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.)
20 comments:
Misfit, maybe your best post yet. Please don't wait a week before publishing part 2.
January implosion stories are always very juicy. The Northeast Division had so many districts implode last January, it ultimately cost a longtime VP his job.
Of course, it didn't help that he had inherited all of the shitty NY/NJ districts just two months prior due to the consolidation of the Eastern and Northeast Divisions.
anonymous at 11:17 am: Sorry but I have to wait a week! I'm still in the middle of writing Part 2. I used to do posts about twice a week, but then I was afraid that I would run out of material so I cut it down to just one post a week. Thanks so much for reading and be sure to tune in next Saturday for Part 2!
P.S. If you'd care to share some of those implosion stories here I would love to read them.
About the January implosions, I wish I had some more details for you, but I am not really on the inside.
However, I am aware that several districts had to have auditors actually flown in for a week or more at a time to bail their asses out. I know there were people flown in from the Midwest, far upstate New York and Northern New England, and even as far away as San Juan!
I kind of feel bad for some of the innocent people involved that crashed and burned. But there are some people who are simply bastards that deserved every bit of pain that came to them.
It seems like it the implosion was mostly in the NJ districts :P
Hey Anon @ 11:17 AM, what district are you?
wow, really enjoyed reading your blog! thought we had a "soap-opera" here in GA, but you have us beat, lol.
yet, the stories of manager temper-tantrums, favoritism, flirting, wacko employees etc, must be universal, as that does go on here also,
look forward to reading future installments
dlin333: Welcome! I'm glad you have been enjoying reading my blog. I hope you'll continue to read, and to leave your comments as well.
Agent Skelly, I would rather not post what district I am from.
But I can tell you that I have met not only your DM, but FB as well. I found them both to be very nice guys, though I know neither of them well. The FB I have met is not quite the creep that he has been portrayed on here as.
Wow, I can't believe all the happenings that has occured ever since I left the Santa Rosa district over 7 years ago (I quit during the Whole Foods run, because Janell, the DM at the time, kept giving her stores all the power while giving me all the farm animals that just was a body count). I used to be the only Area Manager there before a second was added. Janel ran me to the ground and never gave a crap except her stores, and her precious tag-a-long bf. I'm glad to know someone is keeping a log of what has been going on. I felt District 414 was at its peak when Marty was in charge and gave the whole district a positive attitude.
anon. at 5:41 pm: Welcome! I hope you'll continue to read my blog, and to post comments, too. It's been fun reading all the comments, and it's especially gratifying to know that people from all different districts are tuning in.
It's funny that you should write that about Jennel. The way Mondo was always going on about her, I thought the sun must have shone out of her ass or something. I guess Joe must have learned her tactics for scheduling stores: stock your own with the best counters, and give all the feebs or "farm animals" as you put it (lol!) to everyone else.
Hey Hey Misfit,
Thanks for welcoming this old time Area Manager from the bay to your site. I think I could enlighten some people to the ways before DM Kevin, AM Joe, and whoever AM Dave was (glad I left before that fiasco happend). I can tell you stories about Mondo that would make even his skin crawl (and as you know, thats hard to do with all the "funk" emitting off of him). During the time of "light blues" and "dark blues" instead of your marroon and grays, Mondo was given his first dark blue shirts (um why the two ton lard as a team leader?). I think that was the first and only time something was clean on his back, becuase as his months and months of long hours, no rest, and no showers, his "dark blue" slowly faded to a "light blue" and by that time he got so huge that even the largest dark blue couldn't fit him. Now correct me if im wrong, but either Lydia or Judy went and bought a few "dark blue collar" shirts, ironed on a RGIS patches, and even once offered to wash his clothes for him. What a sport the ladies are for risking the 'Mondo'odor for entering their home.
He [Mondo] was even so close as to become an Area Manager, but was told by Marty that his ungodly smell was halting him to progress further within the district. But as you can see, that offer didn't motivate him. Mondo later began to hate me because I passed him and ventured out to the Bay Area (before I returned to 414 as Area Manager)And oh by the way, maybe the reason Mondo always had Jennel in high regards, was for the fact she would give him the SafeWay/Liquior store runs changing checkout boards, as well as being the Mystery shopper during those "off months" when it was slow. So he never bit the hand the feeds him so-to-speak. Mondo also knows that Nick C(Ops) was the guy the hired Jennel through the ranks to DM and lastly I heard, she was in Denver under Nick's charge. If Nick ever showed up at a store and if Mondo ever slipped and said anything bad about her, Nick would rip Mondo a new one, not to mention gossip this to Jennel personally. So anyway, I could continue, but I will leave a few more tales for later. You may call me Razzcal for now. (Some may already know who this is by now)
P.S.
side comment to "farm animals." We back in the days had clasifications to the animals, as follows:
cows = slow heffers that, sluggishly walked to the next area, "Milking the clock"
goats = Slow counters that tend to "eat up time", staying in one specific area for LONG periods of time
Hens or Cocks = Your basic cherry pecker "hunting and pecking for easy areas... All the time"
Sheep = Heard of people in one area of the store, jibber jabbin away, slowly counting "blah blah blah.... bah bah bah"
I hope you got a kick out of that :)
Former AM from 414:
Nick Cross hasn't had the Denver area for close to ten years, as it is not even part of the same division. Don't know where Jennel is now.
to Anonymous at 2:27 p.m.: How do you know who FB is? So how would you know if you met him? And, have you ever worked for him? If you haven't, then you really can't say what he is like to work for. He has a hundred different personalities that he uses to fit the situation. One for upper management, and one for the auditors that are not "his".
If you have met him and he is currently a DM and you met agentskelly's DM, then we can assume you travel a lot in the Northeast. Are you an Ops Manager?
Creep is too nice a word for him when you have been a victim of his anger and temper.
Yeah, as soon as the sex offender thing came up, I immediately wondered about that part of the application dealing with criminal convictions.
I'm sure a lot of people have lied on that part of the application, but that wouldn't be unique to RGIS. I only remember two situations were I knew of someone doing that. The first time we had someone who had shown up in the computer has having worked in a neighboring district, so I called to ask the DM there how reliable or useful the auditor was. The DM told me she had actually fired the auditor for no-shows, so I went back and looked at the app, and it said she hadn't worked for RGIS previously. So I just told her I was letting her go for the false statement. This without her ever working in our district.
The second time, I had someone who put down that she had worked in our office, and it was right about the time I transferred there to become an AM, almost three years earlier. Since I didn't remember her, I checked the computer to see what reason was given for her leaving.
The computer said she had been terminated ONE year earlier because she failed to report for her first store. So I coaxed a bit of information from her and she said that she had come back at that time, but the first day she couldn't find the store so she just went home and forgot about. On every occasion I've told this story to a team leader, they always say, "But you hired her back anyway." And I tell them no, I said I really didn't need someone who took that approach and sent her on her way.
I was with RGIS for 16 years, including 9 as a team leader, one as an AAM, and three as an AM. And in all that time, out of the dozens of people I saw rehired after a termination for no-shows, NOT ONE ever worked out the second time. Or the third, or fourth....
I never had the experience of working for a district without a DM, and actually all but one of the DMs I worked for knew what they were doing. One was actually TOO knowledgeable, and one of the most dishonest people I have ever met (he actually TOLD people he was a liar), but that could be a whole blog unto itself. But with one other exception, my DMs were good guys who actually took the time to make sure their new team leaders were trained properly. In fact, one of them is still a personal friend with whom I stay in touch.
Razzcal: Your comments are just too funny! Even though I wasn't around for the blue-shirt period, I can so picture it in my mind, Mondo's greasy gross carcass fouling up yet another article of clothing. How was it that clothes didn't just disintegrate while on his body? Gross. But how nice of Lydia (I didn't know Judy) to offer to do that for Mondo. And yes, risking the foul stench entering their homes! I love it.
I remember once Shannon telling us that she got a ride to a store once in Mondo's Jeep. She had a sweater which she left in the jeep, and at some point Mondo removed his sweatshirt and tossed it into his car, on top of Shannon's sweater. Shannon said that when she went back to the Jeep and retrieved her sweater it really stank of Mondo. Barf.
Barbara, another auditor, said that Mondo asked her one time to stop at his house and pick up a portable that he had forgotten to bring to the inventory. Barbara said that when she walked into Mondo's house the awful smell almost knocked her over.
The hatred of you by Mondo because you passed him up on the RGIS ladder sounds so typical of him. He was always jealous when managers would praise other people's counting, and not his. Man what a loser he was (and is).
I vaguely remember Nick. Mondo once told everyone that Nick was caught one time with his pants down. Literally and figuratively. Nick was banging some female auditor during a Kmart inventory. They were in the lunch room going at it. Someone walked in and...oops!
So that's where the term "goats" came from. Gross Mondo used that term frequently, especially for one guy named LeBane. LeBane was a rather slow counter, but a nice person. Mondo used to call him a goat and all sorts of unpleasant things. And LeBane was a minister! When we found this out we used to tell Mondo that he was going to hell when he died. I'm sure this wasn't news to him.
The Refugee: I know what you mean about former auditors getting rehired. The same thing went on in my district all the time too. And just as you wrote, when they were rehired they never worked out a second time either. I guess it just shows you how desperate for warm bodies some RGIS districts are.
Just to clarify about Nick...
He was caught by RGIS employees at an inventory with his pants down, but it wasn't K-mart, it was Longs in Sonoma. He was receiving oral from TL Darlene under the table while keying backroom pre-counts... I wonder who ate the jelly filled dougnhut that day!!??!!?
He was also caught making out with Darlene at a Mervyn's. (By the store Manager nonetheless.) He was promoted shortly after to Ops. Way to go Nick!!
anon. at 4:20 pm: Eeuww! A TL giving a BJ to Nick! Gross. I mean, I've seen the guy, and he's no oil painting, you know what I mean?
I didn't know TL Darlene, but geez, what a loser she must have been. I hope she had her kneepads on.
How was this incident not grounds for immediate dismissal? For both of them? Instead, Nick gets promoted? What happened to Darlene? Yet another example of why RGIS sucks.
Seems that we're at the point of implosion now. Two districts have merged, and we are short TLs, AAMs, AMs, ATLs, and even auditors.... We're working like crazy too, no rest for the weary. Not enough people means the people we do have work alot more. It'd be nice to reach a nice balance. I never minded the extra hours one week if the next week is a bit slow.
I've been scheduled to work as many as 12 stores in 7 days. Since I work only nights, this is, to say the very least, impossible. When do I sleep? Needless to say, I decline half of the shifts regardless of what they might think of me for this.
I don't know when the people who run stores sleep. It's insane! This merge hasn't made anything easier on anyone.
We seem to continuously hire nimrods who can't count or who don't care how much time they spend in a store, so they dawdle along. I walk in to nearly every store with the feeling that every inventory going well, much less ending, falls on me.
We've even had people flewn in to help us get through our inventories. One group was obviously quite accustomed to having regular breaks. When denied a break, one guy said to a manager, rather boldly and loudly "no wonder you can't get people to help you out". I suspect we won't be seeing him again.
But I stick around. There are still enough benefits to working the job, and as long as I can decline shifts, I can keep it reasonable.
BTW, I think one post a week is adaquate. I go through phazes where I check often and then I don't check at all. By posting less, it gives me a chance to absorb the story and comments. It also gives us more time to go back and forth and reply to comments, don't you think?
Once you run out of topics to write about, you might let others start topics by emailing you their own stories! Seems this is really the only truley annonymous place where people can post about the job.
ROFL to annonymous and the farm animals!
arzon: Your district is starting to sound exactly like mine. My sympathies!
And your idea of getting people to submit their own stories for publication in this blog is an excellent one. Although anyone can start their own blog here at blogger.com if they want to. It's free, and let me tell you very cathartic as well.
Whew, you folks are all are all over the board here. You seem to jump from coast to coast and current to history. What is an implosion? Why is NY?NJ shitty? What happened to the old VP and is there a new VP for the Northeast? What is an OPS Mgr? Is there more to these stories? What is an FB?
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