| - Right Side of the Bed - - - - Where to begin?
Let's see, a few days after New Year's I ended up talking to my district manager about a promotion to a new store. So, after I agreed (I'll mention later why this might be my undoing), a near disasterous chain of events begins.
Teh Car
So, the store I talk to my district manager about taking over is in Braintree at the South Shore Plaza. Ok, that's not bad at all. Wait, I live in Brookline. ... Shit. I can't take the T there, can I? Well, kind of. The red line ends in Braintree, but still a 20 minute walk from the mall. So, I resolve myself to the harsh reality that I'm going to have to buy a car.
So, I do some research, do some test drives, and decide on a 2005 Honda Civic. In MA, there's a 5% sales tax, even on cars. So, I try to find out if I can buy, register, and insure my new car in NH to avoid the taxes. No dice. Over the course of the week leading up to my takeover of my new store, I have to juggle the financing paperwork, getting my insurance (you must have insurance before you can drive a car off a lot in MA), getting my MA drivers license (out of state conversions cost $90, that's twice as much as getting a license in MA), registering my car (paying taxes on it, getting plates, paying for the plates), and calculating out my monthly finances to see if I'm even going to manager to tread water.
But, I make it. Grats to me, I'm $14.000 in debt.
My First Day at Work
I show up before opening, hoping to watch how the store runs when the manager isn't there from across the hall, but... my district manager is there. He proceeds to inform me that the store had just completed an inventory the weekend before, and the results were bad, possibly the worst inventory results in company history. ...Can I pick a different store?
Long story short, I have a week to attempt to clean and organize the store before I redo the inventory. Considering the amount of product in that store, limitations on payroll, and keeping my sanity in mind, there's only so much that can be done within that much time.
Invintory was tonight, I started scanning things with the wireless scanner at 4:00, 3 hours before the store closed, and Alex, Kevin (my new assistant manager), and I didn't finish until about 2:30 in the morning. The store had been through two managers in less than six months and there was just no way I could organize everything in a week, whatsoever. But I think we got everything, although the store had some 'shrink' issues in the last few months, so I know that there's still going to be a large chunk of things missing.
So...
Dave isn't the only one who is feeling overworked, but I think at least once I get the store in shape over the next week and iron out my staff I won't feel so stretched thin. Alas, I have to work again tomorrow, so to bed I go. |
