Unrealistic demands in the workplace.
I’m going to be honest here. I don’t mind working, I really don’t. Actually I would prefer to be working over not working because it keeps your mind and body busy and makes you forget about other things going on in your life. I like that.
Here’s what I don’t like so much. I don’t like being asked to do things that aren’t in your job description. I realize that I am in a retail position and I’m not just whining about having to do one little thing that isn’t what I was hired to do. No, no, no. Not that. What really drives me crazy is my main focus for the entire day having nothing to do with what I was hired to do. Even then, that really doesn’t bother me too much. Its when its very frequent.
Sure i’m privileged I guess. I have a degree and a job (the degree isn’t actually for the job, that’s a whole other story) but my title is the Senior Sales Consultant of Technology at OfficeMax/OfficeDepot. I love the premise of my job. I love working with customers and I absolutely adore technology of all aspects. The problem is i’m never really at my position. I’m over in school supplies doing something else because my assistant manager asked me to, such as spending all day putting up new sale tags on over 1000 different items.
Again, this doesn’t bother me if it wasn’t so frequent. This is almost every day. I’m never actually doing what I was hired to do. I’m not really that familiar with the rest of the store and only having started three weeks ago I don’t even know where most things are in there anyway. I was hired to be the guy over the technology department and to help customers in that area (I will help a customer anywhere though, I really don’t mind that). Though when there is only one employee all day on the entire sales floor (me, even though I shouldn’t even be there) doing some other person’s job while my job is forcibly neglected (technology area is a freaking mess), that bothers me. I spent 20 minutes behind my counter and that was cleaning because I couldn’t walk through it.
This problem comes from multiple different sources. I was told to put ad up by the store manager(the sales stickers on the different items throughout the store). That’s not my job really but hey, its retail ill do it. At the same time I was told to set up a plan-a-gram for the laptops/tablets (same day, also fine because that’s actually my job and in my area). Then, the store manager leaves for the day and the assistant takes over and tells me to walk the sales floor and mind you this is a Sunday. Its busy on a Sunday. On top of that our logistics team (the people i’m placing ad up for because they cant do it… I guess?) haven’t made the stuff that was on sale visible to customers. So i’m going all over the place spending about 20 minutes per customer trying to find items that they’re getting for a penny.
Needless to say, I accomplished nothing. Between being backup on the register and being the only employee on the floor I got nothing done. I placed about 20 items with sale prices, I did one thing for the plan-a-gram and nothing else was done. I was too busy and my entire department is in shambles. Who’s going to catch the flack for this? I am.
Whats worse is that since the store manager left before we opened, he didn’t realize we had a penny sale going on today so our sales were terrible even though it was super busy. I can’t even tell him an excuse, it just looks like i’m a crap employee. I don’t even know what to say. The stress is killing me and I just don’t want to do it anymore.