I Hate Having Bad Days

 Dear BigBoxStore Management:

With the changes you made two years ago in restructuring the folks who work on the floor, you didn't do them, or yourselves, any big favors.  In fact, let me point out some of the things this has created.  

One:  Because there isn't any real "ownership" in having their own department, you've gotten away from the "store within a store" concept.  Now you just have bodies doing tasks with no real interest in doing better, doing a great job, creating excitement over sales.  Every day is like another in the tasks that they run.  Department Leads have become lazy - they depend on a system to pick items out of the back room to stock to the floor. But it only picks items that are stocked in an aisle.  What about filling features?   If a store is sent a Qty of 100 of the same item, and only 50 will fit out on the selected sales floor position, and the rest are put in a back room bin, who is supposed to pick those items and fill those features?   I'll tell you who -- NO ONE.  The item sits until it goes to clearance, and the *minute* it goes clearance, the item is pulled and sent to the back room to process into your clearance location.  However, what doesn't seem to happen is no one is communicating about the amount of stuff that is accumulating , waiting to go to the clearance location.  

And yes, in case it isn't clear, the person doing all of the clearance location stuff is me.  And today, they totally knocked me down and ran me over with the amount of stuff.   By the end of the day, I was tired and crabby, combative even.  There are a set of "rules" for how things are to be placed in that clearance location (not MY rules, BigBoxStore rules) , but one manager seems to think the rules don't apply to him.  I told him in very clear terms that next time he doesn't follow the rules, I will pull the items and return them to him.  What I really wanted to say was "I'm going to pull the items off the shelves and shove them up his ass" just to get his attention because this is not my first run-in with him on the rules of clearance. 

I was finally able to wind it down, remembering that old kids book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".   Yep That's what I had.  Sorry.  Rant Over.

But seriously, the changes that employers are making to how things operate because of the new generation of workers who have no work ethic and want big bucks for a routine job with no thinking required means that we have a whole generation of laziness and I know for a fact that I don't want to be around 10 years from now.  Or even 5 years from now.  In fact, retirement at 65 sounds awesome to me!  Even if I do nothing but take walks and read books every day!  But I'm sad for the whole retail industry and what's coming next.  When I started 20 years ago, even though every BigBoxStore sold the same basic stuff, every store appeared to be different because we had the ability to manage and showcase our department items in fun, creative ways.  Now?  Every store is the same, no one can order in something special, every display is built identical because that's how the directive is given.  It's no longer fun to go over to the next store over and see how *they* are doing things.  It's all the same. Each and every store.  I used to take vacations and no matter what city I was in, I had to stop in to the local BigBoxStore to look around.  My son and I did that so often!!! 

Man.  I miss the old days.  And that wasn't that long ago.

CEO?  I'm calling you out.  It just isn't the same any longer.  And eventually you will pay the price, reap what you've sown.  I'm glad I sold my stock already.