Blue Update

For those interested, I thought I give an update on the Blue situation.
When I got to work yesterday I went in to talk to Jen (she and I have the same HR level) about Blue taking pictures.  Lucky for me Wendy, District AP and Mike District HR were there for the day.  Wendy started asking questions and Mike began pulling up HR policies on his laptop.  Things Wendy asked?  Time of day?  Where was I at?  Which phones were used?  And with those questions, and her access to the store surveillance videos, about a minute late I got to watch Blue, standing at the back of the paint counter, lift her cellphone up and take her pictures.  And then Mike, reading from his screen, let all of us know that "the taking of videos or photographs on either the parking lot or in the store is strictly forbidden and to do so in a major violation of policy."  Since it's a major violation, the acting MOD needed to file a complaint with corporate.
Today is my day off.  I spent most of the day working out in the yard, bought myself 2 new pair of pants, and went to see my 83 year old mother.  I also took a short nap with the dogs.  I simply relaxed.

Indigo Blue

As for Blue?  She worked today and may have already been terminated.  I was told it might be as early as today, though it might be as late as tomorrow.  You see it's all about privacy, and security, and keeping associates safe.  Depending upon what corporate says, they may put a restraining order on Blue to keep her away from the store.  Do I feel threatened?  Only slightly.

When managers go crazy

Yesterday was the last day for one of our Assistant Mangers, he was transferred to another store.  He will not be missed.  The transfer is not a good one since he's going from the highest volume store in the district to the lowest.  Your career is not supposed to move backwards.  Unfortunately for this gentleman, his career has been doing that for some time.  At one point he had been a Store Manager in another district, that's where he peaked.  While I was doing my stint in HR, I had the opportunity to talk with 2 of the store managers from his old district.  They spoke poorly of his performance.  Actually they called him crazy, and said he'd been pulling all sorts of "crazy shit."  One of them thought he'd been fired, the other thought he'd quit, they were both stunned when they learned he'd take a serious demotion.  His craziness is still with him.

Like most other retail stores, ours has an excess of steel racking which we use to alter our constantly changing bays and end caps.  About 3 weeks ago the Assistant Manager looked at all that extra racking and decided we didn't need it and had it thrown away.  Thousands and thousands of $'s went into the dumpster.  Two weeks from now they're supposed to be doing our Spring reset - you know, grills, patio furniture.  However there's a bit of problem because the racking they were going to use was thrown away.  As soon as I heard about this "little issue," I knew they'd get rid of him.  They demoted him again and now, I suspect, are just waiting for him to understand his days with this retail store chain are numbered.  The thing about crazy is that so many people will over look it without realizing it's not going to go away.  And a lot of times crazy doesn't just sit their, it grows.  Already other instances are being reported.  In the end, there's going to be a crazy expense we're going to have to pay.