After 1 1/2 Years of BS and Promises..

[Boochan]

...My Store's renovation has finally been completed.
The last old fixture was transported away this afternoon, and we put on the final touches today. It wasn't as good as we wanted, but its a huge transformation regardless. It was the only thing I hated about my little store before, but now that its fixed I am very happy in general with the whole thing, its all come in place and the place is no longer falling apart, our an absolute shambles as it used to be. Sales are up, praise is flowing in and its just so much easier to work with. It also means that customers don't struggle to get in with their supermarket trolleys, and that our store is finally wheelchair friendly (huge praise on both of these factors). The only downsides has been the people who come into the store to get various low priced crap we used to sell that just doesn't fit in with everything else (As I've mentioned in other threads, mainly Wire, Electrical Componentry and Tools), and having to listen to their rants and raving that how dare we remove something that they purchase every so often, and that they have to drive an extra Kilometer to [Store] to get it now that specially deals with all of that.

The other good part of it, though evil was been approved to transport away boxes upon boxes of old stock that had been sitting around, not doing anything for several months. There's still more of it out the back to go, and some other minor adjustments to make before I'd declare it done, but its close enough now for me to be satisfied.

It still angers me that after the plans first came to fruition when I JOINED THE COMPANY ended up been phased down (From a $110k Complete Renovation, which the only reason it wasnt done was because the owner of the mall is broke due to SubPrime Mortgage, and the planned renovation to our wing of the mall was cancelled, therefore we only got a $2k Refresh, Relayout and Remerch), but at least after all this time its finally done..

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Trust me, I know all about half-assed remodels.

When my store was done, they did two kinds of remodels: Full ones in which gondolas were cut down and moved around, new signing, new paint, new fixtures, floor tiles and ceiling tiles replaced. Then there were relays in which the gondolas were cut down and moved around and that was it.

My store got a relay. So for about 3 months we busted our humps taking crap off shelves, putting it back in the new spots, scrubbing shelves and basedecks like mad, helping customers get used to the new layout--and the store still looked like shit.

Then a year and a half later they decided to paint, replace signing and bring in some new fixtures. They couldn't even do this right. The "customer assistance" pole wraps were designed for metal poles; ours were drywall, so the pole wraps kept tipping over and sliding down the poles. We only got them all fixed just recently but some of them are still crooked.

Then they gave us new signs to go on the ends of our metal gondolas, announcing what was in the specific aisles. These were attached by two-sided foam tape, which doesn't stick the signs to the gondolas worth a shit so the keep falling off.

And the kicker: we too ended up with a bunch of stuff we weren't going to carry anymore, so we were instructed to box it all up to send it to different stores. Then right after we finish doing that, they change their minds and say we should sell it all at the store. So then we had to unpack all that shit and cram it anyplace we could just to get rid of it.

I sincerely wish they would have done it the right way the first time.

[Megg]

Our long awaited remodel is supposed to start in about a month. We will be closing for the remodel which means hours at the other store(s) for a while, but YAY!! We have so much equipment that is old and broken down, the store itself is older than dirt. They are gutting it. One of our other stores was completely demolished and rebuilt. It was awesome. I can see why they are trying to avoid that this time, structurally, the building is fine.

I am sooooo excited about this, you have no idea. I have only been waiting 3 years, but that's still a nice chunk of my life working in a crappy store. Our customers will not be too pleased, especially the high school kids, but they will love the new store I bet. I know I will!