In which our heroine pontificates at length on the pains and absent virtues of the sales realm

Blame the heat if this one’s too harsh or too scattered either one.
The names have been changed to protect the not-at-all innocent.

The book/music/video-slinging side of my life is holding its own, mostly due to the fact that I have my Real Job (ostensibly) to think about again and due to my spending lots less time in my retail hat now.

However, this does not prohibit the staff there or the job itself from being just as dorky and messed up as ever. Any sanity I have been able to retain there has wholly been due to mostly working in the book department, thereby being able, usually, to stay on my own working on whatever projects left me by the book manager, and not to deal with the rest of the staff overmuch.

This is good because the rest of the staff, with very few exceptions, are pretty difficult to deal with, for various reasons.

Think sullen, almost to a soul.

Some of them are just completely antisocial and generally pissed-off and surface occasionally to whine about how bad they’ve got it (witness Arnold, the guy who, in the July employee meeting, spouted off about helping in each other’s sections whenever possible, and then walked up to me with a big stack of magazines one day when I was obviously in the middle of a software project [he’s in video and magazines are technically part of the book staff’s job] and just held them out to me with nary a word – I don’t mind being given them to shelve, he might have been busy or whatever, but don’t just hand them to my like I’m today’s serf special for heaven’s sake, Mr. “Oh-We-Should-Be-More-Of-A-Family-And-Help-Each-Other-Out-More”), some of them are exceedingly moody (and you know, MY saying that… well let’s just say that I know what I’m talking about and leave it at that. kee.)

Of the moody ones, there is one guy I now never say anything to until he makes contact first so I can gauge the waters because he is at once unreadable and completely volatile, possessing two settings: pissy, and amicable but strange. So when he’s pissy you don’t want to talk to him, and when he’s ABS you for a second think “Oh thank goodness he’s not pissy." This is quickly followed by, “Wow I had no idea you had so many opinions on 21st century American pedagogy; how can I gracefully extricate myself from Diatribe City?” (No joke, he went on for about 20 minutes one day about the proper way to teach history to high school students and how the fact that no one knows the correct order of the Presidents means the country is going down the toilet; luckily I was in a project with the scanning gun so could just kind of nod and “Oh! Wow! I never thought of it like that,” once in a while and still get my project done.) This is the person who, on one of his good days when he was open for smalltalk, said that once in high school when a teacher said he should try to enlarge his vocab and avoid using the same words over and over again, he (in all seriousness, even when he refers to it now) decided to avoid a REALLY commonly used word: the, to write an entire story. He spoke of it with such pride, really. He continues such practices today in his writing apparently. Thank goodness he hasn’t brought any in for me to experience first hand… What’s that Emerson (I think) saying about consistency’s being the hobgoblin of little minds?... ('Course I shouldn't make fun - look at Daniel Pennac for crying out loud: fairly well-respected French writer who wrote an entire novel about 10 years ago without using the letter "e".)

That wouldn’t be bad as a title for an exposé of the mentality of our staff in general in fact. There's a lot of farting around doing precious little aside from strutting here and there trying to look important by certain managers, for example... then they will issue one of those directives which have absolutely nothing to do with Good Service and everything to do with Showing One's Supposed Authority (mostly to oneself) like "Hey, Susan, there are a lot of scuffs on the floor; go around and rub them out." (Absolutely true.)

Alternatively one of the non-managerial types will, In a Very Serious Voice, remind you "Hey, don't forget the DVD cases have to be stacked THIS direction," or similar.

There's probably some sociological thing kind of akin to Stockholm Syndrome or something to explain this. Wasn't there some study of rat hierarchy and the peon rats would be constantly chewed on by the one-step-up-from-peon ones, just because the OSUFP rats needed to remind themselves that they were indeed One Step Up?

Well that's what this is. Luckily I for some reason don't get mad and just chuckle to myself (well, almost always anyway) and let them get their 22-year-old OSUFP rocks off by telling the Old Lady how to stack the frigging DVD cases correctly.

It's not really just Me, OSUFP's, and managers. kee. Here's the real breakdown, attitude-wise anyway... About 1/3 of the staff are competent and exhibit that competency on a regular basis (of these one or two are holding the store together basically, yet are treated to hearty amounts of spite from the whiny, blame-findy third) but become steadily disillusioned and finally seek other jobs where they will be more appreciated. They have very high expectations for themselves and for others.

Another third are competent but don’t care much about doing a good job except where it permits them to bitch about all the stuff that’s wrong and to correct others’ shortcomings (cf. whiny blame-finders). They have high expectations of everyone but themselves.

The last third are pretty incompetent but are well-meaning and friendly, and hide their shortcomings pretty easily amidst the other 2/3. I think the real reason they’re fairly content is they have low expectations, of themselves as well as of others. Probably a lesson in there somewhere. Actually they are the most fun of the 3 types to be around so more power to them, I say.

The craziest faction is the middle third, who seem to live for correcting or at least pointing out what they believe to be other staff members’ infractions. Mind you, this group is about 50-50 managers and regular staff. Of the managers, there is one new manager who has his Newfound Authority hat on a little too tight. (More of him later.) It shouldn’t surprise me since that’s how their training of new staff works, as I said before. Why tell someone how to do something correctly from the get-go? Much more satisfying to wait til they screw up and then jump down their throat in front of 5 or 6 customers and other staff.

In fact I guess really the staff has simply internalized this treatment from the training examples and so automatically proceed on the same path as they carry out all their shifts… correcting those around them. Now that I think about it this goes a long way in explaining why people would quite often not give me a straight answer when I asked questions of fellow staff members when I first got there. I was treated to a pretty impressive array of variations on the “I don’t know and I don’t care and why should I help you anyway?” theme. (I can safely say that never in my life have I worked with such unhelpful people, even at Cleveland Antiquarian Books --now defunct so I can name them outright with impunity I trust-- which is saying a lot.) Luckily I had lots of retail know-how to brainstorm with plus I’m smart in general.

Anyway I am ever astounded by the outsized ratio between many workers’ lack of conscientiousness where their own performance is concerned and their extreme concern for finding fault with others.

To put it another way, if I were in the French Resistance, and this were 1944, I would have been renounced long ago and there would have been a veritable stampede to the local Gestapo office to get my name on the list. (Meanwhile they're all getting black market beef and hosiery.)

You want examples?! Well…

1
Firstly we are allowed to take one mass market (that’s a pocket book to you non-book industry types) home every week, with the cover stripped off, our name and date on the back of the cover, as long as it’s a title of which we have at least 2 copies total in store. Last night as I was buying a couple of things, I had my latest stripped book with me as well and gave the cover to Cecil (who has been with the store for 1.5 years, and so, WOW, knows Quite A Bit about the ins & outs) at the register to give to the manager…

“Did Winnie OK that?”
“Um, not specifically, bu—”
Interrupting, “She said we can’t take magazines home anymore.”
“Um, it’s not a magazine.”
“Well did someone say it was OK?”
“I didn’t ask. I was told by Emily that it is Policy that we have the right to one MM book per week as long as you leave at least one copy on the shelf, and ever since then I have taken one a week home, with the tacit approval of Mario, Kaylie, and Jed, depending on who was working the various times I’ve taken stripped books home.” Then, slowly and distinctly so he would understand, “It’s a perk.”
Dubious look at the fairly new (2.5 months) albeit middle-aged and authoritative female coworker, “Since when?”
“Since forever.”

Jed the shift manager happened out at that point so I simply took the book cover out of the still apparently stymied and ever doubtful Cecil’s hands and handed it to Jed, who just nodded and put it with the other paperwork he had in his hands to take to the office.

Yes, Cecil, even you can learn something new once in a while.

2
The other day, Adam the newby manager, was at the register when I came in to check my schedule. As I went thru the register line to go back to the breakroom to where the schedules are posted, Adam stops me and says, in all seriousness, “Kinda casual today, huh, Susan?” Eyebrows raised What is wrong with this picture?-style, the way people do with kids when they want the kids to figure out for themselves that there being crayon all over the wall is perhaps not OK after all…

I said, eyebrows equally elevated, “Too casual for checking the schedule, Adam?”
“Oh, no, that’s all right then. Go ahead.”
Don’t mind if I do, Oh Great One.

Isn't there some theory about respect being earned rather than bestowed automatically?

I do remember the first time I was a manager, and yes I was already about 18 years older than Adam is now, so it’s easy for me to say how one should be since I don’t know how I would have acted at 22 as a managerial type. Still, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been in any scenario very much like this:...

3
Adam’s first day as a manager (yeah, his hypercorrective managerial skills were already in high gear)… I was on schedule for 5pm. I arrived at 4h40, got my badge out of my locker and stashed my bag, etc… Went to the book desk to say Hi to Lacey, one of the book staff, to see what kinds of projects were in progress and where I should pick up various tasks. Lacey left after we gabbed a couple minutes, and I started in on my first project. I finished it around 6h30, and happened up by the registers to check our book bin to see if there were any new arrivals of used titles to shelve. Adam was there and looked at me rather incredulously.

“How long have you been here?!”
“What do you mean?”
“When did you get to work?”
“About a quarter to 5.”
“Where were you?”
What?! “I was in Books.”
Dubious but forced to believe me, “I didn’t see you.”
So? “I didn’t see you either.”
Pre-fess-up hesitation, “Um, well… I guess you should disregard the message I left you at 5 on your cell phone then.”

Oh joy.

The message turned out to be 2 messages, both to the tune of “Susan, this is Adam calling from the store. I just wanted to remind you you’re on shift today so if you could come in and work that would be great.” The first one was at 4:59, the second at 5:03.

After I listened to them and deleted them I decided he was smart enough to learn from his own mistake and in future he would either check with others to see if the employee in question had been seen or he would perhaps think of using the intercom to page the person and see if they answered, or maybe he would even venture to the book desk (being the manager on duty for that shift after all) to see what’s what. I’m confident at least one of these ideas will dawn on him eventually. I mean, Come ON! He's a Go-Getter!

Again I say, these attitudes might have their place if everyone possessing them were more consistent in their own practices. I also reiterate that I do indeed remember having a bit of that “My shit don’t stink, I’m a manager” outlook at Borders but (A) although my poop can be quite smelly, I did my job and did it well and didn’t lord over anyone, making PDF sure that I was working just as hard or harder than people I asked stuff of, plus of course (B) Borders was infinitely more worthy of managerial self-importance anyhoo. (So sue me; you didn't figure out before now that I'm biased?! :)

These people can’t even keep the coffee cart supplies ordered or figure out how quickly the store goes thru a box of standard-sized garbage bags for crying out loud. Yet another dubious honor of this store: it's the only place I’ve ever worked where having the requisite standard supplies around was such an overwhelming challenge to the managerial staff. Of course it takes a lot of time and energy to keep watch over everyone else’s transgressions not to mention the subconscious nark training of the staff at large which must be constantly supervised and adjusted. Who has time to make sure they themselves do a good job, much less to see that we have toilet paper in the building?!

Sigh.

Whatever. Concentrate on the wee extra moolah, Susan, as well as our book discount of course, which is Not Too Shabby At All (nearly 40%! - music and movie discount is only about 23% for some reason which is why I'm not exactly ready to let my Amazon account waste away any time soon). Plus despite all this it's still an interesting counterpoint to school...

Crazy.

I can only say that of course since I'm a plebeian there. Jed actually asked me if I was interested in applying for the open asst. mgr. slot and I gave him a resounding NO. Besides this place's being WAY unworthy of that much Susaneffort and initiative, I can't describe how far I am from any interest in that much investment in retaildom.

Still kinda cool that he suggested it so I let it stroke my ego for a minute or two all the same.

nyernt nyernt