The six most absurd and disconcerting employment scenarios
People… they are the life blood of my business. In fact they are all that I have and are the key to my success. People, well… great people.
So let’s look at some of the incredible moments that I have had to endure and all at the hands of my team.
Yep, they all belong to retail and given that they are self-monitoring it is not unexpected…
1. We had a call from an employee that had just recently rejoined the team. She requested a morning off mid-week to get her hair coloured. Given we had no support we suggested that she that she make a more appropriate appointment outside her working hours. Problem solved… or so we thought as we heard no more. That is until we had received a call from a perplexed customer that reported one of our team was serving her with foils in her hair. Yep, ever resourceful she had encouraged the hairdresser to colour her hair in-store in the back sink… and even sold her a wrap dress during the process! Unbelievable? No… it happened!
2. Then there was the employee that had a good friend call in to say ‘hi’. Given it was quiet she decided to lock up the store and enjoy a coffee at a neighbouring café. A perplexed customer placed the call. When we called to address the matter the employee was astounded at our expectation that the shop remain open at all times during the trading day. She informed us that she was able to see the store’s front door at all times during her half hour catch up and couldn't see a problem with the door being closed. Imagine what happened that we never knew about!
3. Then there was the girl in a busy North Island mall that endeavoured to get someone to work for her so she could effect a catering obligation that she had for her own small business. With no one available she hatched a plan… walking down to a neighbouring store on the same side of the mall as us, she asked the departing store manager (who was training a new recruit) to keep an eye on our store for a couple of hours. She had also arranged for her part-timer, at completion of her day at her bank job, to come down and pull the grate down to secure the store for the night. Yep, our store ran on auto-pilot for two whole hours and I would never have known if the part-timer hadn't insisted that she was paid for a ½ hour of unscheduled work to attend to the lock up… amazing!
4. One of the more serious had to be a crime committed by a manager where she took cash layby payments to supplement her weekly income. The initial layby would be created and entered into the POS System as per our policy but subsequent payments, when made in cash, were adjusted for against the customer’s copy of the layby documentation only. They never made it into our system and subsequently when discovered there where hundreds of laybys that the customers had picked up but they remained unpaid in our POS system. Total theft estimated to be around 70k as it took place over a five year period. Yep, serious fraud!
5. The next was an interesting burglary that occurred in one of our stores where the thief was only interested in the hidden cash box that, according to the manager, contained several weeks worth of bankings that she had failed to take to the bank. Hmm one can’t but wonder, when we had a policy of banking each and every day why so much cash was in the box!
6. Then there was the irate customer who rang Head Office to complain about the slow make service that was being offered by one of our store managers. She had taken her money and offered to make one of our obis (wrap belt) for a woman as she didn't have any stock… and apparently nor did head office! Nice little side earner for her. Pity she wasn't able to meet customer expectations re. delivery.
We have had so many lost key and store lock out incidents that it defies logic. Keys thrown out with rubbish at the end of a day, lost in underwear, girls who get to the loo and lock themselves out of stores or in back rooms.
And so the list goes on…
So what do I do when faced with one of these scenarios? Yep, I used to get so challenged but not any more. I simply deal with the issue and ensure the we implement changes and systems so that it can never happen again!
To err is human and it’s possibly a good thing that my team do not clone me. I do however shudder to think of how much I don't know that goes on in my retail and Head Office environment…
But then I guess I just have to believe ‘what you don't know doesn't hurt!’
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