My store manger is really something else. You have to really sort of meet him to believe him. He’s so over the top, so corny, and he comes off as someone who “tries to hard”, if you know what I mean. He really could make for a good politician. Here are three stories for your enjoyment with my dealings with my store manager:
“The Liar”
When I first came back to the store in early May, there was a general theme among my fellow co-workers about our store manager: He’s a liar.
I went up to three differant people to talk to and each one said the SAME exact thing about him; that he was a liar. It was so strange. When I asked one of the guys in my dept. about my hours and trying to be full time, he says, “Don’t hold your breath with him [store manager]. He does a lot of talking, he makes a lot of promises, but in the end – he’s a liar.”
Scenario two, there was a union vote that week. On this same day, in order to celebrate the success of the union vote, the store manager promised chips and pop upstairs in the break room for everyone.
What better way to celebrate a faux union victory than with chips and pop, right?
Well, he never got the chips and pop. He didn’t do anything. In fact – the day he was supposed to get that stuff and put it out, he was out golfing. What makes this even funnier is that we work in a grocery store, it wasn’t like he 1) had to go anywhere or 2) actually buy anything. When people complained about there being no chips, cookies and pop as promised, people started grumbling, “He’s such a liar. I can’t stand it.” Our union rep even said, “He’s a liar. He couldn’t even follow through on something as easy as this!”
So, one of the other manager’s got the chips, cookies and pop. And, I cannot make this stuff up – he replied, “Yeah. Now that I think about it, he really is a liar.”
The chips, cookie, and pop set up was so half assed though.
I don’t even think he got ice for the pop.
“Frosties”
Our ice cream freezers are so outdated and old. In fact, they’re a mess. They actually stopped working the other day (which slightly irked The Captain, to say the least). OUr ice cream often gets covered in ice and frost. Sometimes the tags get completely covered in ice that you can’t even see the price. All sorts of things. It’s a disaster and trying to clean it up is a pain.
So, about 2 months ago, our district manager (who is a story in of himself and will be told one day) comes in. Our store manager needless to say, wants everything in tip-top shape. I was working frozen foods, and he pulls me over and says, “See all these Häagen-Dazs ice cream pints? You need to take all of these off, run them under warm water and put them back on the shelf. We need to get rid of all this frost!”
Now, mind you. We carry about 25 differant flavors of this ice cream. In addition to this, the shelf is completely full of this stuff, and there has to be like, over 100 of these damned pints.
But, I’m a company guy. So I pull up a cart, and take them all down and wash them all one by one.
I’m washing fucking Häagen-Daz pints.
It takes me over an hour to do. I put them back on the shelf, and no later than 10 minutes into it, the stuff ices and frosts over, even after I dry them off. I angrily mumble to myself, finish up my frozen work and head off to stock ice cream.
The store manager and district manager come over to the ice cream. To the D.M, he says, “Look at all the Häagen-Daz pints! There are no more frosties on them! I took care of it! Look how great it looks!” He then looks over to me and says, “You doing the ice cream now?” I nod. And he then says, “Most excellent! FILL ‘ER UP!”
The bold and cap lettering emphasizes how loud he was when he said this.
The D.M. is somewhat impressed by the removal of the “frosties” and they move on.
This irked me for two reasons. Never mind that I spent an hour washing off damned ice cream pints, but 1) No grown man should say the word “frosties” unless it is in referance to that delicious treat by Wendy’s and 2) He actually took credit for my work.
“Grand Re-Opening!”
Sales were slumping last summer. Big time. This was really the start of the huge decline our store has been facing. He then had this revelation to somehow to deter the slide. The best way to increase sales and spark interest in the store is to have a Grand Re-Opening….every single Sunday.
You’re probably scratching your head at this already. But wait – it gets better.
His idea was to have every Sunday be a “Grand Re-Opening”. Our shelves would be full, everything would be neat, all the departments would be kept up, there would be open lines…all of the things stores should be doing anyways.
He explains to me, “Now Bob. When you do the ice cream, make it look fabulous. Make it look like we just opened up the store! We’re going to Grand Re-Open the store every Sunday!”
Sure thing.
All week before the first official “Grand Re-Opening”, he built it and hyped it up. It was all he ever talked about. We all laughed, but by Friday of that week, we were actually like, “Hey! He might actually follow through with this and this could be something else!” So, now all the employees, myself included, were getting into this whole thing.
Now here’s the thing: Normally for Grand Re-Openings, you have balloons, you out out newspaper ads, you put out commericials, banners, you actually let it be known there is a Grand Re-Opening of the store.
He did nothing. Absolutely nothing. No balloons. No banners. No ads. In fact – there were just as many cashier lanes open on any other normal Sunday (which isn’t many). We asked, “Well, what the hell is this? This is the Grand Re-Opening?”
The only thing he did? He sent one of our older guys who is in his 70’s to sell hot dogs in front of the store while playing corny ass patriotic that you hear during the 4th of July.
THAT was his Grand Re-Opening.
