Allow me to tell you of the week that was...
What a week it was! We had the world's worst snowstorm (for this area, at least). 6" to 12" of snow (depending on where one lived), and 2" of that was solid ice. It was hellrific in it's scope, so naturally, on the first of the two days, I had to call into work because of complications, which ultimately resulted in a frozen gas line and a frozen fuel injector on the car. The first day Jesse was really nice and he understood that because of the chaotic nature of this storm that I ought not to risk my ass getting up to work. Fine and dandy, and logical. The second day (this would be Wednesday), the snow had INCREASED in depth by about 5" and another 1" was added to the ice that had fallen previously. Not only were all four doors of the car sealed shut, but the car itself was too cold to start. I TRIED to call in, and got Mike our store manager, who (and you'll agree with me, no doubt) has TOTALLY LOST ALL TOUCH WITH REALITY! He pulls the old guilt trip motif on me, and me in a truly pissy situation (I tried to sleep the night before but the ice storm kept hitting the window and would wake me up out of being asleep...it was a shitty night)...anyhow...I had probably netted about 2 maybe 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and wasn't really in the mindset to come up with something really snappy to say back to him. So I went. Wait...hold on...it's been icing out for about nine hours by now, and there is almost a foot of snow on the ground. What idiot is going to go out in that to pick me up? Ed. Why? Because Mike told him to, of course. So, even though Mike said that Ed would be there in about fifteen minutes, in REALITY it took him close to thirty-five. After filling up at a nearby BP station, we INCH to work. I get there and in a total "WTF?!" moment, Mike says to me "Aww...this is NOTHIN! What's a level three snow emergency? Ha ha...you guys should see what it's like out in Nebraska!" Then... "It's not that bad...Jason I bet you'll sell ten TV's today! It's Super Bowl week!". Yes Mike. It's Super Bowl week (more on this later). All day long, I got a few stragglers, which ceased after THE FUCKING MALL CLOSED AT 11AM! Yes, the MALL we are attached to CLOSED at 11! They came in and asked if we were closing and they highly reccomended that we do. Mike's reply? "No. We're staying open. Let them know". Whatever. Our closest major city was on a Level 3 Snow Emergency, and people were being ticketed or arrested if they left their homes. So...why exactly didn't we close? Because our county was in a Level 2 zone instead of 3. And why didn't we go to 3? Because they LET THE GOVERNMENT FOLKS GO HOME AT 10AM! Nobody in that office to make that call! Stupid! Anyhow...The new guy, Bob and I limped through the day, and it passed alright, a few crazies called up, and some moron actually came in to purchase a wall mount for a plasma. Go figure on that one! Anyhoo...around about 2pm, Mike left early. As he was staring out the front door he was heard to say "Oooh...That looks bad. I hope I can get home okay" WTF. Okay, not five hours hence this guy was grandstanding about how this was nothing. Now he's scared too? He's such a hypocrite it boggles the mind! Eventually the day wound down with eight ceiling tiles meeting their doom, and I got whisked back home by Ed.
The second part of this rant comes on Saturday. Yesterday. It's fucking Super Bowl week/weekend. A traditional gravy train for the Electronics Department. Fuck. That. Two. Ways. Here's why we are bombing out and posting goose-egg numbers.
Firstly: Product Availibility - It's a fucking nightmare! Never before has it been so fucking hard to get a TV in JANUARY! We STILL haven't recieved our replenishment shipment from corporate, and it's now THE SECOND MONTH OF THE NEW YEAR! So when a customer wants to LEAVE with a set NOT ORDER one, what are we left with? A pair of 40" Toshibas, a few 37" Vizios, a 32" Samsung, and a hell of a lot of 37" Elements. Mercifully, we did get a pair of 52" Samsung LCD's. Terribly, neither was in the ad and BOTH were at FULL PRICE.
Secondly: Ad Consistency - When you make an Ad, and there are good deals in said Ad, why not actually make that stuff available to the consumer? Yesterday I did a count. Of our BIG SUPER BOWL WEEK AD we had 37 sets in the Ad. Of those 37 sets, 2 of them we could actually order, and of those only one was a big screen and it was only 200 bucks off. We can't make a living if our hands are tied behind our backs! I issued 4 rainchecks yesterday and barely sold anything! And it's the second busiest time of the year to buy Electronics! This is pathetic!
Thirdly: Floor Model Consistency - We (as a general rule) don't sell floor model TV's that are of a line that is going forward. In other words, it has to be closeout to be sold in that fashion. That is the rule, and I have been burned before on it. However, yesterday was such a fucking waste that a $4,000 sale would have up and walked out if it hadn't been for Joey and his "FUCK THAT!" mindset. He took it upon himself to just take a TV off the wall and slap a base on it. Instant sale. I almost wonder how fucking easy it would have been, and how much money I actually would have made if I had just done that earlier in the day and sold those four TV's instead of giving them all rainchecks. As you can guess, Mike was not pleased, but he capitulated, even more so because of the total value of the set and the goods that were attached to it.
Fourth, and finally: Morale - It's at a fucking all time low. Our hours got halved, and it's not shock that Ryan is the one with the most to lose in all of this. He had real worries and really needs the scratch. His anger just snowballs into everyone else, and the entire department is now being fed a steady diet of vitriol. Steven not showing for shifts with no reprisal is also wearing on the nerves of everyone, and his fucking luck of just coming in and walking into grand slam sales makes everyone that actually stays for those dull 8 hour shifts that much more pissed off. It's a bad situation, and instead of HELPING anyone, they pour salt in the wound. Now, we are going to be written up if we don't make CREDIT PARITY! FUCK THAT! Okay, so you can use the excuse that this economy sucks and nobody wants to open a card. But the real fucking reason that we don't get em is that we HAVE NO FUCKING CUSTOMERS! When we work on a weekday (I'll use me as an example) we see 3, maybe 4 people during a 6 hour shift. On the weekends, sure we see more, but when we don't have the product, who is buying? They want credit and they don't give us the tools to get it. Then we get bitched at. It does not help already falling morale. It's just bad. It's truly the winter of discontent. I need a vacation, dammit.