Saturday, March 22, 2008

A Very Long Week.

My store manager B. was out of town this week. Scroll down to the posts from when my store manager was out of town the last time. All the same drama and problems we had that week, we're having again this week.

It seems that even though I'm being held accountable for the store and what goes on inside it, from inventory management to staff issues to staffing and schedules (even though I don't have control over all of it, or in some cases (like schedules) any of it), I'm also being told in the same breath that because I don't have responsibility for those same situations, I should back off and ease up a bit.

It's very frustrating to be told I have to be accountable for things I don't have control over. It's even more frustrating that when I try to hold accountable those who do have control over things when problems arise, that I am stepping over my bounds.

Some specifics:

The assistant manager does schedules. She makes mistakes all the time, like with today's schedule - she had a minor scheduled to work two different shifts the same day, for over 14 hours. First, she would not respond to my phone calls at all - then when I got 3 other people to call her and tell her she needed to respond to me, she asked for a manager who wasn't even there, and said she did not want to talk to me about it. Hello, I'm the manager who's working right now, I'm in the middle of the shitstorm she caused and she doesn't want to discuss it with me. What a worthless fool she is. I tried to tell her she had to solve it, and she wanted no part of it - until I told her she would have to come work the illegally-scheduled shift herself. Then she was all about finding someone who would not be working overtime to fill the shift. Bah.

Another situation. One of our managers is responsible for counting most of the morning shift drawers, as she is our 5-days-a-week opener. She can't count. This poses an issue. I assume it's through basic ignorance, but E. could also be dipping into the honey-pot, for all I know. The other day, of 5 cash registers and the safe, only one drawer was accurately counted - a drawer with $15.50 worth of transactions. The others were all wrong, the money was all mixed up, it was 40 minutes of counting and recounting to figure out just what the hell she did to fuck up the money that bad. When I discussed it with her, her response was to get angry at me for going back and checking her work. Well, when the $1000 of backup we have in the safe is $1076 and $2200 worth of counted cash ready for deposit is only $2085 and there's miscellaneous cash over in two other drawers, yes, well... I'm going to recount the money!

I think the real problem is there's very little accountability with my entire management team. "Mistakes" are overlooked, repeatedly, instead of used as learning tools. Carelessness is the standard. Sloppy and incomplete are regularly acceptable. BUT NOT TO ME DAMNIT! And there's bound to be some resentment on the part of those who wish to go about without paying attention, without doing the best they can, barely skating by, when I'm saying "That's not acceptable!" But, really, seriously, deep down inside, I feel, FUCK THEM. I should not lower my standards to match someone else's and I look upon the lazy with contempt, especially when it's such an easy job.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know it's tough, i'm a manager at a McDonalds in IL. It does get old dealing with people that are supposed to be on the same level as you, yet act as though they just started the week before. Just push through and keep on smiling. They'll eventually fade out and new managers will take their place(hopefully people that you have trained to do things the right way), and everything will be better. I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in your frustrations, and that you have become my personal hero. I found your blog yesterday and it has somehow inspired me to become a better manager. I wish you the best.

mrschroeder13@gmail.com (Michael Schroeder) said...

I'm your hero?!

Excellent.

I hope you do catch something out of my blog. Although I am using it to vent my frustrations to a degree, I'm trying to focus on the positive more often than not. I'm real with myself though and can recognize that some days, you just gotta bitch.

Here's a catch-phrase of mine, since I'm your personal hero:
Used in response to "I'm good, how are you?" "I woke up today, I win!"