Le Sad Store has been pissing me off the last couple of weeks. So much so that i have actually considered putting in my two weeks notice. The book store environment is nothing like it was when I first start working there almost 5 years ago and to put in bluntly... i fucking hate going to work. I fucking hate it.
I've been pretty unhappy for awhile now. After the holidays all of our hours were slashed. I was okay with this only because the University job helps a lot, It covers rent and all my other expensive while Le Sad Store has just been helping with the small stuff, so while working less at the bookstore sucked I was not hard up for money.
Then March came and we started losing a bunch of managers, not even employees which is normal, but managers who just up and decided the bookstore wasn't for them. Working in retail is a revolving door of people who need/want a job. Though there are quite a lot of us who have been there longer than a year, it's actually pretty rare for someone to stay in retail that long. I've literally seen someone quit on their first day. I've seen explosive and dramatic quits after a week. I've even seen one cafe server throw a fit by removing his apron violently and then running out of the store.
We haven't seen him since. So people quitting is not rare. It's actually the norm.
What isn't normal is when management ups and leaves, like ours have been the last year. We've gone through so managers that its hard to keep up with them. And with each new managers comes a new shift in how the store is run. In a nutshell, it's driving us all crazy. Crazy. Especially since our staff is so small anyway.
Our current management team, run by our bipolar store manager, has started implementing new 'policies' that aren't beneficial to any of us. They want us all to be crossed trained in different areas of the store, which is a good idea, but how we are trained varies based on the managers. So if one manager says we are supposed to shelve books on tables one way another manager will show us a totally different way to do it and then give us shit for having done it the way previous manager taught us.
Also, while our hours are better these day the way they are distributed is just ridiculous. On a busy Saturday afternoon, we'll have 3 people scheduled to work the registers and 1 person to work customer service. Anyone who has ever gone into a bookstore knows how annoying it is to want help finding something but the person at customer service has a line and the phone is ringing and the people at the cash register are not supposed to leave even, like in our case, when there is no one waiting to be rung up.
At the end of the night, because one person was at customer service, resort ends up being a bitch and we end up leaving late because the store is trashed.
My biggest complaint is that the managers now want little to no talking on the floor. Conversations, they say, between co-workers is distracting to the store and to customers and will result in disciplinary actions. Disciplinary actions? What the fuck.
Just the other day I was given a 'verbal cousenling' because I talk to Sean too much.This was due to that Saturday (before he left) when Sean accidentally ignored me the whole night and i got upset. While we were closing (sans customerss because doors were locked) Sean apologized profusely for making me cry. Preacher Boy was closing and saw us and asked us to get back to work. We did. Then Sean came back and asked if i would let him drive me home (when I'm mad at him, I walk home, so he feels bad. Oh the games i play with this stupid cute boy) and Preacher Boy once again told us to get back to work.
Now, I would not have cared if Preacher Boy would have given us a verbal counseling for talking and distracting one another that night. But nooooo, this motherfucker waited until Friday (six days after the incident) to talk to me and worse while Sean was away on vacation. During the verbal counseling, I was the most defiant i have ever been because the Preacher boy of all the people should not have been lecturing me on my relationship with Sean. "Preacher Boy", Kat's crush who has more than done his share of inappropriate talking on the floor was the last person I wanted a verbal counseling from. And because of this I couldn't hold back my anger: one because Sean hadn't been there the whole week and two because Preacher Boy kept saying things like:
"i don't care what your relationship with him is outside of work, though i have noticed that there is one, but, it's not my business, i just want you to know that I am aware, and there are cameras that see everything, that it has been a distraction at work and may become an issue down the line"
So now anything deemed as excessive (talking or interacting) with Sean will be handled with as if it is a national security issue. And I felt so fucking horrible because Sean's first day back to work was yesterday and within the first half hour he was called into the office by Preacher Boy and the store manager to discuss his interactions with me. So the first thing he says to me is 'hey, so we are a distraction to one another". And we spent the rest of the night working around each other, passing notes but being unable to openly talk.
But he brought me back all these small things from Delaware that he had to wait until we were off the clock to give me: a sea shell, some weird beer that i wanted to try, and earrings. Earrings! I don't generally like earrings but during our day together we stopped at H&M and I saw this dress that had a skull and crossbow image on it. I couldn't stop talking about this dress and the stupid skull and crossbows image. So this motherfucking bought me a skull and crossbow set of earrings. They are small and gorgeous and I almost cried. This is the boy they want me to stop talking to. The only reason I come to work, this is the boy they want me to stay away from.
I am at my wits end with Le Sad Store. Not only do i get paid little to no money though I work more than 25 hours there a week but the only thing that makes me happy (seeing my friends. seeing Sean) feels like a crime at the store. I really need to get a new job. I really need to stop being afraid of moving on especially when what I could gain could be better than this.
No comments:
Post a Comment