Monday 26th April 2021
Day off originally - not anymore! ( refer previous day's blog)
Myer 10 am - 4 pm no break Floor or Stock? Shift added to Kronos with an "x" next to it usually meaning stock. Neither. What a total waste of of my time today.
Besides not knowing exactly why I was called in to work today at the last minute by the customer service manager , everything I did today was a total waste of time!
The very first thing I did in the morning was serve customers as I did not want them to wait too long to be served ( still constantly hearing from customers there is no one around to serve them comments and one today from a customer addition to that comment that it wasn't always like that). Next was to wait for the customer service manager for a scanner gun that worked. They never work eventhough the customer service manager insists they do work and she never has a problem with them. Yes sure whatever she says - agree with whatever she says even if you know she is wrong.
So my first 2 tasks today was to find and label all the Heritage boxed truffle bowls , salad bowls, small cake stands with domes and large cake stands with domes as they came in with no barcodes or prices on them with the scanner gun.
It took a bit of time for the customer service manager and then the Electricals team leader to get the scanner gun to actually work then I had a problem I had to find the barcodes and then manually type them into the scanner gun in order to print off the labels. I was having trouble searching and entering the codes manually into the scanner gun so asked the Electrical team leader to type in and print off one of each label so I can just scan them and print off as many as I needed for each item ( I had no idea how many of each I would need as I had to run around and find the stock on the floor in the reserve on display tables and in cages on the dock) . Before I even started to execute my plan the customer service manager was already screaming at me " Haven't you started scanning yet?". I knew what I was doing and had to do and so did the Electricals team leader - there was no need to tell and yell at me. The Homewares team leader had began to scan and label the items without barcodes and prices along the esculator display the day before and I checked which ones she had done and continued to to label any on the other shelves and display tables I found and in the reserve. I advised that it was all done and then she asked me what about all the ones in a cage on the dock - really? There was only 1 in the entire cage on the dock to label and I made this clear to her later! Most of the Hertiage items in question were now coming in labelled.
Task number 2 of the day was the knife cabinet. I had to move all of the knives off the display table and hanging opposite it and move them into the knife cabinet and store the excess underneath it. I spent so much time trying to unlock and lock both the knife cabinet and draws and cabinets undermneath, I didn't even have time to complete this task. I had a plan which one of the VM team members agreed with for how I wanted to display the knives in the knife cabinets but this was thrown out the window as the customer service manager pulled me away from my task to complete another task she deemed " more urgent" - it was not really. By the time I returned my knife cabinet display it had been destroyed. No respect for how the store displays look - Myer may as well be a bargain store or dollar store.The Electricals team leader was told to just get the knives into the cabinet. So the knives were separated into 2 cabinets which looked as if they were thrown into them and one boxed set of knives was totally left out of the cabinet display. All the excess knives were thrown into a cage and left on the floor and the hanging knives on display were left as they were. Not only was the task abandoned and incomplete, it was totally destroyed.
Task number 3 ( the more urgent task) was to go down to the soft reserve and move all the Heritage boxed quilts into the old luggage reserve across from it. Why? I could not fit all of them in and there was a range of them that I left where they were because they had been security tagged inside however not all were so we have to check all of them before giving it to the customer. So I finished taking most of the boxed quilts over to the old luggage reserve leaving the green light weight boxed quilts on one shelf in the soft reserve ( I consolidated them). I went back up onto the floor and was going to continue with the knife cabinets when I discovered the knives were just thrown into whatever cabinet had space. Instead of fixing them up I just said stuff this and went over to team member "ticket girl" to find out which quilts needed to be restocked to move more boxed quilts out of the soft reserve and onto the floor. I could not even do this without the customer service manager ringing me and asking what I was doing. I said restocking the quilts. She practically demanded I finish moving the quilts from the soft reserve to the old luggage reserve - she didn't think I had finished but I thought I had done a great job getting most of the stock off the floor in the soft reserve and onto the shelves in the soft reserve making it safe from a tripping hazard. I had done what she asked in the old luggage reserve and lined up all the boxed quilts along the back walls of the reserve 3 up and I left the side aisle clear as it was narrow but the customer service manager insisted the green boxed light weight quilts be bought over as well. I don't even we bought all of the boxes across. Whilst I was down there she did my monthly " one on one staff appraisal"- same same "improving" - what is there to improve on? I been doing nothing but a brain dead stock job for months on end and never on the floor. She can't expect me to hit sales targets when I'm not rostered on service to sell anything! I think I'm more then hit sales targets being off the floor - all those $2 Myer reusable bags I've sold , all the Myer One sign ups etc. I've more then done my share of sales. Also explained during the one on one the shop lifter code "operator 22" and the random checking of untagged products found on the selling floor to be recorded into the yellow folder. Yes I knew about the yellow folder. Again I signed off on the dodgey iPad that I have done the monthly staff appraisal ( so dodgey you can't even make out my signature it's just a scribble).
Is the old fixtures and fittings room now full of electricals as the customer service manager advised? No. I can't keep up with what stock is in what reserve now. The fixtures and fittings room is still that although the doir is no kept locked up. The cookware asnd I assume cutlery except some of the boxes MW cutlery is now in the old tv reserve, the luggage reserve is now filled with selected Hertiage boxed quilts , Jamie Oliver crockery and bakeware but not cookware Robert Gordon but not cushions or bedding and Vue but not cutlery sets , the old Polo space in the Mensware reserve is now shared with toys ( I am unsure Why as it is a concession reserve). I overheard one of the Electricals team members on stock being told off severely by another team member for leaving the concession reserve door open advising him that he should never do that as there is stock worth hundreds of dollars in there therefore the door must remained locked.
My new name badge was finally given to me - How long has it been sitting on the customer service manager's desk for? The customer service manager was surprised no one had told me about it - I'm surprised I received it before I left this job! Things happen very slowly at Myer if they happen at all & Myer takes a very reactive approach instead of being proactive.
Apologies no time to blog I will catch up hopefully on my day off . Postscript : Still catching up & it's Monday 3rd May 2021!
Tuesday 27th April 2021
Myer 10 am - 5.30 pm service. No changes to original shift as at 25th April 2021 when I checked Kronos.
Just checked Kronos this morning on my way to work and I am now on stock not service from 10 am - 5.30 pm. If this keeps happening I think I may be forced to resign. I am just over my "pussy eye" which had not reoccurred since I last did stock over a week ago even yesterday I was cautious of my eyes becoming irritated again. The rash on my body is slowly disappearing but not on my arms and legs. Yesterday the rash on my left leg came up again when I was moving the boxes of quilts from one reserve to another.
Today I have to be a little extra cautious with my allergies as back burning has started and the city is covered in a thick grey haze from the smoke generated. I should have taken photos of the city on my way to work but I forgot to recharge my phone this morning - so tired from yesterday.
A few things happened today. Firstly we were down on one of the tills by over $100 in cash. We were doing a till reconcilliation team member I want to be a team leader did one till which balanced and I was about to do the other until I had to abandon it as I had a customer with a cash purchase.
Suspected scam
Nagging about not watching last on scan count
No Myer One sign ups
Wednesday 28th April 2021
Day off.
Rent paid
One load of laundry done
Dishes washed.
There is still so much to do.
I went for another swim at Lane Cove Aquatic Centre where kids ( esoecially one little kid who had the exact same goggles as me) intentionally splashed me. After an hour of exercise and relaxation in both the adult pool and kids pool, it was time for a grocery shop at Coles and Aldi in Lane Cove.
Home a snack then s sleep. Work again tomorrow.
I have not contacted the company that contacted me in relation to a possible job opportunity. I advised them that I would contact them today as I had been called to work at the last minute - such is the nature of being a long term casual worker. Instead of waiting for me to contact them, I received a response of I don't seen to have a contact number for you - very suspect another job scam? I decided to do some research on the company - so they seem to do a lot in a lot of areas and was registered as a private compoany in 2014 however I can't seem to find examples of companies they have done work for and their website is so long and bland with sections incomplete including careers/jobs at. The CEO is on Linkedin but I cannot find any credit or reference checks on the company. All I know is they are based in the Melbourne CBD. I need to investigate further before I contact them.
Thursday 29th April 2021
Myer 10 am 3 pm service new shift originally added to Kronos 20th April 2021. No changes to shift as of 25th April 2021. Last minute change to shift today and asked by the customer service manager to stay back an extra hour ( because her budget now allowed her to add extra hours to shifts) to move cushions from soft reserve to glassware/home decore reserve but to wait until the another lunch cover team member arrived before commencing.
Beautiful morning but smoke haze from back burning set to return. Showers also forecast.
Not feeling the best today.
My morning started off great. I had one of the nicest and most patient customers who ended up purchasing over $600 worth of homewares which I suggested she grab an abandoned trolley from the carpark to transport them all in through the mall to get to her car. She was hosting a get together and needed everything today so I could not do an order for her. I love it when I get to spend time with customers when it is not so busy who require extra assistance with their purchases. Everything from suggestions to product knowledge, to searching for quantity and availability of products or finding alternatives even direction of how to get back to where they are parked. Giving not just good but great customer service is really important to me no matter where I am working - too bad Myer as a company does not have the same work ethic. They may have implemented their so called "Customer First Plan" which I to this day do not understand - looks good on paper but if not used in practise it's a total waste of time. If this plan is in place there should not be any " there is no one around to serve me" comnents from customers.
After spending quite a while with the customer above, I spent quite a bit if time with another customer - an elderly couple where the husband wanted to purchase a knife - I was trying to "escape" them as they did not purchase anything after all the time I spent with them and they wanted to open every boxed Chef X knife to look at, feel and photograph. They asked a lot of questions and I was struggling to get the knife cabinets, draws and cupboards open again with the key. After spending an hour with them, they asked if Myer had a particular kitchen gadget/utensil ( I can't remember what it even was now) and I said that it wasn't available - by now I did not want to spend anymore time with them. When I finally escaped back to the Homewares counter, the customer service manager asked where I had been- I said I just spent an hour with a customer and tgey didn't even purchase anything they just took photos and wanted to see and feel every knife and knife sharpener and then do more research.
Onto my task for today - the cushion move..
Today I almost had a serious accident at work. The customer service manager for goodness know what reason asked me to stay back and work an extra hour so instead of starting at 10 am and finishing at 3 pm she asked if I could stay back and finish at 4 pm. I didn't want to really because I have a lot to do but said yes. So I was staying back to move the cushions from the soft reserve to the hard reserve so the piles of throws in the soft reserve on the floor could be moved onto the shelves to clear the aisle so no one would trip on them. So I was down in the soft reserve on my own and went to remove one cushion from the top shelves to put into a cage I had ready to be filled with cushions to be moved to the glassware/now home decore reserve ( the glassware reserve used to be shared with toys which have now been moved to another reserve) This is where a serious accident could have cost me a trip to the hospital and a workers compensation claim. As I removed one cushion all the cushions fell out and the top shelf almost fell on me but managed to only hit the palm of my left hand below the thumb and hit the concrete floir with a big thump just to the right of me. I was really lucky. What caused this to happen was all the shelves were stuffed full and over filled. Because the top shelves are not screwed in but just thick planks of particle board, they were stick up uneven above and when I went to remove one cushion the puffiness of the cushions released and caused the shelf to bounce and pop out and over onto the floor below. I got a shock and it was hard enough to cause my palm to heat up ( think what it feels like to be slapped) but not break anything eg bones skin etc. I ran out of the reserve and a team member I did not even know was walking past and I told her that a shelve just fell on me. She said the assistant store manaager had just walked around the corner so she called out to her and the operations manager also came. I wasn't injured badly but did request an ice pack so had to wait for a safety first aid officer to arrive. An incident report was filed out by the assistant store mnager in case of a workers compensation claim. It was not just one shelf that was over filled with cushions the planks on all the top shelves were popping out. I was given and ice pack by the safety officer andd told by the assistant store manager to take a break as well. I had a break and the ice pack relieved the heat it was back to moving the balance of the cushions. The safety officer came to check on me. I was fine and the assistant manager also helped me guide the cage down to the glassware reserve. I completed the move by 3 pm and had nothing much to do after that except serve a few customers. Even the store manager came to inspect the soft reserve and heard about my little incident or was that accident? I posted on the What's App Team Group Chat photos of what cushions were now in the glassware/home decore reserve adding the following after my incident/accident
: "......For safety reasons please do not over stuff cushions and throws into shelves particularly the shelves below the top shelves!!!!"
Now I am going to comment on the Myer Metrics system again and how it is antiquated and does not actually improve productivity of an individual or motivates them. I have mentioned how it is a total fail and is unfair previously and how performance should be based not on individual efforts but departmental or team efforts. This is an example of how unfair the system is. I had a customer satisfaction feedback score of 88% which increased to 90% in April 2021. Anything above 80% is acceptable - fall below that and you are "interrogated" by Myer management ( and I am serious!). So I was sitting on 88% for so long and finally reached the 90% customer satisfaction feedback score until the 27th April when I received 4/10 customer satisfaction feedback score amongst 4 x 10/10 customer satisfaction feedback scores just in April 2021 including a 10/10 customer service feed back score on the 27th April 2021 and a total of 20 x 10/10 customer satisfaction feedback scores since I started back in late July 2020. I did get a few 8/10s and 9/10s as well as a 7/10 ( that customer scored Myer overall a 5/10 so it was a bit of an anomaly) . This customer who scored me a 4/10 stood out like a sore thumb because they also scored Myer an overall score of 4/10. By getting this low score my customer satisfaction feedback score dropped from 90% back down to 88%. Unfair metrics system - absolutely!!!! So much effort to get to and stay at 90% only to drop back down to 88% after 1 bad score which probably isn't legitimate. Last time I had a bad customer feedback comment, it proofed to be untrue as the comment was made up and I did not even serve that person as there was no customer service score against my metrics. Postscript : I know who that customer that gave me a 4/10 customer service score was probably, she may have been in the queue but she was unaware that I had another customer before her and the other customer who wanted to ask me a question ( thinking she was pushing in) . Anyway team member "I want to be team leader" received an even worse customer satisfaction score of 2/10. When she spoke to the customer service manager about it, she was told not to worry about it as she suspects that a rude customer is doing her rounds. She sure is! Customer's like her should be banned from shopping at Myer.
Friday 30th April 2021
Myer 8 am - 4 pm stock no changes to original shift on Kronos as at 25th April 2021.
I told the customer service manager about my near accident yesterday and did she seem to care? No not really. She had injured her neck/ back again whilst she was moving stock and looked like she was on drugs again ( she is on pain killers and I have long suspected not just on this ocassion hence probably has an addiction to them observing her ever changing behaviours and mood swings as well as not being able to complete any given tasks she starts or focus for long periods of time and having no short term memory. You know when someone looks sp aced out most of the time - she blames it on her allergies- painkillers and antihistamines don't mix if she is indeed taking both).
I probably restocked less cages then my usual 8 - 9 cages average per 8 hour shift today as I had quite a few customers needing assistance. I didn't necessarily put all their sales through the POS myself though. Most of the time if I had put every single customers sales through, they would probably average $1000 per day. I usually give most of my sales to other team members ( and this is one of the reasons why the Myer Metric system is inaccurate and fails)
I don't think I signed any customers to Myer One - such a hassle now that they have to use an iPad to gill out a page of details before typing the number into the POS system or use the new QR code system which is not quite working. I have sold a lot of 115 cent plastic bags though and have noticed that instead of decreasing the use of plastic bags customers are willing to pay for one hence increasing the use of plastic bags!The system is not working. Also it is 15 cents per bag no matter what size it is and what happens if you shop at more then one department at Myer and the original plastic bag purchased is now too small - does the customer have to purchase another one or do you swap it for a larger bag?
Saturday 1st May 2021
Myer 9.30 am - 2.30 pm service, original shift added to Kronos on 20th April 2021, shift changed on 30th April to 9.30 am - 4.30 pm.
Not much to report. It's a Saturday and it waa not as busy as during the week. No Myer One sign ups, and I have not been asking customers to round up the purchases to donate to charity as I am unsure which charity it is actualky for - flood victims or the domestic violence? I can't see it on Metrics therefore not asking customers. I need some sort of evidence that all money donated is actually going to that charity and not into Myer's purse.
There was a special promotion on today where customers who paid for their purchases over $100 using CBA reward points got a bonus $10 Myer gift card. I did not have any customers who qualified today except one of my first customers today had a purchase of around $94 which meant she didn't quite qualify- If the items she purchased were not discounted she would have easily qualified! It can be a bit of a catch with the promotion.
So tired, I can't even remember what I did today except I went straight home to sleep.
Sunday 2nd May 2021
Day off
No news to report. Life admin and catch up day well deserved.
It was quite a mice day but I am not planning to venture out.
I slept in , made a udon brocollini and salmon bowl then a "spag bol" ( Aussie slang for Spaghetti Bolognese )
Cleaning the apartment and catching up with my blog which just crashed again.
Apologies to all my readers - no photos again this week. No events or places of interest to visit.
Thank you to all thos readers out there from around the world reading my blog - in April my readership increased by approximately 100 - very much appreciated now could all of you please view my YouTube channel to support it? It's unsponsored , free to view and no ads ( I hope) just like this blog and if you like send me a comment or like ( or dislike my videos uploaded) however please be respectful.
End of another week. Don't worry there will always be more exciting events and places of interest I will visit & blog about in the future.
Finally finished my blog for this week.
