Over the weekend, I began working for a monstrous corporate retail chain. According to the company's blogging policy, outlined on page fifty-two of the field handbook, I'm not allowed to give away company information, harass people, or use trademarks and logos. The first two, I'm sure I can avoid, but I think the last one might be tough, as I believe the company name is a trademark. Regardless, I'd like to introduce you to a little bit about how corporate America works at the ground level.
For those unaware, I've spent the past few years working for my mom at the family wine shop. Our shop is small, but does brisk business. We have one cash register and rarely have more than three people working at a time. Each employee handles every duty, with the exception of my mom, the manager. She does extra administrative things, but she doesn't do thinks like carry cases or other types of grunt work. At this corporate beacon of efficiency I now work at, almost all of us have pretty defined tasks, at least for each shift. That means if I'm working at the cash register, I'm supposed to direct customers to the information desk if they have a query, even if I could probably help them out. When working the register, the store's size really prohibits me from going about and looking for productive things to do when no one needs to check out: I can't go organize or clean up, and instead just wait behind the counter.
This company also is insistent about preventing "shrinkage"- what most of us call theft- although, I don't think it's unwarranted. However, here, the difference between the small wine shop and the corporate behemoth couldn't be different. First, there's all the theft prevention devices, like the plastic cases around CDs or DVDs. If you think the little sticker around the case is difficult to open, then you should take solace in the fact that you don't need to use these absurd magnetic devices to open the outer shells yourself. They're basically impossible and take forever, and all to make sure nobody lifts a copy of "Yanni at the Taj Mahal".
Then, there's the way they make employees dependent on the manager. For example, I'll come back the register. If I'm running out of change, I have to call a manager over to get some from the safe. It must be company policy, too, because he refuses to put more than $20 of ones in the drawer. Over the weekend, I think I needed to manager to replenish my cash drawer four times in both shifts. When I got flustered during a huge rush of customers and forgot to take a man's change out of the drawer, I needed to wait for the manager. At the wine shop, if I need change, I take it. If I need to open the drawer, I press a button. The manager there gets to worry about real stuff, like stock and stupid paperwork things.
And that's another thing: the manager has so much gratuitous paper work to do. Everything needs a form. Of course, they insist that he use Excel for most of this, even when it's really not applicable to the task at hand. That's just the way things are done, and all because some suit thought it was a great idea. (Note to self: remember that when you become a suit later down the line.)
The inanity of all that procedure, however, is nothing compared to the meticulous details put into display. Everything you see on the shelf comes directly from corporate headquarters. Every single shelf and every single table comes right from a binder that shows you how to set it up. It's incredible, the control they exert over every inch of their empire.
If all this sounds crazy, it is. Luckily, the people I work with are cool and take it all in stride. They see the absurdity of it all, and spend a lot of time joking about it all. We have a lot of fun using the absurd headset walky-talkies we all have to wear to tell jokes, rip on each other, and rip on customers. After work, during clean up and reorganization, we put raunchy CDs on the PA and have a blast. Sure, they've reduced working at a bookstore to a totally mindless job, but it's been pretty good so far, and I'm glad I'm able to spend the time doing it. It's no fun that I work late, but once the rest of my friends leave next week, I won't mind so much. Go corporate America!
