When I first started writing blogs (September 2014) I couldn’t really
have guessed just how they would be received. Would anyone read them? Would they get some lip service? Would they be
genuinely liked? Who knew?
One particular earlyish effort was merely blogged because I was looking
forwards to the return of the Sky 1 programme ‘Trollied’ – mainly because I
used to work at a supermarket and found it was very close to the mark in its
observations! I didn’t for a second think
that it would ultimately become the most popular blog I've written to date!
So on the back of that ‘Getting Trollied Again’ blog, I thought I’d give a further insight into those glorious retail
years:
As previous readers will know, I spent the formative years of my
employment working in a supermarket.
My first couple of years were enjoyed as a
student on the Produce section and checkouts, before moving to working on the
Delicatessen counter, initially as a student, but then as a full time member of
staff once I’d left Sixth Form and was undecided about what I wanted to do with
my life. So many people fall into this route, and I actually really enjoyed it
for a long time before finding something outside of retail when I was in my
early mid twenties.
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| A picture of a Deli Counter. Not mine though - I had some staff behind mine |
After learning the Deli role inside out for a couple of years, I was
fortunate enough to get a promotion to become the new Delicatessen Manager at a
store in Brighton, starting just three days after my 21st birthday.
It’s fair to say that up till that point of my retail career, I’d seen a
few things that had opened my naïve innocent young eyes a little, but nothing
prepared me for the response I received on my first day in that new role, and
indeed the first couple of months.
What could be so wrong?
Well specifically it was three things about me that made some of my new
staff not that keen on me at all:
1.
I was introduced to them on the first day as God.
2.
I was young.
3.
I was male.
Being introduced as The Almighty was horrendously embarrassing. I have
no idea why my introducer opted to say that, but I think maybe because he had been
looking after the counter in the absence of a manager and wanted them to think
I was there to ‘save’ them. I REALLY had to underplay that title in the first
few weeks to stave off fears of being called arrogant. Talk about a stitch up.
As for ‘being young and male’ – well they both sound ridiculously
ancient don’t they!?
But it was a genuine issue as Delicatessen counters traditionally (although not exclusively) had been
a rather female dominated environment, and here I was, this boy, taking over the
running of their baby and many of them were not at all comfortable with it. To them, I was the Anti Milky-Bar Kid in more ways than one.
Had
I not been their manager, and just been joining as an assistant, I doubt it
would have irked them so much, but it took a ton of effort to win certain staff
over and prove I was worthy.
For example, during that first week I remember cleaning out the bins. I
wanted to muck in and do everything and not be some aloof ‘suit’, so I thought
this might help somewhat. Nope. The opposite in fact, as this action extremely
upset one of the senior ladies as she’d done the bins for the last twelve years,
and boy had I now stepped on her toes!
Whilst she was being comforted and
consoled by another elder stateswoman (because she WAS in tears), my confidence
wasn’t helped by the deliberately loud comment ‘I told them we should have been given a woman manager’
This would take some skill to turn them!
Altogether I had 17 staff initially, which included two male students,
three female students, and the rest were females old enough to be my mother or
grandmother. It would be wrong though to say that ALL the elder females didn’t
want me there. One Scottish lady in particular took to me quite early on and
stated that she felt I’d been a bit stitched up, and that even before I’d
arrived I was on a hiding to nothing as a colleague of mine at my previous
branch had popped in the week before to ‘advise’ them about me. Her assessment
being:
‘He’s a nice guy, but he’s not up to
being a manager’
...which was ironic given that less than 12 months earlier, I’d had to
cover her sorry ass over a Christmas period when she couldn’t cope when acting
up as a deputy manager herself. It was a shame to be knifed in the back before
I’d even started, but she’d always been a touch bitter, having felt mistreated
by the firm over her own career path over the years. I felt sorry for her but
why try and hurt me?
All this made me think that perhaps the dislike of me from these people
who I felt didn’t know me from Adam, might actually be a bit misplaced through
gossip, so I tried not to fret too much about it.
Rather soon, I lost my senior assistant to another department. She had
also applied for the Deli Manager’s job and failed to get it, and she wanted
some more responsibility. She was fair to me in that she knew it wasn’t my
fault, but she wanted to be appreciated and after she helped settle me in, I
was happy to help her get a promotion to another role in the store.
Perhaps I didn’t help improve my standing with the others though as when
appointing her replacement, I (fairly) opted for the best person, following
interviews. As it happened, another male!
The furore that kicked off simply because I’d given the job to a male
was unbelievable. It took intervention from the Personnel Manager to sort out
the ridiculous complaints (sexism, ageism, experience-ism!) that arose because
of it.
After a few weeks had passed, they started speaking to me again...
Time heals, and ultimately as a team, we all contributed to making our
Deli the best performing counter in the district, and second best in the
region. Given we were bottom of that list before I’d arrived, I was very proud
of the work we’d all done.
My reward was to be appointed as the Delicatessen District Trainer for
our area, which in turn made our counter the jewel in the area that other Deli
Managers came from afar to admire and seek advice from, which thankfully, my
lovely staff took immense satisfaction out of and ultimately meant I had earned
their respect.
Fair play to some of the stronger critics, as when I reluctantly moved
on from the store, they apologised for their preconception of me and offered
that I’d actually been a pretty good manager when all was said and done! Praise
from them was more important than praise from above, and the best compliment I
could pay them back in return was that the two years I spent at that branch
were two of the best years of my working life.
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| Looks like a prison hospital doesn't it!? |
Leaving was a huge wrench. A destructive one too, as within a week of
working at my new store, I knew I wouldn't be staying long. That was October
1998, and I left the company in May 1999.
Those 8 months were as bad as the previously 24 had been good.
I’d gained promotion on the basis that I completed a pilot assessment
centre training course for Managers seeking advancement. I had furthermore been
promised to be fast tracked through the full management course as specifically I
had management experience under my belt already.. Ideally it wouldn't take
anymore than 6 months to get fully qualified and trained up before I’d be given
a proper large department of my own to manage.
But literally the week I moved to my new placement, they changed it. Who
they were, I’m still not sure, but I
got thrown in with a dozen or so university graduates on a post-graduate scheme
and no such real opportunity arose for an actual promotion.
Essentially,
despite 8 years with the company, starting from joining in 1991 and working 10
hours a week as a school boy to what I’d recently achieved, I now had to complete a mandatory full year of
training – literally I was told I had to relearn how to stock shelves!
Just to rub salt into the wounds, the university grads went straight on
to a starting salary that was nearly £6000 higher than me! If it wasn’t for real
it would've been hilarious.
I should say that at no time did I blame the grads – It wasn’t their
fault at all. Indeed they had a huge amount of sympathy for me being entrapped
in this time wasting slavery scheme, and two of them were placed at the same
store I was. They were two of the nicest girls I could have hoped to be paired
with and they at least made my time at the store much more bearable.
When I resigned, the District Manager offered apologies and said I’d
been earmarked to have been a ‘40 yearer’ with the company – the store manager added
that in his opinion, the company had failed me ‘criminally’.
It was a sad end to my time in retail really, and prior to October 1998,
I couldn’t have envisaged my departing so soon. But all in all the 8 years were
mostly pretty good, and watching Trollied on Sky 1 brings back some fab and
funny memories.
Would I want to go back to retail though? Well never say never.
But no! NO! NO! NO!
