phrasemuffin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
phrasemuffin) wrote2006-07-02 02:29 am
phrasemuffin) wrote2006-07-02 02:29 am
I haven't ranted in a while, and this time, it's personal
so
work
Well, tonight was night 3 in my 4-day-work-a-thon :( and I have to say, I'm not too happy about a few things.
First Night: Thursday
Thursday wasn't too bad. I worked with my boss, Leng, for a 7 hour shift after being called up on short notice for some reason or other. Working with Leng is always fun because she rags on every second customer for being tight, a bitch or a source of the asian stereotypes (which is only fine because she is too, in case you didn't get that from the name). Plus she knows everyones names and she is just generally an interesting and fun and nice and cool and smart person. It probably helps that she's fairly young, even though her feminine tendancies tend to make her think she's a lot older than she really is.
Obviously, I have a lot of respect for the woman.
None of that was really last-Thursday specific though. The fact that I met one of the soon-to-be-new managers/co-owner/something!else?, however, was. Her name is Kim, and she seemed nice enough, but rather trainee-esque for a managerial role if you ask me.
Second Night: Friday
Friday night I heard from Amy that Kim has absolutely no work ethic. Apparently she was complaining the entire shift they shared about how she didn't really want to be working there, while acting superior and playing the manager's role. Again, it was thought that she was still too "trainee" for the job.
But it's too late now.
During the shift, Harry came in (and brought his wife, their daughter, and her boyfriend? into the bakery) and installed a new phone. There were complications, to say the least. First of all, the phone line stretches from one side of the store into the centre, being stuck down with stickers every few centimeters, to a spot that used to be the home of our don't-touch-the-bread tissues. The tissues have now been moved to a tiny little cabin below, a place where my automatic-tissue-grabbing-without-looking mind does't think to go, and when it does, scrapes my hand on the top of the cabin because there's no room. Second of all, the first couple of phone calls didn't actually connect properly - the phone rang, and once we figured out how to answer it (because its one of those fancy digital base-station-cordless phones with too many buttons and lights) we did, but then there was no one there. That happened several times throughout the day.
grrrr
Third Night: Saturday
So, I got into work today and found two large floral arrangements sitting on the counter congratulating Harry and his wife Katherine, the now-new owners and managers, on the take-over. Pretty, but innappropriate in a bakery, and highly inconvenient when it came time to clean the place at the end of the night. Harry had also installed a microwave out the back, so now we have to reheat things for people when they ask for it (we can use the ovens in the mornings, but once they've been off for an hour or so, they're useless). Problem is that I've never used this microwave, and probably won't have before I need to use it on a customer's product of choice, so I could very well end up scorching the damn thing if its one of those insanely high wattage things.
When I came in for my shift at 1:30, I was supposed to be replacing Amy so that Kim wouldn't be left with only one other staff member in all her trainee_v.s._manager glory. But, somehow, I ended up replacing Kim at 1:30.
Or at least, I should have, and would have if she'd actually left at 1:30.
But no, there was a problem with how she did the till. You see, when we start in the morning, we are given a float of $180 so that we can give change and such, instead of starting with no money at all and having to rely on the 'kindness of strangers' and theirinability to give exact money. At the end of the morning shift, whoever is leaving takes the till out the back, counts it all up to make sure we aren't missing any money, and then puts a new float in the till from a separate, predesignated bag. However, Kim screwed something up (again, apparently - Amy and Vivian told me how she'd been making big mistakes, and rather often, that morning, and not caring about how to fix the till up so as not to incur an imbalance between how much money should be, and how much money is, in the till at the end of the day, nor about how to prevent the mistake from happening again), something about taking money out of the till to create a new float and then, to fix the problem, trying to take money back from somewhere else and... I got lost, but they understood what they were complaining about, so I just nodded and accepted the fact that something was wrong. So not only did Kim leave half an hour early, skipping out on possibly valuable work experience time, but she left a mess when she did.
great hands we're in /____\
Also, we have something called a production sheet, upon which every item that the bakers bake is written and recorded. This morning, no such document was made, and when one was finally produced, it was wrong. About $250 worth of wrongness. Vivian and I had to go through each item on the new, compare it to the old, record the change we were forced to make and then add it to the production tally on the register. You have no idea how much bread we bake until you look at the production sheet. We had about $3000 worth of bread-sales baked today, and then there's a problem like this. It doesn't make for happy campers, let me tell you.
And finally, Harry decided to take a little holiday in the week before he started. He went overseas, possibly to visit his wife who works in Singapore. Possibly to just get away from having to do the roster this week. This guy is so unorganised. From what I've seen, the week's roster has been hastily stuck together, much like trying to shove those random tidbits into an essay that's due the next morning when it's already 3a.m. and you still have to flesh it out because it's only half the word limit. I.e. it's been a mad house to get rosters sorted. It probably hasn't helped that people are leaving on holidays soon, and they need new staff or something (even though holidays generally tend to end with the holidayer coming back... or is that just me?... !!!!!), but that's no excuse. Especially not for what they've given me - a 12hour shift! From 9a.m. (when no one should be awake yet, let alone already be at work! For crying out louad - it's the holidays!! what ever happened to sleeping in?) to 9p.m. Not only was Leng the only one to do such shifts under her management, but both Harry and Kim have made comments to the effect of "Leng is the only one who could do such a shift - I know I couldn't". And then they try and lump it on me! I mean, I guess I should tke it as a compliment that they think I'm that good, but I'm not. I'm horrible in comparison to some of the girls (and so I should be - I don't have theover-sized female corpus collosum for all that multi-tasking). Not even Kate, my sister, had to do a 12 hour shift in the 4 years she worked at Baker's Delight. The closest she had to do was about 10hours, and after that she was buggered, and she's like the goddess of work and customer service and al that jazz. She's an amazing worker, and I'm relatively shit (though I'm way friendly and nice and loking out for the customer, so much so that a random business woman/scout came up to me at work and said "I've been watching you for a while now and you're really good with customers. My job is to recommend people to big business firms, people with good inter-personal skillzs - people-persons - and I wanted to let you know that I would have no worries in recommending you", but then she found out I'm a first year at Uni and still have like 4/5 years ahead of me, and kind of left me alone with no more stalkers), and if she found 10hours hard, who the fuck would I do 12? I know I probably could (especially with someone like Nana Faye, the nicest loveliest lady in our store - I love to work with Faye for she is teh awesome/cute/little-not-old-lady-sweetness), but Faye'll only be there for the monring shift, and then I'm on with Kim. The last 7 hours (the 2-9 shift) would be hellishly, I'd imagine.
-_______________________-
I think I need to talk to Leng to see if it's even "legal" to have me working 12 hour shifts (though it probably is leagal, I suspect it would be frowned upon by the good managers of child labor forces such as ours).
Anyway, I've been working off a list I started writing this afternoon in the last hour or two (I actually lost it and thought I'd left it at work for the bakers to find *looks at watch* oh, about nowish, and then to pass on to Harry... not so good with things like "- Kim's work ethic (or lack there of)" written on it, as well as the list of things to be added to production - the baker's may have mistaken that as extra orders to be filled or something), but I seem to have come to an end, and its 2:30am, so I think I'll head off to bed now - I have to be at work in 12 hours :(
work
Well, tonight was night 3 in my 4-day-work-a-thon :( and I have to say, I'm not too happy about a few things.
First Night: Thursday
Thursday wasn't too bad. I worked with my boss, Leng, for a 7 hour shift after being called up on short notice for some reason or other. Working with Leng is always fun because she rags on every second customer for being tight, a bitch or a source of the asian stereotypes (which is only fine because she is too, in case you didn't get that from the name). Plus she knows everyones names and she is just generally an interesting and fun and nice and cool and smart person. It probably helps that she's fairly young, even though her feminine tendancies tend to make her think she's a lot older than she really is.
Obviously, I have a lot of respect for the woman.
None of that was really last-Thursday specific though. The fact that I met one of the soon-to-be-new managers/co-owner/something!else?, however, was. Her name is Kim, and she seemed nice enough, but rather trainee-esque for a managerial role if you ask me.
Second Night: Friday
Friday night I heard from Amy that Kim has absolutely no work ethic. Apparently she was complaining the entire shift they shared about how she didn't really want to be working there, while acting superior and playing the manager's role. Again, it was thought that she was still too "trainee" for the job.
But it's too late now.
During the shift, Harry came in (and brought his wife, their daughter, and her boyfriend? into the bakery) and installed a new phone. There were complications, to say the least. First of all, the phone line stretches from one side of the store into the centre, being stuck down with stickers every few centimeters, to a spot that used to be the home of our don't-touch-the-bread tissues. The tissues have now been moved to a tiny little cabin below, a place where my automatic-tissue-grabbing-without-looking mind does't think to go, and when it does, scrapes my hand on the top of the cabin because there's no room. Second of all, the first couple of phone calls didn't actually connect properly - the phone rang, and once we figured out how to answer it (because its one of those fancy digital base-station-cordless phones with too many buttons and lights) we did, but then there was no one there. That happened several times throughout the day.
grrrr
Third Night: Saturday
So, I got into work today and found two large floral arrangements sitting on the counter congratulating Harry and his wife Katherine, the now-new owners and managers, on the take-over. Pretty, but innappropriate in a bakery, and highly inconvenient when it came time to clean the place at the end of the night. Harry had also installed a microwave out the back, so now we have to reheat things for people when they ask for it (we can use the ovens in the mornings, but once they've been off for an hour or so, they're useless). Problem is that I've never used this microwave, and probably won't have before I need to use it on a customer's product of choice, so I could very well end up scorching the damn thing if its one of those insanely high wattage things.
When I came in for my shift at 1:30, I was supposed to be replacing Amy so that Kim wouldn't be left with only one other staff member in all her trainee_v.s._manager glory. But, somehow, I ended up replacing Kim at 1:30.
Or at least, I should have, and would have if she'd actually left at 1:30.
But no, there was a problem with how she did the till. You see, when we start in the morning, we are given a float of $180 so that we can give change and such, instead of starting with no money at all and having to rely on the 'kindness of strangers' and their
great hands we're in /____\
Also, we have something called a production sheet, upon which every item that the bakers bake is written and recorded. This morning, no such document was made, and when one was finally produced, it was wrong. About $250 worth of wrongness. Vivian and I had to go through each item on the new, compare it to the old, record the change we were forced to make and then add it to the production tally on the register. You have no idea how much bread we bake until you look at the production sheet. We had about $3000 worth of bread-sales baked today, and then there's a problem like this. It doesn't make for happy campers, let me tell you.
And finally, Harry decided to take a little holiday in the week before he started. He went overseas, possibly to visit his wife who works in Singapore. Possibly to just get away from having to do the roster this week. This guy is so unorganised. From what I've seen, the week's roster has been hastily stuck together, much like trying to shove those random tidbits into an essay that's due the next morning when it's already 3a.m. and you still have to flesh it out because it's only half the word limit. I.e. it's been a mad house to get rosters sorted. It probably hasn't helped that people are leaving on holidays soon, and they need new staff or something (even though holidays generally tend to end with the holidayer coming back... or is that just me?... !!!!!), but that's no excuse. Especially not for what they've given me - a 12hour shift! From 9a.m. (when no one should be awake yet, let alone already be at work! For crying out louad - it's the holidays!! what ever happened to sleeping in?) to 9p.m. Not only was Leng the only one to do such shifts under her management, but both Harry and Kim have made comments to the effect of "Leng is the only one who could do such a shift - I know I couldn't". And then they try and lump it on me! I mean, I guess I should tke it as a compliment that they think I'm that good, but I'm not. I'm horrible in comparison to some of the girls (and so I should be - I don't have the
-_______________________-
I think I need to talk to Leng to see if it's even "legal" to have me working 12 hour shifts (though it probably is leagal, I suspect it would be frowned upon by the good managers of child labor forces such as ours).
Anyway, I've been working off a list I started writing this afternoon in the last hour or two (I actually lost it and thought I'd left it at work for the bakers to find *looks at watch* oh, about nowish, and then to pass on to Harry... not so good with things like "- Kim's work ethic (or lack there of)" written on it, as well as the list of things to be added to production - the baker's may have mistaken that as extra orders to be filled or something), but I seem to have come to an end, and its 2:30am, so I think I'll head off to bed now - I have to be at work in 12 hours :(