Ah, it was a night, it was!
Pulls were light--around 1,000--but the truck was just shy of 2,000. We got hammered in the back room; we got done with freight around 4 and the backstock from the floor just started piling up around 5-ish.
There were three of us in the back room. We called it a night at 6 AM and went home, leaving a ton of backstock behind us.
The thing is, three people is enough for pulls, especially when the pulls are below 1,200. But a 2,000 piece truck means a lot of backstock, both direct (freight) and from the floor. I had three and a half pallets of toys, pet supplies, and diapers to handle, by myself, and the other two guys also had lots to do.
The lazy idiot team lead was basically in charge of the whole store last night. He walked through the back room a couple of times; he did not send back anyone else to help with the backstock which was piling up.
To make matters even more entertaining, I was backstocking the cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, etc, and the morons who were stocking those aisles just threw their backstock into the cart. End result? One bottle of fabric softener LEAKED all over the place, ruining several units of merchandise and leaving a nice mess for me to clean up. I was mad.
I had a shopping cart about 1/3 full of chargeback (broken or otherwise un-saleable merchandise) and I spent a good 15 minutes cleaning up the mess. Well, I realized, I'm leaving at 6 AM; the more time I spend cleaning up other people's messes, the less time I have for backstocking. It's not my fault and it's not my problem.
Earlier this year I applied for a promotion to "Music and movies specialist". Basically that's the guy who is in charge of the CDs, DVDs, and other things; it's a step up from "team member" and it means more money. I was passed over for someone else--someone else who was all buddy-buddy with the boss, you see. I have mentioned this before, about how the last three promotions had all been people who were friends with this particular boss.
ANYway....
The guy who got the "music and movies specialst" job is this guy named TURK. Today, TURK's department is going to be inspected by someone from the Regional office. We heard about this last week, and at a couple of team meetings he mentioned that such-and-such had to be done in MMB (HIS area).
I have heard, many times, from people who have worked with him, that he just does not work. He doesn't work; he screws around and leaves the work for others. He makes some token effort so the boss sees him doing his job, more or less, but the hard stuff he leaves for the people that are sent over to "help" him.
Well, this big visit is today. And last night, TURK wanted another guy--DUDE--to come and help him get his area squared away for the visit. But DUDE was not willing to; DUDE had his own work to do. And, in fact, DUDE finished his work and left at 6 AM, at the same time I and the other two backroom guys were leaving. >:}
I am having a very hard time having any sympathy for TURK or upper management. If I had been chosen for that promotion, that area would be 100% spic-and-span every night, and I would stay as late as was required to make sure it was 100% every night.
TURK? TURK leaves at 6 AM every day, regardless of what's done or not done. He half-asses just about everything, and leaves stuff half-done for others to complete. And I thought about what I would tell my boss if I was asked to go help TURK get his area done later this year, when it's driving Christmas sales through the roof, particularly if I was asked to stay late to do it:
"If you wanted me to stay late to do that job, you should have picked me for the promotion in the first place."
I mean, TURK got the promotion; he got the higher pay, the desk in the team lead office, the less-physical workload, and the RESPONSIBILITY. If he cannot meet that responsibility, perhaps the bosses ought to re-evaluate their decision, for crying out loud.
I won't stay late when I'm in the back room, because what happened tonight is typical. Nothing comes back from the floor until after around 4, 4:30, and then the back room is just flooded with backstock. With three guys working in the back room, there is just no way in HELL or God's green Earth that the job can be done by 6 AM.
Why should we have to stay late when the people working on the floor get to go home at 6 AM?
And I learned something very amusing while discussing these matters with the other two guys in the back room:
Another person who had been buddy-buddy with the boss JEHOSEPHAT, a guy named BUSTER, he got a special promotion: they basically created a team lead position for him. After JEHOSEPHAT moved to days, he created this new Team Lead position specifically for BUSTER, who then moved to days and was promoted into this new Team Lead position.
BUSTER was in that job for about a week; and then he stopped coming to work and never bothered to call to say why.
Are they trying to fill BUSTER's shoes? No, because that position was created just for him.
I find it hard to believe that JEHOSEPHAT could get away with such obvious nepotism. But apparently he has, and there appears to have been no real repercussions for all that.
Being friends with JEHOSEPHAT appears to be the way to get a promotion in that place. It's a pity I didn't understand that from the beginning.