Monday 22nd March 2021
Myer 8 am - 4 pm stock only new shift added to Kronos 12th March 2021 rechecked 24th & 20th March 2021 no change to shift.
Another week and it's still pouring with rain. Warragamba Dam has spilled over and there is major flooding in the Western Sydney suburbs. Roads are cut off. The heavy diwn pour is expected to continue for quite a few more days. It has already affect QLD and Northern and North West NSW coast as well including the Sunshine and Gold Coast and even parts of Brisbane has not escaped.
Everything is soaking wet even the mask I am wearing on public transport. I am wearing an alternative pair of sneakers today to work which are black with white laces and soles - I will probably get in trouble for it as we are suppose to wear fully black enclosed shoes. I don't have my gum boots as they are in my off site storage and they would be to heavy and chunky to wear and change at work. The normal black sneakers I wear will just get soasked whereas these are a little more water resistant. Ironically I purchased them at Myer and I'm on stock today not on the floor so if anyone says anything I won't be happy and have something to say to them. I have a pair of black toggle laces in my bag which I intend to change on my sneakers as the original white laces that came with the sneakers are too long and are the flat cotton ones that get wet really easily therefore changing them over to the black round shorter nylon toggle ones are not only safer but will not get soaking wet. Laces now changed over in about 15 minutes. These sneakers are not as comfortable to wear as they don't have memory foam and my feet may start to hurt standing all day.
It's 7.55 am and I have been waiting at the staff entrance exit for someone to let me in. Doors not open. I rang the store no answer and used the intercom no answer so I punched in at 7.55 am on my phone as I was here. Not my problem no one is answering.
Finally at around 8.10 am a manager from the cosmetics department arrives with a key and let's me in. I put my stuff in a staff locker and lunch in the staff refrigerator after telling him about not being able to contact anyone to let me in. Funny when I walked passed the store manager was in his office yet noone answered the phone it just rang out and the intercom at the door was on voice mail.
I was alone on stock today but not really another team member from the Electricals department arrived earlier but wasn't sure why and the Homewares team leader arrived by 8.30 am.
Really funny because it was around 8.30 am and the team member from Electricals who was also rostered to be on stock as well today starting at 8 am also had not showed up so the Homewares team leader gave him a call and he was still fast asleep and asked who was calling. He did later show up and told me he had set his alarm but fell asleep again.
The Super Sale Weekend tickets were all taken down on Sunday however the Mid Season Sale now continues until 6th April along with the Bakeware Bonanza Sale.
The store is really quite again although there are still 2 permanent team members on in Homewares and team member "ticket girl" on lunch cover for 5 hours. There are 1 and a half team members on in Electricals and 1 and a half team members in the dock.
There was a small pallet of stock delivered today however it was not being unloaded so quickly that 2 people on stock could not handle. I think I still emptied my 5 cages worth of stock from the dock today onto the floor but I did have time to remerchandised stock to make the shelves look neat and tidy and not have too much excess stock left to take down to the hard reserve which is full. Someone is still putting boxes of Stanley Rogers cutlery sets in the wrong reserve - they should be in the old tv reserve not hard reserve now!
Below are photos of my remerchandising efforts today. ( don't ask how one display looked like before after an "initial incomplete , let's just hang anything on it and think about it another day" decision , they were completely abandoned to date)
Tuesday 23rd March 2021
Day off
It is still so wet and I am happy to stay at home and sleep eat and watch tv. Maybe just catch up with stuff to be done.
One thing I did do today which I haven't done for a very long time now is look at the analytics of my blogs.
I once again thank all the readers who have continued to read my blogs and I have just noticed that the number of readers for March has surpassed the number of readers for February and it is not yet the end of the month. I have not looked at which countries around the world readers are from yet but will do so at a later date. The other thing I have noticed is which blogs are being read. I have noticed that since it is the one year anniversiary since the pandemic reared it's ugly head , readers have gone as far back as my blogs from March 2020 to read them.
One of the reasons I started this blog was to record history. This is my contribution for the archives and a gift to the future generations. I can imagine my great great grand nieces for example asking about what life was like for their aunt back in 2000s just like we ask what life must have been like living through the 1900s. Bush fires, floods, pandemics , droughts and other natural disasters - we have all lived through them - time does not discriminate.
I forgot to mention but difficult to believe tgat I have now been living in this apartment for just over 2 years now. How time flys!
There are now only 2 or 3 other tenants in the apartment block. Everyone has moved out. Only other long term resident is the guy who moved downstairs I mentioned in an early blog after I moved in in apartment 1A.
So apartments 1B 2 3 4 5 7 8 11 & 12 ( if there is one) are all vacant. So glad the stinky guy from room # 3 has moved out - he was just disgusting smelling. His room smelt worse then a homeless person! Now there is another guy living in # 9 or 10 that is a little smelly and has a habit of sweeping his hair or whatever it is into the Hall way upstairs and down over onto the ground floor hallway. Yuk! He has hung some type of ornament on his front door and a door mat is outside his apoartment. I need a to get diffuser outside my door and a door mat as well to freshen It!
Wednesday 24th March 2021
Myer 8 am - 4 pm stock only new shift added to Kronos 12th March 2021 and rechecked 14th & 20th March no changes to shift
24th March 2020 was my very last day on reduced hours with my previous employer before being made permanently redundant exactly one year on since COVID started to rear it's ugly head. It's an anniversary but not an anniversary I want to remember.
So what now? Eight months on from when I started working for my current employer Myer, and still a casual my shifts have been reduced yet again with the end of JobKeeper government subsidies and no JobSeeker payments to support me. I'm back on stock and my only lunch cover service shift on Thursday has been cancelled.
Still really wet today.
Lunch was at 2.37 pm today.
I tried to ignore all customers and did not serve any customers at the POS.
I didn't wear my name badge at all today and no one said anything about my white soles black sneakers.
It's after 5 pm and it has finally cleared up a bit outside and stopped raining. Bird are chirping outside my window in the tree. I wonder how long tbis will last? Will it rain again tomorrow?
Nope forecast is mostly sunny days ahead which is not what the forecast for Melbourne is. Looks like the showers are now heading South!
Nice and dry today but yep the showers are heading South.
Saw the customer service manager arrive and go through the staff exit/entrance - she didn't wait for me but locked me out. I am pretty sure she saw me as I was walking towards her with my mask on. How rude. Now I have to wait until 7.55 pm for someone to let me in. I'll punch in now on my phone It's 7.50 am. I had to wait until the assistant manager arrived to let me in and by that time it was open from the inside at 7.55 am by the dock manager.
I wonder if she noticed my little silicon cake and chocolate moulds display. Nope I had to point it out to her and the incorrect pillow pricing situation.
I spent most of today reorganising the Kitchen Aid, Zylizz , Dream Farm, Oxo, Joseph Joseph , Mastercraft & Chosen a kitchen gadget stands. I could have done it all on my own but the customer service manager wanted to do it. It's a one poerson job and I could have finished it on my own without her help. In fact she kept abandoning it making it take longer to finish. I have done it on my own before It's not rocket science. She just left a trail of mess all over display tables and on the floor and I was the one who had to clean it up and she told me not to leave a few boxes of stock next to where they were suppose to be merchandised. At least mine were in boxes - hers were just display arms full of gadgets everywhere which was a tripping hazard to customers. I grabbed a shopping basket on wheels and quickly dumped any display arms I saw on the floor or on displays into it before going to lunch.
Why was the fixture room and every other room locked today when it is normally open? There is nothing to steal from the fixtures room believe me! It's a complete mess - a dumping room. I had to wait for someone with all codes to the rooms. Noted on my phone the code in my calendar.
Lunch was at 2 pm today and upon returning nothing further had been done to the display of kitchen gadgets - totally abandoned so I just finished it off, put the excess in the reserve and took the rubbish ( empty cardboard boxes) to the compactor aand returning the trolley I was using.
I sold a glass kettle to a customer before a team member on the floor took over the sale as the customer was also looking at air fryers.
I did some restocking from cages of stock on the dock but not a lot today because I wasted most of my time doing the stupid gadget display. I wasn't allowed to do the Kitchenaid table display but was asked just to find a display stand to bring up. I am being treated as if I can't anything. So brain dead. I am really falling behind everyone else that started working at Myer at the same time as me. 2 shifts on stock only next week. Hardly worth getting up and leaving at 6.25 am each morning just to get to work.
One final thing I would like to write about and is an indication ofhow the customer manager treats me. So I mentioned how the customer manager was working on (more like fluffing around with) the Kitchenaid baking display table and she was taking her time doing it and kept abandoning it and not letting me even touch it ( I did make it look much better on the bottom two shelves as what she did with it looked so untidy as it items were just dumped there) at all constantly insisting that she do it, well when it was finally complete, a team member from VM goes up to her and makes a comments ( knowing full well that I had not done it and had seen the customer srrvice manager spend all morning doing it) " Did Dulcinea do that?" She sprung into defense mode with a response " No I did!" How difficult is it just to hang some Kitchenaid kitchen utensils onto a display stand that I found and bought up from the fixtures and fittings room and add a few new dish brushes to the display in some red utensil holders? Not difficult. I could have done it in half the time.
Out the door a little after 4 pm and onto the next 280 bus before 4.30 pm. No shopping at the mall this afternoon - just a quick stop at Woolworths Metro Chatswoid for dinner as I could not be bothered to cook before heading home.
Thursday 25th March 2021
Myer 11am - 5 pm service new shift added to Kronos
Checked Kronos on shift cancelled in Kronos 14th March 2021
Another day off today but I spend my early hours of the morning between 1 am and 2 am awake applying for jobs - barely 2 shifts next week is under the 24 hours I specified that I wanted to work per week on my original employment forms. I am not receiving any JobSeeker payments either at the moment.
Today I only managed to take out the rubbish and am trying to dry out the mould that has made itself at home around the apartment. The sun is out although earlier this morning there was a patch of rain again. All dry now.
I haven't ventured out yet as it is late night shopping I can later tonight but not too late as I have to work tomorrow.
I wrote another letter to Centrelink as I still can't continue to report my fortnightly income. It is important that I conti me to in the event I am once again made redundant.
I also wrote a very long letter of complaint to The Salvation Army Employment Plus.
I made lunch for tomorrow - in the fridge ready to go.
I still need to do my laundry .
I applied for a permit to travel to Melbourne although I am unsure whether I still need one in case I want to travel down there over the weekend
Next a shower wash dishes and pack my bag for work.
Friday 26th March 2021
Myer 8 am - 4 pm stock only new shift added to Kronos 12th March 2021 and rechecked 14th & 20th March 2021 no changes to shift.
It's Friday yay!
Just checked Kronos again and I only have 2 shifts stock only the following week as well. It is getting unfeasible for me to travel to and from work with only 2 days work a week.
There are "advantages" to doing stock duties on some days especially when the managers are not around ( in particular the customer service manager and assistant store manager) - you can take your lunch break when you feel like it instead of having to squeeze it in at a scheduled time as organised between team members and team leader's cover and you are left alone some of the time ( not all the time as you can see from my blogs ) and then there is the gossip amongst departments and team members! Heaps of gossip.
Today there was quite a bit of gossip I managed to gather. No wonder Myer is up s**** creek - I am still wondering ifevery Myer operates in the way Myer Warringah does or if it is just the way this particular Myer operates. If every Myer operated like this Myer - Myer will not suvive as a publcally listed company for long. I just wish Solomon Lew and his possey of connections or Wilson Asset Management would actually action a "hostile takeover" of Myer and whip it into shape - Do something what are they waiting for ? the share price to fall even lower then the current 36 cents or so per share it is today? OK so it's gone up 4 cents since I last mentioned in my blog but it will never return to the original public offer price per share of $4.10 or so per share that I purchased them for back in 2009. If they share price falls any lower I can afford to buy the company out myself - umm maybe not quite!?! First thing I would do would be sack the board and form a new one with members who are more "relevant" and seek recommendations and advice from all stakeholders - maybe call an extraordinary AGM and Mr King the CEO has to go - off with his head - I just don't like him. Next flatten the hierarchy of management at Myer the look at all other areas of Myer's operations such as financials reviewing and scrutinizing everything partuclarly suppliers buying inventory flow holding costs etc to reduce or eliminate unnecessary costs people and culture including salaries and wages, how Myer recruits and eliminating the Myer Metrics works and technology updating hardware and software which is so outdated and improving communication channels as examples. Instead of the current cheesy "Myer Mystore" campaign I would scrap that and promote Myer as an Australian Company that's bern around for decades and encourage a much greater % of Australian made and owned stock to sell. Maybe "Myer Australian Owned & Australian Made"
I had quite a few customers still approaching me today ( I wasn't even wearing my name badge - it is safety hazard when on stock duties magnetic and catching on things) and had a few good sales however because I am not on the floor for the next 2 weeks and hardly have any shifts I have been giving all my sales to other team members who are on the floor. Today I had one large sale enough to overfill a small wheelie trolley for a lady and her little daughter but gave the sale to the team leader mentioning that I am giving her this sale as I "tookover" her large sale the other day. This is why the current Myer Metrics system should be scraped- it should be a based on a departmental team effort not a individual team member effort - I don't know which school of management Myer went to ( and I am not referring to the Myer Academy) but it's definitely not the management school I went to!
I have listened to a few team members and these are the complaints comments and feedback I got today ( or more like interesting gossip notice for privacy reasons I never mention any team members' , team leaders' or managers' names in my blogs)
1. The rumour was that the customer service manager of homewares has the ambition to become an assistant store manager however in order to be an assistant store manager ( as mentioned in a previous blog) at Myer you need to have worked in all departments - is that so?! So when I mentioned this to a team member from menswear who also works in other departments , she makes the comments " Do you know how many people have complained about ?" and " She does not have the people skills to be a manager" and finally " if she was a manager too much power would go to her head" ( currently already true - she seems to think thst she can control me and I have no respect for her in return and just tell her straight out if something she is merchandising looks bad - and I am the only one who thinks she can't visual merchandise when she thinks she can) which is a little more diplomatic then the comment from another manager in my previous blog about how she can be a manager at a different Myer store but not at this one.
2. Almost every casual team member had had their shifts cut and the above team member is now on on 2 shifts a week like me. My 24 hours a week I specified on my original employment forms is out the door. Some casuals do actually have increased shifts which is not fair on me as I have been here longer and worked harder. Everyone knows this but it seems the harder you work at Myer the more work you get and the less shifts you get - it just does not make any sense but then again nothing makes sense at Myer. We all know it's due to JobKeeper ending however the other rumour floating around by numerous team members is that all the hours cut now is for the next scan count when everyone is on. That's just outright extremely poor budgeting! Every department is trying to save the staffing budgets they have especially the VM department who have already lost 2 staff members who both resigned and were not replaced as well as the VM staffing budget attempted cut and reallocated to the dock for a VM team member currently on leave for 2 weeks.
3. I really don't kow how managers recruit team members and roster which team members on when. Even the team leader questioned how a few particular team members (that had their Christmas Casual contracts extended at Myer) are still working at Myer as they are so lazy. She even said although it doesn't matter so much as she is a permanent employee that if she was a casual she would kill for an extra shift right now instead these few particular team members are not pulling their weight while we are basically working our butts off. One particular team member ( the ditzy one) arrived 15 minutes late yet again. The team leader was complaining to me about it as apoarently it is not the first time she has turned up to work late like another team member from the electrical department who has a "I don't care" attitude. Why are these team members still employed at Myer? The team leader also mentioned how she knew this particular "ditzy" team member lived alone had 4 other jobs, has no family ( not exactly true when I asked her later she does have a sister) and therefore needed to work but thought it was really not an excuse and that she should really get her life together. Well if she intends to atrend the police academy in Goulburn to become a constable then she has to get her act together as well as not be so lazy and ditzy.
What I got upto today - the rest of the table display ( photo below) has gone a very rogue since my inital attempt at merchandising it but some new gold coloured Heritage stock just came in and this is how I have started to ( not exactly visual) metchandise it in with the existing table display.
Home & sleep I was so tired - forget my trip to Melbourne by train tonight maybe tomorrow.
Saturday 27th March 2021
Day off
No new shifts added to Kronos as at 14th March 2021
I only have 2 shifts both on stock next week. One was cancelled again I believe - it was only on Kronos for a very short period of time.
Not feeling the best today so unsure if I am still going anywhere over this weekend. I was planning to travel to Melbourne but unsure now.
Checked Kronos again today and my 2 shifts originally on Tuesday and Thursday week ended 11th April has been changed to Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th April instead. Myer is doing it again constantly changing the rosters.
Sunday 28th March 2021
Day off
Today is again a do nothing day. I wish I could block the What's app group chats frrom coming through on my days off.
The below are text message as that came through today - this is the lack of communication that happens at Myer Warringah
Posted by the Electricals team leader below
"Hey guys please do not leave roll cages full of stock in the reserves. We also found 2x sunbeam electric blankets worth $400 each with no spider tag. Please check before putting out on the floor. Thanks"
Response from Homewares team leader
"VM team member's name ( omitted for privacy reasons) put them out Electrical's team leader's name ( omitted for privacy reasons"
Response from Electricals team member on stock duties - thank you to him for clarifying communicating and posting the below information. Management should take full responsibility as it was their decision & team members should not be blamed!
"The roll cages in electrical reserve downstairs were put there because the operations manager ( name omitted for privacy reasons) didn't want stock on the top shelves and said if there is no space to leave them on the cage."
Management should take full responsibility for decisions made about placement of all excess stock and communicate it to everyone. The dock should be tagging all applicable items before placing them in cages to be put onto the floor or to reserves. Items are still arriving without correct pricing, no pricing and/or barcodes - the warehouse should be responsible for this yet no responsibility is being taken. I waste so much time blacking out and or relabelling products that arrive incorrectly priced and placing security tags on them because someone else can't be bothered. Not good enough.
The text messages continue this time the customer service manager responses to the Electrical team members text above refer below
"They were in hard home and soft home. I will follow up with the operations manager I think he means leave them on the dock. He is back from holidays tomorrow I will check with him. Thanks "
No rain for past few days and I hope it stays that way!
Deja vu - one year on from when the Corona virus reared it's ugly head and 1 year on from when I was made redundant , I have now been with Myer for about 8 - 9 months now and I see myself being made redundant a second time as my hours are again reduced as JobSeeker reverts back to it's original payments and JobKeeper ends. Thousands of people including myself will become unemployed again. I read my my original blogs that I wrote back in March 2020 and history is repeated. As COVID restrictions and relations are lifted including the co. pulsing wearing of masks in close contact or confined spaces where social distancing can't be avoided I once again predict that history will repeat itself. COVID is still around and we can't be complacent. Even if COVID does not cause another lockdown or is responsible for asnother eco comic disaster, the ending of JobKeeper and the JobSeeker reverting to pre COVID oayments will result in another economic downturn - what is the government thinking? If you read my original blog Australia can only be the lucky country for so long it can't last forever. Stuff up this time and it will be the unlucky country.
A very quick shop at Woolworths Metro Chatswood in the late afternoon followed by Aldi then Coles. The quickest grocery shop I have done - bumped into my cousin again at Aldi.
No new products purchased to try this grocery shop but I will mention something that happened at Aldi that should have been "On The tickToks" ( if only I had captured it on my phone's camera). I purchased a carton of room temperature dozen 700 g caged eggs from Aldi , paid for them and put them back in my trolley. I then took the carton of eggs out and repacked them into my own shopping bags however when I was about to place the eggs into my shopping bag I spotted that the egg carton in the bottom corner was wet so I opened up the carton to inspect the eggs. The one egg in the corner was indeed stuck to the carton hence the wet stain at the bottom of the carton. As I was in the middle of packing my groceries I asked my cousin to go to the cashier and ask if she could swap it for another carton as one egg was stuck to the carton. The cashier either did not believe me when I told her or she did not understand why I wanted to return the carton of eggs for another carton. Anyway she opened the carton of eggs and inspected every single egg in the carton one at a time - lifting each one out and putting it back in until she tried to lift the final egg in the corner out of the carton ( the one that was stuck) - what do you think happened next? I cracked up but the cashier did not! You should have seen the look on her face - she was unimpressed and had egg on her face literally.
Home just made it on an awaiting 144 bus at Chatswood around 7 pm.
End of another week.
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