You Don’t Have to Put Up With Awful Managers in Retail
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Now to this week’s article -
I'm going to be honest; a lot of leadership in retail is downright awful.
I moved around to enough companies to have seen some terrible shit. The worst managers treated their teams like high school students competing in a popularity contest.
You had to be "in." You had to suck up. You had to comply. If you pushed back or had an original thought, you got written up for asinine imaginary things.
I was once written up for "not being seen as a leader."
Right. Okay. Like that's a thing you can be written up for. What's actionable about that? What do I do? What actions do I take to be "see as a leader" in the eyes of my boss? They couldn't tell me. They couldn't tell me because it was all bullshit, and they were trying to push me out.
Thirty days later, after zero follow-ups and over-communicating every tiny action I'd taken, they said, "I think I'm going to extend your write-up."
I was devastated.
I demanded a sit down with the district manager. The district management team moved me to a final write-up during that meeting. (Much of this is totally illegal in California, by the way).
I was traumatized. I was in shock. I'd never been written up in my life. This was my career they were messing with. My reputation was on the line. I would not be fired.
I walked out of the office, found a small unpopulated corner of the mall, and sobbed my face off. Then I got mad.
Searching for a new job every hour you're away from work is exhausting. I finally quit with no job lined up. I had a tremendous holiday bonus headed my way, but I quit anyway. I earned that bonus. I worked my ass off for that bonus. But walking through those doors and being forced to play this stupid fucking game was no longer worth it.
It was making me physically ill.
After I walked away from that toxic management structure, I landed a job with a leadership team that was excellent. They listened to me. They supported me. They worked alongside me and worked just as hard as I did. They gave me the freedom to make decisions about my building.
That fantastic leadership team would've never found me if I hadn't quit without a job lined up.
Leadership in retail is not always terrible. It's different everywhere. Don't think you have to put up with a sorority mentality. Excellent leaders are doing fantastic work in retail. Find them. Learn from them and be a partner.
When you find them, you'll know it because they'll give as much as you do.
MAILBOX
A comment landed on one of my articles recently. I'm going to paraphrase it for you.
"Retail stores and grocery stores are not doing a good job of customer service. Employees ignore people and boxes are scattered throughout the store making it unsafe."
Okay. Yes. This comment is accurate; I have no doubt. Corporations are cutting from the frontline daily, and employees often struggle to keep up.
We had a massive opportunity to make frontline work better for people after COVID, but companies blew it. They take away resources, the customer climate can be downright hostile, and workers don't see much incentive to provide outstanding service.
All of it sucks.
My tenured retail friends will not tolerate rude customers at all anymore. Entitlement is over. Giving their names out is over. You can follow the rules, treat us respectfully, or get out.
It's a difficult time. Customers are used to fantastic service, no matter the request, and employees are fed up with abuse and being short-staffed.
We will come through this for the better. I'm an optimist, so I genuinely believe there is a solution. But this interim time of growth is painful for all of us.
LEVEL UP
One thing you can do today is to be a better leader.
Put your “realistic glasses” on and look at your staff roster. Do you have enough people, or are you just getting by?
Even though the number of people is on target, look at the following:
How many people will be heading to college in the fall?
Who has vacations scheduled?
Whose availability sucks?
You may have the correct number of people, but that doesn't mean they fit together well for you to write a great schedule. If you see gaps, start interviewing. You want to get this rolling now, not when two people quit and you're scrambling to hire.
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You're the absolute best.
I finally have a manager I really like, but man I had to go through some really bad ones to get here!
Great points! Sucking up to please the boss is hopefully old school and on its way out.