Monday and I DON'T Go in Early

NOT going in early on Monday coupled with the new rule that we have to have our order books turned in by 12, just doesn't make sense to me. The idea is that I should have been able to get my order done on Saturday. This is some more "fairy-tale" thinking.

WELCOME TO MY WORLD!!!

Saturdays are family day.

Bring all the kids and let them play with the merchandise, strowing it hither and yon for their enjoyment, cast it aside before going to the front and then we have to go around and gather up all this stray merchandise-- and the drink cups that have been set aside yet half full of whatever drink someone THOUGHT they had to finish in our store--and put all of this stuff where it belongs BEFORE we can go home.

This is also the day hubby comes in.

He's otherwise occupied through the week, but today he's there and this is like a foreign country to him. He needs help to find anything he's looking for. And, of course, the young teens... they also need help.. and the groups of older teenagers who are having a great time laughing, joking and think it's HILARIOUS to mix up rows and rows of ribbon, or switch products on the pegs, or take one sheet of paper out of each slot and put it in a pile on top of the packaged paper.

This is NOT even taking into account the thieves who open up packages, take out what they want, and throw the empty packages up under my stickers or lift up my packages of paper and "hide" them there. (But they don't limit their stowing empty packages to my department.)

AND-- and this one I have NEVER UNDERSTOOD-- why do people who decide they don't want something they picked up in another part of the store, think they have to HIDE IT? I mean, you'd think there was a sign that said, If you leave the department with this merchandise, you have to purchase it.

EVERY DAY I look at my pegs and shelves and find that people have lifted up my merchandise and put totally unrelated merchandise under or behind to conceal it--often something from another area of the store.

NOT STOLEN stuff. Just something they don't want.

WHY DO THEY TRY TO HIDE IT?

I'm good at figuring out reasons for people's actions (even if what I figure out is not exactly what happened I can usually give them "benefit of the doubt") but, for the life of me, I cannot come up with any kind of good reason for hiding something that is in perfectly good condition that a customer has just decided they do not want.


Nor does it take into account that before we leave, we have to pull ad signs and be sure the store is in "perfect" condition: all merchandise fronted, all tables and end caps checked.

Point being, Saturday is not a good day to assume anyone is going to get an order done that takes close to six hours to do... when you are only scheduled for seven. Yes, an hour is cut off of that day... because with the pay raises, they can't afford to give us as many hours.

The new boss got an afternoon off on Saturday--because our Supervisor came in and worked-- but he came back to close the store. (He's the man with a key.) Anyway, I asked if I could come in an hour earlier today so that I'd be closer to getting my order done by 12. He agreed to that, so I'll at least have one more hour than before to finish up.

Last week, a day after the orders had gone in, he noticed one of my tables was quite bare. I said, "Yes, I noticed that too, but I turned my book in like I was told to do at twelve, so it didn't get ordered." So, he let me know that he STILL WANTED "a good order" and that I was to get it in as quickly as possible. (Another reason for me to like him: He actually can see when a rule needs some adjustment to make sense-- unlike "someone" who figured out the solution by telling me just to "not order if there's one there".)

There's a perfectly GOOD REASON-- believe it or not-- for wanting these orders done earlier. Our Secretary is ABSOLUTELY SWAMPED with all kinds of paper work that the DM requires her to send in to him on Mondays, plus having to figure payroll for the week before, count the drawers out from Saturday-- which is usually a bigger day on income-- and THEN she has to key in all the order books and transmit the order before she leaves. SO I CAN CERTAINLY UNDERSTAND why they want books in sooner. What they are shooting for is for everyone to start ordering earlier, which for our store means in the preceding week. They are hoping by this that the keying in of the orders can start on Saturdays, so it won't take so long on Mondays to get done. But not every department has the same estimated time for ordering. Some of them are half what mine is.

I expect this will all work out in time. Meantime, I've adopted the attitude: DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD. Let them find out it won't work and let them make the adjustments necessary to make it work. (As the bare table did.) Don't give them a hard time. They have all kinds of things being thrown at them and they are trying to find solutions that work for as many as possible. And I certainly feel for the secretary.

Gotta get up from here.... I need to leave in an hour and a half.