Like many retail businesses, Borders is definitely feeling the recession. So far the layoffs have been limited to the corporate level but lately the phrase "ideal management structure" has been floated around about the store management level. Last time they started talking about "ideal management structure" they eliminated one of the supervisor positions at my store. So now when I go to work I'm not only dealing with the stress of the retail-recession environment but I also have the ochre cloud of unemployment hanging over my head.
Unfortunately this has made me notice some interesting things customers do that are part of the reason my job is in jeopardy. What in the world could our lovely customers do to get me laid-off? Here are some examples from just this morning.
1. I spent about three hours this morning on a special project to reorganize and simplify the baby and toddler books to make the area more "shoppable." When I left for lunch every book was in place and each section was demarcated by a lovely, labeled divider and a matching shelf label. When I got back from lunch an hour later, the whole section was trashed. Books were thrust into the wrong sections and piled haphazardly on top of other books. Three hours of precious Borders payroll destroyed.
2. A customer came to the register with six copies of our latest Rewards coupon and became outraged when we said that she could only use one coupon. She couldn't understand why we wouldn't let her get 30% off of six different books. I mean she went to all the trouble to print six copies of the coupon and all. I think sometimes customers forget that businesses have to actually make a profit to stay in business.
3. I tried to help a customer find a nursing book but we couldn't find it. I then offered to call another store for her. They didn't have it either. The customer then made me call three other stores to track down the book. Half an hour later we still couldn't find the book. She kept apologizing for taking so much of my time. I just wanted to scream, "You're going to be a nurse and you can't even handle tracking down a book yourself!" Our store's payroll (the number of hours we can schedule employees) has been cut by about 40% since last year. In other words, we are trying to get about the same amount of work done with a lot less people. Borders doesn't have the money to spend half an hour with each customer trying to find them a $20 book.
Anyways, I just needed to vent some of this "looming layoffs" stress. It gets frustrating when I'm scrambling to keep my job and our customers are so oblivious to the highwire we are walking with this recession.
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