Open the door.
On Wednesday I drove up to the City, to buy a couple things at Best Buy (I bought a 512MB Flash Drive for $20!) and then I made a stop in to Borders.
I worked at Borders for 5 years, and I haven't set a foot in the store since I quit in early 2003. The biggest reason why I left was because, even though I had worked countless hours over the years, I was refused UNPAID time off for the birth of Ryan. I had already dropped down to part-time, and I had cleared it with the evil General Manager to take a couple weeks off, then a week before Ryan's due date, she says to me "Oh, I don't think we can do that. If you want time off, then we will need to do it as a resignation, and then you can reapply once you want to start working again." That incident left such a bad taste in my literary mouth that I have refused to go to that store ever since. But I broke down with an intense desire to browse the shelves that I steeled myself and pulled open the double doors.
It has long been held that smell is one of the most potent memory triggers, and that was certainly true for me. But as I walked around, and saw the shelves, and remembered the specific sections, and just settled in, it was like opening a door in my brain. The door led to memories that I haven't thought about since I finished my final shift on that January evening in '03.
I thought about the 4 months that I spent bleary-eyed, working the overnight shift while the store was being remodeled, and then just shelving books. Then I remember my time as Inventory Lead Clerk. I was so dopey back then, so serious, and hardly ever talking to anyone. Most people didn't even know I spoke, until we started having Tuesday night barbecues at The House. Then came my time as a Supervisor. Most notable in the fact that I didn't know I was becoming a supervisor until we had a store-wide staff meeting about corporate restructuring. We were all told that there would be no more lead clerks, and I raised my hand and asked, what happens to my job then, and Evil General Manager (EGM) looks at me in front of the whole staff and says "Didn't anyone meet with you? You are going to be the Shelving Supervisor."
That began over a year of getting up at 5:15 am, to be at the store at 6 freaking AM. During that time I busted my ass, worked my fingers to the bone, and so on and so forth. Often doing shelving, and fill-in Cash Reconciliation, and the on-site IT guy. I even completed a server changeout while I was there. But I was mostly talked through it by some idiot on the telephone.
Then I made The Mistake. I put family before the company. I took two weeks of FMLA time for Holly being born, and then came back as a part-time bookseller. Three nights a week of retail fun. The key thing is that my wage dropped to a bookseller's wage, but a bookseller who had been working there for 5 years. So I think I was making almost $9.00 an hour, if not more. And that is extremely significant. The EGM was going through at this time and purging anyone who had been there a long time, on the grounds of having to enforce the rules about lateness (Supposedly she had no control over that, the home office told her to fire the specific people, after their names went on reports to HQ, but being a supervisor I know that is a big fat lie. There are no reports that go to the home office about who is 5 minutes late to work.) It is all about payroll money. I was working 24 hours a week at $9.00/hour. If you chuck me out and then get some slob in to run the registers for $6.50/hour or whatever minimum wage is, then you can squeeze an extra 9 hours out of them for the same amount that you would pay me for 24 hours. The EGM did that to about 5 or 6 people that I recall, within the span of 6 months.
But you know what you get when you do that, a crappy store. You get a store full of people who don't know the bestsellers from 6 months ago. That leads to a loss of revenue (believe me, in the book business title awareness, and author recognition are really important), which leads to more payroll cuts, which leads to more loss of revenue. If the books aren't making it to the shelves where the customers can find them, they won't sell. For every one person that asks you for a book that wasn't on the shelf, 4 have walked out the door without bothering to ask.
When you fail to try to make your employees goal as close as you can to the business' goals, you will not succeed.
Oh, and this is a cool article.
I worked at Borders for 5 years, and I haven't set a foot in the store since I quit in early 2003. The biggest reason why I left was because, even though I had worked countless hours over the years, I was refused UNPAID time off for the birth of Ryan. I had already dropped down to part-time, and I had cleared it with the evil General Manager to take a couple weeks off, then a week before Ryan's due date, she says to me "Oh, I don't think we can do that. If you want time off, then we will need to do it as a resignation, and then you can reapply once you want to start working again." That incident left such a bad taste in my literary mouth that I have refused to go to that store ever since. But I broke down with an intense desire to browse the shelves that I steeled myself and pulled open the double doors.
It has long been held that smell is one of the most potent memory triggers, and that was certainly true for me. But as I walked around, and saw the shelves, and remembered the specific sections, and just settled in, it was like opening a door in my brain. The door led to memories that I haven't thought about since I finished my final shift on that January evening in '03.
I thought about the 4 months that I spent bleary-eyed, working the overnight shift while the store was being remodeled, and then just shelving books. Then I remember my time as Inventory Lead Clerk. I was so dopey back then, so serious, and hardly ever talking to anyone. Most people didn't even know I spoke, until we started having Tuesday night barbecues at The House. Then came my time as a Supervisor. Most notable in the fact that I didn't know I was becoming a supervisor until we had a store-wide staff meeting about corporate restructuring. We were all told that there would be no more lead clerks, and I raised my hand and asked, what happens to my job then, and Evil General Manager (EGM) looks at me in front of the whole staff and says "Didn't anyone meet with you? You are going to be the Shelving Supervisor."
That began over a year of getting up at 5:15 am, to be at the store at 6 freaking AM. During that time I busted my ass, worked my fingers to the bone, and so on and so forth. Often doing shelving, and fill-in Cash Reconciliation, and the on-site IT guy. I even completed a server changeout while I was there. But I was mostly talked through it by some idiot on the telephone.
Then I made The Mistake. I put family before the company. I took two weeks of FMLA time for Holly being born, and then came back as a part-time bookseller. Three nights a week of retail fun. The key thing is that my wage dropped to a bookseller's wage, but a bookseller who had been working there for 5 years. So I think I was making almost $9.00 an hour, if not more. And that is extremely significant. The EGM was going through at this time and purging anyone who had been there a long time, on the grounds of having to enforce the rules about lateness (Supposedly she had no control over that, the home office told her to fire the specific people, after their names went on reports to HQ, but being a supervisor I know that is a big fat lie. There are no reports that go to the home office about who is 5 minutes late to work.) It is all about payroll money. I was working 24 hours a week at $9.00/hour. If you chuck me out and then get some slob in to run the registers for $6.50/hour or whatever minimum wage is, then you can squeeze an extra 9 hours out of them for the same amount that you would pay me for 24 hours. The EGM did that to about 5 or 6 people that I recall, within the span of 6 months.
But you know what you get when you do that, a crappy store. You get a store full of people who don't know the bestsellers from 6 months ago. That leads to a loss of revenue (believe me, in the book business title awareness, and author recognition are really important), which leads to more payroll cuts, which leads to more loss of revenue. If the books aren't making it to the shelves where the customers can find them, they won't sell. For every one person that asks you for a book that wasn't on the shelf, 4 have walked out the door without bothering to ask.
When you fail to try to make your employees goal as close as you can to the business' goals, you will not succeed.
Oh, and this is a cool article.
posted by Tim @ 7:30 PM
2 Comments:
At 7:49 PM ,
liam said...
what a great blog on borders. i made my mistakes at borders but i have always maintained the main reason i was fired cause i made too much money for not being a supervisor.
At 1:59 PM ,
Kyle Wash said...
I was in there two weeks ago to pick up the new Harry Potter Book. Chad is still there with his shaved head and Dave was there.
i've noticed my past few visits, they dont have people there to help you find stuff like they did.
They have alos added more crap to there floor, like over-priced cards and book marks and those tiny little books all over the place.
I usually go to Barnes and Noble now, its a bookstore.
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