♫ It's beginning to look a lot like a clusterfuck ♪

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Somebody please shoot me. I really do not wish to go on living.

The managerial situation at the swamp can officially be declared a dumpster fire. My new manager? Guy's totally useless. He's even more uncommunicative than my old manager, who I thought was getting slack in letting us know what was going on toward the end of her time. He also doesn't appear to believe in us too much, despite him always saying he does.

Like last Saturday night, when we were going to finish filling our truck and do some other stuff. He told somebody to come in for third shift to help us because he wasn't sure we could get our truck done, even though that amounted to only a few pallets of fill and then backstocking anything.

Oh, did I mention this person he asked to come in is a minor? There was much consternation and consultation with LP, because we weren't sure she could be working overnight, what with her being a minor and all. I guess LP said it was okay, but this girl would've been no help to us anyway since she barely knows how to put up ad signs and doesn't know how to fill or backstock freight at all. So we just had her take down old ad signs for a couple hours until the store closed and then sent her home.

We also have a new manager for the front end; all I ever see her doing is walking around with Moon Unit and chatting with my new manager. So she's pretty much useless.

Oh, and Moon Unit? She's still festering around. Someday I will get to chronicling the abject stupidity and arrogance contained within her. Maybe. The latest speculation is she's mad she hasn't been given her own store to run yet. When it comes to new managerial openings, Moon Unit has thrown more panties than a crowd of 7th-graders at a Justin Bieber concert, and nobody's bothered to pick any of them up.

And then we come to the seasonal hires, who are a poor crop at best. There's this one chick who I'd call a clueless ditz, but that would be an insult to all clueless ditzes. Today she was called to carry out a TV for a customer. She went upstairs in the backroom and brought out the wrong TV. One more expensive than the one the customer bought. At least she stopped to get the receipt checked, or else LP would've shit their pants.

Then she returned the incorrect TV to the backroom and got out another one. This one was wrong too. She took that one back upstairs and then disappeared for a while until I was summoned to get the correct TV out of the back and bring it to the customer. And she's considered one of the better ones. *rubs temples*

For an idea of what the less-gifted temps are like, there's this one girl who I swear does nothing except stare vacantly and touch random items, as though "straightening" them. At least management's already decided not to hang on to her after the holidays.

Then there's this other lady, who'd probably be a good employee if somebody actually took the time to train her decent, but knowing how we do things she was probably trained by somebody who'd been there only a week themselves.

If I make it to Christmas Day without winding up in an institution it will be a miracle.

[Tama]

Holy shit.

I know the elves 'round my Malmart were ridiculous but they're not this bad...

And none of my managers...where does your store get these idiots?

I swear, that manager'll end up like my store's manager:

"someone wrote this on the wall"
"Oh yeah? What was it?"
"For a good time call [store number] and ask for Horndog Higglesworth"

[Kristev]

It's a Christmas disaster! I can see it all unfolding already. And just when I thought we wouldn't have any wreck and ruin this holiday season.

Why are you all looking at me like I'm Tabitha from Passions?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Wanna know what's really fun--and by fun I mean not fun?

Finding out that over half a day's morning autopulls were just faked right out of the system. As in the person pulling said they pulled the item but didn't actually do so.

This was due to the guy who was originally assigned to do those pulls going home early because he was sick, so management just pawned off the job to Ms. My Boyfriend Killed His Kitty Giggle. They really should've checked into it when she claimed to have pulled and filled over 250 SKUs in four hours. That would be pushing it even for me.

Terrible time to be doing this too. The store is crazy busy. Sales are really good. We just didn't have time to go back and deep-request everything, even with the truck arriving late last night.

[Rapscallion]

Finding out that over half a day's morning autopulls were just faked right out of the system. As in the person pulling said they pulled the item but didn't actually do so.

I assume that nothing's happened as a result.

Damn, I'm good at this.

Rapscallion

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I assume that nothing's happened as a result.

Damn, I'm good at this.

Rapscallion

Yup.

It would be hard to catch anyway if nobody says anything. You'd have to know how much was in the system to begin with and then check to see what was actually waiting to be filled.

[Pixilated]

Title is hilarious -- especially with the little musical notes -- but the situation sure isn't. Sorry you are having to deal with this, especially during a season that's supposed to be filled with good cheer and peace towards all, and that sorta stuff.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And now we come to Big Dumb Guy, or BDG.

BDG took part of the shift of a coworker on the unload team, so he was inflicted on me for four hours. Actually three hours and 45 minutes because he bugged out 15 minutes early. This swap was apparently approved by management but never communicated to us.

(By the by, it appears we're back to the old rules where any manager can approve a shift swap. I guess it was just too much trouble to make sure shift swaps were approved only by the manager who'd directly be affected by them. I foresee an uptick in the number of switched shifts.)

BDG took up his position on the crew--and had to be reminded to pick up all the boxes that go on his side of the conveyor belt. Also he stacked the boxes about as terribly as a person can. He's worked truck enough to know that ll the carts and pallets of freight have to be moved eventually, so stack them neatly.

We then took our lunch break sans BDG, who we told to start filling paper products and detergent from the truck. We arrived downstairs to find him just pulling the first pallet of detergent to the floor.I don't know what he did for half an hour while we were gone, and don't want to.

BDG and I filled detergent and took the backstock to the backroom to put away. BDG had me scan everything and locate it for him, because he did not have a scanner nor the initiative to actually go look for one. So I excused myself and brought back a scanner and holster for him.

When we finished putting away the detergent and paper, I assigned BDG to take the eight or so boxes of baby HBA off their pallet, fill them, and then backstock the excess, while I tackled some more of the holiday Puffs from my last post that came in on the truck. I figured I'd redo the endstand the way it should have been last truck. But as I was doing this I was timing BDG because I wanted him to finish his stuff before I did.

I took me about 20 minutes to fill and backstock the Puffs. In that time BDG filled the baby but hadn't gotten around to backstocking yet.

When BDG finished his backstocking, my supervisor assigned him to help me fill housewares freight, and I already had a pallet of the stuff pulled to the floor. So naturally BDG went and took one of her bins of backstock from domestics and was trying to fill from that. Supervisor told him to go find me and help me with housewares. So then he went over to household chemicals and was starting to fill that until she yelled at him to get with the program and find me and help me. Seriously, you've been here a month and still don't know what housewares is?

As we were filling, BDG asked me "Is (supervisor) always like this?" I told him she expects a lot from people.

Later on, after BDG left, I told supervisor never to stick BDG with me again. I could've gotten more work done by myself anyway.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And also last night, I had to take an outside call for furniture because it had been paged eight times without a response. In all likelihood, this is due to my manager scheduling three temps to work the salesfloor last night, none of whom are any good.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And now sometime in the last week, my manager sold a customer a display recliner simply because the customer got ugly with him.

Customer wasn't exchanging a defective one, in which case I'd more understand giving up the display. He just came out with an attitude of "I want, so you will give me."

The recliner had since come back in on a truck, so this morning I assembled it and put it on the floor. Took only a few minutes but still should not have been necessary.

Later on I found out we may be selling a display office chair because another store called us trying to locate it for a customer, somebody at my store had taken the last one previously for somebody else, nobody deleted the backstock location, and somebody told the caller we had the chair but nobody bothered to check the backroom to make sure we actually had it. I suppose it works in my favor that customers supposedly coming from other stores seldom actually show up, but if this person does we'll have to give them the display so they don't drive all the way only to be told they can't have something we told them they could.

[Kristev]

The place could be an excellent study on human failure for the right sociologist.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Big Dumb Guy's name will now henceforth be changed to Big Lazy Dumb Guy, or BLDG.

This is because last night the following conversation took place.

Manager on duty: BLDG, how long are you here till?

BLDG: 6.

MOD: It is 4 now. There are 56 SKUs in the scanner needing to be pulled. Please have them done before you leave tonight.

BLDG: Sure, no problem.

*6:00 rolls around and BLDG is leaving for the night. He encounters MOD again.*

MOD: Did you get those pulls done?

BLDG: No, there's like 20 left.

MOD: Okay, and why didn't you get those pulls done? You had two hours.

BLDG: (Some other co-worker) is here. He can finish them.

MOD: There's no reason why you couldn't have gotten those pulls done. That's less than 30 SKUs to pull an hour. You should've been able to do that easily.

BLDG: Well, I'll do better next time.

The real WTF here is that there will apparently be a next time.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

So last night I'm on the forklift taking the last couple pallets off the trailer. Into the backroom strolls BLDG and I come reasonably close to hitting him.

Then I overhear him say to the guy working with me "I have five minutes until I punch in."

So I tell BLDG, in my hushed, serious tone is serious voice, that he is not allowed in the backroom unless and until he is punched in and working, and he is not allowed to have a bottle of Powerade or anything else back there unless he is unloading the truck, which he wouldn't have been (he had stopped back there to drop off his bottle of Powerade before punching in).

He leaves to finally clock in, and I notify my supervisor about this on the sly. Later that night, BLDG is up in my face, trying to act all intimidating, and demanding to know why I told my supervisor about him being in the backroom but not on the clock. I told him that was because she's in charge of the backroom and has a right to know about these things.

Whatever. Kid's not big; he's just fat. He doesn't scare me any.

Oh, and one other thing; Kid's got these big, sparkly, blingtastic earrings he like to wear, which just up the "bad motherf***** factor." Anyhow, the backing to one of his earrings fell out, and he was demanding I help him look for it. I told him next time he shouldn't come to work wearing anything he isn't prepared to lose or have broken.