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A few months back, my brother and I applied for the same job- a supervisor position in a pretty stationary shop. I remember that when i went to hand in my CV, the dick-head assistant manager was really rude and cold towards me and I knew I wouldn't hear back. My brother, however, got the manager when he handed in his CV, and he actually got the job.
And I was muchly upset for some time, but now I know I dodged a bullet and my brother took it for me.
See since then, my brother has had to act much like management anyway- with maybe the occassional management cover from another store, he's been almost running the place. Now I reckoned I could have done a supervisor job with training, but not a management one.
His own manager was signed off for "stress". I do roll my eyes at it a bit at that when you consider at one point my brother was literally working 3 jobs on maybe a couple of hours sleep a night. My brother had to give up his dream job because the recession means there's next to no money in it now, and now works between this shop and a bar. He was signed off work from the bar a few months back for exhaustion, but once the period was over he was right back in there.
And while the manager was off on his stress leave, a supervisor with no managerial training was running the place. No I'm not sure what happened to the AM during all this, I just know he wasn't there.
I know my brother even had to fire a newbie who was throwing sickies on days that she had previously tried to get off work (and had even stupidly admitted she was throwing the sicky because she wanted the day off). My brother being evil enjoyed the experience but it seems wrong to me that a supervisor is doing all this- and not on management pay.
Well I popped in to visit my bro at the weekend. I have to say, his team are appallingly crap.
My brother didn't notice me at first as he was leaving the shop floor. Figuring he'd be back soon, I hung around near the door for a bit, and at first I thought one of the staff was watching me. Then I realised he wouldn't know a shop-lifter if it came and stole his soul...despite how busy the shop was, he was aimlessly ambling around looking for things to "tidy".
15 minutes went by, and I asked if my bro was on a break. He looked confused and said he thought he'd come back. I said I didn't think so because I hadn't seen him come back through the door. He so "oh" and carried on ambling.
About 5 minutes later, I overhear him ask another colleague. A few minutes later, my bro comes back and we step into a corner out of the way to have a quick chat. It appears he's in charge again today.
Haven't seen him since mid-October, so we had a little catch up about the place he moved to etc. He then told me that the dick-head AM was back and had decided to place the entire staff back on probation (my own manager has told me you can't do that!
), so my bro was going to use his discount for my xmas shopping but couldn't (fair does, don't want him to get in trouble).
I'm guessing maybe a couple of reasons for this. For one, my brother is not a manager, so I wouldn't be surprised if maybe his work isn't 100% up to par- but he's kept the shop going very well considering he hasn't been trained for the role! I rememebr him saying that they didn't like the way he put stock out on display etc. But I don't think they can blame him for that if thats the case, he was literally thrown in the deep end and left to run the place with little guidance.
And the other reason is these staff members seem to be really dippy.
They're all gormless! On one hand we have the ambling-around-guy doing nothing at all, and then we have 2 girls on the tills. Now the first one was cute but a bit dippy, and didn't seem able to read the screen properly. I could see on the chip and pin pad that I was being charged £X.xx and I knew that to be right because I had worked it out to be that. She said it was £X.YY oops. Maybe nothing. Definately nothing compared to the next girl on the next till. As I'm saying bye to my bro, the girl on the next till suddenly freaks out and cries "WHAT SHOULD I DO OMG!!!" She then dashed out of the shop- turns out she put a customer's card through and somehow completely didn't notice that her screen didn't continue and that her till only printed a rejected reciept because the card was declined and let the customer just walk out with unpaid stock. I wish I could say this is a simple mistake because in my experience, it is NOT. You get 2 reciepts from a card transaction- merchant and customer- but if the card is decline only one reciept is printed and the screen won't clear because the transaction isn't complete. She missed all of these things. So she went looking for the customer. My brother gave me a very tired look and said "Well, I better go and fix this..."
Something tells me he deals with this shit on a daily basis....
And I was muchly upset for some time, but now I know I dodged a bullet and my brother took it for me.
See since then, my brother has had to act much like management anyway- with maybe the occassional management cover from another store, he's been almost running the place. Now I reckoned I could have done a supervisor job with training, but not a management one.
His own manager was signed off for "stress". I do roll my eyes at it a bit at that when you consider at one point my brother was literally working 3 jobs on maybe a couple of hours sleep a night. My brother had to give up his dream job because the recession means there's next to no money in it now, and now works between this shop and a bar. He was signed off work from the bar a few months back for exhaustion, but once the period was over he was right back in there.
And while the manager was off on his stress leave, a supervisor with no managerial training was running the place. No I'm not sure what happened to the AM during all this, I just know he wasn't there.
I know my brother even had to fire a newbie who was throwing sickies on days that she had previously tried to get off work (and had even stupidly admitted she was throwing the sicky because she wanted the day off). My brother being evil enjoyed the experience but it seems wrong to me that a supervisor is doing all this- and not on management pay.
Well I popped in to visit my bro at the weekend. I have to say, his team are appallingly crap.
My brother didn't notice me at first as he was leaving the shop floor. Figuring he'd be back soon, I hung around near the door for a bit, and at first I thought one of the staff was watching me. Then I realised he wouldn't know a shop-lifter if it came and stole his soul...despite how busy the shop was, he was aimlessly ambling around looking for things to "tidy".
15 minutes went by, and I asked if my bro was on a break. He looked confused and said he thought he'd come back. I said I didn't think so because I hadn't seen him come back through the door. He so "oh" and carried on ambling.
About 5 minutes later, I overhear him ask another colleague. A few minutes later, my bro comes back and we step into a corner out of the way to have a quick chat. It appears he's in charge again today.
Haven't seen him since mid-October, so we had a little catch up about the place he moved to etc. He then told me that the dick-head AM was back and had decided to place the entire staff back on probation (my own manager has told me you can't do that!
), so my bro was going to use his discount for my xmas shopping but couldn't (fair does, don't want him to get in trouble). I'm guessing maybe a couple of reasons for this. For one, my brother is not a manager, so I wouldn't be surprised if maybe his work isn't 100% up to par- but he's kept the shop going very well considering he hasn't been trained for the role! I rememebr him saying that they didn't like the way he put stock out on display etc. But I don't think they can blame him for that if thats the case, he was literally thrown in the deep end and left to run the place with little guidance.
And the other reason is these staff members seem to be really dippy.
They're all gormless! On one hand we have the ambling-around-guy doing nothing at all, and then we have 2 girls on the tills. Now the first one was cute but a bit dippy, and didn't seem able to read the screen properly. I could see on the chip and pin pad that I was being charged £X.xx and I knew that to be right because I had worked it out to be that. She said it was £X.YY oops. Maybe nothing. Definately nothing compared to the next girl on the next till. As I'm saying bye to my bro, the girl on the next till suddenly freaks out and cries "WHAT SHOULD I DO OMG!!!" She then dashed out of the shop- turns out she put a customer's card through and somehow completely didn't notice that her screen didn't continue and that her till only printed a rejected reciept because the card was declined and let the customer just walk out with unpaid stock. I wish I could say this is a simple mistake because in my experience, it is NOT. You get 2 reciepts from a card transaction- merchant and customer- but if the card is decline only one reciept is printed and the screen won't clear because the transaction isn't complete. She missed all of these things. So she went looking for the customer. My brother gave me a very tired look and said "Well, I better go and fix this..."
Something tells me he deals with this shit on a daily basis....
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