Under New Management
 

I work at a Walgreens near my home as a certified Photo Specialist. Sounds fancy, but it's not. Recently, (actually, a couple months ago) a new store opened in Brunswick and all our management team was assigned to that new store. As a result, an entirely new management team was assigned to our store.

I am one of three photo technicians. One of us is out sick, as he got his tonsils removed for whatever reason. For the two weekends that I've had to work without him, it has been utter hell. There are seven days in a week, two shifts a day, plus the one shift that I usually get stuck with, helping unload the truck on Wednesdays. So with the one photo technician out sick, That leaves two of us. Two people, even working seven days a week, is not enough to cover all the shifts necesary. A simple concept to grasp, yet the creator of the schedule continues to put the other photo tech at the front register instead of using that valuable asset to cover the photo lab as any common-sense-bearing human being might do. This leaves me to cover photo in it's entirety when I am there. Not only is it incredibly difficult, but it really wears me out. My workplace performance has even gone down since the shift in scheduling.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been shafted by managers, new or old, and I'm sure those of you who are managers even have some stories about how employees have left you hangin'. How has your workplace added extra stress to your life and how did you manage it all?

Discuss.

I'm going to be a supervisor in September, and I'm already preparing for at least one worker to either not show up for his shift or to be very late. Maybe I read the paragraph wrong, but did it just say that you work 7 days a week with two shifts a day? I don't know how your store handles shifts, but that sounds a little abusive without the fact that you have to do all of the photo work.

I've been lucky to have transferred a couple of times before the CIO decided to change managers in my technological job. However, my journalism part-time job recently hired a woman that makes Avril Lavigne look like a caffinated cheerleader. I've worked at the paper about a semester longer than her, but turned down the job offer b/c my other boss would have had the lazy slacker mentioned in the first paragraph as a supervisor and I couldn't let that happen.

She had a test run in May and the play I was reviewing was having their dress rehearsal on a Wednesday (which was when the paper comes out). So, she has me go there on a Tuesday and tells the photographer that the dress rehearsal was that day. She tells me that she wants the story in by 8 p.m., but guess what...the rehearsal doesn't start until 7:30 p.m. I run out of the building before 10 p.m. (when rehearsal was almost over but not quite) and start working my fingers to the bone b/c when a photographer called her about it starting late, she tells me she wants the story by 10 p.m. The play is a musical comedy, and those normally run for long amounts of time.

Not only does she have these unusual deadlines, but she had the nerve to tell me--someone who has been working there longer than her--that I need to remember to use the inverted pyramid method. Seriously, I have not received complaints from any of the other editors before and theatrical articles are a bit different than the usual "inverted pyramid" method depending on what the article is about. Also, she tells me hours before the event starts that she wants me to interview all the candidates and record the results of the college election while doing a review on some fancy dance that is going on at the same time and wants it done by noon (the results were not announced until midnight and the losing candidates wouldn't answer my questions until the next morning).

The only real trouble that I have from the main supervisor of my job is that he knows I'm what you call a "worker bee". I'm one of those people who arrives on work on time if not early and is willing to do her job as efficiently as possible. However, he does expect me to do the work of 2-3 people at the same time sometimes because most of our older workers are graduating and the only returning younger work that isn't new is lazy and has barely missed being fired at least four times for not showing up to work. It's not the supervisor's fault I guess as much as it is the staff, but it still sucks to be the one that has to take on all the work.

Just like the thread starter's situation amounts to abuse, so it seems does yours. Simply because this soft skull is your supervisor doesn't equate to you needing to go scurrying every time she cracks the whip. Go above her head about her unrealistic deadlines and if nothing gets accomplished at that level, go higher and complain about your slacker supervisor and the superior who didn't seem to care. It's one thing to be a prompt and diligent employee, it's another altogether to allow someone in a higher position than you to push you around. Hell, maybe she doen't know anything about the time it takes and it's completely innocent. Somehow I doubt it, though. Essentially, calmly explain why what she asks is unreasonable. If she tells you to bugger off, get her in trouble.

My worst (long term) experience was as a customer service rep at blockbuster. All employees were expected to come and do inventory, which generally lasted 4 hours past closing (4 am). The store manager had no qualms with having a person close one night and open the next day. He was also notorious for scheduling people for 31 hours of work, 1 hour less than would make a person full time and entitle them to the full time benefits. Everyone started out at $0.20 more than minimum wage, and when I left I had gotten a $0.20 raise from that.

The other managers were worse. One was a pervert who loved making inappropriate comments to his fellow male employees (not talking like jokes... I'm talking propositions). One started 4 months after me, asked me to show him how to do things, and once he got the general hang of it bitched me out when I'd try to correct him in what he was doing. My least favorite manager was the one who enjoyed sending the CSRs who could drive out to do personal errands for him. When asked, I told him no. He threatened to tell the store manager I was slacking off and stealing, so I told him I would go get him his mcdonald's (or whatever). I got in my car, drove to 7-11, bought a pack of smokes with his money, and went home. Thusly terminating my employment.

Sorry. I worded that kinda awkwardly.

Basically, there are two shifts in a day that need covered by SOMEONE. We only have three photo techs, me being one of them, and another being out sick due to surgery or something. Basically that leaves 14 shifts to be covered, and the two photo techs that we DO have can only collectively cover 10, being that I certainly wont work more than five days a week, and I'm pretty sure Lori (the other photo tech) wont either. For some stupid reason, instead of putting her in photo, the choose to put her up front all the time, essentially leaving all but 5 of the 14 photo shifts uncoverable. What they've been doing lately is "doubling their money" I guess you could say by scheduling me only eight hours, but I overlap both shifts.

The morning shift is usually 8-4, and the evening shift is usually 4-10:30, when we close. They schedule me something like, 11-7 or 12-8 all the time so that I can cover the portion of the day when the majority of our business comes in.

I'm still only working 5 shifts, but I'm essentially doing the work of 10 because I still have to come in at test the machines three to four hours after we've opened, which backs up all the One Hour orders we can do, and then I also have to clean up, fill the chemicals, fill the paper cassettes, take out the trash, and put up some stock before I leave each night as well. It makes for a pretty stressful day.

As for you, Visavi, it sounds like the life of a journalist is pretty hectic as well. I have to give you pretty mad props for being able to handle that kind of stress and time management. I wouldn't be able to do it if my life depended on it. Also noting that the older workers are graduating, that's what I notice seems to happen at my job as well. When someone leaves, or cant come to work for a few days or something, I and I alone pick up the entirety of the slack. Just today our other Photo Tech Lori was complaining about how she only gets 26 hours a week and she took the job with the promise of getting at least 30 hours a week, if not the whole 40. I told her to talk to the manager about it, and hopefully relieve some of the load from my shoulders.

FadedReality has a pretty good point. I have recently found that this technique works really well. Today the manager of the entire store asked me about an incident a few days ago where I closed one night and left more than 10 rolls of next-day film to be processed for the next day, which is apparently unacceptable. I basically told her that the other managers tell me to stop processing film after 8:00, and that when things like stocking and straightening needs to be done, Next-day orders are not on the list of priorities. Apparently she understood the situation at hand, and I can only assume she revoked the write up that she never directly informed me of. None the less, now when other managers tell me to do that, I can just tell them she told me otherwise.

In your case, perhaps she really doesn't have any experience as a journalist, and thus doesn't understand the mind-numbing ammount of time management that is obviously required for your job. I would say do precisely as FadedReality suggests and bring this issue to the attention of a higher-up.

Well played. I would have done the same thing. I would have prefered to keep my job though...