Cant get the staff

S

Steve

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I'm a duty manager at a convenience store. I get nothing extra for being available on the end of a phone 24/7 for any problems the night supervisors have.

So i go out on my birthday. Saturday night. Had a cracking night. It happened to be two other staff members I was out with. First pub we were in, I get a text message off the supervisor on, saying she hasnt got enough staff, its saturday night, shes panicing. I calmly text back, telling her to phone someone else in (adding that im drunk (a lie) and cant cover it myself - its my birthday I have to have some leisure time!). She tells me she's tried everyone. I ask the two staff im sat in the pub with, no missed calls (she doesnt know they are with me). :cool:

I tell her to try certain staff again, offer double pay if she has to (saturday night is hard to cover and its only a few hours). So she texts back, tells me she got someone to cover. Great. I can enjoy my night. :D

So yesterday the same supervisor opened the shop and I was on the 2-10 afternoon shift. I walked in at 2, and what a bloody mess. I found her sat in the canteen with two other staff, she was leaned over a bucket, the two staff claiming to be on a break. I told her to go home, I didnt want to look at her she looked like death. Nothing had been done till I got in. I spent my whole 8 hour shift playing catch up, when I had other things to do.

I later heard off a customer, that the store didn't open until 7:20am (we open at 7), when the supervisor wandered in in the clothes she went out in last night. Yes, she went from the pub to the shop. So technically I guess she was under the influence and what I saw at 2pm was her hangover.

Heres the punchline, im leaving this store soon, and she wants my job. :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:

What would you do? The managers off this week, so its up to me. I'm considering telling the area manager, but she might tell me its my problem and to stop harassing her lol. The other supervisor isnt very happy with her behaviour, making life difficult for everyone else.

She's also been on this morning so godknows what im going to find this evening when i surprise them all with my presence.
 
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Birthday party or not, you should have put the shop first and gone into work.
 
You're the manager..

That means you get paid to sort this type of problem out yourself... ;)
 
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Bilioustrumpstaine said:
Is this the first instance of this sort of behaviour ?
Click to expand...

I was about to ask the same... It would seem that there's no damage done (apart from 20 minutes loss of potential business), and if it's a genuine one off on an otherwise unblemished record, then that's not too much cause for concern.

Now she's had a couple of days to make up a story, it would be worth asking her straight out why she was sick at work. See if she comes clean straight away or tells you a tall tale. I'd say if she comes clean straight away then it shows she's honest at least and probably ashamed of her behaviour.

If she does come clean, give her a quick reminder on alcoholism and its implications on managing a shop that sells alcohol.

If she doesn't and claims she was ill, then remind her of the importance of food safety and health&hygiene... send her away to do a course on her own time ;) An open container of vomit in a staff canteen certainly wouldn't do.
 
Steve said:
I'm a duty manager at a convenience store. I get nothing extra for being available on the end of a phone 24/7...
Click to expand...
As you know Steve, that's Retail!

I worked in Supermarket Retail Management for quite a few years. NOTHING has changed. Its still not Rocket Science even though it gets dressed up to be some kind of amazing career when they are trying to recruit Graduate Management Trainees (GMTs).

When I worked in Retail Management (over 10 years ago), the drill was the same week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, etc etc. I have pals still in the trade and they all tell me the old drill is still the same drill just by another name.

Increased Sales Targets. (even if you had a new rival store open up on your door step) But then it's normal practice in any business to increase sales targets.

Reduced Waste Targets. A swine of a job to get right when you are trying to increase sales. To increase sales you obviously have to increase your output. And that includes 'Fresh' departments. So you have to bake more bread, order more meat, produce, dairy etc (I did say it's not Rocket Science!). The shelf life is limited on fresh products so ordering just the right amount of products for just the right amount of sales is a nightmare to get right. What doesn't sell goes in the bin and whatever goes in the bin has to be in line with your 'Waste Target'. If its not in line, then believe me, people's jobs are! That is the very reason you see empty shelves in your local supermarket. It has NOTHING to do with availability to the store. The store can order as much as it likes (within reason), but its waste targets dictate that it cannot be 'on sale at all times'. It is impossible to achieve 'on sale at all times' with fresh stock if your waste targets are tight. Obviously if you had no waste targets then being 'on sale at all times' is simple. With most ordering within stores being computerised now it is even harder to 'buck' the system. It will alert you to the fact that you are ordering 'outside' of the recommended level to achieve your waste target.

And finally the old favourite, Reduced Hours! A store has a given amount of hour's per sales. ie If your store sales are forecast for £500,000 for next week (that's a very realistic target for most Large Supermarkets these days. Most would double that), then the store has 'X' amount of hours to achieve those sales. A bit like the old 'Time and Motion' rules. However in retail the rules change like the wind! If for example the company as a whole, is not performing to plan (forecast sales plan and/or waste targets), then Hours have to be reduced. No matter how well your store is performing. Its total and utter BS!

You raise the point of ringing in staff to cover shifts. I know you work in a 'Convenience Store' so things are slightly different to a Large Supermarket but bringing in staff to cover shifts is a very contentious issue in Supermarket Retailing. As outlined above, you have a given amount of hours to cover your sales (as I assume you do Steve). If and when staff ring in sick, the last resort is to ring someone and ask them to cover the shift. Nine times out of Ten the department manager will HAVE TO cover that shift themselves! I will go as far as to say that in my experience, all of the management team worked at least a 12 hour day and very often 6 days a week. We were all salaried and as such every extra hour/day you worked, you worked for nothing. Praise for such effort was few and far between and the salary wasn't that great either!

I mentioned Graduates earlier. In all of the years I was in Supermarket Retailing and up to 10 years before that, the company I worked for had only ONE Graduate Management Trainee that stayed with the company! :eek: There is nothing wrong with Graduates per say, its just that they very quickly realised that Supermarket Retailing is:

1. Bloody hard work and you have to actually fill the shelves yourself sometimes!!! :eek: I have lost count of the amount of GMTs that have come to me and said... 'Who shall I get to fill this area'? They never did like the reply!!!!

2. Very stressful at times.

3. Don't pay as much as they were led to believe!

4. Just isn't sexy!.... I mean it don't win you any girls (boys don't care what you do as long as you're cute... most of us are shallow yes!!!)...... Supermarket boy...'Hi, I'm a Supermarket Manager.'...... girl...'Push Off'! :confused:

And so the GMTs left! I assume they went on to use their hard earned degrees in more fulfilling and 'sexier' careers!

All that said, some people do like the job, indeed as i stated earlier, I have pals still in the game. I went into it due to an accident at work. I started stacking shelves and worked my way through the ranks very quickly (as I said, its not Rocket Science! If I can do it anyone can). I'm not afraid of hard work its just that I never really thought I belonged there. I always wanted to get back to Engineering/Construction but its strange because I always felt like I couldn't just leave. It felt as though that would be a failure to me for some reason for such a long time, I don't know why. It took a massive health issue with my mother and her subsequent death for me to take some time out. After which I finally made the break and eventually went back to construction. So I think for me, hell really would have to freeze over before I even considered going back into it.
 
Steve. Jack it in before you get too dependent on the salary, otherwise before you know it, you'll be turning 40 and thinking 'what have I done with my life thus far'

The answer will be...???

If there's any other job you'd rather be doing, go for it, now. (ok maybe wait until after christmas)
 
Deluks said:
Steve. Jack it in before you get too dependent on the salary, otherwise before you know it, you'll be turning 40 and thinking 'what have I done with my life thus far'
Click to expand...

The single most invaluable comment on this site.
 
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