(no subject)
I've officially survived my first week at Target!
First of all, I don't like being a grown-up. I find myself griping about traffic, the commute, needing coffee...I felt after my second day as if I had been doing this all my life. It's disturbing. And it's not even real work!
We have eight weeks of training (called "Business College"), so the first four days were classroom orientation things. I will now talk about each day.
The first day, Monday, was boring as hell. I came into a room and sat down at a table with ten other ETL-ITs (Executive Team Leaders in Training). There are only two slightly creepy people...one guy is a Pharmacist who is from Redding, and the other is an internal promotion from Reno. Otherwise, I'm warming up to the group. They're a little shy and a little...off, but pretty nice people. There are three of us who just graduated from UCD, one from Chico State, one from U of P, and two from Sac State. And there's even someone who used to work at IKEA, and she's Swedish too! I actually like her the best, she's very funny and friendly.
Anyway, our first day was an orientation to the company, it's (many) values, missions, goals, tactics, excellence statements, mottos, etc. Target is a little crazy with that kind of thing, and we're expected to memorize all of their sayings. We watched many videos outlining these, did a segment on bloodborne pathogens and crisis situations, and learned how to "achieve excellence" as leaders. It was a little disjointed. Also, our Business College Leader was out of town, so we've had a variety of trainers all week. That's also weird.
In addition, apparently everyone knew what position they were going to have right from the interview. I was more than a little frustrated to find this out, and then to find out that I wouldn't be finding out my position for awhile. Additionally, many people know which store they'll be working at, and I didn't know at all (and still don't know!) Frustrating.
I did find out my District, and found that my District included such stores as Redding, Yuba City, Chico, Auburn, and Lincoln - stores that are far north or far east of where I want to be, and places that I would never want to move to. So I'm (still) hoping for the Woodland, Natomas, or Roseville store.
The second day was in a store in Roseville and we learned about Human Resources, Brand Management (a glorified way for saying that appearance is essential), and took a tour of the store to examine different departments and store operations. It was pretty uneventful, but I liked it better and made friends with people. I found someone to carpool with from Davis, which is really nice, except he started lecturing me on the way home about retail, since he has experience from Home Depot and I don't have any.
Wednesday was in Roseville again, and we did Human Resources the whole day. I kind of like HR though. I liked hearing about how to interview new team members (the retail associates) and how to evaluate our team leaders (the employees that we supervise, who in turn supervise the team members). It was a good day.
Yesterday was back in Citrus Heights, where we had an "Expert Day" about Building Services, which is the maintenance department. That was extremely boring and really useless, since he tried to tell us all these things about generators and fire sprinklers and alarm systems, except it was all over my head and that's why we HAVE Building Services, to deal with those issues. And it kind of freaked me out, since as an executive we have to take at least three days as an LOD (Leader on Duty) where we have to deal with all store operations and have almost literally no one to call locally (if we have emergencies we can call Alert 1 which is a system based out of corporate in Minnesota). It's a little scary having no safety net and having to be THAT person to make those decisions in an emergency.
Also, yesterday I finally found out my position. It was frustrating because if I hadn't asked my District Admin about it, I would probably have no idea what it was. She acted surprised that I didn't know, and of course apologized profusely, but it was really annoying. But anyway, I am going to be the ETL for Guest Experience (that's the ETL-GE), which has jurisdiction for basically all guest service in the store, but specifically at the check lanes. I also have to run the photo lab, guest service desk, and food avenue, and have responsibility to make sure that the front of the store looks clean and presentable (including the parking lot and restrooms). It's a big job but I'm excited because I don't have to worry about making sales numbers and can just focus on the customer.
Today I had my first day with my trainer, who is the ETL-GE for the Lodi store. That's right, I have to drive to Lodi every day. It's about an hour commute! So for the next seven weeks, I will be driving that crazy distance. It sucks, but Michelle is really enthusiastic and easy to work with. She's one of the top ETL-GEs in her district, so I'll learn a lot from her, I'm sure.
I'm paired up with another ETL-IT, which is unorthodox since our position-based training is supposed to be individualized. But the other guy, Matt, is pretty cool and he's been there for two weeks longer than I have, so he knows a lot more stuff and can teach me things when Michelle is busy (which is almost all the time). It's a little weird because there were a lot of times today when I had no idea what to do - Michelle had run off and Matt was gone somewhere. I ended up spending basically three hours on the computer doing "pre-work" for next week - which is what I should be doing, but I spent probably too much time on it. I think I need to be more proactive in getting trained, but it's difficult when Michelle has another person to train in addition to her own GSTLs (Guest Service Team Leads) and team members.
Anyway, training is going pretty well. I'm getting excited about this position and I've found out/brainwashed to think that Target is a great company. But really, they are. I'm excited for my position and if anything, there won't be a dull moment.
But seriously, being a grown-up sucks.
First of all, I don't like being a grown-up. I find myself griping about traffic, the commute, needing coffee...I felt after my second day as if I had been doing this all my life. It's disturbing. And it's not even real work!
We have eight weeks of training (called "Business College"), so the first four days were classroom orientation things. I will now talk about each day.
The first day, Monday, was boring as hell. I came into a room and sat down at a table with ten other ETL-ITs (Executive Team Leaders in Training). There are only two slightly creepy people...one guy is a Pharmacist who is from Redding, and the other is an internal promotion from Reno. Otherwise, I'm warming up to the group. They're a little shy and a little...off, but pretty nice people. There are three of us who just graduated from UCD, one from Chico State, one from U of P, and two from Sac State. And there's even someone who used to work at IKEA, and she's Swedish too! I actually like her the best, she's very funny and friendly.
Anyway, our first day was an orientation to the company, it's (many) values, missions, goals, tactics, excellence statements, mottos, etc. Target is a little crazy with that kind of thing, and we're expected to memorize all of their sayings. We watched many videos outlining these, did a segment on bloodborne pathogens and crisis situations, and learned how to "achieve excellence" as leaders. It was a little disjointed. Also, our Business College Leader was out of town, so we've had a variety of trainers all week. That's also weird.
In addition, apparently everyone knew what position they were going to have right from the interview. I was more than a little frustrated to find this out, and then to find out that I wouldn't be finding out my position for awhile. Additionally, many people know which store they'll be working at, and I didn't know at all (and still don't know!) Frustrating.
I did find out my District, and found that my District included such stores as Redding, Yuba City, Chico, Auburn, and Lincoln - stores that are far north or far east of where I want to be, and places that I would never want to move to. So I'm (still) hoping for the Woodland, Natomas, or Roseville store.
The second day was in a store in Roseville and we learned about Human Resources, Brand Management (a glorified way for saying that appearance is essential), and took a tour of the store to examine different departments and store operations. It was pretty uneventful, but I liked it better and made friends with people. I found someone to carpool with from Davis, which is really nice, except he started lecturing me on the way home about retail, since he has experience from Home Depot and I don't have any.
Wednesday was in Roseville again, and we did Human Resources the whole day. I kind of like HR though. I liked hearing about how to interview new team members (the retail associates) and how to evaluate our team leaders (the employees that we supervise, who in turn supervise the team members). It was a good day.
Yesterday was back in Citrus Heights, where we had an "Expert Day" about Building Services, which is the maintenance department. That was extremely boring and really useless, since he tried to tell us all these things about generators and fire sprinklers and alarm systems, except it was all over my head and that's why we HAVE Building Services, to deal with those issues. And it kind of freaked me out, since as an executive we have to take at least three days as an LOD (Leader on Duty) where we have to deal with all store operations and have almost literally no one to call locally (if we have emergencies we can call Alert 1 which is a system based out of corporate in Minnesota). It's a little scary having no safety net and having to be THAT person to make those decisions in an emergency.
Also, yesterday I finally found out my position. It was frustrating because if I hadn't asked my District Admin about it, I would probably have no idea what it was. She acted surprised that I didn't know, and of course apologized profusely, but it was really annoying. But anyway, I am going to be the ETL for Guest Experience (that's the ETL-GE), which has jurisdiction for basically all guest service in the store, but specifically at the check lanes. I also have to run the photo lab, guest service desk, and food avenue, and have responsibility to make sure that the front of the store looks clean and presentable (including the parking lot and restrooms). It's a big job but I'm excited because I don't have to worry about making sales numbers and can just focus on the customer.
Today I had my first day with my trainer, who is the ETL-GE for the Lodi store. That's right, I have to drive to Lodi every day. It's about an hour commute! So for the next seven weeks, I will be driving that crazy distance. It sucks, but Michelle is really enthusiastic and easy to work with. She's one of the top ETL-GEs in her district, so I'll learn a lot from her, I'm sure.
I'm paired up with another ETL-IT, which is unorthodox since our position-based training is supposed to be individualized. But the other guy, Matt, is pretty cool and he's been there for two weeks longer than I have, so he knows a lot more stuff and can teach me things when Michelle is busy (which is almost all the time). It's a little weird because there were a lot of times today when I had no idea what to do - Michelle had run off and Matt was gone somewhere. I ended up spending basically three hours on the computer doing "pre-work" for next week - which is what I should be doing, but I spent probably too much time on it. I think I need to be more proactive in getting trained, but it's difficult when Michelle has another person to train in addition to her own GSTLs (Guest Service Team Leads) and team members.
Anyway, training is going pretty well. I'm getting excited about this position and I've found out/brainwashed to think that Target is a great company. But really, they are. I'm excited for my position and if anything, there won't be a dull moment.
But seriously, being a grown-up sucks.