Recently at work a bus driver asked me at random, “How long have you worked here?” I thought about it and stated four years. At first I was thinking he was asking me about possibly working for the transit authority he’s with now. Instead he asked by name whether or not I’m familiar with a person there, I said no.
And there it is this month in 2018 is my four year milestone with my current location at Fresh Foods. It was an interesting start of this yet another era which essentially ended the Reign of Error. And got a few accomplishments along the way Associate of the Week, two perfect secret shops, and almost got promoted. Changed departments, witnessed the start and aftereffects of a worldwide pandemic.
Been an interesting four years.
Let me start with one thing here, the two men who hired me in 2018. Well they’re both no longer with the company. In fact one of them the store manager who spoke with me on a wet and rainy Saturday in 2018 got fired for reasons unknown. I feel like near the end I was $h!t to him although we hardly really interacted as time moved forward before his somewhat unexpected departure.
There was one odd incident where he came up to me very strongly and let me know of a customer complaint against me claiming I didn’t serve them and just went to the back. It wasn’t too long after I got back from a 15 min break. All I could say was I didn’t notice or paid no attention, he said OK sounds good and the last shot was “And next time be MORE HELPFUL!”
A colleague then connected that exchange with a young lady who worked with us in that period. I saw her when I came back to the dept she came to the store mgr seemingly upset. Little did I know that it had something to do with me. According to the colleague when I went on break things got busy and she got very frustrated by that so perhaps there was a complaint from a customer or perhaps she exaggerated things. Either way she decided to behave in an erratic way and I say this because it came out later that she didn’t mind announcing that she came to work high to other coworkers.
Hmm don’t know how I feel about that you’re high and you work with knives. Anyway I wasn’t too happy with her once I found out, she pretended not to notice or even said much about whatever got her upset to me. She chose to be a snake in that instance and about a week later she was no longer there. Her shifts were up for people to pick up, I also learned that she had a difficult time coming into work calling out once too often. One colleague later said, she just shot herself in the foot.
My primary report our dept mgr well mixed bag. I won’t say much about him because he gave me an opportunity. I feel as if things went downhill with him and it’s what sent me to another dept once the pandemic was in full swing. For one thing yeah sales weren’t what they needed to be to keep everyone where they were. Of course since it seems I couldn’t come back from lunch without a lecture on how I need to talk to leadership if there is a staggering of lunches during peak periods and perhaps some other issues. It took me some time to realize it probably wasn’t working anymore. I was stuck!
Feedback I got from former colleagues about our former dept mgr talked about not very good rapport, they butted heads, he was sort of a my way type, he was fake, another colleague told me that his ability to make more money to take on more shifts were curtailed by that dept mgr – even referred to him as an @$$hole although he wanted to like him as a person. And I do remember that he had a recognition, a positive one being the nicest guy at the store, however, I’ve seen the stern side and hear that he displayed that with others.
Another piece of feedback was from someone who actually worked in the mgmt office with him and stated that while he seemed like a nice guy he had difficulty even having tough conversations with people. Even noted a very passive aggressive streak in him. My only comment to the passive aggressive thing was to say that’s not a good trait for a manager which he agreed.
With that said whatever was going on with both, they’re no longer with the company. And possibly with the store mgr whatever got him separated it probably won’t ever allow him to return to the company. Though I do know he’s got an electronics degree so perhaps he can still use that with his extensive mgmt experience.
As for yours truly I got another raise and very close to realizing my goal of lasting somewhere as long as I had at The Show – almost five years. So the deal is, I’m not sure I’ll stay about my current location for another year. Perhaps for a bit longer I may remain with Fresh Foods, however, this is the time for me to be a bit restless. It’s very easy to just sit still and remain complacent however there are other milestones yet for me to accomplish. Perhaps I can still accomplish them at Fresh or try something else at some point though there is no better time than the present.
Another Fresh store is opening soon, well actually it’s a relocation. That store is actually moving to much larger digs in the near future. Hopefully there will be some opportunities there for me in the future, and as I still hope for some opportunities at the Hole as stated a few months ago it’s just time for me to let them go for now.
I met my mother’s accountant for the first time. Whenever the door rang my mother decided to start using the bathroom. And I find myself answering the door, especially when my mother lets me know she’s expecting the tax man.
He started mentioning that he has a grandchild who’s in law school and gave me info on a local institution that accepts on a rolling basis and told me that I need to take an LSAT. Well OK, not I can put my college degree to use although in this case go back to school. It’s something I’ve been thinking about and who cares if I work at a grocery store. This could springboard me to where I needed to be.
Something I will look into as I attempt to look towards the future.
Earlier this month I said it was time to move on from the Fiend and yet it seems I can’t help but vent. So I may have something later just want to write something that’s readable. Perhaps go back to last month’s post about respecting my body and dating and even children. I still have thoughts to share on that.
Beyond that I hope you’ve had a fantastic spring.