I think none of these contradictory requirements or hypocritical demands are by accident. I think management is perfectly happy with everybody believing they’re stupid, because the truth is worse.
They’ve deliberately set up you and the stores in a no-win situation. You can’t possibly get the scores they require, at least not without letting other metrics, like speed and profits, slip. Now they will always have a reason to backup any action they take against a store or employee.
“We didn’t fire her because of her union talk, but because of her consistently poor scores on the customer satisfaction survey.” “The entire store is not getting performance bonuses because of low scores, even though sales were top in the region.” Etc.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear - the Evil Manager I saw demoted and fired was from the insurance industry, not the current retail/big box store/grocery environment I currently live in. Honestly, for all its flaws I find my current work situation less toxic than working in a corporate office. And when you say working retail is less stressful than something else… well, that actually says a lot.
I think it works in any company or industry. Always have something to hold over employees, branches, departments, etc. Always be able to show cause for any action that might be taken in the future. Much easier to plan ahead for failures, than to have to look back through records and hope to find excuses to justify action.
Yup, that is leverage that management loves to have on the workers. It’s a way to have plausible deniability to counter any claims of wrongful termination (due to bias or something else).
It’s like the Suicide Squad from DC Comics (and movies), where they take dangerous people, put remote-controlled bombs in their heads, and force them to take on high risk missions. If you refuse to do what they say, or cause problems, or do anything they don’t like, BOOM! Except the termination in real life isn’t quite so dramatic.
It’s got to feel great when your employer treats you as if you are a poorly-rehabilitated supervillain.
RealID ranting! I envy you people who can just stroll over to the DMV with the required documents. I have all of my documents, but here in North Carolina they expect your entire legal name to appear on your Social Security card. Mine is just “Firstname M Lastname,” so I have to make an appointment at the Social Security office to get a new card before I can stand in line at the DMV.
I finally canceled my service with CenturyLink a couple of weeks ago, and they sent me a damn survey about whether or not I would recommend them. (For reference, I was canceling due to lack of service and an inability to contact anyone for repair.)
I also got a survey for a coding bootcamp at a local university that I had been interested in, until I realized that it was just a cash grab. The company that actually hosts the bootcamp was behind the survey; I was actually willing to fill it out, since I wanted to let someone know why I had opted out, but the first eight pages were just random demographics information. Nope.
I got a survey from xfinity (who I’ve been trying to get to install internet at my house). The topic of the survey was “why are you cancelling service?” So, this is how they let me know they didn’t want me as a customer.
When I got my RealID in NC I had to bring in my birth certificate and the court order for the legal name change I had had done 30 years ago. Fortunately, I had both of these in my files, so I didn’t have to fly back to Chicago to get them. I also had my Social Security card with my current legal name.
My gripe with NC DMV is that when my RealID expired in 2020 I had to go to the DMV to get it renewed because it’s a state ID card instead of a driver’s license. If it had been a driver’s license I could have renewed it online, but for some reason state IDs have to be renewed in person, which meant having to make an appointment (no walk-ins because of the pandemic) and then take the bus there and back. Why make people who are more likely to have transportation issues come in to the office?
Okay, i had a good survey experience yesterday. I went to whole foods. Bought what i needed, but they didn’t have my preferred brand of milk. Went to check out. While the clerk was ringing up my groceries, i noticed that the little screen that recorded what he was scanning also showed a survey. “How well did we meet your expectations”. I clicked “a little worse than expected”. It showed me a list of possible reasons, including “item out of stock”, so i clicked it. It said “thank you for completing our survey”. And then i waited briefly for the clerk to finish, paid for my groceries, and left.
They did not. But since being taken over by Amazon, whole foods has been “out of stock” of this it that a great deal more than it was previously. It’s useful to them to know that annoys customers.
But the really good things about the survey are that no one bagged me to do it, and it didn’t increase the time i spent in the store at all.
I haven’t paid full price for a Big Mac in 4 years because I always take the receipt, fill out the survey, use the code for a 40% price Mac and then use the new receipt for another survey ad infinitum.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with years of majority conservative legislatures that want to make sure certain groups of people have a difficult time obtaining something that may be required for voting at a future time.
FWIW, you would not have had to fly back to Chicago. You can order the things online from the responsible government agency for vital statistics where you were born or had your name changed.
I’m sure if I’d looked into it I would have found this out. One of the things I had made sure to do when I was planning to move, however, was to make sure I had certified copies of every document I might possibly have needed just in case.
Throughout the majority of my military career, I was astounded by the number of people who did not know what an actual birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce decree*, or any other official document for vital statistics was. I really lay the blame for that on both the school system (civics class) and the relevant government entities (“This is not your child’s official birth certificate. Be sure to get that from as soon as you can.”) It’s even worse when someone marries overseas (For example: one cannot get marrried at an embassy or consulate). Too many people just assume something is true because they’ve always heard that, or they saw it in a TV show or a movie, or “it just makes sense it would be this way”.
Want official documentation? Get it from the official (i.e., government) agency concerned.
*There was one case where a sailor at our base assumed that getting married the second time automatically terminated his first marriage. His reasoning: “It’s illegal to have more than one wife”.
(For reference, I was canceling due to lack of service and an inability to contact anyone for repair.)