It bugs me that I don’t have people trying to take my job. I’ve wanted my boss’ job for years. Well, not now. I don’t want it any more, my boss’ job I mean. So. His job was recently on monster.com which was pretty alarming for him to say the least since he still holds the job. (Let’s just say things are a little weird on the job front… it’s one reason I’ve been sort of quiet on here.) Here’s the alarming thing about his job being on craigslist and monster.com… nobody from within the company is asking for it. He’s as high as they go and nobody wants it. That to me is a huge red flag that something’s weird. Why wouldn’t people want more responsibility, power, money, acclaim? Me? I know why I don’t want it, but that’s more a personal thing for me. I’ve been on the road traveling for work since 2000 and that’s 10 years of windshield time. I’m ready for less travel, not more.

Sure there are applicants from outside the company trying to get my job and his job… but if nobody from within the company wants it.  Who should be worried about that? His boss? The HR department? His direct reports? The CEO? Nobody? Maybe it’s fine that nobody wants to move up. Maybe that means everybody’s happy where they are and is in their perfect job at their perfect level of ability. That’s possible. It’s not something I’m thrilled about though. I wish more people wanted it. I wish more people wanted my job. I love my job. I’ve had it for a lot of years and even when it is so frustrating I go for a run and sweat out my frustration and stamp out the things that make me crazy by pounding the trails I still enjoy going to work. I still enjoy the challenge of it. I still enjoy making a difference for my employees and making sure they feel taken care of and that they’re proud to work for someone who cares about them and cares and notices the good that they do. I really like that part of my job. I love that I’ve got people who talk about their people using words like “pride” and “does her best” and “extra mile.” That’s totally different from what it was when I got here and employees were literally crying and packing their stuff up because they’d always been told the “new broom sweeps clean” and they’d been managed by fear and threats.

So, why don’t they want my job? Why doesn’t anybody want my boss’ job? 

The movie wasn’t all four seasons of the cartoon from Nickelodeon. It was just the first season and it was about an hour and a half long. So obviously some story lines were cut out and some side stories were cut. The actors looked like themselves so that was good. The scar on Zuko, the Fire prince’s, face was barely noticeable. That’s the only quibble I could find in the actors. Their acting was… good enough. Aang had a pouty lip. I guess there were two things and they were physical attributes. Seriously, his lip was always pouty looking. He looked like he’d been punched in the bottom of the mouth or maybe stung by bees or something. OK, crap. There were three things. Uncle was skinny and serious and didn’t seem as funny as wise, funny uncle had in the cartoon. That brings me to my biggest difference in the movie vs. the cartoon.

You know how Aang is 12 and an airbender? You know how airbenders are supposed to be pranksters? Fun-loving people who appear to not take things terribly seriously? They’re fun, funny. Couple that with Aang being 12 years old and you have a recipe for funny cartoons. Hiding behind ppl as they look for you, playing jokes on people, hide & seek, that sort of thing. A big part of my enjoying the cartoon was enjoying the youthful enthusiasm of the airbender. There was a lot of laughter and joy. The joy of life and living. That made it fun to watch. It made the character likeable and someone you wanted to see turn out OK. Not just physically, but mentally. You don’t want to see his joy of life hurt. In the movie though. M. Night Shazamalamadan decided one of the things he needed to cut was all the funny, fun, jokes, or joy. There were exactly two scenes that MIGHT have been reminiscent of the sort of fun-loving antics of cartoon Aang that made the show fun to watch.

You know how Katara’s brother, Sokka, and how he’s there primarily for comic relief? Always hungry, tries to eat the Appa The Flying Bison and Momo, the bat-lemur. Falls a lot? Twice he did something funny, and both times it was to fall victim to Katara’s bad water bending. She got him wet once and froze him into a block of ice once. Also, Uncle was never funny. Never did any funny stories or witty things that had a point. Just sort of a physically fit, taller, very thin Yoda. All serious trainer uncle, no funny uncle that liked to drink tea.

The bending effects were only meh. They did LOTS of the movements and motions and then something would happen really quickly and be over with. The effects were cool but too short. They could have been longer, not necessarily more spectacular. The end fight where Aang finally did his thing using the ocean to fight of the entire fire nation army by himself. That was cool. It was also done in the avatar state, also cool, and with a minimum of jumping around and arm waving… which is as it should be. For him to knock back two guys he did like 15 seconds of tai-chi, maybe tai-kwon-do… I think water was Tai-chi… movements, swung his arms around, and did a no-hands somersault just as an example. Lots of build-up, for not enough pay off. If it’d taken that long to bend the elements they should have had their butts handed to them by any relatively quick fighter. They’d be knocked out before they bent anything. (Don’t get me started on how all the earth benders ever did was pull rocks out of the ground.)

I’d give it 7.5 out of 10 stars. I enjoyed it. I liked the actors. I liked the story. I wish it hadn’t been as dry. I wish it’d been funnier. At least some funny. He was tortured. He was sad. He was grief-ridden… he wouldn’t have been any fun to be around. I hope they make more. I hope Aang (whose name isn’t pronounced the same in the movie as in the cartoons for some reason) has lip reduction surgery. Maybe they could put some of his lip fat into Uncle so he’d be fatter. A skinny Uncle was distracting.

This is a complete violation of my blogging rules in regards to work. It’s neither distant from now in time, nor made up enough where the principles wouldn’t recognize themselves. I have two things going for me that make it a safe thing to do though. First, those involved don’t have or want the Internet and secondly, they don’t know my online persona so they probably won’t find this. Lastly, if they do… I don’t think they could take issue with what I’m going to say. SO! Disclaimer’s aside, and that’s not a way to grab the reader I know, but this was different enough that I felt I should.

The phone rings. It’s 730am. It’s a manager at the hospital with his expecting girlfriend. There are complications and the store opens in two hours. He can’t reach anybody what should he do? He doesn’t want to lose his job but can’t leave the hospital. I’m 8 hours away and wouldn’t get there before the next shift started anyway.

I send a broadcast text to the employees identifying myself in case they don’t have me in their phone books, identifying the problem, asking for help, and thanking them in advance. Then I sat and waited.

An hour goes past and an employee who used to be the assistant manager but who stepped down because his priorities weren’t in the right place (his words) got back to me by text. He could go in but he was supposed to work at five pm so it’d make it a double… a really long day. I thanked him. Left it up to him if he wanted to do the banking or not, not really his job, appreciate any help he can give in this time of trouble, etc. He did the banking, he volunteered to. I didn’t ask him to.

Fast-Forward to 2pm. Nobody’s gotten back to either of us about coming in to help him with the second shift. I thank him for caring enough to do the double, for having the consideration for his co-workers, the store, and the pride in his job to step up this way and help out.

He says he wished he’d had all those things when it counted when he was assistant manager. I pointed out that it still counted. He was helping out the store and I was aware of it and he’d done what no one else could or would do at a time when we needed him and that spoke volumes to his character and his caring. Again I expressed my appreciation.

I’ve thanked him three times at this point. 1) For volunteering to come in early 2) For volunteering to do the banking and 3) In advance for volunteering to stay and do a double… which he hadn’t actually volunteered to do yet. The thing is… after that talking up, that pep talk, that vote of confidence was there any expectation that he wouldn’t stay for a double shift? He stayed.

Now. I could have been a jerk. I could have just been saying those things to get what I want but that’s not the case and he and I worked together several times when he was assistant manager so he knows if I say those things I mean them. I knows that I’m not the type to blow smoke. My reputation as a manager who pays attention to good employees, recognizes good work, and good employees, that is what made yesterday possible. Had I been a jerk or been a bully, or been a flatterer who doesn’t back up the things they say, that store would not have been open. If I hadn’t earned his trust in the past I couldn’t have gotten those results yesterday.

We have to manage every day for the day when we need those employees to help us out. It’s why I think bully-management is the worst kind. There’s no way I could have made anybody come in for that shift. He had to make himself and he did. Not because I’m such a great guy. But because he is, and he knows I recognize that. I sincerely believe people want a chance to shine and be noticed shining.

I’m not taking credit for it being open. That was all due to the employee that came in 8 hours early and stayed all day, doing a 17 hour day for the store because all those things I said about him were true. He does care about the store and about his job. He does take pride in his work and in the store. He also wants that to be recognized. By recognizing good behavior we see more of it. We can, through encouraging, recognizing, and expecting outstanding behavior actually see outstanding behavior while managers who expect to see failures will see just that, at every turn.

The part where I feel like a heel for pushing the buttons that I knew would keep him there makes me feel like an ass though. The times when I do that… when I’m manipulative as a part of my job… I hate those. I feel bad for this time. He IS a good employee and everything I said is true, and I’ll help him return to assistant manager at some point in the future if he, as he said, “have done a lot of growing up since I had to step down.” I’m humbled by employees like that and wish I could do more for them monetarily than I can.

So, if you’re reading this, and you know this is you I’m talking about… When did you get Internet? What the heck?!? LoL Kidding. Thank you. Knowing you’re up there to help out is one of the ways I’m able to sleep at night.

So, I started writing a bunch of training material for employees. Once upon a time when I was a store manager, (this is 1998-1999 time here) I wrote a manager manual that we still use today. I think it was my writing the Manager Manual that got me my job as Supervisor.

So, my work time is still very busy with work related stuff and my free time is now filling up with more work related stuff that I volunteered to do lol. I really should have thought it through better. The part where I take on a couple projects and then my boss decides to throw more balls at me to juggle makes me want to scream. He KNOWS I took on more work so he decides now’s the time for HIM to take on more work which means he delegates down, only the work I took on I can’t delegate down. And the work he’s delegating down to me I can’t delegate all of it down. I’ve got a real time management issue going on here. So what suffers is my personal stuff, and my blog. Heck, facebook is practically off the scale any more. I’m almost never on there any more, and it’s not just the privacy thing, which is part of it too. My yard needs mowing too, exhibit A, I could write MOW ME in the clover it’d gotten so out of hand.

Anyway. Not dead. Super busy. Mostly happy. Still making time to read, just re-read Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior. I really like that book.

On the right you see me in my running outfit minus my hat. I also wore my Memphis Riverkings hat. That hat means something to me because I got it when a season ticket holder for the Memphis Riverkings. I had a lot of fun going to those games. (The hat shows up in the second picture, below) It was a good time of my life. The red shirt here, that’s Honda red for a friend of mine who wears red a lot more than I do. You see the giant Garmin watch there? That was a Christmas gift from my best friend of the past 20 years. I wear it whenever I run outside. The ring I’m wearing on my left hand, that’s for luck and it’s in my pocket but there. The bib number, great first racing bib number, 88… that’s the year I went into the Navy. That was a pretty significant year for me in a lot of ways.

This race was, for me, the completion of 8 months of work. No, it wasn’t a marathon. But it was me setting a goal and sticking to it. I wound up running the race by myself, my friends weren’t able to be there and that was, at that point, just the icing on the cake. The part where I ran the race I’d set myself up to run was good. That was the cake right there. I ran the whole thing with a slight smile. Not just because the weather was perfect and the atmosphere of the race itself was fun, but because I was doing something I’d worked for and that I loved.

Doing something like that for myself, that much work, time, and sticking to it… that meant a lot to me. It does today, 2 days later. I’ve been trying to think of what is next, and I think right now next is to keep running and maybe do some more 5k’s. Summer’s coming, and it’s hot in the summer, and I’ve already noticed how much harder it is to run in the summers. I’m not done running. I love it. But this first race, this first goal that I set 8 months ago, and completed, for that I’m proud of myself. To those of you who supported me, put up with my running breaks, or my being late to places because I was running. To you, thank you.

Specific thanks to specific sites and online tools that I’ve used:
Couch to 5k, already mentioned, but a great training program.
5k101 has some great podcasts for running and training for a 5k. I still use them.
Active.com is full of tips for runners and is how I found which race I’d run first.
Twitter – I had lots of support from friends on twitter as I’d post my running times and progress.
SparkPeople – Great weight loss and fitness site that kept me focused on my diet while I learned how to eat while running.
DailyMile – this is where I log my runs. It’s a great site and I recommend it to anybody who exercises (Running, Biking, Swimming, Walking specifically)

Specific thanks to specific people:
My parents for being supportive, and teaching me that I could do what I wanted to do. The idea that I could do whatever I set my mind to if I just worked at it really impacts me in every way almost every day. I really don’t meet that many things that I think I can’t do. My confidence comes from them and that and I appreciate it and how much it’s impacted my life. I may be scared to try sometimes because I’m scared of not getting it right the first time, but I never believe I CAN’T do something if I work at it. That feeling is, as I meet more people, something a lot of people don’t have. A lot of folks out there don’t believe they can do much of anything and they limit themselves. You hear people say “My parents said I could be anything…” but I don’t remember my parents saying that. I don’t actually believe that either. I remember them teaching us that we could DO anything we were willing to work at. That’s an important difference. (I say that and internally flinch at what they went through when I made up my mind to be bad at math ugh, another story for another time.)

Kit, my roommate, best friend, and friend I’ve had the longest. I know you thought running was a ridiculous thing to do and that the times I was late to friends’ soccer games or parties or family events because I was running you made my explanations for me. You taught me to ride a motorcycle (something I was afraid of doing because I thought I’d crash and/or die), and always push me to do things even if I may not do them right the first time. You’re good at holding my feet to the fire and expecting more out of me even when I’m being stubborn. I said once that I like who I am better when you’re around than when you’re not and I mean it. I like who I’ve become by being your friend. Thank you.

My sister, Leigh. I’ve already done a whole blog post on how much I appreciate her and what she means to me. I’m not going to duplicate it here but I’d have been remiss if I’d not mentioned her here.

(This post is a double post, being posted to my simplerich.com blog as well as my running blog.)

So why do I care about Facebook if I’m so careful about what I do on the Internet? The most common thing I hear about people when I bring up privacy concerns is “If you don’t have anything to hide what do you have to worry about?” My answer to them is, “Why do you use curtains or walls? Why do you shut the door when you go to the bathroom stall?” There are times when you don’t want the whole world up in your business. If I have co-workers and bosses who follow me on facebook, and I did, and they didn’t like what political sites I visited that suddenly showed up on my facebook page could that have consequences? Of course it could. Should it? Nope. But it could. What if it showed that I was on facebook while I was supposed to be working. Would they know I was on hold for the weekly conference call? Of course not.

Those are just the easy work related issues. The thing is. What I do on the Internet is no more Facebook’s business than it’s my phone company’s business if I go to the mall or to Wal-mart. It’s not their business. They don’t need to know it. Just because they CAN know it doesn’t mean they should know it. If they wanted to enrich my Internet experience they’re welcome to it, but ask me first. Let me CHOOSE to ask for it. Don’t opt me in.

I don’t really feel like I should have to explain my expectation of privacy honestly. The part where I expect and want it and am being asked to defend it is almost as offensive to me as my perception of Facebook’s violation of my privacy.

From a social hacking point of view what can we find out about a person from their facebook profile? Often they list their parents’ names which may include “mother’s maiden name” or “Father’s middle name” as appears in some security questions on some websites. Perhaps they show you graduated from Monkeyspanker High School and that security question is also asked, “What was your high school mascot.” Now decent social hackers would know that. That’s sort of my other point. Why should all that information be gathered up by the fine folks at Facebook for the social hackers out there to use? Maybe I don’t list my Mom’s middle name, but perhaps my sisters do, or my brothers, or my trans-gendered first pet whose name was “Sieze-her” and with all the information out there linking back and forth whether I put it out there or someone else does it’s out there.

I won’t deny that I greatly enjoyed re-connecting with my friends on Facebook. That added value to my life in general, and to my enjoyment of the Internet specifically. It was really good to meet them again as adults after having not seen them since high school. There are some really interesting people out there that I knew back when we were just high schoolers.   I will miss them. If Facebook were to decide that our privacy were important I’d gladly be back, but as much as I love re-connecting with everybody I feel like staying says it’s OK if a company has no respect for their customer’s wishes. It’s my saying it’s OK to treat my personal information as a publicly tradeable commodity. I’m not OK with that. My leaving may not make a difference to Facebook, but it will make a difference to me.

Thursday I’m going to be on Farmville meeting a friend of mine to watch Survivor together and then I’m going to log off my account, perhaps deleting it if I can find a way to do that.

 You think I’m making this stuff up, but I’m not. I’ve talked about how customer service is something we’ve been working on in my area recently. Starting with defining it, going into what our expectations should be where I’m making LOTS of phone calls to direct reports (managers), skips (sales associates), and anybody else who will take my calls (other area managers, the HR department, janitors, anybody!). We’re all talking about what they like to see in a store for customer service, and what I hope to see and what the managers hope to see. We’ve been trying to create a vision a goal we’ll all strive for. Part of that was, after talking to all these people I put together an evaluation of how the employees did on the things they’d said individually and collectively were important for good customer service. Then I had managers rate their perceptions of their employees and then employees rate themselves BEFORE they went over the manager’s numbers. After both have been faxed to me the manager and I would discuss the numbers, and then the manager and employees.

It sounds more complicated than it really was. The hardest part was I asked the managers to evaluate their employees for the store. I defined 5 as average for their store. Obviously they couldn’t judge for the whole company, they didn’t KNOW the whole company, but I wanted them to rate their employees within the dataset that was their store. With 5 being average. I pointed out that average meant some would be higher and some would be lower. That’s what average meant. It was only possible for nobody to be below average if nobody was above average.

Then the scores started coming in. One store the average for the employees was 7.6. Now, I’m no dummy. I can norm the scores out and readjust them so they are really averaged, just graph them and move that axis up until it’s at 7.6 and there’s your normed numbers. (Norm might not be the right word here.) But what it told me about the manager was more than what it told me about his employees. He honestly thought all his employees were above average.

I see this a lot in employee evaluations. I will get employee evaluations where the employee has every score above average and there is no area in which there is room for improvement. There is no area in which they are weak. I’ll turn the page and the essay portion of the quiz, sorry, employee evaluation, where it asks the manager “Performance Concerns” and “Performance Goals” and I’ll see an answer along the lines of “none.” Those always get sent back and there’s a coaching session. What that says to me is that the manager cares so little that they don’t care if the employee improves or not. That’s crushing.

When a manager gives evaluations that are way too high I get to decide then if they don’t know any better, if they’re friends with the employee, or if they’re scared the employee will quit if they’re honest with them so they just blow smoke up their… evaluation to appease the employee. Those are all options, and they’re all signs of an unhealthy situation. It’s almost always fixable though.

No employee wants to hear that they’re stinkerific and good managers don’t want to tell their employees that. It’s a sign of a failure on their part to an extent, but it doesn’t help things improve if we can’t recognize an area where improvement is needed. If your kid can’t swim you don’t tell him that he can and chuck him in the deep end out of fear you’ll hurt his feelings! Why do we do that with employees? It’s exactly what we’re doing when we give evaluations of their abilities that are artificially inflated. We’re killing them.

So, have I drawn any great conclusions about employee evaluations? Not really, but I DO think it’s interesting to have managers do this once in a while, evaluate their entire crew as I’ve suggested, then move the numbers until average really is and show them that while they gave Mongo a 6 (above average) on Widget Polishing, everybody else had a 7 or 9 so obviously that’s an area where Mongo can improve if he’s the lowest rated person in the place. The numbers skewing is more obvious when they do many evaluations at once than it is when it’s just one at a time.

While I’ve mostly talked about the people who overly inflate evaluations here there are also managers who think that by putting their employees down they can show how necessary they are. Those managers will tend to trend lower than average on their evaluations and that’s also no good. I’m fortunate in that I haven’t got that going on right now. It’s bad too, but is also fixable.

1) What does the approach to the store front look like? Awning, lighting, windows, doors, employees/customer hanging at the door smoking, ash trays, garbage on the sidewalk.

2) How does the store look, smell, sound, feel from 10 feet inside the door, the Launchpad? Radio too loud? Can customer get a feel for where they’re going from there? Can they identify an employee from there? Have they been greeted? Is there a stink from air fresheners, cleaning products, how well is the store lit?

3) At the cash-wrap. Is the cash wrap area cluttered? clean? professional looking? Is the employee’s lunch all over it? Is the employee’s receiving/shipment work all over the place? Are there customers lounging at the counter area hanging out with their friend? Will the customer feel OK about taking their wallet out there or not?

Store Front:
If the store front is shady looking a customer may never walk in the door. Got a lot of cans leaning up against the wall? Are there wrappers and cans on the sidewalk? Do you provide an ash tray? Where is it? Is it a smelly nose-sore? Maybe it’s easier to sweep up cigarette butts than walk past an ashtray that’s been rained on and is now giving off a cloud of wet ash smell to any who walk past. Do you have an awning? Do the birds know about it? Are they parking themselves on top of it covering the awning with their erm… leavings? Who wants to walk under that? If it’s lit are all the lights lit? If half the lights work that’s not half right. That’s all wrong. Are the glass windows and doors cleaned and finger-print free? If your store looks dirty from the outside there’s a good chance I won’t go there.  Here in town there’s a tattoo shop that I’d like to visit. They have body jewelry and ear rings and I’d like to get some. Outside their door are three lawn chairs where they and their friends sit and smoke. I’m not walking past that.  As a 40 year old man I’m probably not their target customer, but I’m A customer… or I would be if I didn’t have to walk past extras from West Side Story to get into the place.

The Launchpad:
It’s called the Launchpad because it’s from here that the customer launches into your store or scrubs the mission and leaves. This is the area where they assess how your store looks and feels to them. If the radio’s too loud people will leave.

That’s just sound. How does it smell? I didn’t shop at Bed Bath, & Beyond for YEARS because it was so overpoweringly smelly. Granted, that’s their thing… but I’m a guy (again, not their target audience). An air freshener over the front door may be a great idea two minutes after they walk out but it’s not cool to walk into the cloud of cherry or vanilla scented concentrate right after it’s shot out of the dispenser. Is the front area cluttered? Are there tall walls of grid wall or walls of displays blocking the view of the store? If so it makes it hard for the customer to see where they want to go. It also makes it less appealing because it’s not open. People don’t like to feel closed in or trapped in stores/shops. They like to know there’s room to move around and that they can be seen and see other people approaching. I’m not talking about merchandising or sales or end caps in any of this. I’m talking about the experience, the comfort level of the customers. Is there a visible employee that they can identify in case they need help or want help finding something? In some shops it can be off-putting to walk in and find you’re the only one in the store. I’ve let out a soft, polite, “Hello?” before wondering if I’d stumbled upon a murder scene and didn’t want to round a shelf of spices only to find between the cracked pepper and the vanilla beans the dead body of the  Penzey’s employee. Florists are the worst for this in my experience. It seems I only enter a florist when they are in the cooler, probably hiding the body of the last customer.

Cash-Wrap:
Last chance time. By now the customer is ready to pay and leave. Is there room to put their purchases? Is the counter cluttered and buried in potential add on sales so that it’s a huge confusion of product and cruft? Is this the only work space the employee has? Some times it’s impossible to put your purchases on the counter because there’s a UPS box there where the employee is unpacking and receiving shipment. I get that work happens that isn’t customer related, but just like the view should be unobstructed for the customer, surely the employee can see the customer approach the counter and make room for the one who brings money into the store? A quick smile and apology is all it takes, making me wait as you finish receiving your box of Jelly Bellies and ignore me isn’t endearing me to you as a retailer, and I love my candies! Oh, and shift change? Not my problem. Don’t make it my problem by making me wait 5 minutes while you do it. I get that shift changes happen, but you know what else happens? Customers… we’re paying, don’t say “It’ll be a while. We’re at shift change.” Are there friends or family lounging at the counter hanging out at the counter chatting? If I’m making a purchase I won’t be if you’re visiting at the counter or worse if I have a question I don’t want to feel like I’m interrupting.

There’s a lot going on that doesn’t involve prices, competitors, competition, or how product is displayed.  It’s the appeal of the store and the experience of the store itself. None of this is new. It’s old stuff that everybody knows and hopefully everybody does, but when you find a place that doesn’t you’ll notice right away… and you probably won’t shop there too many times.