Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 32
| Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 11:46 pm Post subject: Got A Good Laugh For All! | |
|
Are you ready for this one? Well are you? OK here is the New Idea Of Management in my store.
Management will be ordering special pallts just for truck.... why you ask.....Oh My God..... you will never believe this one. Get this... the pallets will be numbered, each empolyee, with the exception of cashiers, delivery, receiving, and delivery, oh and upper management will have 1 to 4 pallets assigned to them. Why you ask.... oh yes it gets better  So after you get your truck done, or if you have extra people in your dept you go and check if your "assigned pallet" is full of stock 
Now, you have to go to whatever dept that that pallet belongs to and put it up, you can not leave until all your pallets and your fellow employee members "team players" have all the truck up. Are you confused yet? 
Ok Ok Ok, it gets better, we ask what shall happen when so and so calls in, will their pallet be waiting for them.... no wait, how bout when you are on vacation, will there be freight waiting for you? What response did we get back.... blank stares 
Now come on people you cannot convince me that Management does not get paid the big bucks for nothing, they come up with brilliant ideas like these 
Makes me proud to be a Lowes Team Player, makes you feel warm all over 
|
|
Joined: 09 Oct 2003
Posts: 16
| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 12:11 am Post subject: What A Pure Stroke Of Genius!! | |
|
Sounds more like that should be an executvie decision, by some pencil pusher at G.O., rather than managment. That solves all the freight problems for Lowe's. So what if someone is on the otherside of the store, puttig up their assigned skid, the customer always understands and will gladly wait for you to come over to assist them. OH WAIT!! I'm sure managment will gladly help those custmers out so you can focus on your assigned freight. Silly Me!
Seems to me you have the problem we use to have. Some departments can get all their freight up, no problem, but others always seem to lag. Example. I am in plumbing, and we always get our freight up the same day, and I do a lot of the ordering, and I believe in "JOB LOT QUANTITES", so needless to say, we usually get 12-15 skids worth of freight. I have had numerous days when I was the only one there from 6:00 am to noon, and got everything up before my next person came in, including yellow dots being done. Of course I never get a "good job" or "thanks for the extra work", if I don't get it up by noon now, I get "why are you waiting around" or "you think this freight will get its self up". We had the freight team going for awhile, people were pulled from all over in the morning meeting to team up and go department by department until the freight was up. Or should I say in theory. Of course everyone wondered away by about 9:00, mainly because we would always be in paint putting up freight, and the paint department wouldn't touch it. As matter of fact after the freight team became a thing of the past, their freight would go untouched until one certain part timer came in at night and put it all up. Lowe's has a fear of disciplining the people who slack off, so the people who work, or have some work ethics too them have to pick up the slack, which is an example of piss poor managment. Instead of punishing everyone, deal with the problems. These people slack off, and everyone else gets upset over it, so they either slack off, get very bad moral, or quit, and this turns into a Pandora's Box. If Lowe's would send its managment to a third party seminar or lecture on effective managment techniques, things would be a lot better, only if they would adhere to them. The idea of assigning skids of freight to people, and making them put it up, regardless of the department it is in is ridiculous. I can put plumbing freight up quick, because I know where it goes. Put me in hardware, it would take me 3-4 times as long to find it, since I am not down there regularly to know where it all goes. Ever people who may have worked that department in the past woiuld be lost with the regular resets that go on, Also the customers in that area who ask you for help don't know that you are in that area, so they are not going to be patient with you while you try to learn a new department 3 to 4 times a week. Wake up managment and come to the real world of how things need to be done Sunklowe |
|
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Posts: 214
| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 2:43 am Post subject: | |
| Just when you think they can't come up with anymore stupid crap they do. What an honor for Lowe's employees, to have a pallet named after them. | |
Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 17
Location: earth
| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:57 am Post subject: | |
|
""""""""I can put plumbing freight up quick, because I know where it goes. Put me in hardware, it would take me 3-4 times as long to find it, since I am not down there regularly to know where it all goes.""""""""""
Thats the whole idea behind it. You will learn where things are. By spending time in other areas of the store, you then will be able to work that dpt should the need be. You know when you are putting up freight people will be asking you questions and you will have to help them. |
|
Joined: 09 Oct 2003
Posts: 16
| Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 2:02 pm Post subject: | |
|
Very true seasonalguy, however there are better ways for cross training. Our store has been on a rampage to get everyone register trained for code 3's. On of our associates had the best reply when he was asked when we was going to get trained. He told them as soon as everyone gets hardware trained, he will get register trained. It's amazing how many times I have been paged for customer assistance at the tubing, and all they need is some cut off. The tubing is already marked, everyone carries a box cutter, and cut tickets are right there with it, also every employee hopefully knows what a bin label is and how to read it, so they can get the item number. Do they cut it though. No, they think someone from plumbing must do that.
The topper to that was a couple of weeks ago. Our hardware department manager was walking out of the break room, which our department is right next too. A customer asked for help, so she helped him. (This is what customer service is, attempt to help them, and if you can't then get someone who can). She was able to assist them. Well I was in the faucet aisle putting up freight (6 aisles away), and the store manager came to me and yelled at me "Why is my hardware employee helping your customers". I went up to see what was going on, and she was already done helping them. Me being a smart ass, I went back to him, and told him that I can not be in 7 aisles at once, and she stated it only took 30 seconds to help him. I then also asked since when are they my customers, aren't they ours. I was talk I was out of line. Next time our district manager is in, and wants to know how things are going (me and him actually get along very well), I am going to tell him this story, along with the one of our store manager hitting my vanity bell last week to make me get up and make sure I answer it. His response was I should be working and not sitting at the desk. Oddly enough I was working on 4 different installs at the desk where I got the details back. All 4 jobs were sold and totaled close to 8,000 dollars. No compliment on that. He has also been doing the same to our kitchen guys. When they are working on drawings, he makes them get up and clean. They are not telling the customers when hey call back that they were unable to finish the drawings due to work load, and are lossing sales left and right. This is being kept track of, and being presented to our district manager. Our store has a philosphy. Specialists are just added coverage. They can get the more than 40 hours out of you, but don't care if you want to focuse on sales. As matter of fact focus on anything but sales, then yell at the specialists when they don't make budget. This is another point I'm bringing up to our district manager, since in his store the specialists do nothing but sales. They don't do freight, they don't downstock, they don't even get on pickers to pull orders, that is the CSA jobs. Not that I don't mind doing any of those things, it does help the day go by quicker, but I would like my main focus to be sales, that is what I signed on for. Sunklowe |
|
Joined: 07 Jul 2003
Posts: 95
| Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 4:44 am Post subject: | |
| Back to original topic. Our store did this pallet stunt about three years ago. It was supposed to be the next greatest thing. Although any of us could list ten different reasons why it wouldn't work. It didn't. Went away in less than a week. You do have to wonder how long ago some of these folks worked in a store. funny stuff | |
Joined: 09 Oct 2003
Posts: 16
| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 2:11 am Post subject: | |
|
Perhaps a good addition to the Lowe Down would be a monthly article entitled "Best And Worst Management Decisions". Let managers input ideas they use that work and don't work. It is sure to save a lot of money, maybe insure some standards from store to store, and most deifnatley reduce some stress to all the employees out there when a plan fails.
Sunklowe |
|