| Mar. 14th, 2005 @ 11:59 am (no subject) |
|---|
Inherently, I work best under pressure. My mom does, and so do I. The best work I produce comes from the times where unlaziness is forced and a goal is in mind. The goal is interesting and some sort of stab at it is made as a function of time. Interestingly enough, it seems to apply to most realms of my thoughts, and hence actions. Lack of motivation is a powerful motivator in certain scenarios, which happened at the end of January and beginning of February.
The retail industry has one primary goal, and that is to make money. If you stand in its way, you are typically run over. Resistance is allowable, and cutthroat tactics are required. Best Buy loves money, a little more than they love their employees. They don’t really care how stressed their employees get on a given day, so long as the numbers add up to the requirements they set by the end of the day.
The Service department makes Best Buy only 1% of their revenue every day, if that. However, revenue does not equal profit, and after all’s said and done, 75% of our revenue equates to profit…unlike ANY other department. But the managers don’t seem to realize that. They shove impossible tasks on minimal labor every fucking weekend and the first question out of their mouths when they come talk to us is “what are we at right now?”. Then they’ll make some snide remark that the PCHO department has brought in 80% of our sales, so what are we doing?
Four people cannot handle a line out the door, new computer setups/customizations/ installations every 15 minutes, phone calls, the requests from the Customer Service girls (which we really have no problem doing since they’re in the same boat), and the sheer logistics of everything. Throw in a customer or two that snap and decide they want their unreasonable expectations met while every customer gets to hear about it…and…someone loses their job.
No, not me.
I got through the shouting match by eventually bitch-smacking the guy with pure fact, luckily with Electrical Engineering numbers and such. He got kicked out of our store for making a scene, shattering his laptop all over the floor, and quite simply yelling too much. But the day didn’t start there, no, it started with the fact that the schedule was changed midway through the week without anyone even asking. The new GM did this, and even though I like the way he does things HR will definitely hear about this. Having me come in 3 hours early, no, requiring me to when I was told different and thereby breaking my plans for a gorgeous day on Tybee…
Then the old GM who was demoted (for good reason) came back and had the nerve to ask me something that FOUR other managers had asked me that day, what the numbers were and then why hadn’t I done an e-learning (which I had done, he was just a moron and had an old report from 2 days ago)? Then he made a smart-ass comment about it at which I got very snotty, snapped back and made sure he knew there was nothing he could do about it. And he will also lose his job over it soon enough, as soon as the HR letter is done. For those that will ever be in such a position, you are NOT ALLOWED BY FEDERAL LAW to reprimand an employee in the presence of another employee. You are also not allowed to degrade an employee, especially in front of employees, and definitely not in a stressed environment, lest you create a hostile environment. So goodbye, Jackass, YOU’RE FIRED.
So 10 hours of bullshit, and I still got written up for not taking 2 lunches…yea…Best Buy doesn’t care about anything but its bottom line. Off at 11:30pm, how am I supposed to calm down from the worst pressure I’ve ever faced, where the only goal was to survive 10 hours without getting fired? So I went to Tybee, on a gorgeous night, alone. I drove 120 on the desolate roads to a secluded spot and just started walking.
Soooo many metaphors shot through my mind at this point, because the beach was lit just enough to see the outline of waves and the silhouette of the dune grass. Walking forward in the dark was rather chilling, as you can’t really see what you’re walking into except for the black horizon. You just know that the next step will have sand, and the water can’t just envelope you without warning. Kind of like what graduation brings.
I sat down on a dune watching the waves and the stars, thinking about whether or not the old GM deserves to lose his job or get demoted again, and whether the new GM should get a slap on the wrist for changing the schedule without notice or whether I should go talk to him about it. While I’m sitting there, a group walks by and a girl recognizes me from a time I’d helped her at Best Buy way back in September. We got to talking and I vented a lot, then she started venting a lot about an ex and her current, and then so did I (about the ex since there is no current). We wound up staying there till around 6am, at which point I finally got to see the first sunrise on Tybee that I’ve ever seen.
During this time, I told her about chaos theory and non-linear systems, and how normal everyday (linear) patterns just change on a whim exponentially and throw everything out of control…like the power grid in the US. Since she has no clue about math (SCAD design major…you’ll see her artwork on display downtown…good stuff!) I explained the sand castle example. You can do this yourself if you’re ever on the beach pondering such things.
Just start dumping sand in a pile. Dump it in the exact same spot every time, the same amount every time, thus adding to the top point of the castle every time. The sand runs down the sides fairly evenly, creating a nice cone shape. Then, one time, you dump the sand and one of the sides avalanches…the larger the sand castle the larger the avalanche and the larger the crater it creates. You’ve done nothing different, and theoretically there should be no cave-ins. But things are more complex than simple-minded people want to believe, and you can’t just keep putting sand on the same spot without restructuring it and reinforcing it every now and then (aka patting the sand down). Unless of course you want structure failures and a lop-sided sand castle…
I don’t even remember her name, which is sad, but it’s ok. It’ll probably happen again some time. But the point of the night was to figure out something towards the rest of my life after graduation, and she had the same anxieties as well but hers won’t become reality until Fall. Still will walk forward and not look back (much) from this point.
And of course some good news is plans are set for St. Patrick’s Day :D |
|  |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
gtemc2's journal
bouncy
annoyed
horny