It's very rare that I run across a person that infuriates me as much as this person who worked at the store that I work at for a while.
She was brought in as an assistant manager in training. My manager is the trainer for our region, so it's natural that people are sent to us to be trained. No big deal. Unfortunately she really hadn't had a lot of experience in the company. The Regional Manager interviewed her and really wanted to give her an A.M. position but couldn't give it to her right away, so he put her into a store where she worked 3-6 hours a week basically ringing people through the cash. There were many, many things she didn't know.
It was incredibly unfair to throw her into a position where people expected that she knew things, which quite obviously she didn't. It was unfair to her, she was frustrated that people were asking her to do things when she didn't know how, she was frustrated because when she asked how to do things she had the impression that people were disappointed with her for not knowing how. We were frustrated because it was an extremely busy time of year, and we needed her to know what she was doing without asking a zillion times. She took meticulous notes, but then when it was time to repeat the task her notes were nowhere to be found and she had to ask again. It was particularly frustrating to me, because since I've been working there for two years, I have the knowledge to do all the things she was supposed to be doing, and because someone had to do them, I ended up doing them, but I didn't get paid for it.
As time went on my patience wore thin, as anyones would. I really don't want to go into everything that happened. It's really best forgotten I think. However, having said that. On New Years Eve, I worked with her and one other girl all day. The store closed at 5pm. We had 'boxing week' sales on which needed to be taken down before close because when we were next open those sales wouldn't be on. The day was incredibly busy, and honestly I can't remember what she did, it seems to me now as well as then that it was a whole lot of nothing. It got to be later on in the day and I asked the other girl to start at the front of the store and start to peel stickers, and I took the rest of the store (which is 2/3 of the store). We'd been busy all day and the store looked like a bomb had gone off. The supposed A.M. was standing at the cash desk doing...I'm not even sure what. As it was 4:30, and the two of us were still peeling stickers, I asked her to please tidy the store. I was frustrated because I knew at this point we wouldn't get out on time, so I was probably a bit short with her. She went away somewhere, and then came back and told me that she had in fact been tidying the store, but it was the first chance she'd had to read the email all day and that she'd needed to do that. To which I replied that I understood that, but that I really wanted to get out on time because it was NYE and so we needed to get a move on it. Case closed, or so I thought.
I found out yesterday that she is absolutely furious with me for asking her to tidy the store. Apparently she told the manager that it was the first chance she had all day and that she had to read those emails. The manager asked me to please not say anything to her, and told me we'd talk about it next week. (The girl in question has been transferred to another store now)
Today I spoke to my manager on the telephone, and she said that we really needed to talk next week because in the last two days she saw an incredible difference in her. She has apparently said some incredibly nasty and vindictive things about me. Honestly, I have no idea why. I've complained to people I know (whom she doesn't) that I was frustrated with her, but any time she asked me for help I helped her, I explained things to her countless times, and basically did everything I could to make her feel welcome. The only thing I can think of is that by default people would ask me what they should be doing, and how to do things, etc.. because they knew that I knew and she didn't. She also knew that the manager had been telling me things, and I think she was suspicious of just what those things were.
Basically I can't believe her nerve. What an ungrateful bitch. I spent months and months picking up her slack, and showing her countless times how to do the same thing over and over again, and she repays me by bad-mouthing me to my manager and God knows who else (I'm really hoping not the R.M. but I'll bet she did). Some people really, really don't deserve the air they breathe.
Posted by Michelle at January 18, 2003 03:06 PM