And the Rest Here on Retail Island!

Besides the Store Managers and Assistant Store Managers, there are the others who play parts in the survival (or ultimate end) to employees and companies in general. Here are most of them:

Assistant Managers:


Back in the days of Woolworth's, these managers were usually hired at store level by the Store Manager.  This created the perfect opportunity for people like Bernie to stack the deck with his drinking buddies.  That is exactly what he did.  Sad to say that if you ever had a problem with any of them, the only person you could see was the person who was Human Resources (or what we called Personnel).  In fact at one point I actually had to do this when one of the managers decided one day to do physical harm to me.  As would be expected, they denied harming me even though I was pain for weeks.  Most managers, however, were good-natured and worked well with other employees.

At HQ, I never met anyone who was assistant manager and maybe that was a good thing given that the other managers weren't so hot either.

At Staples, assistant managers were burned through like red shirt crew members on "Star Trek".  Sadly, nobody really stayed long enough in the 2 to 3 open positions to really get attached to.

Sales Manager


This position didn't exist at either Woolworth or HQ.  Smart move for them.

At Staples, however, this became the position that nobody ever really wanted and it was obvious.  To bare the brunt of bad news or being the happy recipient of how well the store was doing was probably the most stressful position in the entire store.  Sadly, I saw this position replaced about 5 different times at least during my 12+ years with the company.

Ironically, I have seen this position up for grabs 3 times in the last 9 months as it has been advertised as part of the State of Maine Career Center job listings that I subscribe to.  I have been tempted to send out an application to this job just to irritate the company just for the fun of it.  I believe that very rarely does Staples advertise through state jobs boards, so they must be extremely desperate to hire someone for this undesirable position.

Personnel/Human Resources


No matter what you call this position, it is necessary to have someone in the store to have this position.  They help with just about any problem you may have even if it is with other managers, at least that's what the concept should be.

Woolworth had the position nailed correctly.  During my employment there, someone actually was personnel and performed scheduling, worked to help out employees, and most importantly was there TO LISTEN!!

HQ had a personnel person and during my seven weeks there, it became apparent that she had been overwhelmed with the problems in the store.  The feeling was basically hope for the best, but don't expect results.

When I first started at Staples, they actually had a personnel person.  Her name was Nikki and she was a very nice person.  She did well getting me in the door and getting me prepped for what would come in my career with them.  Sadly, after about 6 months, her position was eliminated from the company and from that point forward Human Resources (as they called it) was either a manager on-duty or a phone call to home office in Massachusetts.  This really presented many problems as the fact that you could not talk to a manager if they were the problem in the first place and calling Home Office was like calling an uninterested party.  About 2 years into my employment with Staples, they had introduced another useless option of getting help.  It was a group of psychiatrists who worked for Staples that you could call by phoning an 800 number.  Well, one Sunday afternoon, I called and got the response "Sorry, we are closed. Please call again between 9am and 5pm Monday through Friday. If you need help otherwise, please dial 911 to get further assistance"

"Hello, 911 .. My manager is a jerk. I was told to call this number because the company that my employer hired to assist in our problems isn't open on weekend and the answering system said to call you instead.  Hopefully, you can help me"  Of course, I never said that, but maybe it would have been hilarious if I had done so.

Front-End Supervisors


The front-end supervisor (or front-end babysitter, as I like to call it) is the best friend that any cashier can ever have.  I always got along with everyone in that position and I feel they were my friend.  I have my own emotional attachment to the position as I was one for nearly 2 years at Woolworth under Bernie's evil reign.  Certainly the position at Woolworth meant standing at the front of the store and usually chatting with the young (mostly) female cashiers.  There was much downtime there and not much to do.  So the money was easy and not very stressful.  Until, of course, the weekend came and back-to-school season was the thing.  This was when all 8 registers at the front end were ringing and the little desk bells at each register rang off like a song constantly (cashiers are never satisfied).

At HQ, the front-end supervisors varied greatly.  One was a very nice young lady (about half my age unfortunately) and the other was an old man who used to work as a manager at the local grocery store and was always a mean person.  I could not wait to leave this company after 7 weeks given the type of treatment that I got from this jerk.

At Staples in the beginning, we actually had someone who had the title of "front end supervisor".  She was a very nice lady and stayed in the position for about 3 years.  She did not leave by choice, the position was eliminated completely in the company.  For the next year approximately, managers took turns playing front-end manager and reluctantly.  Sometimes, there lack of speed kept customers waiting for up to 20 minutes for them to respond to the cashiers.  They usually were responsible at times for the whole store especially at night which accounts for their tardiness.

About 4 years into my time with Staples, they introduced the C.S.L. (Customer Service Lead).  This new position were basically the former front-end manager position without the manager key-holder training (a manager never-will-be position).  While this position was only held by only one person in the store, it was apparent that this person could be considered overworked because nobody cared about how well they performed.  I always found it interesting that I was never offered the position given that I had previous supervisor experience, but then again we are talking Staples here--home of the stupid.

Up Next:  Searching For That Job

The Way I See It: Department of Health and Human Services Video

First, let me say that I have not nor will I waste time watching the DHHS videos.  I am more disturbed over the fact that Mr. LePage says that the "interviewer was not properly trained".  I believe that no matter how much training you have or how many years you have worked in a job, there is ALWAYS the chance that someone will try and get away with something.  In the 20+ years I worked in retail, I occasionally had people who tried to pull a "fast one" on me.  Sadly, no matter how much training you have, the unexpected can always happen.  What makes this worse is that this was a setup, complete with a hidden video camera.  To blame the employee in this case is stupid and Mr. LePage should know this.  However, given his background as manager of Marden's stores, he proved his incompetence as both a governor and representative of the state...again.  Sadly, Mr. LePage (and I will not address him as governor because he is NOT my governor - I did not vote for him and never would) thinks that his "experience" as a store manager gave him all the training he needed as governor.


Well, Mr. LePage, you are sadly mistaken, just like all the other retail managers I have worked with and known over the years.  If anything, you fooled 39% of the voting people last year who voted you as governor, the other 61% knew better.  I wonder if that person who was the client was one of the 61%..my guess would be yes.  


As far as the incompetency of the DHHS employee, I would say they were probably very capable in their job, unlike the governor.  As I will explain in a future post, I believe scammers are more of the norm not the exception


So, in conclusion, Mr. LePage, unless you personally know the DHHS employee, you are best not to say anything at all rather than insult them as I can speak from personal experience. Better yet, just shut up for the next 4 years and accept your one-term (or shorter) life as governor.


And that is the way I see it...

Assistant Store Managers - After all they are ASSES!

Over my 20+ career in retail, I have worked with a lot of Assistant Managers.  Some have been wonderful and others have been just wonders as in "I wonder what the hell the company was thinking when they were hired!".

Way back in the Woolworth days over 20 years ago, I had the privilege to work with Warren.  He was the kindest manager one could ever meet. He was fun to be around, never yelled, and always seemed happy.  Maybe it was because he always wore these high quality 2 and 3 -piece suits that always made him feel so giddy.  It was amazing that he could be so happy working with angry Bernie. I guess it helped they never talked to each other.

After Warren left the company, we got Chuck.  He came from the former Portsmouth, NH store after it closed.  Anybody who ever went there during the last couple of years like I did, they would wonder why this location lasted as long as it did.  It looked and felt like a store out of something of early 1970's.  Chuck was a nice guy as well who kept us entertained during the end of Bernie's stay and through about half of Mikey's stay.  After Chuck, we no longer had anyone who had the official title as "Assistant Store Manager" as the company was slowly dying off.

At HQ, I never met anyone with that title and probably it was a good thing given the entire environment there.

At Staples as previously mentioned, a couple of the assistant store managers graduated to the position of Store Manager eventually.  However, the attitude of these people changed dramatically between the two positions.  At one point the company even wanted to eliminate the position from our store because they felt it was not needed.  Maybe, they should have done that.  Especially given that the final assistant store manager I dealt with was the worse I ever had.  The name of this person is Abe Madrid.  What made Abe a bad assistant store manager was that he came from the same store as Shawn Nichols did in Bangor Maine.  These two together created a very bad environment as they worked against the employees in every way possible as I will be explaining in future posts.  Bad + Bad = EVIL (VERY EVIL}.

Next Up:  And the Rest Here on Retail Island!

Meet the Managers

Store managers rule how stores work..or in every case I have seen - NOT WORK. Way back in the Woolworth days when I was hired the manager was Bernie, who we employees dubbed him as "Little Saddam".  He never talked directly to most of his employees. He would always talk to them through the assistant managers.  He did, however, talk to a couple of the employees, but was always sounded mean.  Only a couple times did he ever talk to me and when he did he addressed me as "Mr. Brown"...like I didn't have a first name.  His rudeness made him a very bad manager, but ironically he lasted with the company for most of its 25+ years at the mall.  Eventually, the company replaced him  because apparently he was ripping off the company with false inventory reports among other things

After a couple months of not having a store manager, we got Mikey...who was dubbed Mikey Mussolini.  As Woolworth was collapsing, he was brought in from being a district manager from the New York area.  There was 2 obvious things wrong with this.  First, he did not have retail store experience and secondly he had no idea on how to treat Mainers.  This led to many problems including many confrontations that proved his incompetence.  The only thing I really took away from all of his bad management and one piece of advice "Customers will fraud you if you given them the opportunity every time".  This is a lesson that showed itself many times over the next few years as I will explain.

During my short term at HQ, I did not have much interaction with much of the management staff, but when I did they always acted like jerks, which probably explains why there was always so much tension between associates and managers.

Now speaking of tension, we have Staples.  When I first started with the company way back in 1996, the first manager was Don.  He was a hothead, but he could also be very nice when he wanted to be.  Unfortunately, about a year and a half into working there, he had to quit for health reasons.

Next came Mark, Don's former assistant manager.  When he was assistant manager, he was sort of a nice guy and fun to be around.  When he became store manager, all that changed.  He got a big boy voice and decided to start acting tougher.  Sadly, he is still with the company, but thankfully not locally.

After Mark, we got Terence. Huge mistake.  He formerly was Mark's assistant manager and was very clueless.  His former position was as manager of Service Merchandise and we all know what happened to that company.  Note to any company:  NEVER HIRE SOMEONE WHO WAS A MANAGER AT A FAILED COMPANY -- THE COMPANY FAILED BECAUSE THEY WAS PART OF THE PROBLEM -- NOT THE SOLUTION!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

Interesting Story on Service Merchandise


A few years ago at the South Portland Maine location, I happened to walk through the Service Merchandise store and saw sitting on a shelf in a corner a Packard-Bell computer.  Since nobody seemed to be around, I wanted to look inside the unit.  I easily was able to get the side panel off the unit and began looking around inside the unit.  While I was doing that, several employees had walked by me and not a single one asked if I needed help.  After I was done looking inside the machine, I left the machine opened with the parts sitting on the shelf beside the unit.  I went back to the store a week later and the computer was still sitting there in pieces.  Another week later, I went back again and the unit was gone, but the price tag was still sitting there.  Ironically, the unit never returned to the shelf and there never was another computer again in Service Merchandise to sell.  Apparently, this store never cared enough about this machine or the customers enough to want to sell it.  Just another sad reason why that company is no longer with us.


After Terence, we got Amy.  Apparently, according to stories I heard, she came to our store as manager with the understanding that at the end of being there for one year, she would be promoted to district manager position.  The biggest problem with her was that she was a manager who always did most of the floor jobs herself. Certainly this is something that managers just don't do.  However, because of this she spent very little time interacting with employees.  After the year was over, she was not given a district manager job, so she abruptly decided to leave the company.

During a week off from vacation, I came back to meet up with our new manager Shawn Nichols.  Little did I know that this guy was nothing but trouble.  As I will be explaining along the way in future posts, not only was Shawn a  bad manager, but he was also a COMPULSIVE LIAR!!  Certainly not a quality anyone would want from ANY manager whatsoever.  He made the last 6 months of employment with the company absolutely intolerable.  It also continued even after my employment ended as well.  Nobody should ever have to put up with what I put up with.  Neither Shawn nor Staples have any shame for what would happen over the next 2+ years.

Commentary: Borders 


As another example of Borders failure can be seen, Waldenbooks which closed up in the Maine Mall, 3 years ago, also had a management problem.  The issue with them was that because that they were gossiping females, they spent most of their time talking to each other while ignoring the customers and being just plain mean to them a lot of the time.  Several times I would walk into the store and saw rolling racks of books that needed to be put on shelves and boxes full of magazines that needed to be put up on shelves as well.  


It is all this ignorance by management that led me to believe that they are a major reason for their own downfall.  Staples should take a lesson from Borders failure, but unlike Borders there problem extends throughout the whole company, not just store management as I will be explaining in the future.


Next Up: Assistant Store Managers - After all they are ASSES!

The Beginning -- It All Has to Start Somewhere

The world is not such a wonderful place anymore.  My world is no exception.  In fact, mine is probably worse than a lot of people's. Why, you ask?  Because, like millions of others, I became unemployed, but unlike others, mine has been anything but a pleasant experience.  I would call it down to downright humiliating.  The reason is that my previous employer, Staples, have been nothing short of being jerks (you can replace jerks with your favorite swear word if you like-certainly they deserve it).

The Backstory

My story begins with Staples in July 1996 and ends with my termination in March 2009.   However, the real story begins after my termination.  But first let me go way back before Staples, where my retail career began.  In May 1988 through March 1996, I was employed by the Woolworth Company and for 7 weeks in May and June 1996, I was employed by HQ (Home Quarters).  The reason I mention these other employers because at times I will be referencing them as part of similar things that happened with these employers as well.  All 3 of these companies suffered the same problem: bad management.  Yes, you read that right: BAD MANAGEMENT!!

Of course, managers will never admit they are not the problem..its their employees.  However, in my over 20+ years in retail, I have seen many good employees terminated because of incompetence of the management (myself included).  I am not getting on my high horse here, I am telling the truth of how a good employee can be destroyed by bad managers. 

Over the course of the next several weeks (months or years), I will be telling my story of how someone can destroy a good person leaving them empty..

Now a short Q & A session...

Q & A:

Why are you doing this as opposed to getting a job, wouldn't that be much more practical?

As I will be explaining, it may sound practical, but the damage that has been done has kept me from getting a job.  I have put out over 200 applications and not one single call back.  Its apparent that severe damage has been done.

I believe that if people read this, they will pass the information along to other people to read as an example of problems that can happen to good people.  I am granting anyone permission to use this information and pass it along to anyone they want.

How about going back to school to train in something else?

First, let me say that all my unemployment has expired (Maine only allows about 76 weeks whereas the U.S. government allows for 99 weeks..sadly Mane rules in this case), so I am basically penniless. 

Second, I have been to college after graduating high school and have a degree in computer science.  This is whole other story in itself which I will get to someday as well.


Next up:  Meet the Managers