okay let's get the fuck into it.
first of all, it's important for you to understand the context in which this all takes place. i am a part-time framer at a frame shop which exists inside (and is therefore managed by) a large retail chain craft supply store. the one you're thinking of is probably correct. my specific location happens to be the third highest volume frame shop this retail chain runs in the entirety of north america. to give you an idea of what that's like, the average frame shop under this company takes around 18 orders per week. my frame shop averages between 20 and 25 orders PER DAY.
generally, there are three different types of work that need to be done in the frame shop every day. these are as follows:
TAKING ORDERS: fairly self-explanatory. we refer to this as being 'on the counter' because while taking orders an employee is outside of the workshop at the framing counter working with customers. this is objectively the worst part of the job because framing customers are completely batshit insane. both part-time and full-time employees are expected to take orders, but part-time employees are first on the counter and we generally go down the line in terms of experience, so whoever is the newest hire scheduled that day will often be the first up to take orders.
PRODUCTION: the actual work of creating the frames. this encompasses mounting, joining, cutting glass and mats, assembling frames, etc. At my shop, we stage production day-by-day, meaning that we pull all components for all orders for a given day, stack them order by order, and framers working on production then pull from that pile of components to mount and assemble orders. when an order is fully produced, it goes onto a DIFFERENT stack to be FINISHED. At my shop, i am the only part-timer who does production; other than me it's exclusively the job of the full-time senior framers (and there are only 3 senior framers in our whole shop), which is part of the reason why the part-timers are generally expected to be on the counter more often.
FINISHING: this is the part-timers' responsibility. once a frame is fully produced, it goes onto a pile to be finished, which involves adding a paper backing and hanging hardware to the back of the frame, wrapping the frame in foam or paper, and notifying the customer that their order is finished.
Ideally, all of these steps happen in tandem--if you've got two producers and one finisher working at the same time, you can usually get into a good rhythm of finishing frames as new ones are produced, provided you don't have to spend insane amounts of time outside of the shop on the counter. unfortunately, because my shop is so insanely busy, this very rarely actually works out for us. we can only reliably get into this rhythm if pretty much every employee is working at once, because if there's only one part-timer they're basically constantly going to be on the counter, meaning no finishing will get done, and during rushes the senior framers are often pulled to the counter as well, so production suffers. on top of this, my shop is well-known for being capable of taking particularly complex orders that most other shops reject, which means we get a lot of complex mounts that take extra time to produce, throwing a wrench into that rhythm even further.
so imagine you are me. the only part-time producer in this entire shop, one of four people who can do production period. you are coming up on an INSANELY heavy production week; around 150 orders within 7 days, including multiple labor-intensive complex pieces. one of your senior framers is going on vacation halfway through the week. (if you think i am talking as though i am the manager of this place that is because the actual manager of this place is my work bestie and she has essentially made me her second-in-command. i do not like this but i love her so i allow it. anyway.) i get in on monday and am greeted by our most senior framer (the one who's about to go on vacation) looking me in the eyes and going "WE ARE FUCKED." i compare the amount of production we have to do this week to the schedule which contains NO PART TIMERS ON DAY SHIFT FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK, and conclude that he is correct. we are, in fact, fucked.
those of you who paid attention to the division-of-labor breakdown may remember that part timers are usually sacrifices to the counter. if there is no part timer on day shift, the producers are forced to interrupt their work in order to take orders, causing production to fall behind. we ask the fucking horrible evil SM, who makes the schedule, about this, and she says "well that's why blue is closing this whole week. so they can catch you up on production."
two very important things are wrong with this statement:
closers work alone, meaning that if even ONE customer comes in while i am closing i will ALSO be forced to abandon my production work to take their order, and
there is no part timer on day shift, and i am the only scheduled part timer most days, meaning IF I AM PRODUCING, THERE IS NO ONE TO FINISH.
previous attempts to fix SM's insane scheduling philosophy have backfired so horribly that neither me nor my senior framer even attempts to explain this to her. we just give up. SM looks me in the eyes and tells me to focus on production this shift (monday night) in order to catch up as many orders as I can. I do as I am told and spend the entire night frantically producing frames, stacking them up to be finished by whichever poor coworker gets the short end of the stick on tuesday.
at the end of monday night, the closing keyholder gets a text from SM demanding that she ask me if all of the FINISHING is done. i lowkey lose my shit because YOU TOLD ME TO DO PRODUCTION WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT and tell her NO THE FUCKING FINISHING IS NOT DONE??????? YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT?????? i then have to apologize to the keyholder for cussing her out and insist that i am not mad at her i am mad at SM. i think she is scared of me now.
I come in the next day (tuesday) for ANOTHER closing shift. the second i clock in the framing manager throws five same-day orders at me which i immediately begin busting my ass to produce because i am actually genuinely a great fucking employee. as i am busting my ass to get these orders done, SM comes into the shop with that aforementioned closing keyholder, gestures to the stack of unfinished frames on the back counter, and (LOUDLY AND POINTEDLY) goes "SO THERE'S NO REASON THEY SHOULDNT BE ABLE TO FINISH ALL OF THAT BY TONIGHT." very clearly taking a shot at me for DOING WHAT I WAS TOLD the night before. because i have no self-preservation skills i ask her what the fuck she is talking about. she tells me that i am going to have two other part-timers come in to help me tonight. I look at the schedule posted on the wall and point out that actually, no i am fucking not. i am the only one scheduled. she insists that someone will be coming in to help me. she then tells me that corporate has very helpfully decided that every single piece of signage and decor in the store has to be reset/renovated by this weekend and for some fucking reason she's decided it's MY responsibility to take care of all the frame shop's displays. she then hands me a thirty-page document full of instructions regarding that renovation, tells me i had better make time to look it over, and fucks off. i contemplate a murder-suicide. like 10 minutes later she walks in on me loudly and openly complaining about her to my coworkers. i do not regret this and i would do it again.
to no one's surprise, there is in fact no other part-timer scheduled to help me close that night. despite this, i BUST MY ASS and not only do i finish every single frame on the back counter, I do it with enough time to start producing more. (MIND YOU, THIS IS ON TOP OF ALL OTHER STANDARD CLOSING RESPONSIBILITIES. I AM DOING THIS WHILE TAKING OUT THE TRASH, DOING AISLE RECOVERY, RESETTING EVERY TOOL IN THE SHOP, ETC. AND I AM ON THE COUNTER PERIODICALLY BECAUSE I AM **THE ONLY ONE THERE.**)
wednesday is my day off. thank you jesus christ.
today (thursday) I clock in at 5pm for yet another closing shift, and am instantly met with a GIGANTIC FUCKING STACK OF ORDERS on my workstation. my senior framer informs me that these are all the orders that he had to take while ALONE ON DAY SHIFT today, and that after a certain point he just gave up on putting them away so he could get back to production. (completely reasonable tbh.)
enter SM. she has decided that she is going to shut down the framing counter tonight so that we can catch up on finishing and production. this would have been incredibly helpful to do during the day shift. unfortunately she has once again decided to throw all the responsibility solely on me and do it when im the only fucking guy in the shop. she tells me, verbatim, "if we do this, we have to have some return on investment." (translation: i had better fucking finish whatever arbitrary number of frames she expects me to finish tonight or she is going to blame me when someone inevitably asks her why the hell we're so behind.) she then asks me if i feel i have been "set up for success tonight." I am unfortunately incapable of acting nice when someone is being a cunt in my face so i say "look at the stack of frames on my station. does that look like i have been set up for success?" she seemingly cannot decide between acting offended and acting like she doesnt understand what i mean. she does not offer any solutions to the gigantic stack of orders on my station and fucks off again after making it clear that i am in trouble for daring to talk back to her. I once again bust my ass trying to both finish an entire days' worth of production work since there was no finisher on fucking day shift AND get it done in time to make a dent in tomorrow's production. even with the burden of taking orders lifted tonight i only just barely manage to do all the finishing. i produced two frames total. i will very likely be in trouble for this tomorrow. i still have not gotten a chance to read the thirty page document about the signage and display reset, which i will also likely be in trouble for this weekend when i have no fucking clue what i am supposed to be doing, but i refuse to read that fucking thing while off the clock. today is the beginning of a 7 day long closing shift marathon where, again, NO PART TIMERS ARE ON DAY SHIFT. i <3 being employed
