Saturday, September 30, 2006

Running On Empty

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 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.

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.

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.