Happy Halloweenie

This week I was going to write about a sad story, but because of the holiday of Halloween, I changed my mind because it would probably be deemed as some sort of trick or treat joke. Instead, this week I decided to wish everyone to have a safe and happy Halloween.

To be relevant to Staples this week, I would like to say that only in 1 year out of the 12 ½ years that I worked for the company was Halloween ever celebrated. This was the only year that the store decided to give out candy. However, and this is a big however, the employees could not dress up in costume under any circumstances. Ironically this was their belief when celebrating any holiday. It’s sad that Staples resents all of the holidays.

This definitely was not the case back in Woolworth when not only was Halloween celebrated but was encouraged for the employees to dress up and not only that but we gave out a significant amount of candy in each of the 9 years I was with them. Maybe it helped that Woolworth was located in the mall and Staples is located in a strip mall.

So Woolworth was a party environment and Staples was a party-pooper environment.

Maybe that is where we get the phrase “Trick or Treat”, just many years too late.

Stay safe and stay away from the monsters at Staples otherwise you will feel tricked everyday.

The Last Meal I Never Had

Hilltop Steakhouse (Photo credit: Marissa Babin)

Please Note: This week’s special post will appear in all my blogs.

Back when I was younger in the 1970’s, our family would make the 2 ½ hour trip to Route 1 in Saugus Massachusetts to have lunch at the Hilltop Steakhouse Restaurant. You never could miss this place. It had fiberglass cows out front in a fenced in yard and a giant cactus sign out front announcing the restaurant’s name.

As the years wore on, we made fewer trips to the place as the lines usually were at least a 2 hour wait to be served. One time the wait would have been nearly 3 hours so we decided not to stay and wait. However, every time we did stay to have a meal we were never disappointed.

We had not gone to the restaurant in the last 10 years because nobody had the time to make the trip and waiting would be an all-day event. When initially we heard that the place was closing down at the end of October, we decided to make a date to make that one last trek to the iconic restaurant for that one final (hopefully enjoyable, but sad) meal.

So this last Tuesday, we decided to make that drive from southern Maine to Saugus Massachusetts. As we got closer to our destination, the anticipation of that last meal grew.

Then it happened.

We rounded up the hill on Route 1 and saw the giant cactus only to see the smaller sign before the large one saying “Open Until Oct. 20”.

What!?!

The local newspaper stated that the place was to be open until the 29^th. Imagine our disappointment when we found the building abandoned with “Closed – NO TRESPASSING” on all the windows.

Sadly, the cows were gone but the fence was still there. For the first time for use, the parking lot was completely void of any vehicles at all. So we left the empty parking lot and drove down the road a short distance to turn around and start that long journey back home.

Now, of course, I could have checked the restaurant’s website to tell that the place had closed. Unfortunately, with the exception of an update to the butcher shop specials, this site has not been updated since 2008. No mention of the closure could be found on the site anywhere. I did not bother doing a search for the company as I expected the place to be opened until the end of the month as promised.

So in the end, no meal for me or our family. But what happened to this company that always was very busy became a victim, according to the company, of a bad economy and a “dramatic drop” in customers based on competition from other places on the Route 1 highway.

However, this confuses me as many of the businesses on the nearby area were either crappy places, places long abandoned, or empty plots of land with new construction on them. It makes me wonder if this place was sold out to some developer who wants to use it for something else.

This same sort of thing happened a few years ago when Miller’s restaurant in Bangor Maine was closed because the temporary home of Hollywood Slots wanted the location because it was across the street from the future location that they was building. This also was a great restaurant of a buffet-style as opposed to a steakhouse variety. A sports bar has since opened in the location after the casino moved out.

Of course, we didn’t know about that closing until we arrived there and found it closed. It was during the in-between time when the restaurant had closed and the casino had moved in. It was yet another disappoint that we had over the years for the “they aren’t there anymore” syndrome.

Yes, it was sad that I didn’t enjoy one last beef meal at the steakhouse, but never was unexpected given our luck over the years. At least we have the internet to remind us of the pictures of what was one of the best meals ever had.

My score: Incomplete

Summary: If you didn’t make it before the closing like I did, then a great meal was missed. If only anyplace, anywhere at all, could compete to what this place had to offer than I would say I would try it. Goodbye cows. So long cactus sign. We hardly knew you.

Misdirected Anger

It seems that in the last week that people have become stupid and not just a little stupid, but to the point of misdirecting their anger at the wrong people.

For example, consider those veterans who took barricades from the war memorial in Washington D.C. and carried them to the gates of the White House and dumped them. Seriously, if these people were actually thinking then they would realize that the President did not cause the government to shutdown but it was the Congress that did so. However, in people’s haste and anger they directed their wrongful frustration to the person who really never caused the problem in the first place.

As a second example, consider that in a Louisiana Walmart, welfare customers went wild clearing the shelves of merchandise after finding out that their EBT Debit card (food stamps) was not working. Some of the customers even left the store with full carts of unpaid merchandise. This problem was not a Walmart problem, but a problem created by a glitch by Xerox, the company that runs the card program. Sadly, Walmart became a victim of somebody else's problem, which they had no control over.

Finally, a third example is the signing up for the Obamacare program. It is the programmers who developed the software that should be blamed and not the Obama administration as many media outlets have reported. Since the healthcare.gov website is a portal to state programs, it is the states that should be at fault for not having enough bandwidth to handle the incoming traffic. Other sites such as Twitter have suffered from similar problems in recent years. My response is “get over it and eventually everyone who wants to sign up will be able to, it is just that the system is clogged by too many users”.

As you can see from the examples above, people miss direct their anger at the wrong people more often than you think. As someone who worked in customer service for 25 years, I realize that customers misdirect their complaints about products to people like me instead of contacting the real source of many of the problems which is the companies themselves.

So what causes all these problems? I feel that people like to blame the easiest person that someone can get ahold of whether they are the source of the problem or not. Sadly, as long as people direct anger to the wrong people, mostly innocent people will get blamed or possibly hurt either in a verbal or sometimes as I have experienced firsthand, a physical one. The latter one which shows total disrespect and unfortunately for someone like me doesn’t get the kind of acknowledgement from management as it should, just like those people who misdirect their anger in the first place. I will have more to say about this type of abuse in a future posting.

In a way, I am glad that I am away from the customer service circle, as I feel that things have gotten progressively worse for many companies as people misdirect their anger even more so than ever. I really wish that management would step up more so to eliminate the problems, but they don’t which just adds more to the issue. I can only hope that people someday learn to direct their anger properly.

Pay for Nothing?

So here we are. The government has shut down, people are furloughed and soon if this is not solved it will trickle down to state levels.

The plan that Congress has is to pay these workers regardless whether or not they actually do any REAL work at all. On top of this, they can apply for unemployment benefits as well. Does this mean that they would have to look for a new job while collecting a paycheck from their government job at the same time?

Anybody else see a problem with this? Why should government employees get a free pass to get a government pay while robbing states of unemployment benefits?

While I like government employees being unemployed, I don’t care for them to double dip into funds that they don’t deserve either of. My suggestion is that if any member of Congress votes for this foolishness than I say that we the voters send them to the unemployment line without getting a government check anymore. It’s time that we slim down government, but not at the expense of paying them for doing nothing.

However, comparatively that evil company Staples is top-heavy with executives that should be let go as well and not given a check for doing nothing, which is the way the company has been operating for years. Their plan for existence is to eliminate store employees to pay for the corporate people. Just walk into any of their stores and you will see what I mean.

This is exactly what I did last week while I was away on a family trip. This is the reason why there was no post last week, but anyway I have visited this particular Staples store annually with basically the same results.

I walked into this particular location, which I won’t identify except to say it is in New England as I always would. At no point, was I ever neither greeted by anyone nor was I asked if I needed any help. I stayed in the store for about 20 minutes to see if anyone would ever come around to ask if I needed help. It never happened. In fact, I never saw an employee on the sales floor until I got to the door where I found just the unoccupied cashier and 4 (yes 4!) gray shirt managers talking amongst themselves while ignoring everything around them. Nobody, not even the dumb looking girl cashier acknowledged me on the way out the door. It was apparent that the store was run without employees and was held together with incompetent management that just didn’t care. It will be interesting to see what happens next year when I visit this location that is assuming that the location is still in business next year much less the company still in business.

Maybe a Staples shutdown is in order.

Dairy Queen, Bon-Ton & Staples Too

You may have heard of the teen who worked at Dairy Queen that took a $20 bill out of his own pocket after a lady picked it up after a blind gentleman dropped it. According to the report, he ordered the lady to leave the store when she refused to give the money back to the blind gentleman. After that, he took out his wallet and gave the blind man $20 from his own pocket. He got many phone calls thanking him for what he did including mogul Warren Buffet himself.

Now if this incident happened at Staples, the employee would more than likely get fired before the end of his shift for taking money out of his own pocket. The reason is that Staples requires that employees carry no money with them out on the sales floor. Since the company would have zero-tolerance toward this type of action, he would have no recourse despite being the “right thing to do”.

Secondly, by treating the woman rudely, it would be possible that if that happened here in Maine that the woman could sue for discrimination and collect a huge payday like the woman who had a case against Piercing Pagoda and made a $100,000 collection.

Certainly both Staples and Maine itself are messed up in their priorities. Both need to change their ways and dig deeper into details before jumping to conclusions.

On another front, a new store opened at the Maine Mall back on Thursday, September 12. Bon-Ton, however, was open for business 2 days earlier for those like me who was interested in browsing the store.

The store is located in the former Filene’s location that pretty much has been vacant since that company’s closing 7 years ago. For a short period of time, a recreational area was located in this space, but has since moved to another part of the mall. Pretty much the store looks pretty much the same as when Filene’s occupied the space. As far as the outside goes that is a different story. Gone are the beautiful windows that overlooked the parking lot from 2 sides and the gray color of the building itself. The store is painted the same color as the other side of the mall which houses H&M, Forever 21, and Sports Authority. Not that this is a bad thing, just not unique anymore.

When I entered the store, there were several employees around the front of the store. However, not a single one of them greeted me as I walked in. I didn’t really feel bad as most every place I go I am never greeted by anyone at all either. The layout of the store is very similar to Macys, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale’s and all those other similar stores. And this is where the problem exists: too many stores all selling basically the same things and being just like each other. The bad thing about this store is that it reminded too much of the former Filene’s store that occupied the space.

When I went to the second floor, I took the elevator up. Here is where I noticed the big flaw in the whole remodel process. The metal numbers by the push buttons inside the elevator were significantly worn out. Whether this was an oversight, it was obvious that the equipment was very old. Other than that the store looked pretty “new” otherwise.

Overall, it took me about ten minutes to walk both floors as I really didn’t care anything about what they were selling. Apparently nobody else was neither as I never saw a single transaction rung up during my stay in the store nor did I see anybody walking around with a bag from the store either.

What really bothered me the most though was the television ads that the company ran prior to its opening? They claimed that their store was located in PORTLAND Maine when in reality it is located in SOUTH PORTLAND Maine. Even the website points to a link of Portland instead of South Portland. If you don’t know what city you are in, you will confuse the customer and anger the local residents of that town like myself. For this reason alone, I am deducting 4 points off my grade for not knowing their location.

My Score: 4

Summary: No greeting by any employee in a store that is so much like many others that there is nothing here to differentiate from the competition. I have no interest of returning to this store ever again. Hopefully, this company dies like so many lookalikes.

Randomness This Week

Last week was not a good week for me. Between bad storms that played havoc on my electricity to extreme heat to a near concussion that I suffered from hitting my head, it was absolutely one of my worst weeks ever. To top off all that, I go my annual allergies again that have yet gone away.

Since I still am not feeling the greatest and missed last week without any explanation, I have decided to offer up some random thoughts this week.

First, before everything fell apart for me last week, I was going to write about 9/11. Instead since nothing major happened that day, it was best to say nothing about it and save my thoughts for next year when we celebrate the unlucky 13^th anniversary.

However, I am confused why MSNBC still has to show this tragic event year after year as it happened on the tragic date. Doesn’t this network ever think about being respectful to those who lost their lives on this horrific day? After all, I know of no other event that gets this kind of annual replay.

Second, the government is on the verge of another shutdown and the republicans want to defund the Affordable Care Act. Why have they never offered their own alternatives to the program? Are they in the back pockets of the big insurance companies that continue to rip people off with over-priced premiums while at the same time denying people the benefits that they are paying for?

Third, over the last few weeks, I have opened the times that I have been online to answering any questions on my Facebook page. The results have been less than stellar except for a couple of overly curious people. In a way this is good, but somehow it can get a little intrusive, but I don’t mind answering questions on virtually any subject. What does bother me in all this is those people who post to my comments well after I have logged off for the day. This is the same effect as talking behind my back. This is I find rude and proof that some people don’t really want to talk to me. I will continue to do these question sessions as I feel that they are fun and interesting nonetheless.

Finally, some of you may know that recently my high school celebrated its 30^th class reunion. Some may be waiting for my explanation for my reason of not going and trust me, it will happen soon. It is just that every time I start wanting to write about it, some other topic or somebody has something to post about it on the class’s Facebook page. I haven’t forgotten about it, but I do feel that some may be offended about what I have to say. Consider this a pre-warning.

I am hoping that next week I will have something more exciting to write about than what I wrote about. I just feel that every once in a while it is important to stray off into a different direction. Maybe it is just my allergies talking right now so I will stop now until next time.

The $15 Question–Staples NOT Exempt

Last week around the country, fast food workers went on strike demanding a wage increase to $15/hour.

While in concept this sounds like a wonderful idea, the strikers’ message was to the wrong people and certainly for the wrong reason.

First off, these strikers should have been striking in front of the corporate offices of the companies they work for, the offices of the shareholders, or the offices of the board of directors.

Doing their striking in front of the restaurants in which they work is just proof by how misguided these people really are.

While there are some of the restaurants that are corporate owned, the vast majority of them are owned by franchises. These franchises control things like hiring and wages of the employees. Of course they could pay everyone what these strikers want, but in doing so prices would have to go up considerably or so they say.

Beyond the franchising fees that the local owners pay the corporate offices, these restaurant locations usually do a pretty good take of profit. So where does this money go? Again, it usually goes into the hands of shareholders, board of directors and to other non-deserving people.

What usually happens is that the daily moneys are deposited in a bank account, that the company usually withdraws most of it leaving just enough for the store to pay for its expenses. This is the way it worked back when I worked at Woolworth despite that the company was not a franchise, but a corporate entity. However, the concept remains basically the same. The local store must live within its budget to pay its employees and pay its other monthly expenses. And yes, all expenses such as lights, electricity, water were all paid by the local store not the corporate office.

Of course, these restrictions in budget meant that when money was scarce, hours were cut of the lower end employees like me while the higher paid employees still had all their hours sucking out all the budget money. So realistically, strikers should also be angry at their peers when these people lose hours to fellow employees. Again this is another misdirected group that the strikers should be angry at.

It was not just Woolworth that had to live within a budget in my work life, the horrible company Staples was even worse in that regard.

Way back when I was hired $9/hour was considered the minimum for full-time employment. This is also about the same that workers at fast food places get whether full or part-time. Ironically, I spent the first 6 months of my career with Staples working on average 35+ hours a week, but getting just part-time pay. Sadly, I was given NO back pay for all the time that I was really working full-time at part-time pay nor was I ever given a raise after my probationary period as was required by the company at the time.

Over the next 12 years, I was given a total of about $1.50 in raises over that time period, leaving me nowhere near the $15/hour that the striking workers are asking for. In fact, during my last 2 years of employment, I was told that I had reached a “dead end” and that my raises would be just a “couple of pennies a year”. This is hardly a working wage nor a cost of living adjustment.

So where does all the company’s money go?

· Other floor people such as department heads, front-end supervisors, money room person and other non-managerial positions. Granted at Woolworth, I was trained as both a front-end supervisor and a money room person, but I was NEVER even offered a chance at either of these positions. Apparently, Staples wanted to suppress my career with them.

· Big bonuses for management. At one point, I heard that one low-end manager got a Christmas bonus of $5,000. Imagine what the high-end managers got. Imagine that the hourly employees get NOTHING in bonuses EVER!!!

· Corporate paper pushers. The do-nothing people in the company need to get paid something for doing nothing all day.

· The Board of Directors. Do some of these people ever been in a Staples store before? Hey, they get paid anyway even if it is with stock shares.

· And lastly, all the other corporate people hired to do nothing. These are the people who will lose their jobs when the hierarchy falls apart in the company because they were never needed in the first place.

As anyone can see from this posting, it is not just the fast food workers getting screwed; it is anybody in the service oriented industry. However, the only way the voices will really be heard is if the people take their protests to the people who steal the money that rightfully entitled to the employees and get rid of the slackers once and for all. Until this is done, any protest will fall on deaf ears and will continue to be laughed at by all the media outlets. It is up to everyone to fight the corporate injustice.