First of all, it's officially autumn!
Despite my absolute hatred for the cold, I do really like autumn and winter, and I enjoy the build up to Christmas of October and November too. I also enjoy that it's acceptable to admit you're cold and put on as many clothes as possible at this time of year, unlike when a cloud covers the sun for all of a minute on the only sunny day in July, when apparently, it is not.
But this post isn't going to be about the weather, although unlike the rest of them, it will actually be about something.
Most people who know me will know that I used to work in a shop (I worked there for nearly 5 years so if you didn't know that, come on, step up your game). I've had enough of a break from it for this to (hopefully) not turn into a rant, and more an idea I had after something mentioned in a meeting about why small businesses experience so many difficulties when they're trying to trade outside their member state. Turns out the best conclusion we reached was that they don't tell anyone about these problems, or at least not the right people, they grumble and complain to people around them, but don't tell the people who could actually make a difference, so they never feel like there's enough interest in an issue to change anything. So they don't.
Away from the fact that if anyone demands to be served faster because they have a train to catch, I will, without doubt serve them intentionally slowly (that's just poor time management skills, I'm not your PA), by far the complaint I heard most, is that we were understaffed.
Now, I get it, they don't want to wait ages to be served, they don't appreciate the shop being a mess, and I get that, I really do. I don't want that to happen either, I want to go home on time, and I want to serve customers who don't yell at me. The only difference is our approach to this problem, the fact that I'm here for 10 hours of the day, means that by mid-morning I've basically gotten over it, at which point they've just started making their complaint. Loudly, and in my direction.
When we get down to it, I usually agree with the customer, we probably should have more staff. Unfortunately, I don't actually have the power to hire more staff, or allocate more money for more staff, even the management of the store often won't have the power to do that. So what they're basically doing is yelling at me because I don't work at Head Office, which honestly I feel is a little unfair considering I'm only 20 and I only work part-time. So even though short-term they might feel better once they've taken out whatever is bothering them on a unsuspecting shop assistant; long-term, nobody who could make the situation better is any wiser to the problem, which isn't really going to help either of us.
Calling the shop assistant a 'little/ugly/stupid bitch' definitely doesn't help, so probably best not do that either. But calling Head Office and suggesting in a calm and considered manner that they allocate more staff to a certain store might just do it, especially if everyone else who would have otherwise shouted at said shop assistants does that too.
This isn't really directed at anyone (except the hundreds of people who've yelled at me at work - I've bitched about you hundreds of times, just so you know), and it's definitely something I'm guilty of doing all the time; just complaining about something without actually effectively tackling the problem by telling anyone who could do anything about it. So after writing this I guess I should probably stop doing that.
I tried to make that interesting, but I might have failed, more photos and pointless updates to follow soon though.
Au revoir!
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment