cheerios

Ok, so, i work for a lower-scale department store, in the backstock, pulling things out to get re-stocked to the floor to be sold. I've been there a year, and I could write a whole book on the things that i've seen that I consider bad-business practices. I really don't understand how my store makes money! They are CONSTANTLY understaffed, so the store looks like crap, the management is demoralizing to say the least, and they never SOLVE the problems they create, they just create little stop-gap procedures to fix things.

Case in point: I worked all weekend. 2 8 hr shifts, one sat from 1 to 10pm, one sunday. As I said, my job is to find what needs replaced, and gather it up to one place so it can be placed on the floor of the store for people to buy. We do this for the entire store 3 times, daily. once in the morning, once at 2 pm, and once at 6 pm. if the 2o'clock pulls are not complete by 6, when the next round starts, our "rating" for lack of a better term, goes down. basically we look bad, the store looks bad, the management looks bad. Now, saturday was the last day of a 2 day "no sales tax" sale, as WELL as being the day before mothers day. Any LOGICAL person would think to themselves, "gee, there's gonna be a lot of merchandise to move. One person can usually do this job in around 4 hrs, which is how long is allotted, so I should add at LEAST one more person on, to make sure things are completed with the increased sales."

The person who does scheduling is not logical. They scheduled me, and ONLY me, to work from 3 pm on. Needless to say, I couldn't' do my job on my own. There's a finite limit to the speed I can attain while carrying 30 pairs of levi jeans, and it's just not fast enough. So, management pulls people off of the truck team (unloading and locating merchandise into the stockroom), to help me finish up. at six, this help gets sent back to their job, and I'm left to start all over again, all by myself. I had to take my lunch in there, as well, leaving me with only 3 hours instead of four to complete this task. This time, instead of pulling people at least familiar with the stock room to help me, they pull one of the lower managers, and a new hire to help. God help me I still haven't seen what a mess the new hire made of my stockroom. :/

So, I come in today, praying for help, and lo and behold, for the first run through of batches, I have it. YAY! for the second, I'm on my own, but that's all right, the store's been a little quieter... only, I fall a little short at the end, because everyone did last minute mommy shopping, and there's a TON of women's clothing to pull. so, the manager who helped me out yesterday makes a couple of snide comments about slacking off, and finds another girl i have to TRAIN to use the scanners we use, to help me out. we finish 20 minutes before I'm scheduled to leave, with me working through my 15 minute break but instead of taking it, I'm pressed into folding down tables on the floor. 10'o'clock could not come too soon.

Maybe it's just me, but "quit slacking off Cheers, i don't wanna do your job tonight" just doesn't seem to be motivating, coming out of management's mouth. And maybe, just maybe there should be enough staff during a sale to keep up with demand. but, ya know, that's just silly. bah. can't WAIT till graduation and a REAL job, where at least i will be doing something that requires a brain while being driven crazy by managers!!