Reading harold_maude's journal

I don't understand something. If something can be changed so that things work better, why nothing is done.

It seems like the more difficult and more confusing things are the better people who run corporations like it.

Where I work there is a general lack of respect for some certian things that the head office requires but the managment where I work thinks are a waste of time, so they treat thoes things with no respect.

The people who end up being handed thoes tasks are often unaware they have to do them until the last minuet and there is no time to prepare for them.
Which has the effect of making the person doing them look like a fool.

The department that this occurs consistantly in is mine. I head the department but I have no control or say as to anything about my department. All decisions come from uppermanagement and every time I or anyone who has had anything to do with my department trys to express concern or the need for change we are generally laughed off and told it's the way things are.
Period.

I few months back as I was muddling through the so called training process, I requested time to prepare for certian things so that the person doing the presentation would be at least somewhat knowledgeable about what they were doing and talking about.

I was repremanded and told that what I was doing was playing games. I found out that every person who has had this job has experienced the exact same thing.

Among the complaints I had was were the supplies were stored. I respectfully requested that they be moved to a place of easier access. They were stored in the recieving area under a long shelve that you had to crawl under to get to.
I got yelled at and told to just deal with it, in so many words.

Finally we got a new district manager and something was said about the boxes and how it made the area seem unclean so to speak. Only then were the boxes moved upstairs where all the fixtures are kept. It's no longer in a place that's difficult to get to, but now it's in a place where they will inevidibly get put in some corner of a very large room behind alot of other things and it will again become an impossible situation.

But it's the way things are.

When I was hired I was told initally that I had 18 hours a week to complete all the things that had to do with my job. The reality is after I finish with the work list they give me I get about 4 to 8 hours a month to do the work in.

I finally had it on Sunday. I was given my work list and laid it aside and did the things that have to do with my job first.
I've decited that until I find another job the work sheet is last priority and my job and all that is required for me to do it right comes first. Management can go sit on some very large sticks.

I know when I write down on my work sheet why things arn't done I will get called into the office and asked to explain.
I'm tired of feeling like a trained monkey simply because the management cares only about how much money is being made.

I was told when I was hired that everyone trains for every job in the buisness because the most important thing is to be a good employee. If that's so then that would mean that every manager of the company did my job at one time or another.
But they haven't. I know because I have asked.

They can't understand why people don't take initive and do things that need to be done when they see them. I know why that happens. If the management doesn't give a rip or respect the people who work there and the jobs they do, why would anyone want to go out of their way to do any more than what they are told to do?

A few months ago a big mucky muck went around the country to every store. We were told they were comming. I was given extra hours as were several other people so that the store would be in perfect condition when this person came in. Things were hidden out of sight where they wouldn't be found and there was this general state of panic that went on for about 3 or 4 days.

What the top brass was interested in was how the customers were being treated. That was it. They didn't inspect anything. And they talked to the employees and watched to see how they treated people.
I kept basicly out of sight by management, I can only guess it was because they thought I might say something that would cause some kind of embarresment.
I find it hysterical that they went through all this non sense about how things looked when it didn't matter.
And I find it even funnier that what they were looking for is how I have treated customers from day one. Like they are humans instead of wallets with legs.

I was told that with this job comes lots of freedom. I was lied to. There is no freedom with this job. I run a department and have no say in anything about it. I was told I had the power to hire and fire people to work in my department. I was lied to. I don't have any say at all. I'm expect to find people to work in my department but it's management who hires them and fires them.

I've worked hard to do my best at this job, to give the department some dignity and get it up from the basement where it's been since this store opened, but what I've learned is that as long as the management doesn't respect it, and the people who work in it, nothing will change.

And I guess that's really the way things are.

It only looks that way because your standing on your head.