more notes on dept. store job

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Monday. I ask to be transferred to an area with fewer people (a mistake for it sets up a different dynamic). A guy's there who is off-duty in street clothes. He talks trash to me. Once he leaves, this other guy (who had been decent to me) picks up his lead and gets right in my face and orders me to do a task.

'Well, when he's off the clock, he ought not be talking trash to people still on the clock.'

'He talked to me like I was a captive on a pirate ship!'

'Sure, he was out of line. But two weeks before Christmas, that kind of stuff is going to happen. I'm interested in moving forward'

'That's all in the past I'm moving forward. Positive stuff. Or at least interesting neutral stuff.'

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See, I'm rehearsing positive, middle-of-the-road kind of statements.

My direct manager was off Monday. I talked to another manager. An okay conversation at the time, but from follow-up he didn't seem to get it at all, mainly seems to blame me.

On my day off Weds, I called my direct manager. She had heard that there was an argument. I called her on her in-store number. I think I reached her on her cell at home. She doesn't seem to get the significance of the guy talking trash off the clock, and he's really been the sustained bully. I talked with her for 25 minutes. Which was probably a mistake on my part . . . but the texture of it is that I was careful to be fair and mention the good decent things these people have done. So I think I come off as credible. (and that's a skill I've learned from poker. Even if I make a mistake, keep going, it just becomes part of the texture. What constructive, medium move can I make from here? In poker, usually medium, occasionally not. In life, it's usually medium and let the other person ping-pong it back)

She said she would talk to me as soon as she got in Thursday at 2pm. She would do a couple of things that she had at do the beginning of her shift (and it felt good her taking me into her confidence and telling me these tasks) and then talk to me. And I would be transferred to the dept I want and I would be put on commission.

She didn't talk to me.

We overlap for 4 hours in our working shifts and she didn't come talk with me.

This bodes badly.

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'I want to do a good job and I want to be appreciated.'

'I would like to transfer to ____ full time, or almost full time.'

'I would like to be put on commission.'

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I can rehearse these kind of statements. But, really, I'm mad as s**t! Being transferred back and forth between two different commission departments and not on commission, I'm unwelcome in both. I am treated like the red-headed step child. It is a damn poor situation.

And she's been largely an absentee manager. Or, maybe she's been merely an average manager (I sometimes have difficulty telling difference between average manager and lousy one). Remember, I have patchy social skills. In some areas, I have excellent social skills.

And, so much of it is how solid your B game is. Just like a baseball pitcher, can you let good stuff happen when you don't have your best stuff?

(And please notice, this lousy job, this low-paid job is more difficult in absolute terms than many good jobs. Ironic. Yes, very ironic)

I talked with my immediate manager by phone a week ago Tuesday. She said commission sales people are going to be territorial whether on duty or off duty.
That Weds I didn’t feel good about going in on Thursday, esp back to this same department. Try and call her. No pick up. Try to call store. Impossible to get through on voice mail. Decide just to go in.

Worked very well. Young lady at HR desk ‘ . . . I want to follow the proper procedure if I feel I have been treated unfairly . . . ’ Prints out document, asks me to wait, then tells me it’s going to be a while, suggests that maybe I’d like to walk around the mall till the HR director calls me? Sure. I do walk around the mall, she does call.

The HR director and I had an okay conversation.

Working Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the situation was more formal, which I kind of wanted, and kind of made the whole situation more tolerable. Still not great. Far, far from any kind of good situation.

The one bully guy said the dept is reasonable cleaned, I need to leave it that way. [he’s trying to recharacterize the argument and the situation, of course he is]

as needed --> '________, I’m a good worker. I expect to be treated as a good worker. . . I am an average worker. . . You’re not my supervisor, all due respect you’re just not' [might not need to use all of this, less is more] <-- as needed (and less is more)

My direct management (the assistant manager for this area) also did not follow through on the schedule. One night I’m there working till 12:45 pm (i.e., past midnight), then I’m expected to come in 9:00 am the next morning. And similar kind of deal the following two days.

I have lost a lot of respect for her. I just have. And that doesn’t bode well.

Maybe trying to look at it more like: ‘She’s an inexperienced manager still feeling her way. Of course she promises more than she can deliver. That’s the nature of an inexperienced manager.’

‘Not yet a problem. What I’m saying is it might become a problem.’

That is, I wish I would have understated the whole thing.