Darling Bruce snowblowed (snowblew just does not sound right so live with my approximate grammar) the driveway yesterday even though he should not even have been outside. But he honestly doesn't mind doing that (most of the time).
And then it snowed more last night. But really only a little. And I put together a crockpot meal last night so I didn't have to do that this a.m. And even more darling Bruce drove me in and I got to the bookstore at 9:00. That's where I discovered I was on the schedule now to work 11:00 - 7:00. HUGE sigh (and muttered curses, you can bet). I actually caught Bruce before he got home--no he doesn't have a cell but I knew he was going to the gas station--and he came and took me back home. Then lo and behold, my car started! (I'll get a new battery in the next week or so just to be sure of it.) So I drove to work. As I was leaving the training supervisor told me that if I'd come to her at 9:00 she would have had me stay and work till 5 or 6.
All that was just lead-in to this: Is it because "retail" hires so many students that managers can be that capricious with their schedules? Or is it that college students have taught managers that they don't need to know schedules more than a week in advance? Or is it that because there are so few full-time workers that capricious schedules are the rule (whether or not the part-timers are students)? There's a fundamental difference between the way retail in a mall situation is run as compared to the way upscale department stores are run. Or maybe they only used to be different. I don't think so, judging by my experience in some upper-end stores in Tampa: the floor salespersons were very well dressed and made up, knew the stock in their departments and provided VERY good service. Malls maybe began our decline to the McDonalds type of service in retail, and then WalMarts took that even further. I know I sound old and crotchety about this, but there really was a service standard that meant the customer was right, or at least knew something.
So a customer complained to me at the cash register that the service in the bookstore was "terrible." There were always lines, he said. (There aren't; it's the week before Christmas, for heaven's sake.) So I said, "We try to give every customer as much time as needed at the register, sir, and that's why the line sometimes moves slowly." I had done all he wanted, after all. He missed my point. But it was nice to hear from a customer about 3 people later that she was impressed by how quickly we kept the line moving. Yin and yang, I guess.
2 comments:
I agree about the scheduling!! I was lucky to work in a retail store that REQUIRED the schedules be done one week in advance. But the same store also scheduled 'on call' workers (sometimes it was me!) who had to call in 30 minutes before their shift to 'see' if they were needed. Sometimes yes, other times no. It was impossible to schedule something else in your life either way....
Only a few more days, right? Hugs my most marvelous, mild-tempered, mama. You're great.
We did it to ourselves, starting with self-service gas stations. See the beginning of "Back to the Future" when the kid first arrives in 1955 or whenever. A car pulls into a gas station (better "Service Station") and 3 or 4 guys come out to put in gas, check the tires, radiator fluid, yadda yadda. Back then a guy could work in a service station and be respected (think of our Sainted Father working at Felker's). It's gone down hill from there - we're getting only what we want to pay for, which is nothing....
Your brother the curmudgeon,
Jack
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