I've made no secret of the fact that I used to work at Toys R Us, so it's with the kind of fascination of watching a train wreck that I have been paying attention to them "suddenly" going out of business. Sure, I get that it's surprising to some, but this is by no means sudden, whatever they would have you believe. And maybe I wouldn't have said anything about this at all, but...
There's always a "but."
But TRU (Toys R Us, but I'm going to refer to them as TRU) has, evidently, blamed their woes on millennials, the seeming punching bag these days of corporate America and of Boomers in general. ["Boomers" means "Baby Boomers." More on them in some future post.] "If only millennials were having more babies, we would be making enough money to stay open. It's all your fault for not giving us your money." As if just the fact of millennials having babies would drive them into the open arms (or doors, as the case may be) of a local TRU or Babies R Us store.
The truth of the matter is that TRU has been on the verge of going out of business for at least the last 20 years, it being 20 years ago that I last worked for them, and they were teetering on the brink even then. The further truth of the matter is that TRU is a shitty company and has been for at least the last 30 years, 30 years ago being when I first worked for them when I still lived in Louisiana. They're a shitty company, and they actually deserve to go out of business.
Why would I say they deserve it? Well, because they've had 30 fucking years to do something to improve their business model and, yet, they have refused to do so. They've just gone ahead with the what seems to be the driving philosophy of the Boomer generation: Did you fail the first time? Well try again using the same method but do it faster and harder. In fact, keeping doing that same thing over and over again; eventually, you have to succeed.
Right?
Evidently not.
So, yes, Toys R Us definitively deserves to go out of business.
Oh, hey, breaking news right in the middle of me working on this piece: It seems that the founder of TRU has died. At the age of 94. One of the things TRU is saying about him is how much he loved the customer. Well, I didn't know the guy, so that may well be true, but I do know that TRU definitely did not love their customers. Their customers were only second their employees as enemies.
When I first worked for TRU back around 1990, it was official company policy to not help customers. The extent that we were allowed to help someone was to walk them to the aisle where something should be located. If something was not on the shelf, we were instructed to tell customers that it was out of stock. Even if we knew it was not out of stock and was, indeed, sitting in the store room. Retrieving something from the storeroom was a big NO. You see, it just wasn't cost effective for employees to spend time helping customers.
Note: I was once reprimanded (at the store I worked at in Louisiana) for getting something down off the overstock shelf for a customer. Now, this was a thing we were supposed to do because, if we didn't, customers would do things like try to climb the shelving units to get stuff down. But, you know, we employees had access to ladders, and the customer could see the item he wanted. As it turns out, a manager was watching me and timing me. Because I had to go get a ladder from the stockroom (and put it back when I was through), it took me more than five minutes to help the customer, so I got in trouble.
By the time I worked for them in the late 90s after I moved out to California, they had somewhat revised their customer assistance policy. We were at least supposed to look like we were trying to help them out. If someone asked for something not on the shelf, we were to go and "check" the stockroom for it. If it was something we knew we had back there, we could even go fetch it... as long as it didn't take up too much time. Otherwise, we were to go to the stockroom, wait a moment, then go back out and tell the customer that, no, we didn't have the item.
Note: This could really backfire on people. I always did the job of actually checking for an item if a customer asked but, then, I knew how to use the tools provided for us to do so and was good at it. It was always bad when a customer asked one employee about something and was told we were out of stock but, then, asked a different employee (say, me) for the item who then went and got it for them. Yeah, that happened more than once.
As bad as they were to customers, it was nothing compared to the way they treated employees. Employees were the true enemy, all of them thieves waiting to happen. Not to mention the fact that they wanted to be paid! All that and they didn't even offer an employee discount program (though they did finally institute that some years after I quit working for them; it was an effort to cut down on all of the employee turnover, but I'm pretty sure it didn't really work).
I'm not really going to get into how bad TRU was to employees back when I worked there. This post is already long, and getting into that can of worms might turn into a novel, and not a novel I would want to write. Or enjoy writing.
Back to the point, though: Even back in the 90s, TRU was struggling to avoid bankruptcy. They routinely identified parts of their business model which was siphoning off their profits, but, really, they could never convince themselves to look beyond theft prevention, both by customers and by employees, and it was this antagonistic stance they took with everyone which ultimately prevented them from climbing out of the hole they kept digging for themselves. As a company, they were very much like the current Republican run government and their fakepresident. I'm so looking forward to the day when they, too, go out of business.
Showing posts with label TRU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TRU. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2018
Friday, September 12, 2014
"If it's not on the shelf..."
One of the summer jobs I had while I was in college was working at Toys R Us. I've mentioned that I worked there before, but I don't think I mentioned that I worked there on two separate occasions, the first being while I was in college. It... didn't go well.
See, there was a problem: I was too helpful. No, seriously. At the time, TRU had a policy about helping customers: We were allowed to take the customer to the place in the store where any given item ought to be but, if it wasn't there, we were to say, "If it's not on the shelf, we don't have it." Even if there was a box of the item on the overstock shelf (on the aisle just above the items), we were to tell the customers that line. I couldn't bring myself to do it; it was virtually always a lie.
I got more commendations from customers than any other... oh, wait, I was the only employee that summer to have customers comment that I had done a good job to management. Enough so that it was brought up in a store meeting. And, yet, I was reprimanded for helping customers during my first performance review. During my second, I was told I "wasn't working out" and let go. Oh, yeah, also because I was "anti-social" and did things like read during my breaks rather than go outside and smoke with everyone else. [Yes, I was told that part of why I was being let go was non-work-related behavior. (And the not smoking was specifically mentioned.)]
Jump forward several years. I had moved to CA a few months before, and I needed a job. I needed a job like "right now." TRU was running an ad that they were hiring, so I went in. Yes, even having worked there before, I was willing to go. I needed the job. And I wasn't in LA anymore, so I was hoping things would be different.
And they were different. One of the things that had changed during my absence was a shift in corporate thought from "the customers get in the way of the job" to "the customer is the job." When I was hired in CA, I was told "the customer always comes first." It was a huge difference. So huge in fact that not only was I not "let go" after my "trial period" (or whatever it's called), I was promoted faster than anyone else working in that location. Basically, as soon as they were able to promote me (because TRU has policies about minimum times before someone can be promoted), they did. And again. And again. Until I quit (which is a long story and not applicable to this).
Which brings me to my point: I didn't change. I had the same attitude and behaviors working at TRU the second time as I did the first time. It was Toys R Us that changed. They changed what they were looking for in an employee, so I went from being someone who "wasn't working out" to someone who was very valuable (they tried to talk me into staying more than once when I quit). Oh, and I was still reading during my lunches and breaks, too.
If I had try to change who I was, the way I was, when I went and tried to get the job after I moved, I wouldn't have been right for it, and I would have been "let go" again because "it wasn't working out." Writing books works that way, too. If you spend your time trying to adapt to the market, trying to fit in with the current trend, you'll always be a step or two behind. You can't help but be, because you're too busy reacting to an organism that changes faster than anyone can keep up with. When you just do your thing, eventually, it will come into alignment with you.
At least for a while.
I'm sure that at some point (if it hasn't happened already), TRU will go back to their attitude that the customers are an evil which have to be endured, just as readers will one day go back to the attitude that vampires are an evil which have to be endured. [As my son would say, "See what I did there?"] Basically, trends change. Find your thing and stick with it.
And, if anyone ever tells you, "If it's not on the shelf, we don't have it," don't believe them. Right now, that's Target's line, but I make them go look.
See, there was a problem: I was too helpful. No, seriously. At the time, TRU had a policy about helping customers: We were allowed to take the customer to the place in the store where any given item ought to be but, if it wasn't there, we were to say, "If it's not on the shelf, we don't have it." Even if there was a box of the item on the overstock shelf (on the aisle just above the items), we were to tell the customers that line. I couldn't bring myself to do it; it was virtually always a lie.
I got more commendations from customers than any other... oh, wait, I was the only employee that summer to have customers comment that I had done a good job to management. Enough so that it was brought up in a store meeting. And, yet, I was reprimanded for helping customers during my first performance review. During my second, I was told I "wasn't working out" and let go. Oh, yeah, also because I was "anti-social" and did things like read during my breaks rather than go outside and smoke with everyone else. [Yes, I was told that part of why I was being let go was non-work-related behavior. (And the not smoking was specifically mentioned.)]
Jump forward several years. I had moved to CA a few months before, and I needed a job. I needed a job like "right now." TRU was running an ad that they were hiring, so I went in. Yes, even having worked there before, I was willing to go. I needed the job. And I wasn't in LA anymore, so I was hoping things would be different.
And they were different. One of the things that had changed during my absence was a shift in corporate thought from "the customers get in the way of the job" to "the customer is the job." When I was hired in CA, I was told "the customer always comes first." It was a huge difference. So huge in fact that not only was I not "let go" after my "trial period" (or whatever it's called), I was promoted faster than anyone else working in that location. Basically, as soon as they were able to promote me (because TRU has policies about minimum times before someone can be promoted), they did. And again. And again. Until I quit (which is a long story and not applicable to this).
Which brings me to my point: I didn't change. I had the same attitude and behaviors working at TRU the second time as I did the first time. It was Toys R Us that changed. They changed what they were looking for in an employee, so I went from being someone who "wasn't working out" to someone who was very valuable (they tried to talk me into staying more than once when I quit). Oh, and I was still reading during my lunches and breaks, too.
If I had try to change who I was, the way I was, when I went and tried to get the job after I moved, I wouldn't have been right for it, and I would have been "let go" again because "it wasn't working out." Writing books works that way, too. If you spend your time trying to adapt to the market, trying to fit in with the current trend, you'll always be a step or two behind. You can't help but be, because you're too busy reacting to an organism that changes faster than anyone can keep up with. When you just do your thing, eventually, it will come into alignment with you.
At least for a while.
I'm sure that at some point (if it hasn't happened already), TRU will go back to their attitude that the customers are an evil which have to be endured, just as readers will one day go back to the attitude that vampires are an evil which have to be endured. [As my son would say, "See what I did there?"] Basically, trends change. Find your thing and stick with it.
And, if anyone ever tells you, "If it's not on the shelf, we don't have it," don't believe them. Right now, that's Target's line, but I make them go look.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
The Importance of Liking Your Own Work -- Part One (an IWSG post)
Back when I first moved out to California, I worked at Toys R Us. At the time, TRU was one of the worst possible places to work at. They had incredible turnover amongst their employees, and, the funny thing is, they couldn't figure out why. After all, they paid minimum wage, right? Anyone should be happy with that. A job where they hire no full-time employees so that they don't have to provide benefits. A job with no employee discounts. A job with absolutely no flexibility to your schedule and, even worse, no routine to it. Really, they did their best to own you by making you be available to them whenever they wanted you to be.
But you should be thankful for the job.
I've heard that it's better there, now. Well, at least, now, they have an employee discount program. I'm not sure about the rest.
And, yes, I'm sure I just described quite a bit of corporate minimum wage retail jobs, but I only have experience with the one. [And when I say that it was one of the worst places to work, I'm not saying that from my experience. During the time I worked there, it was ranked in the top 10 worst retail places to work and, I'm pretty sure, had the highest turnover rate of any retail chain store.]
But all of that is beside the point. Background, if you will. I suppose it's important to note that no one worked there because s/he wanted to work there. No one aspired to working at the local Toys R Us. [On the other hand, I did actually know people when I was growing up (and, remember, this was the South) who did aspire to work at Wal-Mart. Their goal was to one day get to be a manager!]
[I'm totally serious about that.]
[Completely, totally serious.]
To cut through what could be a long story, it wasn't long before I was put in charge of other people. Actually, for someone that started at the complete bottom of the TRU food chain (maintenance (a fancy word for janitor)), it was incredibly quick (as quick as they could make it without violating any of their weird policies). It was unhappy-making for some people that had been working there for years, but, see, I was self-motivated (meaning I didn't wait to be told what to do (because most people, upon finishing a task, would just float around the store until someone found them and gave them a new task (which meant a lot of people spent a lot of time just avoiding being found))), decisive, and more than competent (meaning I didn't need to be told more than once how to do any particular thing).
Which brings us to the interesting part of all of this: I was put in charge of other people because of those traits. I was good at figuring out what needed to be done and making sure it got accomplished. [Actually, my biggest issue was with delegating, because I feel much more comfortable just doing tasks myself rather than depending upon someone else to do them.] These were things the managers liked seeing in their employees. They were not traits, however, that the other employees liked so much. Specifically, they were not traits that employees working under me particularly liked.
Every morning, all of the department heads had meetings with the people that worked under them to hand out tasks. Mostly, this was a pretty uncomplicated interaction that went kind of like this:
"Okay, Employee 1, you need to do Task A, today. It's not a rush job; you just need to be finished with it before you leave for the day." [That's eight hours to do a job that shouldn't take more than two or so to do, but you had to leave in time to help customers. Still, those kinds of tasks shouldn't have taken all day, although they usually did.]
"Employee 2, you need to do Task B. This is a rush job, and you need to focus on getting it finished as quickly as possible. If a customer has a question that you can't answer on the spot, call someone else to help her."
"Employee 3..." [I'm sure you get the idea.]
Seems straightforward, right? Except this one morning, a young lady interrupted me by saying, "Why do you always act like you know everything?"
I think I stared at her for a moment, because, really, I had no idea what she was talking about, then said, "Excuse me?"
"Why do you always act like you know everything?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You never say 'I think' or 'I believe,' you just tell us what to do like you know everything."
Point #1: If you think something or believe something, it's redundant to say "I think" or "I believe," because, obviously, if you're saying it, you must think or believe it.
But that's not what we've been taught in our current society. In a world where everything is subjective, we're supposed to always preface anything we say with a phrase that casts doubt upon what we're saying. Personally, I think that's bullshit. [Yes, I prefaced that with "I think" on purpose.] I don't go around saying "I think 2+2=4." Why? Because I know 2+2=4. Sure, I could be wrong (I'm not), but I believe that I'm correct, so I just say it: "2+2=4." People, though, get all bent out of shape with when you act confident about anything more complicated than that, because, you know, we're all entitled to our own beliefs.
And, see, I believe that. We are all entitled to our own beliefs. But that doesn't mean I have to be wishy-washy about what I believe. And you shouldn't either. If you believe it, if it's really what you think, drop the preface. Just own it and say it. Don't make it sound like you don't know, yourself, if you're sure about what you say you believe.
My response was something along those lines, "If I'm saying it, I must think it, so why should I bother to tell you that's what I think."
"Well, other people say it that way. They tell us what they think we should do. They also ask us if that's what we want to do. Why don't you ask us?"
"Do you mean I should say, 'Hey, would you like to re-do the endcap on aisle 7, today?'"
"Yeah, why don't you ask?"
"Because it's not an option. If I'm giving you the endcap to do, you don't have the option of saying 'no,' so why should I ask you if you want to do it? That would be misleading."
By this point, the other 5 or 6 people under my charge were all staring open-mouthed at us.
"Well, why don't you see which things we want to do and let us pick or something? I don't want to do [the task I was giving her for the day]."
"That's why I didn't ask. It's my job to assign the tasks to the people I feel best equipped to handle them, and you get to do [whatever the task was she didn't want to do]."
Point #2: If you're in charge of something, if it's your thing, it doesn't matter what other people think or feel about it. You have to make the decisions. Trying to figure out how everyone else feels about a particular thing and making it work for everyone will result in some things never happening. Like, you know, when someone smeared poop on the bathroom walls (and, yes, that would happen in the boys' restroom every couple of months), someone had to go clean that up. It wasn't something that was really up for debate, because that's one of those things that no one ever wanted to do, so saying, "Hey, who wants to go clean the bathroom?" wasn't going to get you any responses. You had to pick someone and tell them to do it and ignore any "Why do I have to do that?" and "I don't want to"s.
You may be wondering, at this point, what any of this has to do with, as a writer, liking your own work, but both points are very relevant. And I'm not saying that feedback can't be useful, but too much feedback, or trying to accommodate too much feedback, is debilitating. It's yours, your work. Believe in it. And I'll talk more about all of this in part 2.
Just to wrap up the story, as it turned out, that particular employee had been passed to me through about three other people who couldn't get her to do her assigned tasks. They had not been firm enough and had given assignments out as if they were options: "How would you like to do..." or "Why don't you take..." or "It would be great if..." She had taken all of those assignments as if they were optional and opted out of doing them. So they gave her to me, and she did what I assigned her even though she didn't like it.
However, about two weeks later, on a day when I was not at work, she had tried on a manager what she had tried on me, and she was fired on the spot. Actually, she was told she could "go home for the day," because they (TRU) never actually used the term "fired" (except that one time the one guy was caught stealing a buttload of video games, but that's another story). Then, she was never re-scheduled and when she came in for her paycheck, she was told "things aren't working out" and let go. Don't you just love all the euphemisms? I think they're great.
This post has been brought to you by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG.
But you should be thankful for the job.
I've heard that it's better there, now. Well, at least, now, they have an employee discount program. I'm not sure about the rest.
And, yes, I'm sure I just described quite a bit of corporate minimum wage retail jobs, but I only have experience with the one. [And when I say that it was one of the worst places to work, I'm not saying that from my experience. During the time I worked there, it was ranked in the top 10 worst retail places to work and, I'm pretty sure, had the highest turnover rate of any retail chain store.]
But all of that is beside the point. Background, if you will. I suppose it's important to note that no one worked there because s/he wanted to work there. No one aspired to working at the local Toys R Us. [On the other hand, I did actually know people when I was growing up (and, remember, this was the South) who did aspire to work at Wal-Mart. Their goal was to one day get to be a manager!]
[I'm totally serious about that.]
[Completely, totally serious.]
To cut through what could be a long story, it wasn't long before I was put in charge of other people. Actually, for someone that started at the complete bottom of the TRU food chain (maintenance (a fancy word for janitor)), it was incredibly quick (as quick as they could make it without violating any of their weird policies). It was unhappy-making for some people that had been working there for years, but, see, I was self-motivated (meaning I didn't wait to be told what to do (because most people, upon finishing a task, would just float around the store until someone found them and gave them a new task (which meant a lot of people spent a lot of time just avoiding being found))), decisive, and more than competent (meaning I didn't need to be told more than once how to do any particular thing).
Which brings us to the interesting part of all of this: I was put in charge of other people because of those traits. I was good at figuring out what needed to be done and making sure it got accomplished. [Actually, my biggest issue was with delegating, because I feel much more comfortable just doing tasks myself rather than depending upon someone else to do them.] These were things the managers liked seeing in their employees. They were not traits, however, that the other employees liked so much. Specifically, they were not traits that employees working under me particularly liked.
Every morning, all of the department heads had meetings with the people that worked under them to hand out tasks. Mostly, this was a pretty uncomplicated interaction that went kind of like this:
"Okay, Employee 1, you need to do Task A, today. It's not a rush job; you just need to be finished with it before you leave for the day." [That's eight hours to do a job that shouldn't take more than two or so to do, but you had to leave in time to help customers. Still, those kinds of tasks shouldn't have taken all day, although they usually did.]
"Employee 2, you need to do Task B. This is a rush job, and you need to focus on getting it finished as quickly as possible. If a customer has a question that you can't answer on the spot, call someone else to help her."
"Employee 3..." [I'm sure you get the idea.]
Seems straightforward, right? Except this one morning, a young lady interrupted me by saying, "Why do you always act like you know everything?"
I think I stared at her for a moment, because, really, I had no idea what she was talking about, then said, "Excuse me?"
"Why do you always act like you know everything?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You never say 'I think' or 'I believe,' you just tell us what to do like you know everything."
Point #1: If you think something or believe something, it's redundant to say "I think" or "I believe," because, obviously, if you're saying it, you must think or believe it.
But that's not what we've been taught in our current society. In a world where everything is subjective, we're supposed to always preface anything we say with a phrase that casts doubt upon what we're saying. Personally, I think that's bullshit. [Yes, I prefaced that with "I think" on purpose.] I don't go around saying "I think 2+2=4." Why? Because I know 2+2=4. Sure, I could be wrong (I'm not), but I believe that I'm correct, so I just say it: "2+2=4." People, though, get all bent out of shape with when you act confident about anything more complicated than that, because, you know, we're all entitled to our own beliefs.
And, see, I believe that. We are all entitled to our own beliefs. But that doesn't mean I have to be wishy-washy about what I believe. And you shouldn't either. If you believe it, if it's really what you think, drop the preface. Just own it and say it. Don't make it sound like you don't know, yourself, if you're sure about what you say you believe.
My response was something along those lines, "If I'm saying it, I must think it, so why should I bother to tell you that's what I think."
"Well, other people say it that way. They tell us what they think we should do. They also ask us if that's what we want to do. Why don't you ask us?"
"Do you mean I should say, 'Hey, would you like to re-do the endcap on aisle 7, today?'"
"Yeah, why don't you ask?"
"Because it's not an option. If I'm giving you the endcap to do, you don't have the option of saying 'no,' so why should I ask you if you want to do it? That would be misleading."
By this point, the other 5 or 6 people under my charge were all staring open-mouthed at us.
"Well, why don't you see which things we want to do and let us pick or something? I don't want to do [the task I was giving her for the day]."
"That's why I didn't ask. It's my job to assign the tasks to the people I feel best equipped to handle them, and you get to do [whatever the task was she didn't want to do]."
Point #2: If you're in charge of something, if it's your thing, it doesn't matter what other people think or feel about it. You have to make the decisions. Trying to figure out how everyone else feels about a particular thing and making it work for everyone will result in some things never happening. Like, you know, when someone smeared poop on the bathroom walls (and, yes, that would happen in the boys' restroom every couple of months), someone had to go clean that up. It wasn't something that was really up for debate, because that's one of those things that no one ever wanted to do, so saying, "Hey, who wants to go clean the bathroom?" wasn't going to get you any responses. You had to pick someone and tell them to do it and ignore any "Why do I have to do that?" and "I don't want to"s.
You may be wondering, at this point, what any of this has to do with, as a writer, liking your own work, but both points are very relevant. And I'm not saying that feedback can't be useful, but too much feedback, or trying to accommodate too much feedback, is debilitating. It's yours, your work. Believe in it. And I'll talk more about all of this in part 2.
Just to wrap up the story, as it turned out, that particular employee had been passed to me through about three other people who couldn't get her to do her assigned tasks. They had not been firm enough and had given assignments out as if they were options: "How would you like to do..." or "Why don't you take..." or "It would be great if..." She had taken all of those assignments as if they were optional and opted out of doing them. So they gave her to me, and she did what I assigned her even though she didn't like it.
However, about two weeks later, on a day when I was not at work, she had tried on a manager what she had tried on me, and she was fired on the spot. Actually, she was told she could "go home for the day," because they (TRU) never actually used the term "fired" (except that one time the one guy was caught stealing a buttload of video games, but that's another story). Then, she was never re-scheduled and when she came in for her paycheck, she was told "things aren't working out" and let go. Don't you just love all the euphemisms? I think they're great.
This post has been brought to you by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG.
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