Proof of the inability of Head Office to understand –anything- revalent reared its head again. I probably won’t need to set the scene really, but maybe a little background.
Picture this. It’s only a couple of days until Christmas. We have two newbies on the floor with one taking a bit longer than the other to learn how things work. Completely understandable, as for some it just doesn’t click right away. We have this newbie and three others on the floor, including me. Both Managers are in because, hey, it’s Christmas but we’re down one.
Said employee has had a family emergency that suddenly came up the day before. Had to take the day off to take care of it and Manager spent that day ringing up all the other shops, asking if they had anyone to send over to make up the numbers. No one can. Fine. We’ll deal.
Then during one of our busiest periods, with all of us running around like we’ve lost our heads, one Manager on floor with us and one doing reports inside the office, like an apparition, one of the owners shows up. He goes to the Head Manager and says that he heard we were one down and he’s volunteering his services.
Brilliant. It makes up the numbers.
But no. Silly us. We forgot out Head Office works.
Instead of actually doing anything, he pulled the Head Manager aside and asked him to update him (the owner) on our problems with our deliveries. Not what we needed to worry about at the moment. And then he went on his phone and called up our suppliers to ask them what was going on.
So, he’s taking our Manager away from helping us deal with all the customers, and getting in everyone’s way because simple things like, we need to get to that trolley because we’re trying to help customers, put stuff away and answer the bell at the till for the cashiers or the phone is too difficult for him to understand). For two hours, he was in –talks- with my Manager and when he wasn’t doing that…
And this is what made me really angry. When he wasn’t doing that, then he was annoying the customers. I was talking to a lady who was looking for a book that we didn’t supply and couldn’t get in. She needed it for Christmas and was very stressed. There was snow every where, and where there wasn’t snow, there was ice. It was dangerous to go anywhere, despite the many attempts of the government to grit everywhere public, so I was trying to be nice and told her that I could give her the number of a place that should have it. Then she could call them and find out before she made the half an hour journey, at least to the other side of the city for it.
Unfortunately, the owner heard me showing her the number off our computer (I had googled it) and grabbed her arm, saying:
‘Why don’t you get a gift card?’
I could have died. And then after that, I could have punched him. He didn’t know anything about the conversation I was having with her. He had no right to inject himself into the conversation and tell her to get one of our gift cards. The poor customer just gave him a small smile and said that she was looking for a specific book and that we couldn’t get it. He then looked at me for confirmation and I told him that it was a book that was out of print nearly everywhere but that the second hand store might have it and that was why I was advising her to go there.
He just smiled back (it gives me the creeps) and then disappeared.
Ooh. That bleeding…
Anyway, the rest of the season was bearable, other than a guy who decided to manhandle me. Grabbed me by hand, then my wrist, elbow and then nearly put me in a chokehold. I’m guessing he was trying to keep a hold on me so that we could move somewhere we weren’t being interrupted by people passing us to leave the shop but it just… I should have gone with my instinct and just screamed bloody murder and been done with it. Even if he was really nice and called me ma’am and everything.
Happy Holidays everyone. Thank goodness they are over
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