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.

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