Sassy's Up Late Again

Chuck The Schmuck

So Chuck (that Leasing Agent Asshole) finally got back to me about my counterproposal. He's not a very verbose fella.

Me (via email): I hadn’t heard from you since May, and I just wanted to check in with you on the status of the space we were talking about previously.

Him (4 days later): I think the space is too big. We need to find you something in the 1200 to 1500 sf range.

Me: Do you have any spaces in that size range? When (ballpark) would a space that size become available?

Him: The earliest I see any possibilities would be late 2008 contingent upon the existing tenant not renewing.

Right. Late 2008. Riiiight.

What the hell? So now what? Here are my choices, as I see them:

1. Wait. Wait? This is my life we're talking about. I can't just wait and not know when this will happen. I have other stuff to get done: I want to get married, I want to buy a house, I might even want to have another baby--and if I really have to wait 18 months, then I really REALLY want to get a new job.
2. Rework my business plan and find a different space in one of the outlying strip malls (a new one is just now being completed). This isn't as simple as it sounds. The whole reason I know this could be a success is because that mall needs a coffee shop. And as my SBA advisors aptly pointed out, if I locate outside of the mall, then what do I do for business once Starbucks moves in? And let's face it, eventually, Starbucks will move in. So coffee is fine, but I'll need something else to attract customers--something that would make it worth their while to get into their cars, drive across the street, and come to my store instead of stopping at the convenience store or any of the fast food joints in the area. I had only added the sandwich bar to my business plan because Chuck had been so adamant about the mall needing lunch offerings. I couldn't sell sandwiches in a strip mall space--if someone wanted a sandwich, there are already several options in the area. A bakery? I'm not sure I have the wherewithal for a full-scale bakery. That means a helluva lot more hours, a helluva lot more 5am kind of hours. The thing I liked about the mall space was that I was tied to their hours, and the prep time for my menu was simple. Truth be told, though, my town does have a shortage of actual bakeries (we've got Kroger and Wal-Mart, though!). The mall location (even the outparcels) are not very convenient for town, though--it's really more primarily an interestate exit ramp kind of market.
3. Hound him to give me one of the larger spaces. This requires muchos grandos huevos, and I'm not sure how to procede. Confrontation and I are not close friends. And since I have Zero experience in these things, I really have NO idea where I stand, or how to use anything in my favor to get what I want. I don't understand what is making Chuck be so non-committal--does he have something else in the works that he's not sharing with me because he's just not interested and hasn't gotten around to telling me to get lost? Does he have a boss that is handing down orders? I don't know what it would take to get him excited (or at least positive) about Java Dave's, and I don't know where to draw the line.
4. Quit altogether. I'm so totally not ready for this option. But what can I do??

Twelve-Piece Crazy-- Original Recipe, or Extra Crispy?

It's sad to say it (and trust me, even sadder to feel it), but I can finally say that I hate my job. Hate it. The truth is, I never wanted to like it, given the enormous dip in income and dignity that it required, but I had grown to enjoy it--or at least parts of it. My bosses were very cool, very easygoing people. Professional and competent, but friendly and easy to get along with. I wish I could mention the company name, but you know how touchy those corporate folks can be. Let's call it Mango Democracy. Mango Democracy is owned by Crack, Inc., who also owns Ancient Flotilla. If you followed such things, you would be aware that Crack Inc. lost a lot of money last year, followed quickly by the departure of their CEO--with a modest parting gift amounting to $16M. So they've got some belt cinching to do. So over the past 6 months, they've been 'making some changes'. First, we were the first in the company to begin what they called "The Pilot Program". Since our mall had both a Mango Democracy and a Crack, they decided they could save money by sharing resources. Sure, we already did that in a certain degree, but now we were really being tested: they compeltely reorganized the management structure so that both stores shared management. Gradually, hourly employees were being asked--well TOLD to work at the other store as well. Luckily for us, this created enormous problems for the girl who does the payroll, and that practice was cut short. It wasn't long before the stress set in--managers now had twice the work to do and less time to do it in. Stressed out managers don't really make good bosses. Then our district manager quit. Our new district manager (let's call her Crystal Meth) used to work for the new CEO at Another Company (rhymes with Schmiz-nee). She has never worked in a retail store. In Ms. Meth's mind, I believe she thinks we spend our days playing poker in the back and telling customers to leave their money at the counter before they leave. She has devised all sorts of tasks for us to keep busy. Let's review, shall we?

• As most mega-corporations are fond of, Crack, Inc. has devised a clever little acronym that 'teaches' us what charactaristics are required to provide good customer service. Each letter describes a category, each category has a list of 4 or 5 things that a good associate preforms on a regular basis. Simple. Ms. Meth has proclaimed that the C.R.A.P. program cards are to be reviewed (a small carbon-copy form is given to you each time your manager reviews it) with every employee. To be sure that they're doing this, they have to save all their copies, and log them on a chart, documenting that each employee has gotten this review on a timely basis. The store has to complete 77 reviews a week. Yes, that's 11 a day. And since we don't have half that many employees, that means that each and every one of usare guaranteed to get this review at least once a day. It is not uncommon to get it twice a day. Gotta meet that quota. I just love being 'taught' basic concepts that even a 12 year old can comprehend, and I love being instructed on these concepts and check up on twice a day, as if I have suffered serious brain damage and can't remember what I'm doing one minute to the next.
• Ms. Meth is tired of the excuses for underscheduled shifts. From now on, no employees are allowed to change their availability to fewer hours than they are on record for now. You are free to increase them, of course, but you can't decrease them again after that. And I should mention, no one was told of this change, people just started getting fired when they needed to change their summer hours. As a result, we're grossly understaffed and can't seem to keep any new people longer than 3 or 4 weeks. I feel the need to send an urgent message to Ms. Meth reminding her that she's talking about barely minimum wage part time jobs, no benefits. The only reason you take a job like this is for the flexibility. I predict waves and waves of turnover every time school opens and closes.
• Ms. Meth has decided that our inability to complete shipment is a problem she can solve with new methods. No, it couldn't possibly be a result of being grossly understaffed, or that the people that get shipment shits are constantly being pulled out to the cash register and fitting room to cover breaks, or that none of us are scheduled at the same time so that there is consantly someone on a break and all of us are actually working at the same time for all of about one hour a day. [Crack, Inc. has a very strick break policy, mandating 15 minute breaks and the exact to-the-minute meal breaks based on your shift length] Ms. Meth wants to know why we don't do shipment "Door-to-floor", as other stores do. "Door-to-floor" means that the boxes are delivered to the store floor, and the shipment crew opens the boxes there and processes the clothes there. There are 2 big reasons why we don't do it "door-to-floor". First of all, because our stockroom is almost as big as the rest of the store--other stores do it out on the floor because their stockrooms are tiny and cramped and there isn't enough room to unpack your lunch much less 200 boxes of jeans and chinos. Second of all, we receive our shipments about an hour and a half (if we're lucky) before the store opens. We would need about 30 people present to complete shipment before the store opens. So, being the Operations Geniuses that we are, we figured out that opening the boxes in the stock room was the way to go. But Ms. Meth is SURE that it needs to be done on the floor. That's the OBVIOUS reason we're having trouble, right? And let's review: the reason it's so distressing that we don't complete shipment in one shift is because then there's all this stock just sitting in the back unopened and unprocessed and we can't sell it. So the OBVIOUS solution was right under our noses, aparently: Ms. Meth has proclaimed that shipment will now be processed at night. Yes, 14 hours after it's delivered, "people" will come in and do shipment (out on the floor, of course) from 10pm to 5am.
  Now remember, we can't change our availability, so once you've agreed to try out a midnight shift, you're stuck with it. And our stockroom manager now has to work 6 days a week in order to get in 40 hours due to the restrictions on the hours he can work the day before and after the midnight shift.
  Oh, and this wonderful "solution" also requires that they begin the shipment process by wheeling out all 200 boxes from the stockroom out onto the floor. Saves time, somehow--I just can't wrap my feeble mind around it.
  Oh yes, and the people working the 3rd shift? They don't get paid extra for that time, which is supposedly required by state law.
• There are some 'small' changes to the dress code. We're no longer allowed to wear sneakers. We're unclear about the exact definition of 'sneakers', since there are a lot of options out there that are in a gray area. But it appears that we're not required to work 8 hours on our feet on concrete in hard-soled shoes. We don't get reimbursed or any sort of stipend for more ergonomic shoes, we're on our own. And no benefits, remember, so when I'm locked up and wracked with pain from bad shoes, I have no doctor to go see. I wonder if Workman's Comp will cover it?
• Last, but surely not the end of our plight: The nice folks at Crack, Inc. Corporate have decided that we need to spend more time counting things. Now every time we take a rack full of clothes out to replenish empty racks on the floor, we have to count how many we take out. And we have to count every item that gets marked down. And we have to count how many freaking SIGNS we change when the promotions change.

I need a new job. I really do.