Wednesday washout

This was a fun day. At least from my point of view. Here's how things went down.

The store management team is in trouble. Basically, because of a raft of bad hiring decisions, from middle management down to maintenance, the store is a shambles, customers are miserable and the district and regional managers are looking for heads to put on the chopping block. Work in the aisles is that the manager is on the way out the door despite 15 years with the company and a highly regarded record of turning around underperforming stores. You don't get visits from district AND regional on consecutive days unless you're going, going, gone!

So all the managers met at 7:30 a.m. in the Vision Center this morning. They didn't even bother to turn the lights on. It was a deadly grim attitude. Sort of like a seance - like they were trying to raise the dead or something. One incompetent co-manager lectured for a while, then another incompetent co-manager lectured for a while. Nobody really listened. After the meeting, two merchandise supervisors (dept. managers) turned in their resignations. Another stepped down last week, all the way down to cashier!

Here's another nugget. Wal-Mart kicked vendors out of in-store vending machines this week. ABSOLUTELY ZERO outside vendors allowed in. Only Wal-Mart products. So now, we can't get Coke, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, or even Aquafina or anything like that -- only Wal-Mart of Sam's brand soda and juice. It was supposedly a "security decision" made at the corporate level. They said they were worried about having vendors wandering around the store and allegedly "overcharging" for sodas and stuff. HMMPFPHF! It was a straight up "profit decision."

Because of all the overtime I put in Sunday and Monday, I bailed out at 2 p.m. today, went home, had a half a pint of ice cream and slept for five hours. It was lovely.