Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Work: From Enjoyable Job to Hell in a Handbasket
Some of you have heard me rant recently about the suckitude that is Starbucks South Lamar.
As you know, my awesome old manager was promoted to the new Store Opening Specialist position in July. Our permanent new manager will be instated on September 20. Until then, we have to deal with the Temp Manager of Doom.
Now, actually, the Manager of Doom isn't really so much evil as he is just stupid. He's nice enough -- he's just an incompetent moron, that's all. I will admit that he has gotten better in the past week -- but his schedules and his product ordering leave MUCH to be desired.
When I came back into town after returning back from my Canadian vacation, I drove straight to work from Tomball on that Saturday morning. I had called ahead and asked what hours I was working. When I arrived and clocked in, I noticed that there were an awful lot of people on the floor. This seemed unusual.
All was revealed ten minutes later, however, when the manager from another store called, asking where I was.
I had been scheduled to work a shift at another store without anyone telling me. NOTHING had been written down about where I was working for that shift.
Needless to say, I was infuriated. Fortunately the other location was just down the street, so it only took me a few minutes to get there. However, while I was checking the schedule to see if any note at all had been left concerning this shift, I was further incensed by the observation that I had only been scheduled for twleve hours for the upcoming week.
I worked my shift at the other store, then when I got off I headed back to my store with every intent of giving the new manager a piece of my mind, since he was closing that night. Another employee, Dawn, was sitting outside on her 10-minute break. I asked her how the night was going.
She informed me that the Manager of Doom had made yet another grave error in the schedule: he had booked one guy to work a closing shift at both our store and the other store, then sent him to the other store, thereby leaving him and Dawn alone for an entire Saturday night closing shift. What's worse: Dawn had only closed at our store about two times, and the Manager of Doom had NEVER closed at our location. Idiot.
I went in, gritted my teeth, smiled tightly. He saw me and the first thing he said was, "I don't think we've met -- you must be Theresa."
"It's Teri," I said, "And we have met, I worked with you for a brief time just before I went on vacation."
"Oh, that's right," he said lamely, "I knew you looked familiar.
I asked him what was up with him scheduling me to work at another store without telling a soul about it. He knew I'd just got back from vacation.
He claimed that he'd written it down on the dry-erase board, and someone else must have erased it. (Yeah, right.)
I decided to be the bigger person and let things slide, though I did inform him that I'd like to be called or something if he was having me work at another location. Then he said, "And I bet I didn't schedule you for enough hours, either."
"No," I said curtly. "You didn't."
"Oh, well," he said, "I wasn't sure what your availability was, blah blah..."
"Oh, really?" I said, in the most appallingly sugary-sweet tone. He could tell I was not thrilled, and I was about to call him out. "But I left you a note with my new availability, just before I left." I went to the back, pulled out the schedule request book. Sure enough, there it was.
"See?" I said. "You must have gotten it. I had it stapled with your name on it, and it's made its way in here."
"Oh, good," he said. Then I informed him of my plans to get more hours by farming myself out to other stores during the course of the week, making it clear that I didn't need him to find hours for me or do anything other than let me do my job and make sure that scheduling debacle didn't happen again.
(Of course, that didn't stop him from giving out both my home and cell phone numbers to other stores who were seeking coverage. Even after I told him that I'd found enough shifts for the week and was fine with hours. ARGH.)
After that, because I needed the hours and because I felt deeply, deeply sorry for Dawn, I volunteered to come in and pre-close for two hours since they were so short-staffed. So I went home, got dinner, then came back and cleaned like a mad thing.
It's gotten better since then -- but this was my first impression of the new management, and I was not at all happy. It seems that my brief two-week absence was just enough time for everything to go downhill.
The good thing about the Temp Manager of Doom is that he's a temp; come September 20, we get the Shiny New Manager, who I've met and who seems very cool indeed. I'm hoping she turns out to be a good one. But, the real downside of things... we also have a new assistant manager. Who is even more full of Doom than the manager.
And she's permanent.
The Evil Assistant Manager sucks at this job. She's obnoxious, unfriendly, doesn't run shifts well, and is trying to conform our store to the way things are run at the location where she was trained. Never mind the fact that our store is the best in the district and we have a number of cool people who do an awesome job. Never mind the fact that most of us have been with the company for months, if not years, and she's only been there for two months. Never mind the fact that we know our store like the back of our hands, and she doesn't.
She focuses on dumb things like the useless clean sweep task-book, making us sign off on all the stuff that we already do as force of habit. She doesn't give out breaks and lunches (save her own, of course, which usually run a bit long) -- and gives you that "go to hell" look when you dare to request that well-earned break. She gave me the same look when I informed her that Idon't usually take ten-minute breaks -- I'm not sure what that was about.
She's very negative. She doesn't own up to her mistakes, or admit when she doesn't know something -- instead she gets all uppity and defensive if you even suggest that she's doing something wrong. She complains incessantly and in front of customers about the temp manager -- and about almost anyone else. She butts heads with all of the shift supervisors and dislikes being directed when she is working while another person is in charge.
Opening with her last Tuesday was... an experience. And not a good one. I'm not an opener in the first place... she offered all of us on shift one break around 7, then worked the floor till 9, and then was nowhere to be found after that. Granted, the district manager was in for her monthly meeting -- but the temp manager was there too, and the Evil Asst. Manager should have been able to help us out when needed. Instead she was seen sitting in the lobby, sitting outside, sitting in the back... it's unknown whether she was on breaks or lunches, but she sure wasn't around to make sure anyone else got their breaks or lunches. Eventually I told Jon that he should just take over running the shift, since she wasn't going to do it.
And my other shifts with her haven't been much better.
So... that's the status with work. We have a shift supervisor meeting this afternoon; it ought to be... interesting, to say the least.
| 12:44 PM |
Comments
A similar thing happened to me back in the old Papa John's days. A new AM showed up and made everyone's life hell and nobody, NOBODY, liked her. Not any of the AM's at the store, none of the drivers or insiders, not the manager of the store, NOT EVEN THE AREA MANAGER, TERI. To this day, I wonder how that woman ever got the job. Whatever, she didn't keep it for very long. She lasted a whoppin' three weeks before getting canned with extreme prejudice for total incompetence.
Hopefully you'll be so lucky. Either way, good luck!
Sounds ... pleasant. The Assistant Manager sounds like the Manager of Hell's Bakery, who was so unpleasant and critical that Melina and I started getting panic attacks before and after work...
Hi Teri...excellent blog! I linked it from RJ Anderson's site, which I linked from Jeri Massi's site. You seem to be a remarkable young woman, but the thing I really keyed in on was that YOU'RE IN AUSTIN!!! One of my favorite cities ever. My son, my mom and my sister and her family live in Round Rock.
BTW, I've worked for my share of incompetent morons. It's no fun, but all part of the necessary rites of passage that make up our Work Experience.
Who am I? I'm a twenty-two-
