they showed up, it went well, and they left. I asked if she knew what happened afterward and she said she didn't. I told her what we had heard and I said that it was really weird and kind of lame because Carrie had to re-do the week's schedule to make time for them. She said, "Oh Carrie! I miss her! I heard she's stepping down..." I told her that I didn't hear anything about that and she said, "Oh, it might be a different Carrie..." After that I called her and asked what she knew, if anything. She was as surprised to hear that as I was and she called Kari from the Marysville store. Apparently this Kari girl decided to step down from full-time to part-time so she could spend more time with her kids. Upon hearing this, we wondered what the "Explain later" part of our District Manager's text could mean.

Later on, the manager from Bellingham called to let us know that our D.M. was going to be up there at 11:00 in the morning and he didn't know if she was stopping by our store anytime. He also said that the reason why they didn't make it up to the North stores was because our R.D. didn't schedule enough time to make it up that far. "Oh, and something came up that's not public yet but we might be getting a SOLAR [e-mail] about it tomorrow." What does this MEAN?! I called our boss and updated her.

She called later saying that she talked to the Kari girl from Marysville. Kari told our D.M. that she wanted to step down to part-time [previously discussed it and it was okay, she just didn't know exactly when] and our D.M. said, "Either you're full-time or you walk away." So, she put in her notice. Honestly, this is ridiculous. This makes seven managers in the last 6 weeks that this woman has been with the company. I wonder if she gets it at all that she is making everything incredibly difficult. I haven't personally experienced anything besides the fact that A.) she never shows up to our store to show any kind of interest or support, B.) if she can't make it to the store, she doesn't personally let us know, which shows that she doesn't really and truly care, and C.) even if she's at the store, she doesn't talk to me at all. There's more than just a Store Manager that makes up the PacSun team, and I'm pretty sure I contribute a hell of a lot more than she does, even when I hate my job and loathe every shift I have.

So basically, rumors rumors rumors, no show and a rude way of notifying us about it, and the fact that if we DID get visited tomorrow morning, I won't be the one to be there because I had to switch shifts with the other manager to make her happy. She complains about working closing shifts all the time and will not be happy if she works two in a row. So I took her closing shift tomorrow so she can close tonight and open tomorrow. So this means I close tomorrow, close Saturday, and work open to close on Sunday. Hell of a time, right? I guess it's okay because I get the next two weekends off and if something about it changes [with the exception of a possible floorset the first Sunday of the two weekends, that's okay because there's no customers and I clearly run the show], I'm going to be an extremely unhappy manager. And I really hope that the rumors that this manager switched shifts because she "has a friend coming in from Portland" when really she just wants another weekend off aren't true. Being lied to my face is not okay and I really don't want to believe that people can do that.

Backing up a bit, I spent my break [mid-denim, post-receiving the call that corporate wasn't coming, pre-end of shift] swinging by the Mount Vernon Washington Federal Savings branch and talking to the manager. My boss's friend's dad runs it and I found out that there might be an open position relatively soon. I talked to the manager and he told me that it would be a full-time position with hours from 8:30-5:00 Monday thru Thursday and either 8-5 or 9-6 every other Friday and they are closed Saturday and Sunday [all federal holidays recognized and off, benefits, etc.]. How awesome would that be? He said the dress code is pretty lax: nice dress pants with a nice top [sweet scarves "okay" and as long as it's not a v-neck top or branded tee, we're cool]. I probably won't be making as much, but the hours would make life incredibly easy to schedule things. He said to turn in a resume and a cover letter and I put it on my list of things to do tonight!

I have my resume and a couple cover letters already made so the process of re-formatting them for this place won't be too difficult. Two nights ago I was up late and I applied online at PetCo, PetSmart, and the regular Washington Mutual as a teller in the local Fred Meyer. I also made a Monster.com account and "built my resume" so that employers can see certain keywords and see if I'm right for their job. I'm not getting my hopes up, but I am crossing my fingers!

On my way back to work after stopping by Washington Federal Savings, I swung by Jack-in-the-Box for a quick snack. I got a large Kona Coffee Shake [absolutely amazing!], a big cheeseburger with extra EXTRA onions, and a medium sized thing of curly fries. Can you guess my total?


AHhh! I should have ordered something more! I actually should have ordered something LESS because I hardly ate any of my curly fries, with the exception of the three longest curly-q fries I have ever seen! The tight spiral ones are my favourite! When I was ordering, the employee asked if I wanted whipped cream and the cherry on my shake. I had never been asked that at J.i.t.B. so I said, "No cherry please!" Because although cherries are amazing, these are those fake ones [marichino?] and don't taste the best. Although the receipt says, "No Cherry," guess what?




Ugh. And THEN on my way back to work [finally making it back!], I saw a 17- or 18-year-old boy wearing long, red JNCO shorts on the corner of an intersection holding a sign that said "Homeless. Hungry." Honestly, what does it mean when the bums of the world get younger and younger because people just stop caring to work for themselves? It's a sad sad day when you see something like this.

At work again it was slow. This was when we did our "investigating" but I was doing a little investigating of my own. It bothered me that our boss doesn't make working at the store any easier. She makes everyone in bad moods every single time she works and even this morning, she didn't help me with any kind of straightening project; she simply asked me how I got my sales figures. "I added everything up!" ...unlike her, adding up random numbers and just saying whatever percent shows up on the screen and not dollar figures or anything. This just bothered me that she enforces all these random rules at random times ["No gossiping! Don't tell anyone I said this, but..." and "You can't live together or someone is going to get fired!" and "I'm writing you up because you have a negative attitude."], so I looked up her job description:

Leadership:
-Creates and takes accountability for a consistently positive work environment that increases productivity, decreases unwanted turnover and enhances the customer experience.
-Provides an open door policy where employees are free to express their concerns and feelings without fear of retaliation or ill will.

This is just a small excerpt from the beginning of this document. Honestly, she is doing neither of these things. People don't want to work with her at all [not my fault! Don't blame me while you're counseling me with a ridiculous write-up] and if someone has a concern [I.E. believing that "close your eyes and tell me who is in the store, what they're wearing, and what they're carrying" is a stupid idea and not worth doing], they cannot tell her because it'll come up while they're getting written up or she'll go into the backroom and cry.

Human Resources:
-Recruits, interviews and selects the best candidates for job openings who reflect the PacSun Brand Standard.
-Prepares and administers Brand Rep and Management performance reviews in a timely manner.
-Administers employee discipline in a fair and consistent manner.

A.) She designated ME the interviewing manager. I have the "culture" section of the store and it's MY job to recruit, interview, and select the best candidates. She does jack SHIT! AND the people I hire, she "claims" I need to be there for orientation, when she does everything and shows me nothing. If you don't want to have anything to do with hiring people, then give it all to me and erase it from YOUR job description and put it on MINE. AND let me do the training instead of picking and choosing what you want to do. B.) Sam hasn't received her review yet [no raise, no anything] and it was due over three months ago. Honestly, if it's part of her job to do this, she needs to get on top of it! This is far more important than coloring zone sheets for the next month. Not caring or showing any interest in our employees doesn't help the fact that they don't want to work with you! C.) The third line of this section needs no explanation. I am going to make copies of all my write-ups and show you how random and ridiculous these are. Extremely hypocritical in every way.

Personal Development:
-Maintains a healthy balance between work and personal life.

She takes everything at work personal. If someone enjoys working with another manager more than her [and she's asked employees before who their favourites were--immature, much?], she makes it her personal goal to become the favourite in both work and personal areas. If someone doesn't want to hang out with her outside of work, she'll bring it up at work and discuss it to death. I had a ridiculous outside-of-work personal experience with her, and she brought it into the work place, rubbing it in my face and then trying to convince everyone that she was the "victim." And this bit about spending an hour or so on the floorset night telling me and Ashley stories about her wild "fling" with a married man in Mexico and then being upset all night that we wouldn't have done the same thing. It's not okay.

Loss Prevention:
-Ensures that the store protects company assets through promoting awareness of LP best practices including but not limited to employee bag checks, ... zone coverage, and silent witness hotline.
-Ensures that all policies are followed specific to inventory control, including managing required annual physical inventories, ... timeliness of reporting, receipt of goods, ... and all other related inventory matters.

A.) Zone coverage at our slow store basically means that there should always be someone in the front area at all times. It helps to prevent the easiest and costliest method of shoplifting: ORC hits / Grab and Runs. When she is on the phone making tanning appointments or is gabbing it up with a [now former] manager from another store about what they're going to do that weekend and someone needs a fitting room, does she drop her personal tasks [not work related and not appropriate] and help them out? No. She calls the person out of the front zone to get the fitting room instead. I just wish someone would come steal the merchandise off of the front table so she would possibly understand how irrational she is when she calls someone away from the front zone. B.) She does not adhere to any "timeliness of reporting." As previously mentioned, there is a ceiling light fixture out and after a week and after being reminded, she has yet to report anything. C.) If I ever see her check in freight and recording a "receipt of goods" in a timely manner [aka the same DAY they were received!], I will die of shock. I left a note on the shipment clipboard with her un-received carton list saying, "What is this? I'm not sure because it wasn't checked in after receiving!" Nothing said about it.

Operations:
-Ensures proper execution of visual presentation standards and promotional event set ups.

There have been a million times where some kind of display or layering or visual detail has been overlooked by our manager because she doesn't have the eye for it. Visual presentation excellence is my specialty, and she doesn't even look for that kind of thing. Even if I tell her about something needing to be fixed, it doesn't happen. For instance [and bringing me to my next point], this morning it took me 45+ minutes to set up the promos [as previously mentioned] and if you can recall from reading this earlier, after being mentioned, the skirts have yet to be signed at their sale price. No one knows that they are on sale, and it's her fault. I left out the promo/sale sheet and she ignored it. If promos aren't set up right, the customer won't know what's on sale and what isn't. This is her fault [I was focused on the junior's denim, not being straightened in a long long while] because I delegated it to her. Wait, I delegated it to HER?? Isn't she supposed to delegate to ME?? How interesting. And if she did in fact delegate something to me, I wouldn't ignore it. I just wouldn't.

Physical Demands:
-Ability to climb, reach, bend and lift up to 30 pounds frequently and 50 pounds occasionally.
-Ability to work on the store sales floor for extended periods - 80% or more of assigned shift.

A.) She never ever EVER gets on the ladder to do anything. If a mannequin needs to be brought down, guess who doesn't do it and who is made to do it? If shelves need to be brought down from above the bathroom, who doesn't do it and who is made to do it? If a light needs replacing, who just ignores it because she doesn't want to get on the ladder? Honestly! It's NOT okay! B.) If there is ever a day where she doesn't spend 2 hours [25% or more] in the back room doing God knows what [organizing paperwork that doesn't need organizing, cleaning the backroom, labeling boxes, moving stuff that isn't hers to places they weren't supposed to be--I.E. my purse from the back desk into a locker, but don't worry, I grabbed all of her stuff and shoved it into a locker as well--etc.], I'll DIE of shock! So basically she cannot perform the duties required of her because of her immaturity, her selfishness, her unprofessional behaviour, and her out-of-control emotions.

She is also being completely irrational with the Sam moving in with me. I looked at the schedule for two weeks from now. Sam works 24 hours that week. Monday 10-7; Tuesday 6-10; Wednesday 10-7; Thursday 6-10. Guess who works the opening shifts on Monday and Wednesday? And guess who closes on Tuesday? She does have Thursday off, but guess who isn't closing because we are going to live together? She literally is making Sam work over 80% of her shifts with her because she feels the need to make Sam realize that "she is the best manager ever and the most fun to be around." Upon hearing this, Sam said, "This makes me not want to even work these hours." Does she realize she is pushing her employees AWAY when she does things like this? How convenient also that next week, our boss's only two days off are spent at a country concert with Sam? Interesting how she feels the need to vacuum up people and not share them with anyone else because of her own insecurities.

To top all of this off, bonus incentives changed. We received a SOLAR message explaining it month by month. Now, if we make our sales volume goal for either the month of August or December, Assistant Managers receive a $150 bonus and the Store Manager receives a $1,000 bonus. It makes me want to seriously not even try to sell a damn thing during these two months. Why should someone who doesn't do anything herself and makes her employees do all the work while she chats on the phone, colors zone sheets, and plots ways to make herself be the favourite of everyone receive such a huge bonus when she doesn't do hardly ANYTHING?? Ah!

This got me really peeved. I then went home and made frozen mocha with the powder mix we got at Costco the last time we went. Verdict: absolutely delicious! I might just make myself another one on lunch tomorrow to have a delicious and scruptious treat for the last half of my shift!

After drinking the mocha, I went with Ashley to look at furniture and home stuff. We went to Stupid Prices [they WERE stupid... stupidly astronomical!], Value Village, and then GoodWill. At GoodWill we didn't find much, but I got a serious SERIOUS deal:


Literally, $4.99 for the whole dang thing! Yes, it's filled with shell beads, perfect for making hemp jewelry. Yes, if sold as strings, this would probably cost a total of $25 at least! There was a smaller jar there filled with the same beads, but I decided that I only needed one. I should go back and get the other one though. You can NEVER have too many beads! Also, look what I saw:


It appears that someone else collected sap from trees! I did this when I was little because I found out that sap turned into amber [like from Jurassic Park!]. Little did I know, it takes a million years for it to process. I had a whole tackle box filled with different colors, sizes, shapes, etc. Sam [sister] even took it up a bit ago. But it's funny to see that someone ELSE did it too! ...and donated it to GoodWill.

Down another aisle I found a nail file, cuticle oil, and hand lotion in a package. It's the same Etre package that we used to get for Christmas in our stockings [from the mall it was about $20-25 for the package]. It ended up ringing up as $1.99. And it hasn't even been used. How great of a deal is that? My nails are going to look fabulous.

From there we went to WalMart, the mothership. We found lots of home stuff for Ashley including tupperware, knives, measuring cups and spoons, cutting board, flatware holder, and more. I got myself resume folders to put both the cover letter and resume in for Washington Federal Savings. I plan on turning it in tomorrow.

Hope for the best! And like the sticker on the SUV I passed yesterday says, "Wag more, bark less."