Isobel Asks The Internet

XIV - The Complaints Desk

Head office tried to interfere with my supermarket, but I fought back! Did I do the right thing?

Hey everyone!

So, I'm the part-time head manager of a supermarket (whilst studying for a degree in physics), and a few days ago the manager of the fashion department, Sandy, was set to return from a few weeks of personal time off, after being in an avalanche. To say that I was excited for Sandy's return was SUCH an understatement. She has a really unique and inspirational approach to dealing with customers; most of the time she just ignores them. Her replacement, Vix was so useless and the prospect of being permanently rid of her was incredibly tantalising too.

I knew that I had to make Sandy's return special, so I ordered a HUGE bouquet of flowers to give her when she walked through the door; it was so big that it needed two people to carry it. I also hired my friend Mallory (who works at a nearby restaurant) to make a coffee and walnut cake that everyone in the supermarket could share. This was the perfect choice as Sandy loves coffee and Vix has a nut allergy.

I pulled everyone on the shop floor from their roles so we could all give Sandy the welcome she deserved. There were no cashiers on the tills or anyone around to help the customers, but they would understand; even though Sandy was quite rude to them, they all respected her. As soon as Sandy walked into the store, me and Marceline (the deputy manager) grabbed the bouquet of flowers and dragged it towards her. The whole store shouted "welcome back Sandy" SO loud! She looked so happy and emotional, and hugged me and a few other people that she respected. I introduced her to all of the new colleagues we had hired while she had been gone, including Nigella, our people manager! 

After a couple of minutes, I realised that there was a woman in formal attire hovering around us. I assumed that she was a customer who wanted to ask somebody a question, which would have been incredibly disrespectful. I approached her, ready to request that she keep her questions to herself until we had made Sandy feel sufficiently welcomed, however she managed to open her mouth first and said "hi Isobel, I'm Angelica". I was SO confused, and still thought that she was a customer so I put my hand on my hip and said "can I help you?". She then told me that she was from head office which I knew was not a good sign; head office only send people when they want to undermine the authority of the head manager! I quickly shepherded her into my office, and let everyone carry on with their celebrations. However, we needed to start serving customers so I told Vix to start operating all of the tills to cover for everyone else, which was only fair as she didn't even know Sandy.

I did not anticipate the BOMBSHELL that Angelica was about to drop.

She started the meeting by saying how impressed she was by the performance of the store which, try as I might, was an argument I couldn't find fault with. She then told me that one of the new managers had really made an impression upon her. I assumed that she was talking about Nigella, and I was a little confused because her employment here did add an element of danger to the working day. I was shocked when she went on to say that SOMEONE within the store had phoned head office to tell them what a great job Vix was doing. It got even worse from here, and Angelica told me that based on this feedback she would be keeping Vix in my store instead of sending her back to the hovel she had scraped herself out of.

My face remained unreadable, but my heart  was screaming, crying and throwing up.

She then started talking about Sandy, and I IMMEDIATELY adopted a defensive posture; I was NOT going to allow them to tear Sandy away from us when we needed her the most. Angelica told me that she knew that "Sandy was an excellent performer" but was concerned about her attitude towards customers. This was SO dumb. Everyone in the store admired Sandy, and she always got the job done. I was worried that Angelica was about to fire her, but what she said next was perhaps even more chilling. Angelica told me that she was installing a complaints desk where customers could provide their feedback. This feedback would be typed into a computer and instantly sent to head office.

This was SUCH a dumb idea. Angelica had clearly never worked on the shop floor before, and therefore did not know that customers' opinions were worthless. I told her politely that I didn't think that it would gel with the vibe of the store, but Angelica said that it was too late and it was already being built. I checked on the security cameras and she was RIGHT; there was a construction team putting together the desk as we spoke. I was horrified that she would undermine my authority like this.

As soon as Angelica left, I KNEW that I had to act fast to prevent this plague of stupidity from spreading. I called Nigella into my office and asked her to find out who had provided the positive, yet factually incorrect feedback about Vix to head office. Nigella (who is SO kind and sweet but also really aggressive and dangerous) could be very persuasive when she wanted to be, and she soon found out that it was the bakery manager Mylene who had betrayed us. As soon as I found out, I called Mylene into my office and demoted her to restroom assistant. She started SCREAMING and said that she couldn't because of her aquaphobia but I told her that she should have thought of that before carelessly throwing the entire store on top of the garbage heap.  

I then had to tackle the issue of the complaints desk. There was NO WAY that we could allow customers' opinions to reach head office. When it came to choosing someone to work on the desk, I picked Britney, who had just turned 82 and wasn't very productive so I knew that she would be perfect for the job. While I was training Britney on the desk, she said "well, Isobel, I'm honoured that you picked me, but I don't know how to use a computer, and quite frankly, I don't care for them". I knew that Britney would say this, so I responded "that's OK Brit!! Just write the complaints down, and then I'll send them to head office myself!" Britney was SO happy as she loves writing (she always brings her own stationary to work even though she works in the freezer) and I had transferred power back into my own hands. 

Lastly, I had to deal with Vix. Although I couldn't fire her, she was now under my jurisdiction so I was technically in a better position than I had been before. As Sandy was back, she couldn't carry on as fashion manager (I would rather eat an arsenic baguette than let that happen) so this meant that I would have to transfer her to another department. Luckily, we needed someone to replace Brittany in the freezer, so I transferred her over to that department. Technically, every colleague is supposed to have AT LEAST 24-hours of cold temperature safety training before they can work in the freezers, but Vix hadn't finished the fire safety course I had enrolled her on, and I knew that it would be unfair to make her do both at the same time. 

At the end of the day, I did some research on Angelica. I suspected that she might have had a grudge on me given all of the TERRIBLE ideas she forced onto the store, and this made me think that she could potentially be in league with Brindie, Debra and Marlene, and perhaps she also blamed me for the death of Mavis. However, I couldn't find anything online to suggest this, and concluded that she was just inept. 

Does it sound like I fixed the problem? Should I try to get revenge on Angelica for what she has done?