Well, when we last met up in the continuing storyline of District 414, Area manager Joe had been named the new District Manager. This bad decision was made very quietly and with little fanfare. Perhaps even the Division office realized how unpopular and unsuccessful this decision was going to be, and wished to draw as little attention to it as possible.
Now, normally I would continue here with how bad Joe was as our DM (he was terrible), and how miserable a time I and everyone else had while working for him. But in going over my notes that I took during the time I worked for RGIS, I realized that I have very little material for this blog left. After Joe was made DM, I wasn't with the district for much longer. All the problems that had been prevalent in my district before Joe's ill-fated promotion remained and in some cases intensified after Joe became DM. Any appeal that my job as auditor held deteriorated to such a low point that I simply could not stand working for RGIS any longer and I quit.
So there's really not much left to tell you. Joe didn't last very long as DM; he stepped down from the position after only a few months and returned to his old AM job. A new DM named Chris moved in. He came from a district in another state, which one I can't remember. In fact Chris was so bland and colorless that I can't really remember anything about him other than he was bland and colorless. Joe was fired a few months after Chris' arrival, and a new AM named Josh arrived. Josh was a horrible AM who had a nasty habit of donning a RGIS grey polo shirt and masquerading as a Team Leader, all so he could count unobserved and unbothered by a store manager. Josh was eventually caught by RGIS higher-ups doing this and was moved to another district. I left my job as auditor shortly thereafter, and that's where this blog ends, more or less.
It's been a lot of fun writing this blog, and I've enjoyed reading most of your comments. You can continue to leave your comments and questions here, and I'll publish them probably two or three times a week. But there most likely will not be any more new entries, as I've simply run out of material. If you don't want to leave any more comments here, but still want to communicate with other RGIS people, I might suggest starting a RGIS auditors discussion group over at Yahoo Groups. I checked and there are already two such discussion groups, but not much activity at either. So someone might want to start their own group.
Goodbye, and thanks for reading.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
More Shorts
The following items are just little incidents that I remember from my glory days as a RGIS auditor. They don't really fit into a specific storyline, but I didn't want to leave them out of this blog. So I've just included them here in no particular order.
1. One afternoon after we finished a Long's Drugs inventory District Manager Kevin, on the way back to the RGIS office, drove a vanload of auditors to the Sear's store in San Rafael. We were doing the Sear's inventory in a few weeks, and Kevin told us that the store's manager had asked him to stop by the store for a quick discussion of the store's layout in preparation for the upcoming inventory. As Kevin parked the van outside the store's entrance he told us that he should only be gone a few minutes.
We sat in that van for over two hours. Two hot, uncomfortable, smelly (Mondo was in the van) hours. I don't know about you, but sitting in a crowded van parked in a Sear's parking lot on a hot summer day for over 2 hours was not my idea of fun. Nor anyone else's. Bedroom slippers Erin had dozed off at one point. When she woke up a short time later she was furious to find out we were still at Sear's. "Gimme the time sheet!" she yelled. "I'm signing myself in again!" Finally DM Kevin came out of the store. He climbed into the van and sheepishly apologized for the delay. He claimed that the Sear's manager had insisted Kevin do a full tour of the store's two floors, plus the basement storage rooms. He then did a rare, halfway decent thing and added two hours for each of us to the Long's Drugs time sheet.
2. The districts in the Northwest Division did a lot of inventories together, and each district usually brought a bag or two of their own equipment to each inventory. In order not to get our district's lasers and audit machines mixed up with another district's, orange dot stickers were placed on all of our equipment, including the few stepstools that we had. The idea was that if a District 414 laser or audit machine were accidentally placed in another district's bag it would be easy to spot by the orange dot.
The dots usually helped keep the audit machines and lasers in our district, but not the stepstools. Lots of times I would go into the back room of a grocery store or department store and find a little two-step metal stool with an orange dot on it, left behind from an inventory that we had done months before, and in one case a year before. The first couple of times I found one of my district's stepstools I notified the person running the inventory. The Area Manager or Team Leader each time expressed a little surprise but no other reaction. No "Oh wow, so that's where it was." No "Hey, thanks. Can you grab that one for me?" Just a shrug and a "Hmmm." Well, they didn't seem to care too much about it, so why should I? I would use the stepstool in the store's back room and then leave it there. Accidentally, of course.
3. TL Heather had become disillusioned at working for RGIS and decided to quit. This was around Christmas time, and I had stopped by her house to say hello. I told her I was on my way to the district office party to pick up my January schedule. Heather got a gleam in her eye and told me, "Wait just a minute." She left her living room and came back a short time later with a couple of RGIS polos, a leather belt and a large piece of Christmas wrapping paper. She neatly folded the polo shirts and placed the leather belt on top of them. She wrapped the bundle in the Christmas paper and handed it to me laughing, "Give this to AM Dave and make sure to tell him it's from me."
I got to the district office around 6:00 pm. The Christmas party was in full swing, meaning the lights were on and one cookie platter was visible on the front counter. I picked up my January schedule and spotted AM Dave. I handed him the brightly wrapped package saying, "Heather told me to give you this." Unsuspecting Dave seemed surprised and said, "Oh, well, how nice. Please tell her thank you." I said I would and then I got the hell out before he could open it.
4. AM Joe told a bunch of us this story about when he was an auditor and going through a particularly grueling schedule. He said that it was during one of those interminable Long's Drugs inventory runs (approximately 2 week's worth of Long's stores, one (and sometimes two) per day. In addition to these early morning inventories he was also doing a number of late night stores as well. Joe was so tired that at one point during a Long's inventory he went to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and promptly fell asleep. He told us that he was asleep on the toilet for about half an hour, and the only reason it wasn't any longer was because someone woke him up by banging on the door outside the bathroom and yelling, "I need to get in there!"
5. Once I was standing on a little plastic stepstool (provided by the store) in a Long's Drugs, counting some OTC on a top shelf. Just as Ops Manager Sai walked by behind me I dropped a box of aspirin. Before I could step down and retrieve it Sai stopped, picked up the box and handed it to me, saying in his sing-song Eastern Indian accent, "Oh, you white people are always expecting me to pick things up for you." He then walked away before I could say a word.
6. A small crew of us were doing a port-fn inventory at a grocery store called North Shore Sentry in the little town of Nice, about 2 hours north of our district office. We were short-handed to begin with, and the situation got worse as we arrived at the store because blob Mondo immediately developed a mysterious nosebleed upon exiting the van. He bailed out of counting with us because of this nosebleed and spent the 7+ hours that we were there asleep in the van. Jerk.
TL Eric was running this one, and Eric under pressure was not a pretty sight. He always had difficulty handling "frying" in a store. We were woefully behind schedule, when Eric suddenly said, "I'll get us out of this store." He took a copy of the store's previous inventory, checked the areas that hadn't been counted yet, changed some of the numbers in those area's totals, plugged those new totals into the portable and...ta-dah! We were finished. Eric printed out the whole thing and handed it to the store manager. He was satisfied with the results and we packed up and left, bloody Mondo included. Another quality inventory done by RGIS.
1. One afternoon after we finished a Long's Drugs inventory District Manager Kevin, on the way back to the RGIS office, drove a vanload of auditors to the Sear's store in San Rafael. We were doing the Sear's inventory in a few weeks, and Kevin told us that the store's manager had asked him to stop by the store for a quick discussion of the store's layout in preparation for the upcoming inventory. As Kevin parked the van outside the store's entrance he told us that he should only be gone a few minutes.
We sat in that van for over two hours. Two hot, uncomfortable, smelly (Mondo was in the van) hours. I don't know about you, but sitting in a crowded van parked in a Sear's parking lot on a hot summer day for over 2 hours was not my idea of fun. Nor anyone else's. Bedroom slippers Erin had dozed off at one point. When she woke up a short time later she was furious to find out we were still at Sear's. "Gimme the time sheet!" she yelled. "I'm signing myself in again!" Finally DM Kevin came out of the store. He climbed into the van and sheepishly apologized for the delay. He claimed that the Sear's manager had insisted Kevin do a full tour of the store's two floors, plus the basement storage rooms. He then did a rare, halfway decent thing and added two hours for each of us to the Long's Drugs time sheet.
2. The districts in the Northwest Division did a lot of inventories together, and each district usually brought a bag or two of their own equipment to each inventory. In order not to get our district's lasers and audit machines mixed up with another district's, orange dot stickers were placed on all of our equipment, including the few stepstools that we had. The idea was that if a District 414 laser or audit machine were accidentally placed in another district's bag it would be easy to spot by the orange dot.
The dots usually helped keep the audit machines and lasers in our district, but not the stepstools. Lots of times I would go into the back room of a grocery store or department store and find a little two-step metal stool with an orange dot on it, left behind from an inventory that we had done months before, and in one case a year before. The first couple of times I found one of my district's stepstools I notified the person running the inventory. The Area Manager or Team Leader each time expressed a little surprise but no other reaction. No "Oh wow, so that's where it was." No "Hey, thanks. Can you grab that one for me?" Just a shrug and a "Hmmm." Well, they didn't seem to care too much about it, so why should I? I would use the stepstool in the store's back room and then leave it there. Accidentally, of course.
3. TL Heather had become disillusioned at working for RGIS and decided to quit. This was around Christmas time, and I had stopped by her house to say hello. I told her I was on my way to the district office party to pick up my January schedule. Heather got a gleam in her eye and told me, "Wait just a minute." She left her living room and came back a short time later with a couple of RGIS polos, a leather belt and a large piece of Christmas wrapping paper. She neatly folded the polo shirts and placed the leather belt on top of them. She wrapped the bundle in the Christmas paper and handed it to me laughing, "Give this to AM Dave and make sure to tell him it's from me."
I got to the district office around 6:00 pm. The Christmas party was in full swing, meaning the lights were on and one cookie platter was visible on the front counter. I picked up my January schedule and spotted AM Dave. I handed him the brightly wrapped package saying, "Heather told me to give you this." Unsuspecting Dave seemed surprised and said, "Oh, well, how nice. Please tell her thank you." I said I would and then I got the hell out before he could open it.
4. AM Joe told a bunch of us this story about when he was an auditor and going through a particularly grueling schedule. He said that it was during one of those interminable Long's Drugs inventory runs (approximately 2 week's worth of Long's stores, one (and sometimes two) per day. In addition to these early morning inventories he was also doing a number of late night stores as well. Joe was so tired that at one point during a Long's inventory he went to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and promptly fell asleep. He told us that he was asleep on the toilet for about half an hour, and the only reason it wasn't any longer was because someone woke him up by banging on the door outside the bathroom and yelling, "I need to get in there!"
5. Once I was standing on a little plastic stepstool (provided by the store) in a Long's Drugs, counting some OTC on a top shelf. Just as Ops Manager Sai walked by behind me I dropped a box of aspirin. Before I could step down and retrieve it Sai stopped, picked up the box and handed it to me, saying in his sing-song Eastern Indian accent, "Oh, you white people are always expecting me to pick things up for you." He then walked away before I could say a word.
6. A small crew of us were doing a port-fn inventory at a grocery store called North Shore Sentry in the little town of Nice, about 2 hours north of our district office. We were short-handed to begin with, and the situation got worse as we arrived at the store because blob Mondo immediately developed a mysterious nosebleed upon exiting the van. He bailed out of counting with us because of this nosebleed and spent the 7+ hours that we were there asleep in the van. Jerk.
TL Eric was running this one, and Eric under pressure was not a pretty sight. He always had difficulty handling "frying" in a store. We were woefully behind schedule, when Eric suddenly said, "I'll get us out of this store." He took a copy of the store's previous inventory, checked the areas that hadn't been counted yet, changed some of the numbers in those area's totals, plugged those new totals into the portable and...ta-dah! We were finished. Eric printed out the whole thing and handed it to the store manager. He was satisfied with the results and we packed up and left, bloody Mondo included. Another quality inventory done by RGIS.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
People Problems
Ever read the RGIS newsletter, "The Auditor's Auditor"? This stellar piece of news excellence was (and maybe still is?) published twice a year by RGIS and was available for perusal in my district office. As far as I know I was the only one in Santa Rosa who ever picked up a copy. Well, you never know when it might come in handy. Say you car breaks down and you're stranded way out in the middle of nowhere, when suddenly you experience some intestinal cramping and you think, "Whoops! Gotta go." The Auditor's Auditor would substitute for toilet paper quite nicely.
I have a copy of the Winter 2001 edition (the newsletter was published twice a year). The first page has several photographs of employees who have 25 years or more of subjugation, er I mean employment with RGIS. These photos left me wondering: given the rather dismal treatment that RGIS has been dishing out to their auditors, Team Leaders and Managers lately (wage caps, travel pay cuts, minimum hour cuts, etc.) makes me curious about how many RGIS employees will be "celebrating" their silver anniversary 25 years from now. Wanna bet that it won't be many? If any?
There are several little pieces of first-rate journalism in this issue, and chief among them is a stern piece admonishing auditors who use multi-colored ink pens when filling out time sheets. The anonymous author of the piece also notes that "gel type ink" pens are creating the most havoc, as "many copying and scanning machines cannot 'see' these newer colors and densities. Instead of your name...nothing." The article goes on to state that ballpoint pens with black or blue ink are considered to be the best solution; auditors are also admonished about their poor penmanship and urged to write legibly.
It's nice that RGIS was so helpful in their advice regarding the proper ink pens for use on time sheets. Might I make one more suggestion? If you're a District or Area Manager and you want to alter an auditor's sign in or sign out time, make sure you use the same color pen as the auditor's. That way, you'll be less likely to be caught doing this illegal (in California) act. See, one time during a Target inventory I signed in at 6:00 pm (by my watch and the store's clock. The store had a large clock very helpfully situated on the wall right above where we RGIS folk set up). Later that night when I went to sign out I saw that someone had changed my (and several other's) sign in time to 6:06 pm. Had that person not used a red pen on top of my black one I might not even have noticed.
In regards to this unlawful act committed by a RGIS manager, I would normally pose this question to you: Can you believe this? Can you believe that an AM or DM would be so tightfisted that they would try to cheat a couple of auditors out of 6 minutes worth of pay? But given everything that I've learned about RGIS lately I'd believe anything negative said or written about them. RGIS has some serious problems brewing.
Which brings me to the piece on page three of the "Auditor's Auditor". It's a helpful length of crap called "Handling People Problems at Work." It presents six problems that could potentially crop up at work. RGIS then gives the reader some solutions to each problem. Of course, being RGIS the 'solutions' are both laughable and unusable. I mean, the resolutions they've presented are not that absurd, it's just that the thought of trying to implement these solutions while doing a RGIS inventory is so ridiculous.
1. MY COWORKERS SEEM DISTANT AND UNFRIENDLY. "...Take the first step. Greet everyone pleasantly every day...To avoid misunderstanding, communicate frequently and openly...It's hard to remain gruff when someone is smiling at you." "Greet everyone pleasantly every day." Well, I can just imagine the reaction if I tried to pull this one off at work. I probably would have gotten my head bitten off. I actually witnessed a few newbies trying to act human and say "Good morning" in a few stores. All they got was a vacant stare. As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, most of the auditors in my district were hostile and unfriendly to newbies. Lydia used to say that she never bothered learning any newbie's name until they had been working in the district for at least six months. Given the extremely high turnover rate in my district, this was probably a practical thing for her to do.
"To avoid misunderstandings, communicate frequently and openly..." Another thing that wouldn't have worked in my district. Witness what happened to me when I tried to "communicate" with Area Manager Joe one night during a J.C. Penney's inventory (see blog entry "Fear and Loathing in District 414 {part 2}, August 2006 archives). As I've mentioned before, the managers in my district absolutely hated confrontations of any kind. There was no possible way to communicate with the managers in District 414.
2. MY SUPERVISOR DOESN'T GIVE ME ENOUGH DIRECTION... "Tactfully and pleasantly ask your supervisor to explain the required tasks or supply a written description of them." I can just imagine the reaction I would have received if I had walked up to AM Joe and said (tactfully and pleasantly of course), "Could you please explain to me how I am supposed to count this area? What, you don't have time to explain? Oh, I see. Well, then could you supply me with a written description of what I'm supposed to count and how?" I either would have been laughed out of the store or killed on the spot. Any store that Joe ran was like a nightmare for newbies. Joe's method of introducing newbies to the inventory business was like a sadist's method of teaching someone to swim. Throw 'em in the water and let them sink or swim.
3. MY SKILLS AND ABILITIES ARE UNDERUSED. "Look for ways to make your job more challenging...Take on tasks other have neglected." Hmm...a way to make my job more challenging? Oh I know! Have the AM or TL refuse to bring any stepstools to an inventory and that way I can use my skills and abilities to balance myself on 2 or 3 stacked milk crates. That certainly would be challenging!
"Take on tasks others have neglected." And for how many of you was this already a regular part of your job as an auditor? I mean I was constantly having to come along behind the cherry-pickers, picking up all the areas that they refused to count. One auditor that was notorious for this was an enormously fat girl named Victoria. She would constantly whine and complain about how she was "too tired to count this" or "I'm too tired to climb up this ladder". She would then just wander off aimlessly. It made one furious but what could I do about it? If I told AM Joe he would just mumble something like, "I'll look into it but in the meantime could you do that section?" and then rush off to do God knows what. The whole incident would be instantly forgotten by AM Joe and thus fat Tori would get away with yet another incident of cherry-picking laziness. Again, the AM and DM hated having to go face to face with anybody on anything, so auditors got away with all sorts of shit all the time.
4. MY COWORKER IS VERY CRITICAL OF OTHERS, INCLUDING ME. "Tackle the situation head on by discussing the problem with your co-worker...If necessary, state clearly and frankly what will happen if the behavior doesn't stop..." Okay, I'll try it out on TL Mondo. "Um, Mondo? You know when some auditor screws up an area in an inventory you're running, and then you go over and get in that auditor's face and scream at them and tell them that they're stupid and that they don't know how to count? Well, I don't feel that you're exhibiting very productive behavior. It isn't nice to say to someone, "Stop fucking up and start counting right." There are better ways to put it. And Mondo, if you don't stop with this negative behavior, I'm afraid I will have to inform AM Joe or DM Kevin, who will then have no choice but to ignore me completely and do absolutely nothing about the situation." There! Ahh, I feel so much better now. Thank you RGIS!
5. I AM BEING...TREATED UNFAIRLY BY MY SUPERVISOR. "Discuss the problem in private with your supervisor as soon as possible." Ahem. Tried that, didn't work. (see blog entry "Fear and Loathing in District 414 {part 2}, August 2006 archives).
6. TWO OF MY COWORKERS DISLIKE EACH OTHER, AND I AM CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE. "Talk to someone you respect who is skilled at dealing with people." Well, okay, on the surface that sounds good. But what happens when you have an entire district that dislikes itself? This auditor doesn't like that auditor who doesn't like that auditor, and the managers don't like anyone. What do you do then? What do you do if there is no one at work who you respect, or who is 'skilled' at dealing with people'? What happens then? The district implodes, my friend. It caves in on itself for lack of support or structure.
Well, I hope you enjoyed RGIS' examples of how to handle "People Problems at Work." Tune in next week for more RGIS nonsense.
I have a copy of the Winter 2001 edition (the newsletter was published twice a year). The first page has several photographs of employees who have 25 years or more of subjugation, er I mean employment with RGIS. These photos left me wondering: given the rather dismal treatment that RGIS has been dishing out to their auditors, Team Leaders and Managers lately (wage caps, travel pay cuts, minimum hour cuts, etc.) makes me curious about how many RGIS employees will be "celebrating" their silver anniversary 25 years from now. Wanna bet that it won't be many? If any?
There are several little pieces of first-rate journalism in this issue, and chief among them is a stern piece admonishing auditors who use multi-colored ink pens when filling out time sheets. The anonymous author of the piece also notes that "gel type ink" pens are creating the most havoc, as "many copying and scanning machines cannot 'see' these newer colors and densities. Instead of your name...nothing." The article goes on to state that ballpoint pens with black or blue ink are considered to be the best solution; auditors are also admonished about their poor penmanship and urged to write legibly.
It's nice that RGIS was so helpful in their advice regarding the proper ink pens for use on time sheets. Might I make one more suggestion? If you're a District or Area Manager and you want to alter an auditor's sign in or sign out time, make sure you use the same color pen as the auditor's. That way, you'll be less likely to be caught doing this illegal (in California) act. See, one time during a Target inventory I signed in at 6:00 pm (by my watch and the store's clock. The store had a large clock very helpfully situated on the wall right above where we RGIS folk set up). Later that night when I went to sign out I saw that someone had changed my (and several other's) sign in time to 6:06 pm. Had that person not used a red pen on top of my black one I might not even have noticed.
In regards to this unlawful act committed by a RGIS manager, I would normally pose this question to you: Can you believe this? Can you believe that an AM or DM would be so tightfisted that they would try to cheat a couple of auditors out of 6 minutes worth of pay? But given everything that I've learned about RGIS lately I'd believe anything negative said or written about them. RGIS has some serious problems brewing.
Which brings me to the piece on page three of the "Auditor's Auditor". It's a helpful length of crap called "Handling People Problems at Work." It presents six problems that could potentially crop up at work. RGIS then gives the reader some solutions to each problem. Of course, being RGIS the 'solutions' are both laughable and unusable. I mean, the resolutions they've presented are not that absurd, it's just that the thought of trying to implement these solutions while doing a RGIS inventory is so ridiculous.
1. MY COWORKERS SEEM DISTANT AND UNFRIENDLY. "...Take the first step. Greet everyone pleasantly every day...To avoid misunderstanding, communicate frequently and openly...It's hard to remain gruff when someone is smiling at you." "Greet everyone pleasantly every day." Well, I can just imagine the reaction if I tried to pull this one off at work. I probably would have gotten my head bitten off. I actually witnessed a few newbies trying to act human and say "Good morning" in a few stores. All they got was a vacant stare. As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, most of the auditors in my district were hostile and unfriendly to newbies. Lydia used to say that she never bothered learning any newbie's name until they had been working in the district for at least six months. Given the extremely high turnover rate in my district, this was probably a practical thing for her to do.
"To avoid misunderstandings, communicate frequently and openly..." Another thing that wouldn't have worked in my district. Witness what happened to me when I tried to "communicate" with Area Manager Joe one night during a J.C. Penney's inventory (see blog entry "Fear and Loathing in District 414 {part 2}, August 2006 archives). As I've mentioned before, the managers in my district absolutely hated confrontations of any kind. There was no possible way to communicate with the managers in District 414.
2. MY SUPERVISOR DOESN'T GIVE ME ENOUGH DIRECTION... "Tactfully and pleasantly ask your supervisor to explain the required tasks or supply a written description of them." I can just imagine the reaction I would have received if I had walked up to AM Joe and said (tactfully and pleasantly of course), "Could you please explain to me how I am supposed to count this area? What, you don't have time to explain? Oh, I see. Well, then could you supply me with a written description of what I'm supposed to count and how?" I either would have been laughed out of the store or killed on the spot. Any store that Joe ran was like a nightmare for newbies. Joe's method of introducing newbies to the inventory business was like a sadist's method of teaching someone to swim. Throw 'em in the water and let them sink or swim.
3. MY SKILLS AND ABILITIES ARE UNDERUSED. "Look for ways to make your job more challenging...Take on tasks other have neglected." Hmm...a way to make my job more challenging? Oh I know! Have the AM or TL refuse to bring any stepstools to an inventory and that way I can use my skills and abilities to balance myself on 2 or 3 stacked milk crates. That certainly would be challenging!
"Take on tasks others have neglected." And for how many of you was this already a regular part of your job as an auditor? I mean I was constantly having to come along behind the cherry-pickers, picking up all the areas that they refused to count. One auditor that was notorious for this was an enormously fat girl named Victoria. She would constantly whine and complain about how she was "too tired to count this" or "I'm too tired to climb up this ladder". She would then just wander off aimlessly. It made one furious but what could I do about it? If I told AM Joe he would just mumble something like, "I'll look into it but in the meantime could you do that section?" and then rush off to do God knows what. The whole incident would be instantly forgotten by AM Joe and thus fat Tori would get away with yet another incident of cherry-picking laziness. Again, the AM and DM hated having to go face to face with anybody on anything, so auditors got away with all sorts of shit all the time.
4. MY COWORKER IS VERY CRITICAL OF OTHERS, INCLUDING ME. "Tackle the situation head on by discussing the problem with your co-worker...If necessary, state clearly and frankly what will happen if the behavior doesn't stop..." Okay, I'll try it out on TL Mondo. "Um, Mondo? You know when some auditor screws up an area in an inventory you're running, and then you go over and get in that auditor's face and scream at them and tell them that they're stupid and that they don't know how to count? Well, I don't feel that you're exhibiting very productive behavior. It isn't nice to say to someone, "Stop fucking up and start counting right." There are better ways to put it. And Mondo, if you don't stop with this negative behavior, I'm afraid I will have to inform AM Joe or DM Kevin, who will then have no choice but to ignore me completely and do absolutely nothing about the situation." There! Ahh, I feel so much better now. Thank you RGIS!
5. I AM BEING...TREATED UNFAIRLY BY MY SUPERVISOR. "Discuss the problem in private with your supervisor as soon as possible." Ahem. Tried that, didn't work. (see blog entry "Fear and Loathing in District 414 {part 2}, August 2006 archives).
6. TWO OF MY COWORKERS DISLIKE EACH OTHER, AND I AM CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE. "Talk to someone you respect who is skilled at dealing with people." Well, okay, on the surface that sounds good. But what happens when you have an entire district that dislikes itself? This auditor doesn't like that auditor who doesn't like that auditor, and the managers don't like anyone. What do you do then? What do you do if there is no one at work who you respect, or who is 'skilled' at dealing with people'? What happens then? The district implodes, my friend. It caves in on itself for lack of support or structure.
Well, I hope you enjoyed RGIS' examples of how to handle "People Problems at Work." Tune in next week for more RGIS nonsense.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
The Darkest Hour
The weeks of counting crap continued in RGIS district 414, and still we were without a District Manager. Ops Manager Sai still remained in Santa Rosa, torturing Area Manager Joe by dangling the DM position in front of his eyes, like a carrot held out to an eager horse. As much as Sai wanted to name a DM and get the hell out of Santa Rosa, he and his fellow Ops Managers still had some reservations about giving Joe the job. And rightly so; as I've mentioned in previous blog entries AM Joe was much too immature to be in charge of an entire district.
Of course Joe didn't see it that way. He was always way more enthralled of his managerial skills than anyone else. This was why he finally decided to push himself to the front of the stage and declare himself a viable candidate for the DM position, which was a big mistake in my opinion. I always felt that Joe was better suited to working behind the scenes. The puppetmaster behind the curtain, if you will. That's why the situation that he was in previously, with himself as AM and Kevin as DM worked so well for him, although he didn't see it that way at the time. DM Kevin would be out there, front and center, taking credit when things went right (which was almost never) but more often taking a hit when things went so very wrong. As second banana Joe could do and say things virtually without risk of putting his head on the chopping block, as he was the number two guy and not technically in charge of the district.
However, for what reasons only Joe knew, he got a bug up his ass about being our new DM and campaigned heavily for the job. But the longer it took for the Ops Managers to name a new DM the more frustrated Joe got. At one point he told me, "If Sai doesn't make me the new DM I'm gonna quit. I swear I will. Did I ever tell you about the time I walked out?" I said no. Joe then disclosed that back when he was an AM in San Francisco, he had been approached by some CSK (auto parts store, a customer of RGIS) representatives and asked if he wanted to come work for them. The idea intrigued Joe at the time because he had begun to feel a bit burned out in his RGIS job. So he proposed the idea to his DM and Ops Managers that he (Joe) take a leave of absence from RGIS and try out the CSK job for a while, to see how he liked it. Naturally RGIS told him "No way". Childish Joe was so ticked off at being denied that he went into his office, left his company car keys and pager on his desk and walked out without telling anyone. He ended up working for CSK for a couple of years before quitting and coming back to RGIS, who of course wasted little time in making him a manager again (What is wrong with this company? They just keep rehiring the same assholes over and over again).
By now it was apparent to even AM Joe that his self-perceived dazzling managerial skills weren't wowing the powers that be in RGIS upper-level management. So he turned to schmoozing some of his auditors, all in the attempts to butter some of us up, hoping that we might go to bat for him and tell Ops Manager Sai what great guy (!) Joe was and how he would make a marvelous DM. Incredibly, he even tried this out on me, an auditor who just a short time ago had had a major confrontation with him (see blog entry "Fear and Loathing in District 414 {Part 2}", August 2006 archives).
Either he was absolutely, shamelessly desperate for the DM position, completely retarded or perhaps his alleged heavy drug use had fried his brains out, I'm not sure which. Maybe it was a little of each. In any event he even tried to sweet talk me into thinking what a nice guy he was, and how it would be just super! if he were named Santa Rosa's new DM. Amazingly Joe told me, "DM Kevin didn't care about you, DM Dan didn't really know you, AM Dave was useless. We (Joe and I) have known each other a long time (1+ years, strictly on the job) and you know you can trust me. I'll look out for you."
Huh? What? Are you kidding me? I wanted to say to him, "Joe, are you suffering from Alzheimer's or something? Have you completely forgotten about the numerous times you screwed me over in my schedules? Did it completely slip your mind that just a few days ago you almost scared me shitless when you threw your hissy fit and screamed at me in Penney's? And now you're telling me that you're my good buddy, and you'll look out for me when no one else will? Are you insane?" Joe's brazen campaigning for the DM position had reached the point of ridiculousness.
I wasn't too worried though that AM Joe would get the job because I picked up on the fact that Sai and the other Ops Managers were tepid to naming Joe as the new DM. In fact, during a Sear's inventory in San Rafael that Joe was running and Sai was of course watching him like a hawk in, I at one point found myself in a conversation with Sai regarding this very same subject. I told Sai that there was a rumor going around that Joe might be named our new DM, and was it true? I must have sounded as worried as I felt to Sai because he smiled and told me politely that in his opinion Joe was too immature for the position. Yes! Thank you Sai! Sai then went on to explain that "The decision hasn't definitely been made yet, but I really think it might be better if we brought in someone from another district." Oh happy day! Thank you thank you thank you!
So it was with a light and happy heart that I went about my merry auditor's way. I sailed into the hardware department and spent several pleasant hours counting tons of hammers, screwdrivers and other various assorted tools. I didn't even mind when the Sear's head hardware guy asked me to step into the dark storeroom and count a huge box full of wrenches. None of the wrenches had tags but that didn't matter as they were all Craftsman (Sear's brand) tools with SKU numbers stamped into each piece. I sat cross-legged on the cold linoleum floor and cheerfully punched in SKU number after SKU number into my little green audit machine. I was almost singing as I tossed each counted wrench into another cardboard box. "Joe's not gonna be our DM! Joe's not gonna be our DM!" What a great day it was turning out to be!
I was so ecstatic, so pleased as punch, so elated that childish, partisan Joe would not be named Santa Rosa's new DM. But the screwy way thing were done in my district should have curbed my enthusiasm. I should have known that it was all too good to be true. And sure enough, later that same day as I was up on the second floor of Sear's counting some vacuum cleaner bags my sky-high joyfulness came crashing down. Ops Manager Sai caught up with me and said quietly that word had come down to him from the division office that Joe was to be named the new DM of District 414.
I was crushed. I couldn't say a word; I wasn't even able to ask Sai, "What happened? What happened to your (and everyone else's) belief that Joe was too immature for the job? That he couldn't possibly handle the responsibilities of running a district?" I wanted to shout, "Has everyone at the division office gone mad? Are the Ops Managers insane? Demented? Have they lost their senses? What kind of lunatic company is this that they would..." Oh...right. This was RGIS. Shit. Piss. Fuck.
Of course Joe didn't see it that way. He was always way more enthralled of his managerial skills than anyone else. This was why he finally decided to push himself to the front of the stage and declare himself a viable candidate for the DM position, which was a big mistake in my opinion. I always felt that Joe was better suited to working behind the scenes. The puppetmaster behind the curtain, if you will. That's why the situation that he was in previously, with himself as AM and Kevin as DM worked so well for him, although he didn't see it that way at the time. DM Kevin would be out there, front and center, taking credit when things went right (which was almost never) but more often taking a hit when things went so very wrong. As second banana Joe could do and say things virtually without risk of putting his head on the chopping block, as he was the number two guy and not technically in charge of the district.
However, for what reasons only Joe knew, he got a bug up his ass about being our new DM and campaigned heavily for the job. But the longer it took for the Ops Managers to name a new DM the more frustrated Joe got. At one point he told me, "If Sai doesn't make me the new DM I'm gonna quit. I swear I will. Did I ever tell you about the time I walked out?" I said no. Joe then disclosed that back when he was an AM in San Francisco, he had been approached by some CSK (auto parts store, a customer of RGIS) representatives and asked if he wanted to come work for them. The idea intrigued Joe at the time because he had begun to feel a bit burned out in his RGIS job. So he proposed the idea to his DM and Ops Managers that he (Joe) take a leave of absence from RGIS and try out the CSK job for a while, to see how he liked it. Naturally RGIS told him "No way". Childish Joe was so ticked off at being denied that he went into his office, left his company car keys and pager on his desk and walked out without telling anyone. He ended up working for CSK for a couple of years before quitting and coming back to RGIS, who of course wasted little time in making him a manager again (What is wrong with this company? They just keep rehiring the same assholes over and over again).
By now it was apparent to even AM Joe that his self-perceived dazzling managerial skills weren't wowing the powers that be in RGIS upper-level management. So he turned to schmoozing some of his auditors, all in the attempts to butter some of us up, hoping that we might go to bat for him and tell Ops Manager Sai what great guy (!) Joe was and how he would make a marvelous DM. Incredibly, he even tried this out on me, an auditor who just a short time ago had had a major confrontation with him (see blog entry "Fear and Loathing in District 414 {Part 2}", August 2006 archives).
Either he was absolutely, shamelessly desperate for the DM position, completely retarded or perhaps his alleged heavy drug use had fried his brains out, I'm not sure which. Maybe it was a little of each. In any event he even tried to sweet talk me into thinking what a nice guy he was, and how it would be just super! if he were named Santa Rosa's new DM. Amazingly Joe told me, "DM Kevin didn't care about you, DM Dan didn't really know you, AM Dave was useless. We (Joe and I) have known each other a long time (1+ years, strictly on the job) and you know you can trust me. I'll look out for you."
Huh? What? Are you kidding me? I wanted to say to him, "Joe, are you suffering from Alzheimer's or something? Have you completely forgotten about the numerous times you screwed me over in my schedules? Did it completely slip your mind that just a few days ago you almost scared me shitless when you threw your hissy fit and screamed at me in Penney's? And now you're telling me that you're my good buddy, and you'll look out for me when no one else will? Are you insane?" Joe's brazen campaigning for the DM position had reached the point of ridiculousness.
I wasn't too worried though that AM Joe would get the job because I picked up on the fact that Sai and the other Ops Managers were tepid to naming Joe as the new DM. In fact, during a Sear's inventory in San Rafael that Joe was running and Sai was of course watching him like a hawk in, I at one point found myself in a conversation with Sai regarding this very same subject. I told Sai that there was a rumor going around that Joe might be named our new DM, and was it true? I must have sounded as worried as I felt to Sai because he smiled and told me politely that in his opinion Joe was too immature for the position. Yes! Thank you Sai! Sai then went on to explain that "The decision hasn't definitely been made yet, but I really think it might be better if we brought in someone from another district." Oh happy day! Thank you thank you thank you!
So it was with a light and happy heart that I went about my merry auditor's way. I sailed into the hardware department and spent several pleasant hours counting tons of hammers, screwdrivers and other various assorted tools. I didn't even mind when the Sear's head hardware guy asked me to step into the dark storeroom and count a huge box full of wrenches. None of the wrenches had tags but that didn't matter as they were all Craftsman (Sear's brand) tools with SKU numbers stamped into each piece. I sat cross-legged on the cold linoleum floor and cheerfully punched in SKU number after SKU number into my little green audit machine. I was almost singing as I tossed each counted wrench into another cardboard box. "Joe's not gonna be our DM! Joe's not gonna be our DM!" What a great day it was turning out to be!
I was so ecstatic, so pleased as punch, so elated that childish, partisan Joe would not be named Santa Rosa's new DM. But the screwy way thing were done in my district should have curbed my enthusiasm. I should have known that it was all too good to be true. And sure enough, later that same day as I was up on the second floor of Sear's counting some vacuum cleaner bags my sky-high joyfulness came crashing down. Ops Manager Sai caught up with me and said quietly that word had come down to him from the division office that Joe was to be named the new DM of District 414.
I was crushed. I couldn't say a word; I wasn't even able to ask Sai, "What happened? What happened to your (and everyone else's) belief that Joe was too immature for the job? That he couldn't possibly handle the responsibilities of running a district?" I wanted to shout, "Has everyone at the division office gone mad? Are the Ops Managers insane? Demented? Have they lost their senses? What kind of lunatic company is this that they would..." Oh...right. This was RGIS. Shit. Piss. Fuck.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Have A Good One! (Any One Will Do)
Sorry but there will be no new post this Saturday. I'm taking this holiday weekend off, and I don't plan on going anywhere near a computer for the next couple of days. Well, okay maybe tomorrow, but that's it I swear! So if anyone leaves comments for this blog during the weekend, they probably won't get published until Tuesday at the earliest. Sorry if this inconveniences anyone. Everyone, have a great Labor Day weekend, please drive safely and all that jazz. See you here next week!
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Curse Of The Fat Man
I have a few more little bits of Mondo-related nonsense to share with you. These are just some small incidents involving blimp Mondo; they occurred over several years in several different places. They have been divided into three different categories: Fat, Feeble and Foul. Of course, all three are perfect descriptions of Mondo.
Fat: One night during some nameless and faceless inventory (read: I did so many of these fucking inventories that I can't remember in which one I overhead this conversation) bloated Team Leader Mondo was telling several of us auditors all about one drunken night at a local bar. He said that at one point he had tossed back so many drinks that he lost his balance and fell right off a bar stool. This must have been quite embarassing for Mondo (not to mention quite destructive to the floor. Imagine the damage a two-ton oily behemoth hitting the floor would cause) but as in many other incidents involving Mondo and something humiliating he tried to make a joke of it. "I don't know how I got up off the floor," Mondo quipped. "By a forklift?" wisecracked Gerry. Everyone laughed except Mondo. He might occasionally make fun of his morbidly obese condition but couldn't stand someone else doing it.
Feeble: Mondo ran quite a few stores as a TL, and had problems in every one of his inventories. His most spectacular failure occurred at a Cala Foods/Bell Markets inventory in Novato. Fleshy Mondo had all veteran auditors in this inventory but that didn't matter as most of us were dead tired from doing so many back to back stores. Every single one of us (including paunchy Mondo) made several mistakes while counting in that grocery store that night. Most of the errors were ones made by putting items in wrong categories: Liquor in Grocery, Grocery in General Merchandise, etc. Elephant Mondo missed a lot of these mistakes when printing out the areas, and simply handed over the error-laden printouts to the store manager, most without checking them first.
The store manager all night had received printout after printout filled with mistakes. With each muddled printout he got a little angrier and a little angrier. Finally he had had enough and confronted two-ton Mondo. He got right in Mondo's face (eeuuww) and verbally let him have it. The store manager went on at length about what a lousy job we RGIS auditors had done that night, and how he was not getting the quality inventory he had paid for. The guy was really pissed off and who could blame him? He had a bunch of burgundy-shirted zombies counting his store that night. We had done a lousy job in that Cala Foods store, and all of us realized it. Of course, that doesn't mean that we cared. All of us were worn out from so many back-to-backers and just wanted to go home and sleep. However, as lowly auditors we didn't have to experience the wrath of the store manager. No, TL Mondo, who ran the inventory, got the full blast of shit from the store manager. We peons merely stood around and enjoyed the spectacle. What fun it was to witness Mondo getting scolded and yelled at. Hurrah!
Finally, the store manager calmed down and stopped shouting at gargantuan Mondo. During the customer's tirade Mondo had not said a word. He was totally intimidated and cowed. At one point, while the customer was giving him a tongue lashing Mondo actually leaned his head against a post and stared at the floor. It was a totally unprofessional thing to do, and looked really bad, but that was Mondo.
The store manager was quite upset with Mondo and said to him, "So, as a representative from RGIS, what do you have to say for yourself, in regards to the job that you and your people have done?" Corpulent Mondo's response? He never said a word and merely shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at the floor. Wow, a true leader. Disgusted, the store manager told Mondo, "This inventory is over," and we RGIS people quietly slunk out of the store and drove away. In front of the customer we had to appear chastened and a little sorry over the poor job we had done but secretly I was elated and relished the verbal clobbering that rotund Mondo had received.
Foul: When rumor had it in our district that malodorous Mondo was to be made the new Associate Area Manager, most of us didn't believe it. We couldn't imagine Mondo ever being able to scrub enough gunk off his huge moldy body in order to appear halfway decent as a dress-shirt-and-necktie-clad AAM. After all, it was Mondo who claimed that the reason he smelled so bad was because he was too fat to fit into his bathtub at home. That's why he never ever bathed, and that's why he smelled like a two-week old corpse on a hot summer day. How on earth would he be able to wash the funk off his carcass, if he couldn't take a bath? Helpful auditor Anna thought she had the solution. She offered to buy Mondo a shower attachment that he could hook up to the bathtub spigot. I guess she figured mammoth Mondo could sit on the edge of his tub and sprinkle himself with water, and thus wash some of the goo off himself that way.
Anna should have known better. Nauseating Mondo wasn't the least bit interested in improving himself in any way; not even if it meant moving his bulk up the corporate RGIS ladder. He was totally illogical and more than a little retarded in thinking that he could be both filthy and an AAM. Mondo said, "No thanks" to the shower attachment, and continued on his greasy way. He was eventually made an AAM, but that only lasted a few weeks, natch.
Fat: Jumbo Mondo used to have a terrible time during our summer inventories. We might be closeted in a stuffy Mervyn's back room for hours, scanning boxes of socks and racks of shirts. The atmosphere would be quite uncomfortable, as we usually did most of these inventories after hours, when the store's air-conditioning system had already been automatically shut off for the night. Most of us human-sized auditors were a bit uncomfortable, but for someone as massive as Mondo it was torture. He would be standing there, pawing through cartons of tube socks while the sweat just poured down his body in oily rivulets. TL Eric noticed the sweat gushing from Mondo's king size carcass and told him that he (Mondo) was going to melt into a puddle. "No, a puddle's too small," Eric corrected himself. "You're going to melt into a pond. We should call you Pondo." Mondo Pondo was not amused. Again, he could make fun of himself but he hated it when anyone else did it.
Feeble: Once a bunch of us were meeting at the office to commute to an early morning, out of town Long's Drugs inventory. This was during the time that half-witted District Manager Kevin was still having us park our cars in the tiny parking lot that surrounded our RGIS district office and a few other retail businesses. Kevin stood in the parking lot and directed auditors to park their cars at the other end of the lot, near Burger King. When Mondo pulled into the lot Kevin pointed towards Burger King. Mondo never stopped his Jeep. He drove to the other end of the parking lot and out the exit near Burger King, and disappeared into the early morning darkness.
It was so funny to see simpleton Kevin standing there in the middle of the parking lot with his mouth hanging open. He had no idea where Mondo had gone. In a panic he called Mondo's house but no one was there. He asked Mondo's hateful brother TL Luis where he thought Mondo might have gone, but Luis hadn't a clue. Finally DM Kevin had no choice but to leave for the inventory, minus his bloated TL Mondo.
When we reached the San Anselmo Long's Drugs about 45 minutes later, there was Mondo parked in front of the store. When questioned about his disappearance Mondo told us that when he saw Kevin pointing to the other end of the parking lot he thought Kevin wanted him to drive to the store himself. What a moron! But typical Mondo.
Foul: After we had finished an inventory in neighboring district Vallejo one night Mondo drove a company van full of us Santa Rosa auditors back to the Park-N-Ride. Riding with Mondo as a driver was always an adventure in terror, as he was both a horrible driver and a smelly one. You most definitely did not want to be sitting downwind of him, as one whiff of his gaseous fumes and you were a goner. Plus, as though his foul stench wasn't bad enough, he had a tendency to take every turn on two wheels. So one way or another you thought you were gonna die with Mondo driving.
One newbie riding in the van was already wise to the ways of repugnant Mondo. This became apparent when she told Mondo, "Hey Mondo, guess what? I had my shoe in your pants pocket." (This was not as difficult as it sounds. Two-ton Mondo flattened the driver's seat when he sat in it; his gargantuan ass was mere inches from the floor of the van) The newbie, sitting in the middle of the first bench seat, could by stretching her legs place a shoe tip in Mondo's pants pocket. One guy told her, "I'm surprised your shoe didn't melt." The newbie replied, "I'm surprised I got a shoe back." Once again, everyone laughed except for odious Mondo. Score one for the newbie.
Fat: As you may have already guessed, beefy Mondo had an enormous appetite. I once had the displeasure of riding with him to another out of town inventory. I had to ride sitting next to him in his stinky Jeep. Mondo couldn't even make it out of the office parking lot without getting something to eat. He stopped at the Burger King a few doors down from the RGIS office and ordered a double Whopper and a vat of Coca-Cola from the drive-up window. I watched in horror as he unwrapped the burger (I'm surprised he didn't just eat right through the paper) and took one, two, three, four bites without stopping or breathing and bam! the burger was gone. I mean that fat slob downed that enormous double cheeseburger in less than a minute. It was a most terrifying and disgusting sight. After seeing that nightmare I lost my own appetite for a couple of days. And after that ride with him I took care to keep my arms and legs safely away from Mondo's vicinity. Who knew when he might be hungry and need to feed again? What if we were doing a late night inventory and all the Burger Kings were closed? I didn't want to lose a limb.
Some stores that we inventoried would provide us with snacks if we took a break, and pizza or sandwiches if we took a lunch. Most of the Long's Drugs stores would give us coffee and doughnuts for our one and only break. We started counting at Long's around 5:30 am, and three hours later when we took our break the thought of a cup of hot coffee and a jelly doughnut was most appealing. Most of the auditors would take just one doughnut but then, we were human beings and not farm animals. Mondo, on the other hand, was like a pig at a trough during these Long's breaks. He saw nothing wrong in barrelling right into the store's break room and grabbing four or five doughnuts, all before any of us had even had one. He had his snout right into those pink bakery boxes, rooting around for the choicest pastries. Again, you had to be careful and not get your hands close to his mouth, lest you lose a finger.
Even foggy DM Kevin was aware of Mondo's greedy ways. Whenever we did a Kmart inventory in Santa Rosa the store was nice enough to provide us with pizzas and sodas for our half-hour lunch (This Kmart had a Little Caesar's pizza restaurant inside the store. I wouldn't touch the pizza after I'd heard that one customer recently vomited blood in the restaurant after eating the pizza. A special cleaning crew had to be called in, and thereafter I referred to the Little Caesar's pizza as "Haz-Mat pizza"). When Kevin called a lunch break he made sure to tell The Foul One, "Remember, only two pieces, Mondo." Kevin wanted to make sure that Mondo didn't inhale all of the pizza. Which he was perfectly capable of doing.
Gluttonous Mondo and pizza had quite a love affair going. While Mondo was known to consume anything (burgers, doughnuts, candy bars, possibly a small child or two) he held a special place in his oily heart for pizza. I don't think that he or his brother Luis (who lived with Mondo) knew how to cook. I believe they mostly ordered in food. I think Mondo would order a couple of pizzas at a time, and eat one immediately and save the second one for later. He wouldn't refrigerate the second pizza but instead would park it in his cold oven. He claimed it tasted better a day or two or a week later. Mondo called this "fermented" pizza. Puke!
Fat: If you had 450 lb. sweaty, greasy, smelly man asking you for a ride in your car, would give him one? Of course not. You would take pity on your poor vehicle and never think to transport something as foul as Mondo in it. Which is why Mondo could never catch a ride with anyone except his brother Luis, or maybe the company van; it was large and sturdy enough to withstand his enormous bulk. Luis' car, like everyone else's , was of average size and not really meant to cart around a hippopotamus, but Luis was Mondo's brother and couldn't refuse him a ride.
Which is why one morning several of us were treated to a most amusing sight. Me and a couple of auditors were in a car right behind Luis' car on the freeway. Even if you hadn't seen Mondo a few minutes earlier climbing into Luis' car, you would know immediately upon seeing the car that Mondo was riding in it as the car appeared to be driving along on two wheels. It was really funny to see this car tipping precariously to one side as it traveled slowly down the freeway. I mean, you almost expected to see it stop suddenly and about 30 clowns come piling out of it. But no, there was only one clown inside the car, the sad, pitiful, bloated, oily clown known as Mondo.
Fat: One night during some nameless and faceless inventory (read: I did so many of these fucking inventories that I can't remember in which one I overhead this conversation) bloated Team Leader Mondo was telling several of us auditors all about one drunken night at a local bar. He said that at one point he had tossed back so many drinks that he lost his balance and fell right off a bar stool. This must have been quite embarassing for Mondo (not to mention quite destructive to the floor. Imagine the damage a two-ton oily behemoth hitting the floor would cause) but as in many other incidents involving Mondo and something humiliating he tried to make a joke of it. "I don't know how I got up off the floor," Mondo quipped. "By a forklift?" wisecracked Gerry. Everyone laughed except Mondo. He might occasionally make fun of his morbidly obese condition but couldn't stand someone else doing it.
Feeble: Mondo ran quite a few stores as a TL, and had problems in every one of his inventories. His most spectacular failure occurred at a Cala Foods/Bell Markets inventory in Novato. Fleshy Mondo had all veteran auditors in this inventory but that didn't matter as most of us were dead tired from doing so many back to back stores. Every single one of us (including paunchy Mondo) made several mistakes while counting in that grocery store that night. Most of the errors were ones made by putting items in wrong categories: Liquor in Grocery, Grocery in General Merchandise, etc. Elephant Mondo missed a lot of these mistakes when printing out the areas, and simply handed over the error-laden printouts to the store manager, most without checking them first.
The store manager all night had received printout after printout filled with mistakes. With each muddled printout he got a little angrier and a little angrier. Finally he had had enough and confronted two-ton Mondo. He got right in Mondo's face (eeuuww) and verbally let him have it. The store manager went on at length about what a lousy job we RGIS auditors had done that night, and how he was not getting the quality inventory he had paid for. The guy was really pissed off and who could blame him? He had a bunch of burgundy-shirted zombies counting his store that night. We had done a lousy job in that Cala Foods store, and all of us realized it. Of course, that doesn't mean that we cared. All of us were worn out from so many back-to-backers and just wanted to go home and sleep. However, as lowly auditors we didn't have to experience the wrath of the store manager. No, TL Mondo, who ran the inventory, got the full blast of shit from the store manager. We peons merely stood around and enjoyed the spectacle. What fun it was to witness Mondo getting scolded and yelled at. Hurrah!
Finally, the store manager calmed down and stopped shouting at gargantuan Mondo. During the customer's tirade Mondo had not said a word. He was totally intimidated and cowed. At one point, while the customer was giving him a tongue lashing Mondo actually leaned his head against a post and stared at the floor. It was a totally unprofessional thing to do, and looked really bad, but that was Mondo.
The store manager was quite upset with Mondo and said to him, "So, as a representative from RGIS, what do you have to say for yourself, in regards to the job that you and your people have done?" Corpulent Mondo's response? He never said a word and merely shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at the floor. Wow, a true leader. Disgusted, the store manager told Mondo, "This inventory is over," and we RGIS people quietly slunk out of the store and drove away. In front of the customer we had to appear chastened and a little sorry over the poor job we had done but secretly I was elated and relished the verbal clobbering that rotund Mondo had received.
Foul: When rumor had it in our district that malodorous Mondo was to be made the new Associate Area Manager, most of us didn't believe it. We couldn't imagine Mondo ever being able to scrub enough gunk off his huge moldy body in order to appear halfway decent as a dress-shirt-and-necktie-clad AAM. After all, it was Mondo who claimed that the reason he smelled so bad was because he was too fat to fit into his bathtub at home. That's why he never ever bathed, and that's why he smelled like a two-week old corpse on a hot summer day. How on earth would he be able to wash the funk off his carcass, if he couldn't take a bath? Helpful auditor Anna thought she had the solution. She offered to buy Mondo a shower attachment that he could hook up to the bathtub spigot. I guess she figured mammoth Mondo could sit on the edge of his tub and sprinkle himself with water, and thus wash some of the goo off himself that way.
Anna should have known better. Nauseating Mondo wasn't the least bit interested in improving himself in any way; not even if it meant moving his bulk up the corporate RGIS ladder. He was totally illogical and more than a little retarded in thinking that he could be both filthy and an AAM. Mondo said, "No thanks" to the shower attachment, and continued on his greasy way. He was eventually made an AAM, but that only lasted a few weeks, natch.
Fat: Jumbo Mondo used to have a terrible time during our summer inventories. We might be closeted in a stuffy Mervyn's back room for hours, scanning boxes of socks and racks of shirts. The atmosphere would be quite uncomfortable, as we usually did most of these inventories after hours, when the store's air-conditioning system had already been automatically shut off for the night. Most of us human-sized auditors were a bit uncomfortable, but for someone as massive as Mondo it was torture. He would be standing there, pawing through cartons of tube socks while the sweat just poured down his body in oily rivulets. TL Eric noticed the sweat gushing from Mondo's king size carcass and told him that he (Mondo) was going to melt into a puddle. "No, a puddle's too small," Eric corrected himself. "You're going to melt into a pond. We should call you Pondo." Mondo Pondo was not amused. Again, he could make fun of himself but he hated it when anyone else did it.
Feeble: Once a bunch of us were meeting at the office to commute to an early morning, out of town Long's Drugs inventory. This was during the time that half-witted District Manager Kevin was still having us park our cars in the tiny parking lot that surrounded our RGIS district office and a few other retail businesses. Kevin stood in the parking lot and directed auditors to park their cars at the other end of the lot, near Burger King. When Mondo pulled into the lot Kevin pointed towards Burger King. Mondo never stopped his Jeep. He drove to the other end of the parking lot and out the exit near Burger King, and disappeared into the early morning darkness.
It was so funny to see simpleton Kevin standing there in the middle of the parking lot with his mouth hanging open. He had no idea where Mondo had gone. In a panic he called Mondo's house but no one was there. He asked Mondo's hateful brother TL Luis where he thought Mondo might have gone, but Luis hadn't a clue. Finally DM Kevin had no choice but to leave for the inventory, minus his bloated TL Mondo.
When we reached the San Anselmo Long's Drugs about 45 minutes later, there was Mondo parked in front of the store. When questioned about his disappearance Mondo told us that when he saw Kevin pointing to the other end of the parking lot he thought Kevin wanted him to drive to the store himself. What a moron! But typical Mondo.
Foul: After we had finished an inventory in neighboring district Vallejo one night Mondo drove a company van full of us Santa Rosa auditors back to the Park-N-Ride. Riding with Mondo as a driver was always an adventure in terror, as he was both a horrible driver and a smelly one. You most definitely did not want to be sitting downwind of him, as one whiff of his gaseous fumes and you were a goner. Plus, as though his foul stench wasn't bad enough, he had a tendency to take every turn on two wheels. So one way or another you thought you were gonna die with Mondo driving.
One newbie riding in the van was already wise to the ways of repugnant Mondo. This became apparent when she told Mondo, "Hey Mondo, guess what? I had my shoe in your pants pocket." (This was not as difficult as it sounds. Two-ton Mondo flattened the driver's seat when he sat in it; his gargantuan ass was mere inches from the floor of the van) The newbie, sitting in the middle of the first bench seat, could by stretching her legs place a shoe tip in Mondo's pants pocket. One guy told her, "I'm surprised your shoe didn't melt." The newbie replied, "I'm surprised I got a shoe back." Once again, everyone laughed except for odious Mondo. Score one for the newbie.
Fat: As you may have already guessed, beefy Mondo had an enormous appetite. I once had the displeasure of riding with him to another out of town inventory. I had to ride sitting next to him in his stinky Jeep. Mondo couldn't even make it out of the office parking lot without getting something to eat. He stopped at the Burger King a few doors down from the RGIS office and ordered a double Whopper and a vat of Coca-Cola from the drive-up window. I watched in horror as he unwrapped the burger (I'm surprised he didn't just eat right through the paper) and took one, two, three, four bites without stopping or breathing and bam! the burger was gone. I mean that fat slob downed that enormous double cheeseburger in less than a minute. It was a most terrifying and disgusting sight. After seeing that nightmare I lost my own appetite for a couple of days. And after that ride with him I took care to keep my arms and legs safely away from Mondo's vicinity. Who knew when he might be hungry and need to feed again? What if we were doing a late night inventory and all the Burger Kings were closed? I didn't want to lose a limb.
Some stores that we inventoried would provide us with snacks if we took a break, and pizza or sandwiches if we took a lunch. Most of the Long's Drugs stores would give us coffee and doughnuts for our one and only break. We started counting at Long's around 5:30 am, and three hours later when we took our break the thought of a cup of hot coffee and a jelly doughnut was most appealing. Most of the auditors would take just one doughnut but then, we were human beings and not farm animals. Mondo, on the other hand, was like a pig at a trough during these Long's breaks. He saw nothing wrong in barrelling right into the store's break room and grabbing four or five doughnuts, all before any of us had even had one. He had his snout right into those pink bakery boxes, rooting around for the choicest pastries. Again, you had to be careful and not get your hands close to his mouth, lest you lose a finger.
Even foggy DM Kevin was aware of Mondo's greedy ways. Whenever we did a Kmart inventory in Santa Rosa the store was nice enough to provide us with pizzas and sodas for our half-hour lunch (This Kmart had a Little Caesar's pizza restaurant inside the store. I wouldn't touch the pizza after I'd heard that one customer recently vomited blood in the restaurant after eating the pizza. A special cleaning crew had to be called in, and thereafter I referred to the Little Caesar's pizza as "Haz-Mat pizza"). When Kevin called a lunch break he made sure to tell The Foul One, "Remember, only two pieces, Mondo." Kevin wanted to make sure that Mondo didn't inhale all of the pizza. Which he was perfectly capable of doing.
Gluttonous Mondo and pizza had quite a love affair going. While Mondo was known to consume anything (burgers, doughnuts, candy bars, possibly a small child or two) he held a special place in his oily heart for pizza. I don't think that he or his brother Luis (who lived with Mondo) knew how to cook. I believe they mostly ordered in food. I think Mondo would order a couple of pizzas at a time, and eat one immediately and save the second one for later. He wouldn't refrigerate the second pizza but instead would park it in his cold oven. He claimed it tasted better a day or two or a week later. Mondo called this "fermented" pizza. Puke!
Fat: If you had 450 lb. sweaty, greasy, smelly man asking you for a ride in your car, would give him one? Of course not. You would take pity on your poor vehicle and never think to transport something as foul as Mondo in it. Which is why Mondo could never catch a ride with anyone except his brother Luis, or maybe the company van; it was large and sturdy enough to withstand his enormous bulk. Luis' car, like everyone else's , was of average size and not really meant to cart around a hippopotamus, but Luis was Mondo's brother and couldn't refuse him a ride.
Which is why one morning several of us were treated to a most amusing sight. Me and a couple of auditors were in a car right behind Luis' car on the freeway. Even if you hadn't seen Mondo a few minutes earlier climbing into Luis' car, you would know immediately upon seeing the car that Mondo was riding in it as the car appeared to be driving along on two wheels. It was really funny to see this car tipping precariously to one side as it traveled slowly down the freeway. I mean, you almost expected to see it stop suddenly and about 30 clowns come piling out of it. But no, there was only one clown inside the car, the sad, pitiful, bloated, oily clown known as Mondo.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
The Road Warriors?
Here's another little memo that was sent out to all the auditors in my district. It was written by our then District Manager, Kevin. If you can read between the lines (and with my help you will be able to do just that), it gives you a perfect example of just how phony and lame and retarded Kevin was. The memo is reprinted here verbatim (that includes its incredibly stupid title). All comments in bold and italics are mine.
THE SANTA ROSA ROAD WARRIORS
DISTRICT 414
To the best RGIS Inventory Specialists I have ever worked with (this week. What a phony, smarmy little suckup). During the past few weeks, you have all shown me why I became an RGIS Manager (because Santa Rosa was hard up and desperate for managers). You all display the attitude and desire necessary for a team to be the best it can be (Okay, now this is just outright lying here. How did Kevin write this without his pants catching on fire?) As the teamwork improves (it didn't), you must all continue to strive to be the best (dream on). The new auditors that have recently joined us seem to possess the same attributes that many of you offer (you mean they suffer from apathy, cynicism and distrust too?), make sure you embrace these individuals (okay, sure, I'll just run right over and give a newbie a great big hug and sloppy kiss).
You must all lead by example by strictly adhering to the dress code and all other policies (oh, I guess that means Erin can't wear her bedroom slippers to inventories anymore). More team members does not mean less work (unless of course the district hires some young chicks that Area Manager Joe wants to bang and so therefore said girls get screwed and get more work and the rest of us get screwed over and get less work). A larger team will ensure we can continue to minimize the slow time (not with the retards that this district hires). We are improving in Albertson's (translation: We didn't fuck up the inventory in this store too badly this time) and get ready because now we are taking on Home Depot (poor Home Depot). We have been selected to be the core team for all Northern California Home Depot's (and again, poor Home Depot). I will be looking for the most professional, accurate and efficient (I guess that means you won't be looking in our district). These are the same characteristics I look at when writing the schedule (What are you talking about? You don't even write the schedule, idiot. AM Joe does). I look forward to working toward the future with all of you (that is, until you wig out and have to enter rehab, right Kevin?).
Now in order for us to enter the future (oh, good, we're entering the future, because I thought we were going to step into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine and travel to ancient Greece and inventory the Parthenon), we must establish some rules that will not affect most of you (then why send us this retarded memo?). You have all received an Attendance Policy Acknowledgement form. This is going to eliminate the problem we have all experienced (oh, somehow I doubt that, since most people ignored the Attendance Policy form and didn't even bother to sign and return it), when a four-hour job turns into eight (and Kevin loses his bonus for fucking up yet another Long's Drugs run). That may be OK for some people when we are slow, you get the extra hours (and this will make up for the times when AM Joe screws us over and gives our stores to another one of the girls he's chasing after). But what about when we have Sears or Long's the next morning (and only five people show up for a 25 person inventory). These are the times when the entire team feels the pain (er, not the entire team. Just the ones who actually work. The F.O.J.'s {Friends of Joe} will I'm sure feel no pain as they probably won't even show up at Sears or Long's the next morning. And if they do show up, I'm sure their 2 dozen self-called smoke breaks will help to ease their "pain").
This also impacts our ability to supply the quality service RGIS Inventory Specialists is known for (quality service? Are you kidding me? This has got to be a joke). This attendance policy will be enforced (don't make me laugh. Nothing was ever "enforced" in this district). Do not test the water (gross Mondo may have sat in it first). This will improve our ability to function as a team (oh man, what was Kevin on when he wrote this? When did Santa Rosa ever function as a team? Never with Kevin and Joe as managers). Let's improve the quality of life for everyone involved (okay, how about we start with getting rid of you, Kevin?).
We must have the Attendance Policy, the back page of the Handbook and your schedules confirmed by Wednesday July 12 (or else we will nag you and nag you until you turn them in or we forget all about it, whichever happens first). Be sure to call the office if any of this will be a problem (Ring! Ring!). Lack of response will result in termination (a flat out lie. More than half the crew refused to sign the Attendance Policy and still remained with the district).
Thank You,
Kevin *****
District Manager
Santa Rosa
July 7, 2000
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Fear And Loathing In District 414 (Part 2)
Once we arrived at the Penney's store in Fairfield our district was assigned an entire floor to ourselves. AM Joe seemed flustered and more than a little upset as he attempted to unload and set up audit machines, lasers and rays, and to place auditors in various departments. Joe would be supervising a few of the Santa Rosa people in the housewares department, while two-ton Mondo would be supervising the rest of the crew in children's clothing. Normally I would be immediately placed in the housewares area, where a lot of the merchandise (towels, sheets, etc.) was quantity counted. But I was so ticked off at Joe that I wanted to be as far away from him as possible, so instead of waiting to be placed in a specific area, I just went over to infant's sleepwear and started scanning away.
In addition to the whole pervert AM Dave/asshole AM Joe debacle, there was an unintentionally hilarious subplot going on involving blob Mondo. In light of Dave being fired that very day and thus causing our district to be dangerously short of managers, Ops Manager Sai had done the unthinkable and promoted putrid Mondo to the Associate Area Manager position. Of course this was an absolutely horrendous idea, as anyone who has been reading this blog (and is by now familiar with Hindenburg Mondo) knows. Given that Mondo's revolting hygiene problem was such that it has caused more than one RGIS customer to ban him from their stores, and of course had caused many an RGIS auditor to want to vomit, it would seem absolutely ridiculous that Sai would give Mondo the AAM spot. But much to everyone's shock and disbelief, there was Mondo in J.C. Penney's, beaming from ear to greasy ear as he proudly informed everyone that he was our new AAM. Would this nightmare never end?
Of course, Mondo could never fit into the dress shirt and necktie that is required of all male RGIS managers. I couldn't for the life of me picture his massive oily bulk squeezing into any human-size dress shirt. And I was right, as Mondo showed up in Penney's wearing a surprisingly clean (and humongous) grey and black pullover sweater. This was his rather pitiful attempt at adhering to the manager's dress code. It also was apparently his only article of halfway decent clothing as he wore that same sweater in every inventory he attended for the next three weeks. And without any laundering of the sweater too (natch), so that with each subsequent inventory the sweater got a little more grimier and a little more funkier smelling. Barf.
And too, his lone pair of khaki pants, which he had laundered right before the Penney's inventory (I'm surprised they didn't disintegrate in the wash) began to once again sport those old familiar stains in all the old familiar places. And yes, in case you were wondering, of course foul Mondo never bathed his massive oily carcass during that time either, so after 3 weeks the green biohazard fumes were once again rising in thick waves from his reeking body. Despite Mondo's fervent wishes and desires for that coveted AAM job, that fat loser couldn't even manage to keep himself clean for a scant 3 weeks. Even Ops Manager Sai, desperate for a new AAM to take his place so he could split from Santa Rosa, realized that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and the whole "Mondo as an AAM" fiasco quietly faded away.
But before gross Mondo's AAM dreams were shattered, he still had an opportunity to make a good impression in his first inventory as an Associate Area Manager. That night at J.C. Penney's in Fairfield saw Mondo start off somewhat clean and resplendent in his new pullover sweater that tented his half-ton body. He was so proud of himself: after 10+ years as an oily auditor and even oilier Team Leader, he was finally being given a chance to prove that he could be a manager. He was full of goodwill and cheer, and all smiles. At the beginning of the inventory that is. Thirty minutes later Mondo was sweating like a hog and had already screamed at three people for miscounting. So much for good intentions.
In the meantime I was still smarting about the whole Joe-and-the-parking-favoritism thing. With every rack of toddler's pajamas that I scanned I got angrier and angrier (Mondo used to say that it was a TL or Manager's goal to get an auditor angry, but not too angry, and then he would be at just the right amount of outrage to start counting at a furious pace. That auditor would finish an area twice as fast as he normally would have, having been pushed just to the brink of furiousness, but not over the edge). For the past several years I had watched AM Joe allow his pet auditors to do as they pleased at work. The F.O.J.'s (Friends Of Joe) exercised lax attendance at inventories and stepped outside for numerous smoke breaks, all with tacit permission form Joe. And now Joe was blatantly allowing Gerry and Romy to park at the office when he had just told the entire district that no one was to park there. After a while I felt like a volcano about to erupt. I had to talk to someone about this or the top of my head was going to pop off.
I turned and spoke to the person scanning next to me. That person happened to be Anna, and I realized later that that might not have been the best decision to make on my part. Anna was hardly objective when it came to crises at work, especially ones involving managers. But all the hot, resentful lava bubbling inside me sort of muddled my thinking and I sought Anna's opinion on the matter. I asked her, "If you were upset at someone for something they did, would you tell them, or would you just forget about it?" Anna, ever a fan of confrontations and showdowns, said promptly, "Tell them about it. It won't do you any good to keep it inside. It'll just get worse and worse until you speak to the person who ticked you off. Who was it?" When I told her it was Joe she was ecstatic. Anna had a crush/hate relationship with Joe, with heavy leaning to the hate side, when the crush part of it yielded no results from Joe. She could scarcely contain her glee as she told me, "You have to tell him! Right now! You have to tell Joe that you're mad at him, and why! Right now! Go!" And she practically pushed me halfway across the store.
I went looking for AM Joe and found him standing next to a section filled with curtain rods. I asked Joe if I could speak with him for a minute and he said yes. We walked over to the luggage section, which had already been counted earlier in the evening and was now quiet and devoid of auditors. I told Joe what had been bothering me all night. "Why is it that you let Gerry and Romy park at the office? I thought no one was supposed to part there anymore." Joe immediately replied, "Well, Gerry drives that really old Blazer and he was afraid it wouldn't make it to the Park-N-Ride, so I told him it would be okay to park at the office." And Romy? "Well, Romy was hanging out with me earlier, so it just made sense for him to park at the office too." And of course all of this was said by Joe while wearing his customary bullshitting mask: an innocent expression and bland smile.
Now normally right here is where I would have just backed down and mumbled something very meekly like, "Oh okay I see, I understand thanks", and then scurried away quietly with my tail between my legs. But fired up with extra anger, resentment and generous egging on by Anna I said, "Joe, I don't feel like those are very good reasons for allowing those guys to park there. For one thing, in case you didn't notice, I drive an old car too. In fact, most of the other auditors here tonight do as well. I'm sure most of us would find it would be easier on our cars to park at the office. What makes Gerry so special that he can park there and we can't? And also, it's just not fair to let a few people park there when no one is supposed to, for any reason, you know? It's just not right."
For a few seconds AM Joe had this expression on his face of complete bewilderment. It was as though he'd been smacked in the head with a 2x4 (Well, I can dream, can't I?). He seemed stunned that someone, especially a pushover like myself, would be confronting and challenging him on something, anything, even something as minor as parking regulations. But the amazed expression on his face didn't last as anger began to take over. Remember, with all of the turmoil regarding AM Dave's firing from RGIS earlier that day, combined DM Dan getting fired shortly before that and then Ops Manager Sai having Joe jumping through hoops, this probably was not the best time to be trying Joe's patience. Joe turned red as a tomato, scowled, and began to shout at me.
And I mean he really let 'er rip. He yelled that he really didn't need this right now, that he had his hands full, what with Dan and Dave both getting fired, and he was at the office all by himself (what about Sai?). Joe continued ranting, going on an on about how no one had told him about AM Dave's Roman hands and Russian fingers (in addition to being a child molester Dave was also accused by auditors Anna and Tina of some inappropriate touching), someone should have said something to him, blah blah blah. Yeah, like that would have done any good. Had Joe been informed of this or anything else it would have caused him to pull his ostrich act and just bury his head in the ground. His specialty was ignoring problems and pretending they didn't exist.
AM Joe was really warmed up now and he showed no signs of slowing down. He continued to shout at me, saying that Gerry had come to him with genuine car troubles (sob), and so to be a nice guy (!) he had said sure, go ahead and park at the office...and then Joe told me, "You know, if you had wanted to park there (at the office) you could have said something to me (no I couldn't. The difference between me and the F.O.J.'s was that I wouldn't try to obtain special privileges that others didn't have. If no one could park at the office, then all of us should have abided by that). If you knew what was going on with Dave you should have said something to me (what?), someone should have said something." Um, someone did, remember? Anna had documentation from the sheriff's department regarding Dave's criminal record and you still did nothing, asshole. But I couldn't say this to Joe at this point because he was out of control and I wasn't about to risk losing an eye or something saying anything more. I just let him continue to bellow. Which he did. "Because you know I have an open door policy (total horseshit. Yeah sure, technically the door to AM Joe's office was open, but that didn't matter as Joe's mind was firmly closed) and you or anyone can talk to me anytime, but nobody said a word and now I have all this shit going on and I'm about this close (thumb and forefinger pressed tightly together) to quitting! I've done it before and I can do it again! I quit once before, did you know that? I don't need this right now!"
Wow. That was the first time I had ever seen AM Joe display that much emotion. Usually his countenance was about as expressive as a rock. He was really out of control and I was genuinely afraid to press my arguments further, so with all my righteous-driven courage completely dissipated I backed down and slunk away, having accomplished nothing. Joe really scared the crap out of me that night. I felt as though if I had pushed just one more of his buttons he might have really gone berserk and then popped me one. Now that would have been interesting. Two managers from the same district fired in the same day.
My guess as to why Joe reacted in that totally irrational way was not just due to all of the district shenanigans going on recently. I think it mainly had to do with the fact that he hated being criticized, just hated it. Joe believed wholeheartedly in his image as Mr. Wonderful and wanted "his" auditors to think so too. And most of us did when we first started in the district. "Joe Cool" would seem to be efficient and busy in inventories, and he would take a few of us into his confidence sometimes, telling us about how weak and lame former District Manager Kevin and AM Dave were at their jobs. He would make you feel "in the loop" about district goings-on, in that he could share his private opinions of his fellow managers with you, as though he valued your thoughts and opinions on the same subject. Of course, later on we would find out that he would then turn around and make disparaging remarks about us too, to others. And then too, his blatant favoritism regarding the F.O.J.'s really began to spin out of control once DM Dan left.
So the Mr. Perfect image of Joe's didn't last for very long. Bit by bit his facade of being this great guy began to fade, and as it did so too did his power and hold over the Santa Rosa district. My confrontation with him, as ineffective as it seemed to be at the time, turned out to be one of the first cracks in Joe's long smooth run as the King of District 414. No longer did one of his formerly faithful (read fooled) subjects believe in him and blindly accept whatever bullshit he tried to feed us. I was now as determined as Anna to set things right and this meant shedding the district of that louse AM Joe. Game on.
In addition to the whole pervert AM Dave/asshole AM Joe debacle, there was an unintentionally hilarious subplot going on involving blob Mondo. In light of Dave being fired that very day and thus causing our district to be dangerously short of managers, Ops Manager Sai had done the unthinkable and promoted putrid Mondo to the Associate Area Manager position. Of course this was an absolutely horrendous idea, as anyone who has been reading this blog (and is by now familiar with Hindenburg Mondo) knows. Given that Mondo's revolting hygiene problem was such that it has caused more than one RGIS customer to ban him from their stores, and of course had caused many an RGIS auditor to want to vomit, it would seem absolutely ridiculous that Sai would give Mondo the AAM spot. But much to everyone's shock and disbelief, there was Mondo in J.C. Penney's, beaming from ear to greasy ear as he proudly informed everyone that he was our new AAM. Would this nightmare never end?
Of course, Mondo could never fit into the dress shirt and necktie that is required of all male RGIS managers. I couldn't for the life of me picture his massive oily bulk squeezing into any human-size dress shirt. And I was right, as Mondo showed up in Penney's wearing a surprisingly clean (and humongous) grey and black pullover sweater. This was his rather pitiful attempt at adhering to the manager's dress code. It also was apparently his only article of halfway decent clothing as he wore that same sweater in every inventory he attended for the next three weeks. And without any laundering of the sweater too (natch), so that with each subsequent inventory the sweater got a little more grimier and a little more funkier smelling. Barf.
And too, his lone pair of khaki pants, which he had laundered right before the Penney's inventory (I'm surprised they didn't disintegrate in the wash) began to once again sport those old familiar stains in all the old familiar places. And yes, in case you were wondering, of course foul Mondo never bathed his massive oily carcass during that time either, so after 3 weeks the green biohazard fumes were once again rising in thick waves from his reeking body. Despite Mondo's fervent wishes and desires for that coveted AAM job, that fat loser couldn't even manage to keep himself clean for a scant 3 weeks. Even Ops Manager Sai, desperate for a new AAM to take his place so he could split from Santa Rosa, realized that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and the whole "Mondo as an AAM" fiasco quietly faded away.
But before gross Mondo's AAM dreams were shattered, he still had an opportunity to make a good impression in his first inventory as an Associate Area Manager. That night at J.C. Penney's in Fairfield saw Mondo start off somewhat clean and resplendent in his new pullover sweater that tented his half-ton body. He was so proud of himself: after 10+ years as an oily auditor and even oilier Team Leader, he was finally being given a chance to prove that he could be a manager. He was full of goodwill and cheer, and all smiles. At the beginning of the inventory that is. Thirty minutes later Mondo was sweating like a hog and had already screamed at three people for miscounting. So much for good intentions.
In the meantime I was still smarting about the whole Joe-and-the-parking-favoritism thing. With every rack of toddler's pajamas that I scanned I got angrier and angrier (Mondo used to say that it was a TL or Manager's goal to get an auditor angry, but not too angry, and then he would be at just the right amount of outrage to start counting at a furious pace. That auditor would finish an area twice as fast as he normally would have, having been pushed just to the brink of furiousness, but not over the edge). For the past several years I had watched AM Joe allow his pet auditors to do as they pleased at work. The F.O.J.'s (Friends Of Joe) exercised lax attendance at inventories and stepped outside for numerous smoke breaks, all with tacit permission form Joe. And now Joe was blatantly allowing Gerry and Romy to park at the office when he had just told the entire district that no one was to park there. After a while I felt like a volcano about to erupt. I had to talk to someone about this or the top of my head was going to pop off.
I turned and spoke to the person scanning next to me. That person happened to be Anna, and I realized later that that might not have been the best decision to make on my part. Anna was hardly objective when it came to crises at work, especially ones involving managers. But all the hot, resentful lava bubbling inside me sort of muddled my thinking and I sought Anna's opinion on the matter. I asked her, "If you were upset at someone for something they did, would you tell them, or would you just forget about it?" Anna, ever a fan of confrontations and showdowns, said promptly, "Tell them about it. It won't do you any good to keep it inside. It'll just get worse and worse until you speak to the person who ticked you off. Who was it?" When I told her it was Joe she was ecstatic. Anna had a crush/hate relationship with Joe, with heavy leaning to the hate side, when the crush part of it yielded no results from Joe. She could scarcely contain her glee as she told me, "You have to tell him! Right now! You have to tell Joe that you're mad at him, and why! Right now! Go!" And she practically pushed me halfway across the store.
I went looking for AM Joe and found him standing next to a section filled with curtain rods. I asked Joe if I could speak with him for a minute and he said yes. We walked over to the luggage section, which had already been counted earlier in the evening and was now quiet and devoid of auditors. I told Joe what had been bothering me all night. "Why is it that you let Gerry and Romy park at the office? I thought no one was supposed to part there anymore." Joe immediately replied, "Well, Gerry drives that really old Blazer and he was afraid it wouldn't make it to the Park-N-Ride, so I told him it would be okay to park at the office." And Romy? "Well, Romy was hanging out with me earlier, so it just made sense for him to park at the office too." And of course all of this was said by Joe while wearing his customary bullshitting mask: an innocent expression and bland smile.
Now normally right here is where I would have just backed down and mumbled something very meekly like, "Oh okay I see, I understand thanks", and then scurried away quietly with my tail between my legs. But fired up with extra anger, resentment and generous egging on by Anna I said, "Joe, I don't feel like those are very good reasons for allowing those guys to park there. For one thing, in case you didn't notice, I drive an old car too. In fact, most of the other auditors here tonight do as well. I'm sure most of us would find it would be easier on our cars to park at the office. What makes Gerry so special that he can park there and we can't? And also, it's just not fair to let a few people park there when no one is supposed to, for any reason, you know? It's just not right."
For a few seconds AM Joe had this expression on his face of complete bewilderment. It was as though he'd been smacked in the head with a 2x4 (Well, I can dream, can't I?). He seemed stunned that someone, especially a pushover like myself, would be confronting and challenging him on something, anything, even something as minor as parking regulations. But the amazed expression on his face didn't last as anger began to take over. Remember, with all of the turmoil regarding AM Dave's firing from RGIS earlier that day, combined DM Dan getting fired shortly before that and then Ops Manager Sai having Joe jumping through hoops, this probably was not the best time to be trying Joe's patience. Joe turned red as a tomato, scowled, and began to shout at me.
And I mean he really let 'er rip. He yelled that he really didn't need this right now, that he had his hands full, what with Dan and Dave both getting fired, and he was at the office all by himself (what about Sai?). Joe continued ranting, going on an on about how no one had told him about AM Dave's Roman hands and Russian fingers (in addition to being a child molester Dave was also accused by auditors Anna and Tina of some inappropriate touching), someone should have said something to him, blah blah blah. Yeah, like that would have done any good. Had Joe been informed of this or anything else it would have caused him to pull his ostrich act and just bury his head in the ground. His specialty was ignoring problems and pretending they didn't exist.
AM Joe was really warmed up now and he showed no signs of slowing down. He continued to shout at me, saying that Gerry had come to him with genuine car troubles (sob), and so to be a nice guy (!) he had said sure, go ahead and park at the office...and then Joe told me, "You know, if you had wanted to park there (at the office) you could have said something to me (no I couldn't. The difference between me and the F.O.J.'s was that I wouldn't try to obtain special privileges that others didn't have. If no one could park at the office, then all of us should have abided by that). If you knew what was going on with Dave you should have said something to me (what?), someone should have said something." Um, someone did, remember? Anna had documentation from the sheriff's department regarding Dave's criminal record and you still did nothing, asshole. But I couldn't say this to Joe at this point because he was out of control and I wasn't about to risk losing an eye or something saying anything more. I just let him continue to bellow. Which he did. "Because you know I have an open door policy (total horseshit. Yeah sure, technically the door to AM Joe's office was open, but that didn't matter as Joe's mind was firmly closed) and you or anyone can talk to me anytime, but nobody said a word and now I have all this shit going on and I'm about this close (thumb and forefinger pressed tightly together) to quitting! I've done it before and I can do it again! I quit once before, did you know that? I don't need this right now!"
Wow. That was the first time I had ever seen AM Joe display that much emotion. Usually his countenance was about as expressive as a rock. He was really out of control and I was genuinely afraid to press my arguments further, so with all my righteous-driven courage completely dissipated I backed down and slunk away, having accomplished nothing. Joe really scared the crap out of me that night. I felt as though if I had pushed just one more of his buttons he might have really gone berserk and then popped me one. Now that would have been interesting. Two managers from the same district fired in the same day.
My guess as to why Joe reacted in that totally irrational way was not just due to all of the district shenanigans going on recently. I think it mainly had to do with the fact that he hated being criticized, just hated it. Joe believed wholeheartedly in his image as Mr. Wonderful and wanted "his" auditors to think so too. And most of us did when we first started in the district. "Joe Cool" would seem to be efficient and busy in inventories, and he would take a few of us into his confidence sometimes, telling us about how weak and lame former District Manager Kevin and AM Dave were at their jobs. He would make you feel "in the loop" about district goings-on, in that he could share his private opinions of his fellow managers with you, as though he valued your thoughts and opinions on the same subject. Of course, later on we would find out that he would then turn around and make disparaging remarks about us too, to others. And then too, his blatant favoritism regarding the F.O.J.'s really began to spin out of control once DM Dan left.
So the Mr. Perfect image of Joe's didn't last for very long. Bit by bit his facade of being this great guy began to fade, and as it did so too did his power and hold over the Santa Rosa district. My confrontation with him, as ineffective as it seemed to be at the time, turned out to be one of the first cracks in Joe's long smooth run as the King of District 414. No longer did one of his formerly faithful (read fooled) subjects believe in him and blindly accept whatever bullshit he tried to feed us. I was now as determined as Anna to set things right and this meant shedding the district of that louse AM Joe. Game on.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Fear And Loathing In District 414 (Part 1)
With Dan having been let go by RGIS that left Santa Rosa without a District Manager. Oh sure, we had two Area Managers, Joe and Dave, but both were incapable of running a district, albeit for different reasons. Joe was simply too immature to handle the responsibility of heading up an entire RGIS district, and Dave was too slow-witted. He could barely handle his scant duties as an AM. It was ludicrous to think that he could ever be a DM.
So while the search for a new DM for us began, one of our Northwest Division's Operations Managers, a man named Sai, stepped in to temporarily fill in the DM's shoes. I say "stepped in", but it was more like he was pushed in to the job by his bosses, as Sai was lukewarm to the idea of having to be a DM, temporarily or otherwise. The long drive he had to make every day from his home in Pleasanton to Santa Rosa and back again probably had something to do with it, but I like to think that the prospect of having to deal with a district filled with fuckups who couldn't count worth shit and malcontents who could care less about anything inventory-related must have filled Sai with dread. He probably wished that he could have avoided his new position as our temporary DM like the plague, but no such luck for him. He was stuck with us.
And as it turned out, he was stranded in District 414 for a good while. Apparently the search for a new DM for our happy little district was experiencing some difficulties. For some strange reason no one was leaping at the chance to head up the Santa Rosa district. Hmmm, how odd. Could our reputation have preceded us?
There was only one person apparently who had shown any inclination or desire to be our new DM, and horrors, it was our Area Manager Joe. Despite his declarations of the past, that he had wanted no part of becoming a DM, something apparently had happened in the interim to cause Joe to (foolishly) believe that he was finally ready to handle the duties of being a DM. Maybe it was the unpleasant (for Joe, delightful for the rest of us) experience of having had former DM Dan step into our district and take over the reins, leaving Joe impotent and powerless. He probably wanted no more interference in "his" district and decided once and for all to run the whole district his way. But Sai and the other Ops Managers wisely had some doubts as to whether or not Joe would be suitable for the DM spot, and held back on promoting him for AM to DM.
So during the period of time that Sai was in my district as the temporary DM, it was a sort of long term audition for Joe. Being in the Santa Rosa RGIS office every day gave Sai a great opportunity to observe first hand how Joe handled things like the almighty master schedule, and crises like inventories running long, auditor no shows, etc. Joe was unused to being so closely watched and it was driving him crazy. I think he would have pulled his hair out, had said hair been allowed to grow longer than his customary buzz cut. He was clearly frustrated at not being given the DM job immediately, and having Sai watching him like a hawk was driving him to the point of distraction. During the time that Sai was in Santa Rosa we had several of our Long's Drugs inventories to do. Usually each Long's inventory would be run by one manager like Joe. But of course, since Sai was having Joe go through his DM tryouts he was right there in the Long's stores as well, much to Joe's consternation. For Sai wasn't only observing Joe, he was also interfering in the inventories as well. Joe would tell an auditor to count in this aisle, then Sai would come along and tell the auditor to go count somewhere else. Joe would tell his crew to start at this end of the store and count, and Sai would tell everyone to start at the other end. Joe would say this, and Sai would say that. It was driving everyone nuts, not just Joe. Pretty soon all the auditors started wishing Sai would leave the district and go back to the Ops office.
But Sai wasn't going anywhere soon because a major crisis was about to erupt in my district. For some time auditor Anna had been at odds with AM Dave. I wasn't sure how it began, but at some point Anna began to develop and nourish a personal hatred and vendetta against Dave. She diverted her time and interests from getting rid of Joe and turned it on full blast towards Dave.
From what I gathered (thanks to Anna's inability to keep a confidence), Dave's daughter Kim had intimated to Anna that Dave had a checkered past. According to Anna, Kim told her that Dave was a registered sex offender. Several years earlier, Dave had been charged with one count of unlawful sexual misconduct with a minor under the age of 14. He had pled no contest to this charge, and as a part of the whole deal, he had to register as a sex offender and agree to not work in any job that would allow him to come in contact with anyone under the age of 21. Our district had several people in their late teens working for RGIS, usually during their summer vacation months, so of course this was quite a problem.
The part about AM Dave being a registered sex offender was bad enough, but what happened after AM Joe and Ops Manager Sai found out was even worse. Anna, wanting to verify this information that Kim gave her, went to the local sheriff's office where the Megan's Law database for the State of California was on file (this database file wasn't online at that time, as it is now). If you're not familiar with it, Megan's Law gives people the opportunity to research whether there are any registered sex offenders living in their neighborhood. A person can search through this database by entering in someone's name. They can also search by using a city, county or zip code. Anna had Dave's name of course, and his home address as well. She printed out all the unsavory facts on AM Dave and took a copy to our RGIS office. She handed over the printout to AM Joe and Ops Manager Sai. I think she expected them to fire Dave on the spot. Well, that didn't exactly happen.
According to Anna, she went home upon leaving the district office, but she had an uneasy feeling about the whole thing. She said that the rather casual manner in which Joe and Sai had received the disturbing information regarding Dave bothered her, so later that same day she placed a call to RGIS' head office to find out if Joe and/or Sai contacted them. Anna was told that no, they hadn't heard a thing from our district office, and indeed the representative she spoke with sounded upset about the matter. She asked Anna to fax her a copy of Dave's info from the Megan's Law database. Anna did so immediately, and then and only then was Dave fired (Anna said that Dave had also lied on his original RGIS application, concerning the question "Have you ever been convicted?").
It was quite obvious to everyone in the district what had happened. We were right in the middle of the most busiest of times for any inventory service, January through February. Our district, stretched thin as it was, with auditors being hired and then quitting left and right, with scant Team Leaders being able to run stores and us still without a proper DM, all had caused AM Joe and Ops Manager Sai to panic at the thought of losing an AM, even one who was a registered sex offender. It was everyone's belief that Joe and Sai fully intended to hang onto AM Dave until after the busy season, and then let him go. But by Anna going behind their backs and contacting RGIS' head office, she foiled their nefarious plans and they had to fire Dave that day.
So now District 414 was down to one AM, an Ops Manager who most definitely did not want to be there and a couple of Team Leaders. The Santa Rosa district was imploding before our eyes. I myself took a rather sadistic delight in watching it crash and burn. I was enjoying it wholeheartedly, so much so that I decided to get in on the fun.
The very day that pervy AM Dave was let go was also a day when most of us Santa Rosa auditors had to go and bail out the Vallejo district in their J.C. Penney's store. Due to former DM Kevin's screwups and failures in choosing a proper new district office, we could no longer park at our RGIS office but instead had to park at a commuter lot 8 miles away in another city. This was inconvenient to most of us, but AM Joe was adamant about no one parking at the office. So imagine my surprise when a bunch of us were standing in the commuter parking lot waiting for the company vans, and AM Joe pulled into the lot in his car. Inside his car were his girlfriend Muong and best pals Gerry and Romy.
Now Muong being in the car I could understand, as she was Joe's live-in girlfriend and of course rode to the office with him. But Gerry and Romy? What made them so damned special that they could park at the office when the rest of us couldn't? Oh...right. They were F.O.J.'s (Friends Of Joe). They could do as they pleased.
I did a slow burn all the way to Fairfield. It pissed me off to no end that this favoritism of Joe's went on and on and never seemed to end. I had stood by and watched and said nothing as time and time again that asshole Joe let Gerry and Romy and TL Eric practically get away with murder. I watched Joe let his pals take breaks whenever they wanted to, show up late and leave early, not show up at all, and all without so much as a peep from Joe. But this was the last straw. After Joe and Sai had made it absolutely clear to us that no one was to park at the office, two of his favored pets blatantly parked there. Shit! I didn't give a rat's ass if Joe was stressed out from the whole pervy Dave mess. I was going to confront him on his favoritism tonight.
(Coming up: Part 2.)
So while the search for a new DM for us began, one of our Northwest Division's Operations Managers, a man named Sai, stepped in to temporarily fill in the DM's shoes. I say "stepped in", but it was more like he was pushed in to the job by his bosses, as Sai was lukewarm to the idea of having to be a DM, temporarily or otherwise. The long drive he had to make every day from his home in Pleasanton to Santa Rosa and back again probably had something to do with it, but I like to think that the prospect of having to deal with a district filled with fuckups who couldn't count worth shit and malcontents who could care less about anything inventory-related must have filled Sai with dread. He probably wished that he could have avoided his new position as our temporary DM like the plague, but no such luck for him. He was stuck with us.
And as it turned out, he was stranded in District 414 for a good while. Apparently the search for a new DM for our happy little district was experiencing some difficulties. For some strange reason no one was leaping at the chance to head up the Santa Rosa district. Hmmm, how odd. Could our reputation have preceded us?
There was only one person apparently who had shown any inclination or desire to be our new DM, and horrors, it was our Area Manager Joe. Despite his declarations of the past, that he had wanted no part of becoming a DM, something apparently had happened in the interim to cause Joe to (foolishly) believe that he was finally ready to handle the duties of being a DM. Maybe it was the unpleasant (for Joe, delightful for the rest of us) experience of having had former DM Dan step into our district and take over the reins, leaving Joe impotent and powerless. He probably wanted no more interference in "his" district and decided once and for all to run the whole district his way. But Sai and the other Ops Managers wisely had some doubts as to whether or not Joe would be suitable for the DM spot, and held back on promoting him for AM to DM.
So during the period of time that Sai was in my district as the temporary DM, it was a sort of long term audition for Joe. Being in the Santa Rosa RGIS office every day gave Sai a great opportunity to observe first hand how Joe handled things like the almighty master schedule, and crises like inventories running long, auditor no shows, etc. Joe was unused to being so closely watched and it was driving him crazy. I think he would have pulled his hair out, had said hair been allowed to grow longer than his customary buzz cut. He was clearly frustrated at not being given the DM job immediately, and having Sai watching him like a hawk was driving him to the point of distraction. During the time that Sai was in Santa Rosa we had several of our Long's Drugs inventories to do. Usually each Long's inventory would be run by one manager like Joe. But of course, since Sai was having Joe go through his DM tryouts he was right there in the Long's stores as well, much to Joe's consternation. For Sai wasn't only observing Joe, he was also interfering in the inventories as well. Joe would tell an auditor to count in this aisle, then Sai would come along and tell the auditor to go count somewhere else. Joe would tell his crew to start at this end of the store and count, and Sai would tell everyone to start at the other end. Joe would say this, and Sai would say that. It was driving everyone nuts, not just Joe. Pretty soon all the auditors started wishing Sai would leave the district and go back to the Ops office.
But Sai wasn't going anywhere soon because a major crisis was about to erupt in my district. For some time auditor Anna had been at odds with AM Dave. I wasn't sure how it began, but at some point Anna began to develop and nourish a personal hatred and vendetta against Dave. She diverted her time and interests from getting rid of Joe and turned it on full blast towards Dave.
From what I gathered (thanks to Anna's inability to keep a confidence), Dave's daughter Kim had intimated to Anna that Dave had a checkered past. According to Anna, Kim told her that Dave was a registered sex offender. Several years earlier, Dave had been charged with one count of unlawful sexual misconduct with a minor under the age of 14. He had pled no contest to this charge, and as a part of the whole deal, he had to register as a sex offender and agree to not work in any job that would allow him to come in contact with anyone under the age of 21. Our district had several people in their late teens working for RGIS, usually during their summer vacation months, so of course this was quite a problem.
The part about AM Dave being a registered sex offender was bad enough, but what happened after AM Joe and Ops Manager Sai found out was even worse. Anna, wanting to verify this information that Kim gave her, went to the local sheriff's office where the Megan's Law database for the State of California was on file (this database file wasn't online at that time, as it is now). If you're not familiar with it, Megan's Law gives people the opportunity to research whether there are any registered sex offenders living in their neighborhood. A person can search through this database by entering in someone's name. They can also search by using a city, county or zip code. Anna had Dave's name of course, and his home address as well. She printed out all the unsavory facts on AM Dave and took a copy to our RGIS office. She handed over the printout to AM Joe and Ops Manager Sai. I think she expected them to fire Dave on the spot. Well, that didn't exactly happen.
According to Anna, she went home upon leaving the district office, but she had an uneasy feeling about the whole thing. She said that the rather casual manner in which Joe and Sai had received the disturbing information regarding Dave bothered her, so later that same day she placed a call to RGIS' head office to find out if Joe and/or Sai contacted them. Anna was told that no, they hadn't heard a thing from our district office, and indeed the representative she spoke with sounded upset about the matter. She asked Anna to fax her a copy of Dave's info from the Megan's Law database. Anna did so immediately, and then and only then was Dave fired (Anna said that Dave had also lied on his original RGIS application, concerning the question "Have you ever been convicted?").
It was quite obvious to everyone in the district what had happened. We were right in the middle of the most busiest of times for any inventory service, January through February. Our district, stretched thin as it was, with auditors being hired and then quitting left and right, with scant Team Leaders being able to run stores and us still without a proper DM, all had caused AM Joe and Ops Manager Sai to panic at the thought of losing an AM, even one who was a registered sex offender. It was everyone's belief that Joe and Sai fully intended to hang onto AM Dave until after the busy season, and then let him go. But by Anna going behind their backs and contacting RGIS' head office, she foiled their nefarious plans and they had to fire Dave that day.
So now District 414 was down to one AM, an Ops Manager who most definitely did not want to be there and a couple of Team Leaders. The Santa Rosa district was imploding before our eyes. I myself took a rather sadistic delight in watching it crash and burn. I was enjoying it wholeheartedly, so much so that I decided to get in on the fun.
The very day that pervy AM Dave was let go was also a day when most of us Santa Rosa auditors had to go and bail out the Vallejo district in their J.C. Penney's store. Due to former DM Kevin's screwups and failures in choosing a proper new district office, we could no longer park at our RGIS office but instead had to park at a commuter lot 8 miles away in another city. This was inconvenient to most of us, but AM Joe was adamant about no one parking at the office. So imagine my surprise when a bunch of us were standing in the commuter parking lot waiting for the company vans, and AM Joe pulled into the lot in his car. Inside his car were his girlfriend Muong and best pals Gerry and Romy.
Now Muong being in the car I could understand, as she was Joe's live-in girlfriend and of course rode to the office with him. But Gerry and Romy? What made them so damned special that they could park at the office when the rest of us couldn't? Oh...right. They were F.O.J.'s (Friends Of Joe). They could do as they pleased.
I did a slow burn all the way to Fairfield. It pissed me off to no end that this favoritism of Joe's went on and on and never seemed to end. I had stood by and watched and said nothing as time and time again that asshole Joe let Gerry and Romy and TL Eric practically get away with murder. I watched Joe let his pals take breaks whenever they wanted to, show up late and leave early, not show up at all, and all without so much as a peep from Joe. But this was the last straw. After Joe and Sai had made it absolutely clear to us that no one was to park at the office, two of his favored pets blatantly parked there. Shit! I didn't give a rat's ass if Joe was stressed out from the whole pervy Dave mess. I was going to confront him on his favoritism tonight.
(Coming up: Part 2.)
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Killing Yourself (Almost) For RGIS
Can you remember ever putting your life in danger while working for RGIS? I mean, did you ever risk life or limb or lungs climbing up on unsteady ladders, standing on broken milk crates, or perhaps inhaling toxic fumes, all in order to scan a bar code or count every last bottle of cough syrup?
There were many times I can recall almost causing some bodily injury to myself while on the job as an auditor. Take standing on milk crates for instance. Even though this was expressly forbidden by RGIS (according to the Auditor's Handbook) we all knew the real deal. In my district our managers never provided us with enough step ladders to use so if we wanted to count all the products on the top shelf in, say, a grocery store, we had to grab a plastic milk crate from the store's back room to stand on. Of course, milk crates were not meant to be stood on and were most decidely unsafe. You had to be extremely careful when you climbed onto a milk crate, making sure you placed your feet not in the dead center of the crate but sort of to the sides, nearer the edge, where the crate was a little bit sturdier. If you stood in the center your feet might break right through the flimsy plastic webbing. And if you weren't careful climbing up onto the milk crate it could go sliding out from under you and you might go crashing to the floor. Ouch.
We always had to use milk crates when we were counting in Food 4 Less, and I can recall numerous times stepping up onto a milk crate and having said crate shoot out from under me because the floors were so highly waxed that they were dangerously slippery. Oh, and let's not allow those waxed floors to go without comment. We always started a Food 4 Less inventory at 4:00 am, when the 24-hour grocery store was almost devoid of customers. My district had three Food 4 Less stores to do, and I hated doing the Santa Rosa one because they always waxed the floors during the inventory. I mean, the minute we set out on the sales floor to count some Food 4 Less pinhead employee would fire up the waxer and start polishing the floors. For them it was like a signal or something. "Oh, I see burgundy polos out on the floor. Time to start waxing!" It was horrible. The waxer was a hideous machine, sounding like ten lawn mowers and belching more smoke than a coal factory. The Food 4 Less idiot who operated the waxer would come down an aisle I was counting in, getting so close that I swear the waxer brushed the heels of my shoes more than once. Getting run over by a floor waxer was not my idea of fun so I would complain to Team Leader Mondo, which was a complete waste of time as that blob of lard was so afraid of authority and confrontations that he wouldn't say a word to store management. So every time we did a Food 4 Less inventory in Santa Rosa we had to dodge the floor waxer.
Even when we had ladders to stand on in a store, we still had no guarantees of safety. In some stores like CSK (auto parts) the ladders were too short for the back room shelves, and we had to stand on the very top rung of the ladder to reach the top shelf. Yes, the top rung, the one that has the sticker on it that says "Warning! Do not stand on. Unsafe!" But I must, as my Area Manager told me to make sure I count every last gasket and spark plug!
Also a danger in a CSK inventory were the bottles of various auto cleansers and oils and other liquids that you had to pick up and scan. There were always a few leaky bottles, and often green or blue or brown fluids would drip onto my hands or clothing. It could make a person kind of nervous, especially when the bottle had a skull and crossbones on the label and read "Warning! Highly toxic!" So whenever this happened I would rush into the bathroom to wash off the green or blue or brown goo. Of course, the bathrooms in these CSK stores were always incredibly filthy, with thick layers of black grit covering every surface, including the bar of green industrial soap in the sink. Oftentimes there would be no paper towels, so you had to dry your hands on your pants. And do I need to say that one never wanted to use the toilet in a CSK? Their bathrooms were more toxic than any leaky bottles out on the sales floor.
Another place with suspicious fluids to count was a strange little place called Vencare RX. I was never quite sure what this place was. Was it a store? A laboratory? Who knows. It was an odd, dinky little place, kind of like a business office with a few shelves and a couple of mini refrigerators that held bottles and vials of mysterious fluids and powders to count. I never knew what the hell were in those bottles and tubes that I was handling. I would ask Mondo, who usually ran the Vencare RX inventories, and he would say, "I dunno." Okay, thanks, that helps. I could have been holding a vial of anthrax and not have known it. Not likely of course, but it's interesting to think about.
Back to the ladders. The extremely tall ones we used in the back rooms of the Target stores always made me nervous. They reached nearly to the ceiling and when you stood on the top step you never wanted to look down, lest you grow dizzy and tumble off. We used the same kind of ladders on the sales floors of Best Buy, to reach the top stock. To save time a Best Buy employee would push a RGIS auditor around the sales floors (the ladders were on wheels), so the RGIS person wouldn't have to climb down, move the ladder, and climb back up again. This was a nice thing to do by the Best Buy employees, but it too made me nervous as I could easily picture the Best Buy guy who was pushing the ladder stumbling over something and causing me to go flying over the short safety railing on the ladder and landing smack on the floor. Auditor clean-up in aisle 5!
Working as an RGIS auditor almost got me electrocuted once. We were doing an inventory for Spencern, a Halloween supply store. This was a few days after Halloween, and the early November day was cold and rainy. The store was temporarily set up in an old building that used to be a Good Guys store. It was a decrepit old building that had a leaky roof. When I went to count some rubber masks along one wall I could see water coming through the ceiling and dripping dangerously close to some extension cords still plugged into a wall socket. I very carefully steered clear of this area. I liked my job (most of the time) but not enough to fry for it. I never did see who ended up counting the area but they must have made it through okay, as I didn't notice anyone walking around burnt to a crisp.
The most outrageous incident I experienced regarding safety in the workplace occurred in a Home Depot inventory. I was assigned to count a large bin that contained incredibly long plastic pipes. There were dozens and dozens of these pipes standing on end, and they were crammed so tightly into the bin that I couldn't move them around to see how many of them there were. I told one of the many RGIS managers there that day about this problem (we had several districts helping us out in this large store) and her solution was to have me stand on the tines of a forklift and ride up to the ceiling of the store, so that I could look down on the tops of the pipes and count them that way. I told the RGIS Area Manager that there was no way on earth I was going to do that. I mean, I wasn't going to risk breaking my neck by doing this extremely unsafe act all so that I could count some plastic pipes. The AM actually got annoyed with me because I refused to try and commit suicide by forklift and said to me, "Well, someone has to do it." I told her, "It's not going to be me," and walked away. I found out later that she ordered some poor unknowing newbie to stand on the forklift and ride it up to the ceiling. Fortunately the guy didn't fall and go splat on the cement floor. This time. Gee, I wonder what OSHA would say if they knew about this?
There were many times I can recall almost causing some bodily injury to myself while on the job as an auditor. Take standing on milk crates for instance. Even though this was expressly forbidden by RGIS (according to the Auditor's Handbook) we all knew the real deal. In my district our managers never provided us with enough step ladders to use so if we wanted to count all the products on the top shelf in, say, a grocery store, we had to grab a plastic milk crate from the store's back room to stand on. Of course, milk crates were not meant to be stood on and were most decidely unsafe. You had to be extremely careful when you climbed onto a milk crate, making sure you placed your feet not in the dead center of the crate but sort of to the sides, nearer the edge, where the crate was a little bit sturdier. If you stood in the center your feet might break right through the flimsy plastic webbing. And if you weren't careful climbing up onto the milk crate it could go sliding out from under you and you might go crashing to the floor. Ouch.
We always had to use milk crates when we were counting in Food 4 Less, and I can recall numerous times stepping up onto a milk crate and having said crate shoot out from under me because the floors were so highly waxed that they were dangerously slippery. Oh, and let's not allow those waxed floors to go without comment. We always started a Food 4 Less inventory at 4:00 am, when the 24-hour grocery store was almost devoid of customers. My district had three Food 4 Less stores to do, and I hated doing the Santa Rosa one because they always waxed the floors during the inventory. I mean, the minute we set out on the sales floor to count some Food 4 Less pinhead employee would fire up the waxer and start polishing the floors. For them it was like a signal or something. "Oh, I see burgundy polos out on the floor. Time to start waxing!" It was horrible. The waxer was a hideous machine, sounding like ten lawn mowers and belching more smoke than a coal factory. The Food 4 Less idiot who operated the waxer would come down an aisle I was counting in, getting so close that I swear the waxer brushed the heels of my shoes more than once. Getting run over by a floor waxer was not my idea of fun so I would complain to Team Leader Mondo, which was a complete waste of time as that blob of lard was so afraid of authority and confrontations that he wouldn't say a word to store management. So every time we did a Food 4 Less inventory in Santa Rosa we had to dodge the floor waxer.
Even when we had ladders to stand on in a store, we still had no guarantees of safety. In some stores like CSK (auto parts) the ladders were too short for the back room shelves, and we had to stand on the very top rung of the ladder to reach the top shelf. Yes, the top rung, the one that has the sticker on it that says "Warning! Do not stand on. Unsafe!" But I must, as my Area Manager told me to make sure I count every last gasket and spark plug!
Also a danger in a CSK inventory were the bottles of various auto cleansers and oils and other liquids that you had to pick up and scan. There were always a few leaky bottles, and often green or blue or brown fluids would drip onto my hands or clothing. It could make a person kind of nervous, especially when the bottle had a skull and crossbones on the label and read "Warning! Highly toxic!" So whenever this happened I would rush into the bathroom to wash off the green or blue or brown goo. Of course, the bathrooms in these CSK stores were always incredibly filthy, with thick layers of black grit covering every surface, including the bar of green industrial soap in the sink. Oftentimes there would be no paper towels, so you had to dry your hands on your pants. And do I need to say that one never wanted to use the toilet in a CSK? Their bathrooms were more toxic than any leaky bottles out on the sales floor.
Another place with suspicious fluids to count was a strange little place called Vencare RX. I was never quite sure what this place was. Was it a store? A laboratory? Who knows. It was an odd, dinky little place, kind of like a business office with a few shelves and a couple of mini refrigerators that held bottles and vials of mysterious fluids and powders to count. I never knew what the hell were in those bottles and tubes that I was handling. I would ask Mondo, who usually ran the Vencare RX inventories, and he would say, "I dunno." Okay, thanks, that helps. I could have been holding a vial of anthrax and not have known it. Not likely of course, but it's interesting to think about.
Back to the ladders. The extremely tall ones we used in the back rooms of the Target stores always made me nervous. They reached nearly to the ceiling and when you stood on the top step you never wanted to look down, lest you grow dizzy and tumble off. We used the same kind of ladders on the sales floors of Best Buy, to reach the top stock. To save time a Best Buy employee would push a RGIS auditor around the sales floors (the ladders were on wheels), so the RGIS person wouldn't have to climb down, move the ladder, and climb back up again. This was a nice thing to do by the Best Buy employees, but it too made me nervous as I could easily picture the Best Buy guy who was pushing the ladder stumbling over something and causing me to go flying over the short safety railing on the ladder and landing smack on the floor. Auditor clean-up in aisle 5!
Working as an RGIS auditor almost got me electrocuted once. We were doing an inventory for Spencern, a Halloween supply store. This was a few days after Halloween, and the early November day was cold and rainy. The store was temporarily set up in an old building that used to be a Good Guys store. It was a decrepit old building that had a leaky roof. When I went to count some rubber masks along one wall I could see water coming through the ceiling and dripping dangerously close to some extension cords still plugged into a wall socket. I very carefully steered clear of this area. I liked my job (most of the time) but not enough to fry for it. I never did see who ended up counting the area but they must have made it through okay, as I didn't notice anyone walking around burnt to a crisp.
The most outrageous incident I experienced regarding safety in the workplace occurred in a Home Depot inventory. I was assigned to count a large bin that contained incredibly long plastic pipes. There were dozens and dozens of these pipes standing on end, and they were crammed so tightly into the bin that I couldn't move them around to see how many of them there were. I told one of the many RGIS managers there that day about this problem (we had several districts helping us out in this large store) and her solution was to have me stand on the tines of a forklift and ride up to the ceiling of the store, so that I could look down on the tops of the pipes and count them that way. I told the RGIS Area Manager that there was no way on earth I was going to do that. I mean, I wasn't going to risk breaking my neck by doing this extremely unsafe act all so that I could count some plastic pipes. The AM actually got annoyed with me because I refused to try and commit suicide by forklift and said to me, "Well, someone has to do it." I told her, "It's not going to be me," and walked away. I found out later that she ordered some poor unknowing newbie to stand on the forklift and ride it up to the ceiling. Fortunately the guy didn't fall and go splat on the cement floor. This time. Gee, I wonder what OSHA would say if they knew about this?
Saturday, July 15, 2006
It's All In The Mind
Several auditors in my district were completely delusional when it
came to their beliefs in their own powers of attraction. I've
mentioned some in previous blog entries, like Moby's yearning for
Ginger, Gunther and Robby's desires for young Nicole, and Psycho
Alice's crazed coveting of AM Jeff.
Another hilarious example of an RGIS auditor's hallucinatory ideas regarding themselves and their crush happened in my district. I warn you, it is funny, but it's also a bit frightening too.
The auditor was named Sonya. She was a woman in her fifties, who sported shoulder-length frizzy grey hair, a wrinkled, fuzzy face and a body that looked as though a sack of potatoes had been covered with an RGIS polo. Sonya had extremely poor posture and would constantly stand with her shoulders rolled inward and her back hunched over. She looked like Quasimodo with an audit machine and laser gun. And as if that weren't scary enough she also had a pair of breasts that hung to her waist. Someone once said that Sonya actually wore a bra but no one else in the district believed it.
This old lady auditor fell hard for a young Team Leader (or AM) named Matthew. Again, another perfect example of a person being completely out of someone's league. And being completely out of her mind. There was no way that a young guy would ever look once, much less twice at an old woman like Sonya. But that didn't stop Sonya from mooning over Matthew like a lovesick puppy dog. It really gave one the willies to think that Sonya could be so completely out of her mind as to believe that she stood a chance with Matthew. How could someone be that irrational, I wondered. I mean, didn't she have any mirrors in her home? Couldn't she see how ridiculous she was being? It was so ridiculous of Sonya the be mooning over this guy that one had to feel sorry for her.
Matthew finally had had enough of Sonya's truly scary behavior. After she sent him the lingerie and that terrifying note Sonya was called into the district office and told to stop her stalkerish behavior. If she didn't she would be fired.
As far as I know, Sonya didn't send any more hair-raising notes or any more packages of underwear to Matthew, but she didn't stop her obsessive longing for Matthew either. And Matthew was perfectly aware of this, because when he eventually left the Santa Rosa district and transferred to the Hawaii RGIS district he left explicit instructions regarding Sonya. He said that in the event Sonya ever tried out for and won the annual RGIS Top Gun contest, she was not to be awarded the prize, which was a two week stay in Hawaii, working for the RGIS district there. He was that terrified of her. And who could blame him? What young guy would want an old woman like Sonya chasing after him? In lacy bra and panties no less.
One more thing: it got even more amusing when Marcia, Matthew's ex-wife, came back from Hawaii to our district. Matthew and Marcia had met while working in the Santa Rosa district, and all under the watchful and jealous eyes of old Sonya. When Marcia split from Matthew and returned to Santa Rosa it was all Sonya could do to be civil to her. As far as I could tell Sonya never even spoke to AAM Marcia, but instead kept a healthy distance from her. Sonya figuratively steamed with hatred at the sight of Marcia, so jealous and irrational was she in her feelings for what she considered to be her rival for Matthew. Sonya, even after several years, was still completely out of her mind regarding her interests in Matthew. When Marcia returned to our district she also brought her car, with Hawaii license plates. Sonya told everyone in our district that that car would have been hers, had Marcia not "interfered" in Sonya's and Matthew's "relationship". Isn't that laughable? And frightening? Naturally, no one took Sonya seriously except of course Sonya herself, living in her dream world.
Another hilarious example of an RGIS auditor's hallucinatory ideas regarding themselves and their crush happened in my district. I warn you, it is funny, but it's also a bit frightening too.
The auditor was named Sonya. She was a woman in her fifties, who sported shoulder-length frizzy grey hair, a wrinkled, fuzzy face and a body that looked as though a sack of potatoes had been covered with an RGIS polo. Sonya had extremely poor posture and would constantly stand with her shoulders rolled inward and her back hunched over. She looked like Quasimodo with an audit machine and laser gun. And as if that weren't scary enough she also had a pair of breasts that hung to her waist. Someone once said that Sonya actually wore a bra but no one else in the district believed it.
This old lady auditor fell hard for a young Team Leader (or AM) named Matthew. Again, another perfect example of a person being completely out of someone's league. And being completely out of her mind. There was no way that a young guy would ever look once, much less twice at an old woman like Sonya. But that didn't stop Sonya from mooning over Matthew like a lovesick puppy dog. It really gave one the willies to think that Sonya could be so completely out of her mind as to believe that she stood a chance with Matthew. How could someone be that irrational, I wondered. I mean, didn't she have any mirrors in her home? Couldn't she see how ridiculous she was being? It was so ridiculous of Sonya the be mooning over this guy that one had to feel sorry for her.
Sonya's wild desires for Matthew at one point reached
such a fever pitch that she actually went out and purchased a set of
revealing lingerie and sent it to Matthew, along with a note that
said something like "Wouldn't you like to see me in this?"
Oh no. Try to imagine a
hunched-over, lumpy old woman with breasts resting by her navel in
racy, lacy underwear. Horrifying.
Matthew finally had had enough of Sonya's truly scary behavior. After she sent him the lingerie and that terrifying note Sonya was called into the district office and told to stop her stalkerish behavior. If she didn't she would be fired.
As far as I know, Sonya didn't send any more hair-raising notes or any more packages of underwear to Matthew, but she didn't stop her obsessive longing for Matthew either. And Matthew was perfectly aware of this, because when he eventually left the Santa Rosa district and transferred to the Hawaii RGIS district he left explicit instructions regarding Sonya. He said that in the event Sonya ever tried out for and won the annual RGIS Top Gun contest, she was not to be awarded the prize, which was a two week stay in Hawaii, working for the RGIS district there. He was that terrified of her. And who could blame him? What young guy would want an old woman like Sonya chasing after him? In lacy bra and panties no less.
One more thing: it got even more amusing when Marcia, Matthew's ex-wife, came back from Hawaii to our district. Matthew and Marcia had met while working in the Santa Rosa district, and all under the watchful and jealous eyes of old Sonya. When Marcia split from Matthew and returned to Santa Rosa it was all Sonya could do to be civil to her. As far as I could tell Sonya never even spoke to AAM Marcia, but instead kept a healthy distance from her. Sonya figuratively steamed with hatred at the sight of Marcia, so jealous and irrational was she in her feelings for what she considered to be her rival for Matthew. Sonya, even after several years, was still completely out of her mind regarding her interests in Matthew. When Marcia returned to our district she also brought her car, with Hawaii license plates. Sonya told everyone in our district that that car would have been hers, had Marcia not "interfered" in Sonya's and Matthew's "relationship". Isn't that laughable? And frightening? Naturally, no one took Sonya seriously except of course Sonya herself, living in her dream world.
Dear Employee
I found an old letter printed on RGIS letterhead the other day. It
was sent out to all the auditors in my district from Jeff, our former
AM who shortly before the letter was written had been promoted to be
our District Manager. For your amusement I am reprinting it here
verbatim.
September 28, 2001
"Dear Employee,
It was not long ago that the Santa Rosa District was considered one of the top in our division. Due to circumstances in the past, we have allowed ourselves to fall below the company standard, a standard that this district helped to set. We are now going to correct the mistakes of the past and will, with your help, reset the standards for RGIS. We realize that this cannot happen overnight, but the changes that we are implementing will allow us to get back on track.
Fifteen months ago, the districts of the Bay Area came together and agreed upon a set of goals that all districts would strive for. Sadly, not one office was able to achieve those goals. As a result, more than half of the managers that attended that first meeting are no longer with RGIS. Our division vice president, Ron ********, and our operations manager, Nate *****, decided it was time for another meeting to reveal what the problem was. Each district had its' own reasons but it was discovered that there were several common issues. It was agreed that all of our districts would work to a single standard without exception. Although many of the standards set forth are directed toward management, there are some that are directed toward field personnel-you. The plan is very simple. THE BAY AREA DISTRICTS OF RGIS WILL BE RETURNING TO BASICS [sic].
What this means to you is such basic things as confirming your schedules on time, being on time in proper uniform, honoring your schedule, using proper tagging, correct inventory paperwork, following established RGIS procedures and policies, etc. Included with this letter are copies of our attendance policy, dress code, and what is expected of auditors. Sign one copy of each and return them to the office by October 5. The other copy is for your records.
We have begun to track each auditor's average per hour (APH). The goal is to identify those who are doing an outstanding job as well as those who are struggling and need additional help or training to come up to standard. The expected APH will be announced at the beginning of each inventory. We realize that not everybody can achieve the expected APH in every inventory. For instance, those who are assigned to more time consuming areas will, no doubt, fall below the expected APH. Overall, the APH for that inventory will be met.
There are more changes to come. If you have an idea you feel would help our district, please share it with a Team Leader or management. Remember that as an auditor in the field, YOU are RGIS [sic].
We thank you for your efforts."
Make what you like of this letter. I for one found it extremely amusing, having worked in the Santa Rosa district for many years. Some of my favorite parts:
The entire first paragraph, for one. Yes, at one point my district was considered to be first-rate, having been awarded several plaques(still hanging proudly on the office walls) from RGIS as the best performing district in the division. Of course, that was before Kenny and Jeff became our managers and really messed things up. They would be the "circumstances of the past" mentioned in that first paragraph, the ones that "allowed ourselves to fall below the company standard." (Of course Jeff, who wrote the letter, didn't consider himself as having been part of the problem. He believed that the entire mess our district was was caused by Kenny only.)
The second paragraph has some really good stuff too. I especially like the part where it states that all of the Bay Area districts "came together and agreed upon a set of goals that all districts would strive for. Sadly, not one office was able to achieve those goals." Darn. "Sadly." Well, just let me shed a tear right now. Sniff. Too droll. Even without knowing exactly what those so-called "goals" were, I'm not surprised that my district wasn't able to meet a single one. I can't imagine former District Manager Kenny or Area Manager/DM Jeff being able to achieve any sort of "goal", unless it was something like "Take A Quality RGIS District And Totally Screw It Up And Run It Straight Into The Ground." In that case? Mission accomplished Kenny and Jeff!
I also liked the statement printed in all caps: "THE BAY AREA DISTRICTS OF RGIS WILL BE RETURNING TO BASICS." This was an obvious (to us auditors) admittance by DM Jeff that he (and Kenny) had really let things go in our district. All the things that were mentioned in the third paragraph, like "confirming schedules on time, being on time in proper uniform, honoring your schedule, using proper tagging, correct inventory paperwork..." etc, were all ignored before this letter was sent out, and they were ignored well after the letter was received by all of us auditors as well. Especially by the F.O.J.'s (Friends Of Jeff). Guys like Gunther and Ethan blithely continued to arrive late (or not at all) to their scheduled inventories, and without any repercussions whatsoever from their pal DM Jeff. So much for "being on time" or "honoring your schedule." Absolutely no one used "proper tagging", with most auditors continuing to tag sporadically or not at all. And few people bothered with "correct inventory paperwork." Most auditors wouldn't trouble themselves to sign their area tags with their name or worksheet number, nor would we bother to fill out our worksheets with the numbers of the areas that we had counted. I mean, we auditors knew that, despite the above letter and some other vague threats from our ridiculous managers, no one would be fired for not following the rules because our district was so permanently hard up for warm bodies to staff our inventories that the managers couldn't afford to let anyone go. So a letter like the one above was a joke. No one took it seriously because we knew we didn't have to. The only way you as an auditor would leave the Santa Rosa district was if you wanted to and thus quit.
I like that next to last paragraph too, where it says "If you have an idea you feel would help our district please share it with a Team Leader or management." Okay, how about a request that DM Jeff stop playing favorites and treat everyone equally? How about DM Jeff not allowing friend Gunther to take two dozen smoke breaks during an inventory, and not allowing best pal Team Leader Ethan to leave an inventory 3 hours before anyone else because he felt "tired." What about the rest of the crew? We're not tired too? Hey, here's an idea. How about when we go into the office to pick up our paychecks, maybe it might be a good idea if your secretary Betty isn't playing solitaire at her desk? Kind of looks bad, don't you think? And when shef etches our checks for us is it possible for her to do so without a snotty attitude? That would be ever so nice. Every time an auditor would go into the office it seemed as though Betty was either playing solitaire or snacking on something. I don't think I ever once saw her actually working on something business-related. Hmm, I wonder if these "ideas" would have gone over well, had I brought them to a TL or management.
And finally, the last paragraph of the letter is a real winner. "Remember that as an auditor in the field, YOU are RGIS." Well, if that's true, then God help RGIS.
September 28, 2001
"Dear Employee,
It was not long ago that the Santa Rosa District was considered one of the top in our division. Due to circumstances in the past, we have allowed ourselves to fall below the company standard, a standard that this district helped to set. We are now going to correct the mistakes of the past and will, with your help, reset the standards for RGIS. We realize that this cannot happen overnight, but the changes that we are implementing will allow us to get back on track.
Fifteen months ago, the districts of the Bay Area came together and agreed upon a set of goals that all districts would strive for. Sadly, not one office was able to achieve those goals. As a result, more than half of the managers that attended that first meeting are no longer with RGIS. Our division vice president, Ron ********, and our operations manager, Nate *****, decided it was time for another meeting to reveal what the problem was. Each district had its' own reasons but it was discovered that there were several common issues. It was agreed that all of our districts would work to a single standard without exception. Although many of the standards set forth are directed toward management, there are some that are directed toward field personnel-you. The plan is very simple. THE BAY AREA DISTRICTS OF RGIS WILL BE RETURNING TO BASICS [sic].
What this means to you is such basic things as confirming your schedules on time, being on time in proper uniform, honoring your schedule, using proper tagging, correct inventory paperwork, following established RGIS procedures and policies, etc. Included with this letter are copies of our attendance policy, dress code, and what is expected of auditors. Sign one copy of each and return them to the office by October 5. The other copy is for your records.
We have begun to track each auditor's average per hour (APH). The goal is to identify those who are doing an outstanding job as well as those who are struggling and need additional help or training to come up to standard. The expected APH will be announced at the beginning of each inventory. We realize that not everybody can achieve the expected APH in every inventory. For instance, those who are assigned to more time consuming areas will, no doubt, fall below the expected APH. Overall, the APH for that inventory will be met.
There are more changes to come. If you have an idea you feel would help our district, please share it with a Team Leader or management. Remember that as an auditor in the field, YOU are RGIS [sic].
We thank you for your efforts."
Make what you like of this letter. I for one found it extremely amusing, having worked in the Santa Rosa district for many years. Some of my favorite parts:
The entire first paragraph, for one. Yes, at one point my district was considered to be first-rate, having been awarded several plaques(still hanging proudly on the office walls) from RGIS as the best performing district in the division. Of course, that was before Kenny and Jeff became our managers and really messed things up. They would be the "circumstances of the past" mentioned in that first paragraph, the ones that "allowed ourselves to fall below the company standard." (Of course Jeff, who wrote the letter, didn't consider himself as having been part of the problem. He believed that the entire mess our district was was caused by Kenny only.)
The second paragraph has some really good stuff too. I especially like the part where it states that all of the Bay Area districts "came together and agreed upon a set of goals that all districts would strive for. Sadly, not one office was able to achieve those goals." Darn. "Sadly." Well, just let me shed a tear right now. Sniff. Too droll. Even without knowing exactly what those so-called "goals" were, I'm not surprised that my district wasn't able to meet a single one. I can't imagine former District Manager Kenny or Area Manager/DM Jeff being able to achieve any sort of "goal", unless it was something like "Take A Quality RGIS District And Totally Screw It Up And Run It Straight Into The Ground." In that case? Mission accomplished Kenny and Jeff!
I also liked the statement printed in all caps: "THE BAY AREA DISTRICTS OF RGIS WILL BE RETURNING TO BASICS." This was an obvious (to us auditors) admittance by DM Jeff that he (and Kenny) had really let things go in our district. All the things that were mentioned in the third paragraph, like "confirming schedules on time, being on time in proper uniform, honoring your schedule, using proper tagging, correct inventory paperwork..." etc, were all ignored before this letter was sent out, and they were ignored well after the letter was received by all of us auditors as well. Especially by the F.O.J.'s (Friends Of Jeff). Guys like Gunther and Ethan blithely continued to arrive late (or not at all) to their scheduled inventories, and without any repercussions whatsoever from their pal DM Jeff. So much for "being on time" or "honoring your schedule." Absolutely no one used "proper tagging", with most auditors continuing to tag sporadically or not at all. And few people bothered with "correct inventory paperwork." Most auditors wouldn't trouble themselves to sign their area tags with their name or worksheet number, nor would we bother to fill out our worksheets with the numbers of the areas that we had counted. I mean, we auditors knew that, despite the above letter and some other vague threats from our ridiculous managers, no one would be fired for not following the rules because our district was so permanently hard up for warm bodies to staff our inventories that the managers couldn't afford to let anyone go. So a letter like the one above was a joke. No one took it seriously because we knew we didn't have to. The only way you as an auditor would leave the Santa Rosa district was if you wanted to and thus quit.
I like that next to last paragraph too, where it says "If you have an idea you feel would help our district please share it with a Team Leader or management." Okay, how about a request that DM Jeff stop playing favorites and treat everyone equally? How about DM Jeff not allowing friend Gunther to take two dozen smoke breaks during an inventory, and not allowing best pal Team Leader Ethan to leave an inventory 3 hours before anyone else because he felt "tired." What about the rest of the crew? We're not tired too? Hey, here's an idea. How about when we go into the office to pick up our paychecks, maybe it might be a good idea if your secretary Betty isn't playing solitaire at her desk? Kind of looks bad, don't you think? And when shef etches our checks for us is it possible for her to do so without a snotty attitude? That would be ever so nice. Every time an auditor would go into the office it seemed as though Betty was either playing solitaire or snacking on something. I don't think I ever once saw her actually working on something business-related. Hmm, I wonder if these "ideas" would have gone over well, had I brought them to a TL or management.
And finally, the last paragraph of the letter is a real winner. "Remember that as an auditor in the field, YOU are RGIS." Well, if that's true, then God help RGIS.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Nice Guys Finish Last
When DM Kenny departed our district, tail between his legs (he had
done such a shitty job running the district. Auditor Sam was fond of
saying that Kenny had taken the Santa Rosa district and run it
straight into the ground) naturally that left us without a District
Manager. Some of us assumed that Area Manager Jeff would promoted to
the position, but Jeff claimed that he didn't want the responsibility
of heading up a district (Ops Manager Samir later told me
differently. He had expressed some doubt as to Jeff's abilities, and
thought that perhaps Jeff was a bit too immature to be a DM).
During the week or two that we were DM-less, a rumor was going around our district that Doug, the AM in Vallejo, was to be appointed as our new DM. This was confirmed a short time later.
Having worked with the Vallejo district on a number of occasions we knew Doug and for the most part liked him. He seemed nice, but of course things could be different when he came over to our district. I mean, he might turn out to be a ogre who played favorites (like Jeff) or maybe a complete moron who hadn't a clue (like Kenny or Dave).
So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that Doug was a genuinely nice person. He had a rather a quiet manner of speaking, and during his stay in our district I never once heard (or heard of) him raise his voice or utter an unkind or angry word. He was always in a very agreeable mood, very positive and upbeat. And not in a phony insincere way like former DM Kenny. No, DM Doug always seemed to be honestly glad to see people at stores and interested in hearing what you might have to say.
And wonder of wonders, he didn't play favorites! What a refreshing antithesis to AM Jeff's partisanship. Doug treated everyone equally, young and old, male and female. It came as a nice surprise to see a manager manage a district with such neutrality and impartiality.
I remember a Kmart inventory that our district did shortly after DM Doug arrived. During a break, Doug came out of the store and sat right down on the curb next to a couple of us auditors. He started telling us about some of his plans for our Santa Rosa district, and things he wanted to accomplish as our new DM. He seemed genuinely interested and eager to be heading up the district, and it was very cool of him to sit down with us and have an actual conversation with his auditors.
Certainly AM Jeff wouldn't be caught dead chatting with us lowly commoners. No, even as Doug was talking I could see AM Jeff, across the way in the parking lot, huddled in a circle with his cronies Ethan, Robby, Gunther, and a couple of various assorted young girls. Typical Jeff. He never made an effort to get to know any auditors, really, unless he had the hots for her.
Also, unlike Jeff, Doug never made fun of the newbies or goobers in our district. I don't believe I even once heard him say an unkind word about anyone. He really was nice to all, and it was so bizarre to see and experience an RGIS manager in our district act in such a positive way. DM Doug seemed almost too good to be true.
Having grown accustomed and weary of the negativity and favoritism exhibited by AM Jeff, I at first was a bit cautious in forming an opinion regarding Doug when he came to Santa Rosa. After seeing how the F.O.J.'s (Friends of Jeff) were favorably treated by their leader, I was a bit afraid that Doug would turn out to be like Jeff and have his pets too. But that wasn't the case, not even with auditor Dylan. Dylan had worked under Doug in the Vallejo district, and moved to Santa Rosa before Doug. I thought that perhaps Doug would show partiality to his former Vallejo auditor, but that never happened. Dylan was treated no better or no worse than the rest of us. It was like we were, for the first time, truly all equal. Man did that feel weird!
So, already feeling pretty good about having Doug as our new DM, I felt about a million times better when it came to an incident regarding my schedule. When DM Kenny was in Santa Rosa, AM Jeff had somehow convinced him that he, Jeff, could make out the master schedule much more efficiently than Kenny. Thus Jeff really held all the power in the Santa Rosa office, and as more than one person said to me, "Jeff's the one who really runs this district."
Because of this it paid to get on Jeff's good side and stay there, if you wanted work. Don't cross Jeff and you'll get plenty of stores. Do something to displease him and guess what? You're not working much anymore. And if you questioned Jeff about your suddenly light schedule, he would play Mr. Innocent and tell you, "Well, we're really not very busy right now, there's not a lot of inventories going on, but I'll take a look at the master schedule and see what I can do." What bullshit. Jeff used that schedule like a weapon, cutting down his enemies and protecting and rewarding his clique.
(One way that we auditors found out what Jeff was doing with his scheduling was to compare our schedules. If Jeff told one auditor that there wasn't any work going on, and that's why his schedule was rather skimpy, then that auditor could merely compare his schedule with a couple of the other auditors and see if this was true. AM Jeff found out that we were doing this and became irate. When he issued our next schedule {handing them out to us during a Burlington Coat Factory inventory} there printed on the bottom of everyone' s schedule was this order from Jeff: "Schedules are not to be discussed with other auditors. Termination will result." Everyone was outraged by this edict. Besides a method of comparing schedules as a way to check Jeff on his word, we often discussed stores that we might be doing together later so that we could arrange carpools to and from inventories. One auditor anonymously sent a copy of this schedule {with Jeff's order on it} to RGIS' head office. The head office immediately contacted Jeff and told him that he couldn't threaten people with a dismissal in regards to his auditor's comparing their schedules. Boy was Jeff pissed!)
One fall my schedule seemed a bit skimpy, even for early November. I attributed this to the fact that Jeff had seen me talking with his arch enemy Psycho Alice. Jeff probably thought we were conspiring against him (not true; Alice was on her own one-person crusade to get rid of Jeff) and of course retaliated as only he could, with his favorite weapon the schedule. I asked Jeff about it and he gave me the usual "Well it's not that busy not a lot of inventories going on" crap. So the next day I went to the office to see DM Doug. Doug immediately said, "Let's take a look at the master schedule," and he started leafing through a big notebook. "I can put you in this store, and this one, and this one. Hey, here's two CSK (auto parts) stores going on in the same day. Which one would you like?" Amazing. This was something that Jeff would never have done.
Because of this incident with my schedule and a few others as well, I believe that DM Doug began to recognize what Jeff was doing with the master schedule, and how he was using it to reward his cronies and punish the rest of us. So little by little Doug began to do more and more of the scheduling himself. Jeff was furious to discover that his power in the district was slipping away bit by bit, leaving him impotent as a manager. He was mad as a hornet at Doug, but completely powerless to do anything about it. It was quite amusing to overhear him fuming about DM Doug depriving him of his baby, the master schedule. How wonderful and how delicious to see the once potent Jeff as weak and helpless as a kitten.
Doug also exhibited some first-rate behavior when it came to dealing with Nadine. Malcontent Nadine had been for some time getting away with murder. She would pull many no-shows at inventories, often calling in sick just minutes before she was due at a store. She always managed to keep her job by wearing a short skirt and prancing into former DM Kenny's office. A little wink, a little leg-crossing, and Nadine would remain an RGIS auditor for another day.
But Doug was miles above Kenny in class. He wasn't weak like Kenny and refused to play Nadine's games. After Kenny left and Doug became our DM, Nadine continued right on with her no-shows. Doug gave her a warning: if you pull another no-show you'll be fired. Of course, she pulled a no-show the very next day, at a Long's Drugs. A few minutes after the 5:30 am start Doug was overheard calling Nadine on his cell phone and leaving a message stating that she had been duly warned about her incessant no-shows, and since she had pulled yet another one that she was fired. Yes! Way to go Doug! Nadine was furious and tried her 'short skirt' method with Doug, but DM Doug was unimpressed. Too cool.
Doug was that rarity: a manager who never lost the ability to count on an audit machine. Doug was fast at keying, even faster than Team Leader Ethan (who firmly believed that he was the best at keying; he sometimes referred to himself as E-God). With RGIS always promoting from within, auditors who became managers had to (by company rules at that time) stop doing typical auditor's work like counting and stick to running inventories only. By doing so most DMs, AMs, and Ops Managers gradually lost the ability to count merchandise on the audit machine. Oh sure, they still knew how to operate an audit machine, but on that rare occasion that they were allowed to count (like when we showed up at a Long's Drugs in Novato with only 5 people, when we should have had 20) it was funny to watch how rusty the managers were at counting. Most of them could no longer key by touch, and instead had to look down at their audit machines every time they needed to enter a quantity. Hah!
DM Doug loved counting and was still very fast at it. At that time, managers had to first obtain permission from their division office before they could, as former DM Kenny used to put it, "Strap one on." That meant a lot of calls being placed, and playing phone tag took up too much time, especially if you were already running behind in an inventory. So Doug and AM Jeff would usually not bother to call one the Ops Managers and instead grab an audit machine and laser and head out onto the sales floor.
It was enjoyable to be counting around Doug because he was always in a good mood. Plus, I think he was happy to be counting again, so he would have a smile on his face and crack jokes. He also had this funny habit of urging you to "race" against him. You might be in the same aisle of a grocery store as him, with you on one side and he on the other. He would say something like, "C'mon, let's race, let's see who gets finished first." I would always laugh and say no thanks. I mean, I really couldn't see any point in "racing". What did I care who finished first? I was going to get paid the same regardless. But DM Doug was always really nice about it and would never push you to race him. It was just his way of joking around, and trying to keep the mood in a long tiring inventory upbeat.
So things were going great in Santa Rosa for a change, with a new DM and all, but I should have known it was too good to last. At a Long's Drugs inventory in Windsor, I was in the warehouse (back room), closing out my audit machine at the end of this October inventory. All of a sudden Doug, who had been busy with some paperwork, started to tell me about how a month or two before he had been ticketed for a DUI incident. He said that he had been driving home from a party and had been driving a bit erratically ("I'd only had a little bit of wine, it was a stupid thing to do and I'll never do it again"), and was stopped by a police car. He had received a ticket for drunk driving, but due to some misunderstanding the ticket never got paid ("I had the court date mixed up with some other date, I don't know how it happened") and now he was in danger of being fired from RGIS.
The reason Doug could be dismissed so easily from RGIS was that according to him, managers must have near spotless driving records, as the company vans that are leased for them are not covered by car insurance, just bonded or something. Apparently it would cost RGIS a pretty penny if a manager, driving the company van, got into a drunk driving accident.
As I was digesting this disturbing information DM Doug tossed off this next remark: "Come January you might not see me here anymore." He was so casual about it that I didn't really take him seriously. But sure enough, some 3 months later Doug was gone. Fired. And there went any high hopes for our district.
(Oh, one more thing about Doug. Just a few days before he left, I was having another one of my scheduling battles with Jeff (who despite Doug's efforts still maintained a little control over the master schedule), and again went into the office to speak with Doug about it. Doug seemed concerned and added some more inventories to my schedule. Two days later he was gone, and I said to AM Jeff, "I met with Doug a couple of days ago. Did he know at that time that he was being fired from RGIS?" Jeff said yes. So Doug had taken the time to bother about my schedule, even though he knew at that time he was losing his job. What a class act Doug was.)
During the week or two that we were DM-less, a rumor was going around our district that Doug, the AM in Vallejo, was to be appointed as our new DM. This was confirmed a short time later.
Having worked with the Vallejo district on a number of occasions we knew Doug and for the most part liked him. He seemed nice, but of course things could be different when he came over to our district. I mean, he might turn out to be a ogre who played favorites (like Jeff) or maybe a complete moron who hadn't a clue (like Kenny or Dave).
So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that Doug was a genuinely nice person. He had a rather a quiet manner of speaking, and during his stay in our district I never once heard (or heard of) him raise his voice or utter an unkind or angry word. He was always in a very agreeable mood, very positive and upbeat. And not in a phony insincere way like former DM Kenny. No, DM Doug always seemed to be honestly glad to see people at stores and interested in hearing what you might have to say.
And wonder of wonders, he didn't play favorites! What a refreshing antithesis to AM Jeff's partisanship. Doug treated everyone equally, young and old, male and female. It came as a nice surprise to see a manager manage a district with such neutrality and impartiality.
I remember a Kmart inventory that our district did shortly after DM Doug arrived. During a break, Doug came out of the store and sat right down on the curb next to a couple of us auditors. He started telling us about some of his plans for our Santa Rosa district, and things he wanted to accomplish as our new DM. He seemed genuinely interested and eager to be heading up the district, and it was very cool of him to sit down with us and have an actual conversation with his auditors.
Certainly AM Jeff wouldn't be caught dead chatting with us lowly commoners. No, even as Doug was talking I could see AM Jeff, across the way in the parking lot, huddled in a circle with his cronies Ethan, Robby, Gunther, and a couple of various assorted young girls. Typical Jeff. He never made an effort to get to know any auditors, really, unless he had the hots for her.
Also, unlike Jeff, Doug never made fun of the newbies or goobers in our district. I don't believe I even once heard him say an unkind word about anyone. He really was nice to all, and it was so bizarre to see and experience an RGIS manager in our district act in such a positive way. DM Doug seemed almost too good to be true.
Having grown accustomed and weary of the negativity and favoritism exhibited by AM Jeff, I at first was a bit cautious in forming an opinion regarding Doug when he came to Santa Rosa. After seeing how the F.O.J.'s (Friends of Jeff) were favorably treated by their leader, I was a bit afraid that Doug would turn out to be like Jeff and have his pets too. But that wasn't the case, not even with auditor Dylan. Dylan had worked under Doug in the Vallejo district, and moved to Santa Rosa before Doug. I thought that perhaps Doug would show partiality to his former Vallejo auditor, but that never happened. Dylan was treated no better or no worse than the rest of us. It was like we were, for the first time, truly all equal. Man did that feel weird!
So, already feeling pretty good about having Doug as our new DM, I felt about a million times better when it came to an incident regarding my schedule. When DM Kenny was in Santa Rosa, AM Jeff had somehow convinced him that he, Jeff, could make out the master schedule much more efficiently than Kenny. Thus Jeff really held all the power in the Santa Rosa office, and as more than one person said to me, "Jeff's the one who really runs this district."
Because of this it paid to get on Jeff's good side and stay there, if you wanted work. Don't cross Jeff and you'll get plenty of stores. Do something to displease him and guess what? You're not working much anymore. And if you questioned Jeff about your suddenly light schedule, he would play Mr. Innocent and tell you, "Well, we're really not very busy right now, there's not a lot of inventories going on, but I'll take a look at the master schedule and see what I can do." What bullshit. Jeff used that schedule like a weapon, cutting down his enemies and protecting and rewarding his clique.
(One way that we auditors found out what Jeff was doing with his scheduling was to compare our schedules. If Jeff told one auditor that there wasn't any work going on, and that's why his schedule was rather skimpy, then that auditor could merely compare his schedule with a couple of the other auditors and see if this was true. AM Jeff found out that we were doing this and became irate. When he issued our next schedule {handing them out to us during a Burlington Coat Factory inventory} there printed on the bottom of everyone' s schedule was this order from Jeff: "Schedules are not to be discussed with other auditors. Termination will result." Everyone was outraged by this edict. Besides a method of comparing schedules as a way to check Jeff on his word, we often discussed stores that we might be doing together later so that we could arrange carpools to and from inventories. One auditor anonymously sent a copy of this schedule {with Jeff's order on it} to RGIS' head office. The head office immediately contacted Jeff and told him that he couldn't threaten people with a dismissal in regards to his auditor's comparing their schedules. Boy was Jeff pissed!)
One fall my schedule seemed a bit skimpy, even for early November. I attributed this to the fact that Jeff had seen me talking with his arch enemy Psycho Alice. Jeff probably thought we were conspiring against him (not true; Alice was on her own one-person crusade to get rid of Jeff) and of course retaliated as only he could, with his favorite weapon the schedule. I asked Jeff about it and he gave me the usual "Well it's not that busy not a lot of inventories going on" crap. So the next day I went to the office to see DM Doug. Doug immediately said, "Let's take a look at the master schedule," and he started leafing through a big notebook. "I can put you in this store, and this one, and this one. Hey, here's two CSK (auto parts) stores going on in the same day. Which one would you like?" Amazing. This was something that Jeff would never have done.
Because of this incident with my schedule and a few others as well, I believe that DM Doug began to recognize what Jeff was doing with the master schedule, and how he was using it to reward his cronies and punish the rest of us. So little by little Doug began to do more and more of the scheduling himself. Jeff was furious to discover that his power in the district was slipping away bit by bit, leaving him impotent as a manager. He was mad as a hornet at Doug, but completely powerless to do anything about it. It was quite amusing to overhear him fuming about DM Doug depriving him of his baby, the master schedule. How wonderful and how delicious to see the once potent Jeff as weak and helpless as a kitten.
Doug also exhibited some first-rate behavior when it came to dealing with Nadine. Malcontent Nadine had been for some time getting away with murder. She would pull many no-shows at inventories, often calling in sick just minutes before she was due at a store. She always managed to keep her job by wearing a short skirt and prancing into former DM Kenny's office. A little wink, a little leg-crossing, and Nadine would remain an RGIS auditor for another day.
But Doug was miles above Kenny in class. He wasn't weak like Kenny and refused to play Nadine's games. After Kenny left and Doug became our DM, Nadine continued right on with her no-shows. Doug gave her a warning: if you pull another no-show you'll be fired. Of course, she pulled a no-show the very next day, at a Long's Drugs. A few minutes after the 5:30 am start Doug was overheard calling Nadine on his cell phone and leaving a message stating that she had been duly warned about her incessant no-shows, and since she had pulled yet another one that she was fired. Yes! Way to go Doug! Nadine was furious and tried her 'short skirt' method with Doug, but DM Doug was unimpressed. Too cool.
Doug was that rarity: a manager who never lost the ability to count on an audit machine. Doug was fast at keying, even faster than Team Leader Ethan (who firmly believed that he was the best at keying; he sometimes referred to himself as E-God). With RGIS always promoting from within, auditors who became managers had to (by company rules at that time) stop doing typical auditor's work like counting and stick to running inventories only. By doing so most DMs, AMs, and Ops Managers gradually lost the ability to count merchandise on the audit machine. Oh sure, they still knew how to operate an audit machine, but on that rare occasion that they were allowed to count (like when we showed up at a Long's Drugs in Novato with only 5 people, when we should have had 20) it was funny to watch how rusty the managers were at counting. Most of them could no longer key by touch, and instead had to look down at their audit machines every time they needed to enter a quantity. Hah!
DM Doug loved counting and was still very fast at it. At that time, managers had to first obtain permission from their division office before they could, as former DM Kenny used to put it, "Strap one on." That meant a lot of calls being placed, and playing phone tag took up too much time, especially if you were already running behind in an inventory. So Doug and AM Jeff would usually not bother to call one the Ops Managers and instead grab an audit machine and laser and head out onto the sales floor.
It was enjoyable to be counting around Doug because he was always in a good mood. Plus, I think he was happy to be counting again, so he would have a smile on his face and crack jokes. He also had this funny habit of urging you to "race" against him. You might be in the same aisle of a grocery store as him, with you on one side and he on the other. He would say something like, "C'mon, let's race, let's see who gets finished first." I would always laugh and say no thanks. I mean, I really couldn't see any point in "racing". What did I care who finished first? I was going to get paid the same regardless. But DM Doug was always really nice about it and would never push you to race him. It was just his way of joking around, and trying to keep the mood in a long tiring inventory upbeat.
So things were going great in Santa Rosa for a change, with a new DM and all, but I should have known it was too good to last. At a Long's Drugs inventory in Windsor, I was in the warehouse (back room), closing out my audit machine at the end of this October inventory. All of a sudden Doug, who had been busy with some paperwork, started to tell me about how a month or two before he had been ticketed for a DUI incident. He said that he had been driving home from a party and had been driving a bit erratically ("I'd only had a little bit of wine, it was a stupid thing to do and I'll never do it again"), and was stopped by a police car. He had received a ticket for drunk driving, but due to some misunderstanding the ticket never got paid ("I had the court date mixed up with some other date, I don't know how it happened") and now he was in danger of being fired from RGIS.
The reason Doug could be dismissed so easily from RGIS was that according to him, managers must have near spotless driving records, as the company vans that are leased for them are not covered by car insurance, just bonded or something. Apparently it would cost RGIS a pretty penny if a manager, driving the company van, got into a drunk driving accident.
As I was digesting this disturbing information DM Doug tossed off this next remark: "Come January you might not see me here anymore." He was so casual about it that I didn't really take him seriously. But sure enough, some 3 months later Doug was gone. Fired. And there went any high hopes for our district.
(Oh, one more thing about Doug. Just a few days before he left, I was having another one of my scheduling battles with Jeff (who despite Doug's efforts still maintained a little control over the master schedule), and again went into the office to speak with Doug about it. Doug seemed concerned and added some more inventories to my schedule. Two days later he was gone, and I said to AM Jeff, "I met with Doug a couple of days ago. Did he know at that time that he was being fired from RGIS?" Jeff said yes. So Doug had taken the time to bother about my schedule, even though he knew at that time he was losing his job. What a class act Doug was.)
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