Whew, I finished my last shift at the grocery store on December 26; I’ve been sitting on my butt, allowing myself to sit back and relax for a bit between the major winter holidays. I’ll probably start looking for more webwork at the start of next year.
I’ve learned some things about myself this year that made me quirk an eyebrow.
I really enjoy working on my own. I’m organized, I can anticipate trends, and I’m a much happier person when I can work at my own frenetic pace without interruption. My manager and I have a great setup–he sets me loose and I give him periodic updates for any wonkiness I need addressed. After having done this fruit basket thing last year, I knew what to expect and I really knew what I was doing. So on the first day, my boss asked some minor questions to make sure I still remembered what I was doing, and told me to get busy. I arranged my workspace in an efficient way that I wanted, I got my supplies, and I bore down to produce some output.
I don’t like being micromanaged by someone not involved with my chain of command who thinks I’m mentally deficient in some way. Last year, this manager from another department would feel the need to wander over and grill me as to all content I was using in my work, inquiring as to which items originated from her department. She would make sure in no uncertain terms that I knew excruciatingly well that anything from her department had to be refrigerated. She also demanded that I alter my training and procedures, in order to accomodate her unique and overly OCD way of managing inventory. My coworker and I would always write down the UPC code, price, brand and name of the item being used in our product, the quantity, and the date we put the item to use. Every day we left this list of inventory on our manager’s desk, where he would then input the information into the store’s computer, thereby alerting any department that was not our own that an item not showing up in their inventory scans were still in the store, being used in our product. The aforementioned micro-manager insisted that rather than writing the item down, that we allow her to scan the item, using an inventory scanner.
This year, I got smart, and informed her that I would use no content from her department, unless directly asked by a customer with a custom order. I also let her know, the two times I did utilize something in her department, what exactly the item was, and that she was welcome to scan the item by using her scanner on an identical item still on the shelf. We still had clashes, but they were minimal, and she mostly left me alone as she was too busy picking on my coworker. I accept guidance from anyone who has a better idea than what I’m doing, or has knowledge about a procedure I’m not familiar with. But this woman was grossly out of line regarding our manner of dress (in a store with an already established dress code), and concerns that make sense in the food service realm she was a part of, but had no place in our put-fruit-in-basket thing. That woman was very much a Negative Nancy with her criticisms. I always nodded pleasantly, and filed away her daily admonitions in the proper mental receptacle. My coworker, new to this gig, eventually learned the same.
When my workspace is arranged in an efficient manner and I have every supply I need, my output is insane. I noticed that my coworker, hired as my backup, wasn’t backing me up nearly enough. We, the manager and I, had a simple formula and matra: “Two of everything on the shelf.” There were 12 different types of baskets we were instructed to make. 24 of them were enough to cover every flat surface available to us to place our product upon. And as I noticed them disappearing, I would make 6-10 of one particular basket, as they were selling so well. On my final day, my manager informed me with considerable glee that I was the top seller in the entire region, which encompasses towns up to 50 miles away and involves 30-some stores. That was even with my coworker being inefficient and at times, not being at her table but on the other side of the store, shopping.
On the days in which I was not scheduled to work, I had a pad of paper on which I left notes to my coworker, noticing trends in sales, and in the rotten fruit I was finding in the baskets she had filled. I don’t think she read them, but the inferior quality of some of our baskets was not for the want of me doing something to ensure they were of the highest quality. The log book was handy, regardless, as she was able to tell me about certain orders that had come in, questions and concerns she had, and excuses as to why the tables were empty when I came in from two days off. I tore the used pages out of the simple notepad of paper and left it with the supplies of leftover price stickers and baskets. If I’m here next year and take up the seasonal position again, it will come in handy, and if not, the pad may be used by the next set of people.
I’m not as physically fit as I used to be. I am overweight, but back in the day when I had a retail position and was schlepping over 100 150-pound containers full of store merchandise in weekly freight by hand, though I sweated a little, I was in good enough shape to feel only mildly sore the following day. It was my feet and inferior footwear that really gave me problems. When one of the managers from another department gave me a trial run, liking my attitude, I had to let myself go after three weeks, as I was schlepping heavy crates of gallons of milk daily, and I just couldn’t handle the pain. If I get picked up again for a permanent position somewhere in this store (where everyone already knows me), I’m going to have to make sure they know that I’m not able to lug such heavy stuff around.
I love that I challenged myself to arrive at work and get through the day with a smile and a positive attitude, no matter what was going on off the clock. I was determined to keep it no matter what I was faced with, being criticized by the micro-manager, having to disappoint a customer or being yelled at by same for not knowing an answer to their query. There wasn’t much to be negative about this year for which I’m very grateful, other than my flailing that my underling wasn’t doing her job and making me do her work as well as mine. That negativity vanished during the last two days when I realized there was no way I could catch up where she had slacked off, and figured I’d do as much as I was able, go home exhausted, and leave whatever was left for the following day. There was a moment in which I really wanted to discuss in no uncertain terms what she was doing wrong, but I was afraid that if I let her know how I was feeling, she wouldn’t come in to work anymore and then I really WOULD be working alone. I did point out to my manager, the store director, and some other coworkers when my table was empty upon me arriving at work and what the other gal had left me with. The assistant manager was fond of looking over the errant coworker’s shoulder and leading her by the ear back to the table she should not have left, and telling her to get back to work.
Next year, if I am to take this position again, I will make sure that the underling knows exactly what is expected from her from day to day. I was able to anticipate what we were going to need the following day, and wrote things like, “We need to pay attention to pears, those are getting squishy almost as fast as the bananas.” I should have realized she needed more direct guidance and wrote an actual list of things she needed to accomplish: “1) Visually inspect all baskets, try to squish the pear with your finger, bring all dated baskets back to the table. 2) Change out ALL fruit, not just the bananas (since I couldn’t rely on my coworker’s ability to realize when a fruit was about to go bad). 3) Make ## of the smalls, ## of the large handled, ## of the most expensive ones, and there’s an order for 2pm tomorrow that I won’t be here to fulfill that falls upon you to complete.” The 3rd item I didn’t think to write down, thinking that she knew exactly what was on the shelves, and to replace whatever was sold or thrown out.
I thought about using the colored bows to denote the day of the week it was first assembled, to keep a better eye on inventory, but for one, that would create a glut of one particular color on a given day of the week, and two, I was worried that my underling would fall under the assumption that if a basket was only two days old, that nothing in it would be unacceptably overripe, and wouldn’t inspect it more closely. No, I agree with the practice of using random colored ribbons for variety, preference, and to keep us looking at each basket suspiciously and daily.
I just felt like writing all of this out, in case I do take up the position next year, and try to remember what I learned this year, and what to do different next. Each hostess was invited to write out tips that they might include in next year’s manual, and different practices we might suggest they include in subsequent years. I wrote that we really need to provide for consumers some of the plastic wrap and cheaper bows, as I personally handed out over 50 of each to those who asked politely, and had to turn others away lest I run out of supplies for what I was being paid to do. I also thought we could use a better task system for taking and fulfilling custom orders as they come in. My coworker had a cluttered way of taking the order sheets, and throwing them away before the custom basket was even purchased, which made figuring out who had picked up their item and who needed to be called very confusing between the three of us taking orders. Next year, I might ask my manager to make a custom pamphlet with the store’s phone number, in order to take custom orders there too, about half our orders this year was through that venue, as people would take a pamphlet home and call in later after they’d chosen what they wanted.
Oh yeah, and one more thing I wanted to articulate. There are some people you won’t be able to please, no matter what you do for them. I had a business gentleman come in, see the array of stuff I was cramming into our more expensive baskets (salmon, cheese and crackers, and so on) and demanded I make such a basket for him at a reduced price. We had to barter for a few minutes before he was satisfied and I was sure I wasn’t giving away something that would hurt our profits. For customers like that, I will make allowances for, and give them more than the monetary value is, because I’d rather see a $30 basket with $45 worth of stuff walk out the door than to lose a sale of $30. Thankfully there weren’t too many of those types of customers as I would have had to have been more forceful about my absolute bottom line, what we can skimp on and what I could not. I’m sorry, I’m not going to price a $15 box of smoked salmon at $5. This is not a medieval farmer’s market and we do not work on the barter system. I’m not in a position to make such decisions.
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