Saturday, February 16, 2013

Well, that was awful.

I'm going to take a small second to rant. I'm sure my friends and boyfriend are tired of hearing about this because it's all I've talked about all day (and by all day I mean since I woke up at 3pm, you'll see..).

So Thursday night, I worked an overnight at work. I had never done this before and all week I was somewhat excited for it because I was working with a great friend and hard-working co-worker and I was looking forward to wearing yoga pants to work. I am SO over that friggin apron, khakis and Oxford shirt.

Thursday morning rolled around and I realized what I had to do and I immediately regretted the decision. Emily (the co-worker) and I spend all day dreading it and buying supplies to keep us awake all night. Once, we go there, wrote our list and ate some pizza, we became pretty confident that we could get everything done by 5am with no problem whatsoever.

Slight backtracking: Emily and I have worked at the Barrel since before we opened and we are PAR 3 (those stars on the aprons - you can only get 4, so having 3 is a big deal) and we are Skill Trainers. I'm also in development to become a Sales Lead/Shift Leader. So basically, we know what we're doing and we can get it done quick and right. Our manager scheduled a brand new associate to work overnight with us that has never put together a display and has only been working there for about 2 weeks and is very timid.

Our task was to literally re-do the entire store. We have approx. 10 displays and we moved 8 of them. Plus, the closing associate did not do any of her closing duties and she didn't change the prices like we do every Thursday night so we had to do all that too. Still, we weren't worried since Emily and I work quickly and well together and we had 3 people to do it all.

After about an hour of work, we assign the new girl one display to do. We explain exactly how to do it step by step and exactly what she needs to accomplish it. We tell her to ask us any questions she comes across and if she gets confused that we will step in and help. VERY long night made short:

  • She never asked for help although we continually offered
  • She kept looking like she was working but after about an hour and a half she only had 3 items on the display
  • We told her again how to go about building a display and she didn't listen 
  • She basically refused to do anything but kept acting like she was working
  • She lied when we asked her a direct question about if she had done something
She took OVER SEVEN HOURS to do ONE DISPLAY. And she didn't even finish it because when the opening manager got to work at 5am (when we were supposed to be done and going home) we realized she wasn't even done and we had to finish her display and clean the entire store (which was a MESS due to all the boxes we had to open) by the time we opened at 6am.

I cannot for the life of me figure out what she was doing for 7 hours. She always looked like she was working but apparently she wasn't. By about 3am, Emily and I had lost our patience and weren't as nice as we had been all night and I think she got offended. I got a text later in the day from a co-worker informing me the opening manager wants me to train the girl again and that she had talked to the manager about Emily and I. Not quite sure what she had to say since we worked our asses off for over 7 hours and re-set an entire store without any help from her.

I'm sorry, this got a little longer that I planned but it really frustrates me that I was forced to stay at work during an overnight shift because of someone else's incompetence. It also makes me livid that we tried all night to help and she refused to take any help from us and then she has the nerve to complain about us.

And of course I'm cranky because I'm sleep deprived and now my schedule is all wanky. I've gotta get my sleep schedule back to normal tomorrow since I open at work Sunday (where I apparently have to re-train her). Thank God for my kitten on days like today.

Does anyone else have some terrible co-worker/work experience?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Girl, I slightly understand. When I was an assistant manager at rue 21, I had to deal with this one girl that would not work. She also avoided shifts, by claiming her grandmother's death as a reason to skip work. She could not come back from her day trip with her family in time for her shift. That day I opened the store, and no one could come in so I had to stay all day and close with the store manager who was horrible. That day I originally had off and I was suppose to see a friend who was visiting Charlotte that day...

I know that this is the second post that I commented about horrible people, and it is because I want to let you know that you are not the only one who deals with it, not that I am trying to one up anyone on misery. I hope she either gets better at work or she gets fired quickly.

Anonymous said...

This makes me sad. I had to do an overnight store thing at Justice (Limited Too) once, which was my first job so I'm sorry you didn't get help. I prefer hostessing now, but I don't understand in full entirety what I did wrong cuz I felt like worked hard when no one was around to see it. (you can delete my post if you want)

Leslie said...

I don't know why either, really. Emily and I still wish you were working on retail and I think you would've been a whole lot of help the other night. But, sometimes I wish I was a hostess too since the pressure is so much less!

Leslie said...

I just don't understand people at all! You're there to work, so work! And hey, I like knowing I'm not the only one dealing with crazies, it's reassuring!

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