A few weeks ago we had a call from our head office telling us about a kiosk they were going to set up in the mall which would be totally independant and would sell school supplies. And could we please give our resume file to the individual (let's call him M), that was to be in charge, also would any of our staff like to go over and help out?
A couple of the girls decided that, yes, they'd like to supplement their hours and would take the job down there, after all it's our company and they're treated quite well where they are, and it's close, etc.. etc... So, they had meetings with M and were signed up. One girl was to go there full time, and the other was to have a couple of hours a week to supplement the 20+ hours she was getting from us.
The kiosk opened today. The girls got their schedules for this week on Friday, and no more information than that. The girl who was supposed to work full time (lets call her K) was given 30 hours for the week, and the girl who was supposed to have a couple of hours (known from here on in as J) ended up with 32, and also was scheduled to work today when she was to be working for us at the store. Which is ridiculous, because I spoke to M last week and gave him her schedule.
So, the kiosk wasn't even open yet, and there were already problems. When I spoke to the girls on Friday neither of them knew where the kiosk was going to be, who was coming to help them set it up, how the cash register worked, where the float was coming from, or...basically anything. M phoned to arrange for our manager to be at the mall at 7:30am to let him in to get his product (which was taking up our entire back room) out so that the kiosk could be set up.
He didn't show up, nor did anyone else. K was there, and another girl that works there (whom I don't know). The lugged all 300 boxes to the location that M told them, and then found out from the mall employees that their kiosk was located at the other end of the mall. Which required them to move everything back down to the other end. So then, there they were, with 300 boxes of school supplies, nobody from the office to set it up, and no planogram as to how to set it up.
I don't really know what time the planogram arrived, and I really don't have any idea of the chaos that they experienced this morning. I just know what happened this afternoon and evening. I went down on my break to see how J was doing, she was practically in tears. Her training on the cash register was absolutely ridiculously brief (in fact, I witnessed it and would NEVER have left someone alone with that little training). And anything that had already been set up was set up incorrectly, so she basically had to take everything down and start over according to the plan.
K came back to work at the kiosk and J came down to the store to work. Which was fine. There were about three calls from K this evening as we were closing. She had all kinds of boxes of stuff that she couldn't fit on the cart and needed to store in our back room, but couldn't bring them down till after we were closed, which meant I needed to wait for her to come. Then we got a call asking what the float was on the till (like we're supposed to know? she opened). Then finally a call to say she couldn't cover the cart up properly with whatever she had.
I was at the mall until 10 pm tonight closing up that damn kiosk. K was absolutely useless, and eventually it was J and I that figured out how the cover went on the cart. By the time we finally got it covered up I was absolutely furious. And then we still had to bring all the boxes back to the store and store them. On top of all that, she hadn't taken any of the garbage to the garbage room, which you can actually spit on from the location of her cart.
I don't do well with helpless people, and the whole "I don't know how this works, I can't leave because there's nobody else to watch it.... blah, blah, blah" was just making things worse.
At the moment I am so tense that I can actually feel it in my head and neck. This stupid kiosk which was supposed to be no trouble to our store has sure put me out tonight. It's not that I mind helping, but since M hasn't put any effort at all into his stupid project, I fail to see why I should.
Posted by Michelle at July 28, 2003 06:10 PM