Home Depot

It's Over...Again

2006-10-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

Friday was my last day. I left with good friends in my thoughts and wishes that they too can find happiness outside of the orange box. It was my second time leaving the Home Depot and this tour was actually the best, although much shorter.

The store manager wished me off, and well I guess and I returned the same gesture. A lot of others did the same and I am very glad that I got to work with some very good people under very bad conditions. That store would have been the bomb if the company as a whole could get it's act together. Many people did envy me it seemed, (unless I am a poor observer of smoke and mirrors) as I was going into an industry outside of retail and making more money. Some had uncles, fathers and friends that drove and some still do and they had all mentioned that they did quite well financially and loved their jobs.

Home Depot hiring and promotion practices seemed to have taken a dive in recent years, especially while I was at this store. Their were about 6 people that never should have been in a managerial position as they did not express and concern over their business or what made their business roll, the customers. Some just didn't have a clue about this business; others sold cars before being hired on as an assistant store managers, another was a painter. And another, my favorite, worked at a clothing store in Washington State before being hired on as an assistant manager. Half of the managers had no previous hardware experience prior to being hired.

Associates were a little weak in some areas too. We hired cross dressers and punk rockers, guys with car rims in their ear lobes and the most useless people that the human resource manager could dig up. It was such a rough store and because their was little to no guidence or managerial skills in those that were supposed to have any, did not.

Yet those that did care about their business did so very well. Our flooring installs cordinator handled his job with exceptional professionalisim even as the laminates were being discontined and poorly set by our home office and the store services personnel which caused a huge catasrophe when trying to sell an install. We had laminates with no matching reducers or moulding and others that were never in stock yet always on ad and in high demand. He probably had the toughest position in the store.

Our paint department supervisor had always cared about his business and his customers. Although he was a little gungho and came in on his days off and worked off the clock, he was pretty good at what he did. He treated the paint department as if it was his own store.

And then their was this was person who I had developed a good working relationhip with. She was a very great person inside and out and was the kindest person I have ever known. She wasn't one to bleed orange, not very many of us did, yet she was never negative towards a customer and always gave a positive experince to them. In this day and age of the male dominated work force, some of her supervisiors did not think too highly of her as she was more involved in customer service than she was with the grunt work. Even her female manager was trying to mold her into this Depot machine that she did not want to be. Not everyone does. It was unfortunate that Home Depot didn't use more of her people skills.

I was very glad to have worked with her as I think she was that one person who I think we thought on the same level in regards to work. We both just wanted to do our jobs and get out of their with our paychecks. We both did what we could to have ourselves recognized yet to no avial which had pretty much left a sour taste in our mouths. I don't hink we had much in common on a personal basis. She married young. I was married in my mid-30's. She was 23, I'm 37. She grew up a vegan while I was a carnivour. She is very attractive and I am butt-ugly. Well not that ugly. We just seemed to really click and it was the very best experince I ever had while working with someone.

When I left for the last time we shared a hug and wished each other only the very best. We almost seemed to carry on small talk just to delay my departure and when when we did part she trully in fact did seem saddened. It was a terrible feeling for me. It was almost like I had left a dear and close friend.

And I will miss her to death.

What perfect timing

2006-10-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

My timing couldn't have been better for handing in my notice.

First off, it was a one week notice. I'm outta here October 27th. Must of tickled them pink.
Second, our District Manager walked the store which was not in the greatest of shape.
And for the humdinger, a customer aledgedely tripped over a safety cable and busted his face up pretty bad.

He he ha ha. When it rains it pours.

Glad that we're not a bank

2006-10-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile I know. Just getting frustrated here at the orange box.

Our store does approximately $52 million in sales a year and somehow we only manage to loose less than 1% to theft, damage, improper paperwork, etc. Still that's over $500K a year. About 3 to 4 times a month I'm finding receiving and front end errors that amount to around $1000 a month in losses yet I can't get a soul to listen to correct them. That's $52K a year and that $104 million for the entire company! Could you imagine being a bank and loosing $104 million a year! Your investors would not be happy. We go along about our day, not a care in the world.

I'm planning to leave here in less than 2 weeks. I have my SNI physical/drug screen tomorrow and my DMV exam next Monday. If all goes well, I'll be in Fontana November 4th learning to drive a truck. I'll keep you posted.

Work as usual

2006-10-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing exciting today. Kind of the same b.s. I guess.

My favorite assistant manager was in her usual form, dumb as an ox. I had offered to take some overstock tile from another store as a favor. We needed it so I thought I would be nice and take it off their hands. Well apparently that wasn't the correct choice. Since our District Manager (who is coming by tomorrow) and his excellent staff have seemingly brought in about 100 pallets of tile that don't sell, our ASM over flooring thought it would be a better idea to not bring in the tile that does sell. We have 24 cases on hand, selling 9 a week, a little under 3 weeks of stock. Since it takes 2 weeks for the order to get here it would be a good idea (or so I thought) to bring in the minimum quantity the vendor will ship which is 35. That would give us about 5 weeks of stock by the time the order arrives. A little heavy but unavoidable as we cannot buy any less than the the pack quantity. The ASM said no on the transfer from the other store so I guess I'll just have to order the 35 directly from the vendor. It just would have been easier to transfer it.

One of the store's swamp coolers sprung a leak a dumped about 5 or so gallons of water at the back end of the store. Kind of neat seeing an assistant manager work for their pay. And our ever so caring Operations Manager didn't seem to think it was important to tell us IMA's that we could come in today at 4am instead of 5am as was previously planned. Nice guy. He said it was no big deal. Well when one of those little orange tags are not hanging on an out of stock item, shit hits the fan so we effectively had 1 less hour to hang out of stock tags. Oh well.

See you tomorrow.

And you want me to...?

2006-09-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

I can never seem to remember what I want to write about by the time I get home. So today's topic will be about forgetfullness.

From time to time, well actually daily, customers come in looking for anything and everything and it is usually described as a "thingy". A round thingy. A red thingy. A thingy with wheels. A chrome thingy with wheels and uses batteries and goes into the other black thingy. Now usually I'm a patient person except when it comes to impatient people. Not to sound conceited but I consider myself above average in intelligence and I can generally help 90% of the people looking for their thingy.

The 10% of the people who I cannot help are those of below average intelligence whose vocabulary consists primary of verbs, abjectives and nouns from most of Jeff Foxworthy's redneck books. Case in point;

Customer: "Mayonnasise alot a people here in this store."
Home Depot Employee: "Mayonnaise, sir? Your looking for mayonnaise?"
Customers: "No, no youatta get dem eels cleaned out!"
Home Depot Employee: "Eeels, I'm sorry. I don't understand you. Eels?"
Customer: "Jimminy Chrismas, you didn’t happen to bring your hearing aid witchadidja?"
Home Depot Employee: "Is their something I can help your with?"
Customer: "Do youts have any of days?"
Home Depot Employee: "What is it?"
Customer: Well, I'm not reeealy sure. I was workin on my truck and as I was tryin to jumpstart the damn thang right after I filled the carberator with uh...some kerosense and the damn some bitch blew up. Right in my face. Luckily now I still got them steel plates in my head from when my sista, or wait my wife...no no no, it wuz my sista...oh wait no it was my wife. I get them two confunsed all thu time, when she took that pitchfork and rammed into my skull."
Home Depot Employee: "Well again sir, what is it?"
Customer: "Well that's just the tang. I dunno. I remember tho last munth I was puttin my dynamite in my fichen box I saw something that look like this just sittin their all by itself. Not doing anythang really. Just right their in the corner of the gerage. I think it might have to do something with the house."
Home Depot Employee: "Ok then. It looks like what's left of a water pressure reducer."
Customer: "Well all be damned. That must be it. Cuz when I went to take a bath last munth, I didn't get any watta pressure so I just started beatin on that damn thang and that didn't help very much and I'm just now getting aroun to fixin it."
Home Depot Employee: "I can tell."
Customer: "Well then you such a friendly guy. Anyhoots. I aint gots any watta pressure. Ands I'm gunna need to wersh all them Catfish I caught last munth."

I could drag this out for about another page or so but I won't.

People come into this store like they just woke from a thirty-year coma. They don't have a clue to anything, themselves or anyone around them. And they expect me to be a mind reader, be able to see exactly what they've seen and hear what they've heard and to guarantee what I tell them is going to fix their problem.

So when you go into your local Home Depot, please consider that the person helping you only knows as much as you tell them. Just don't walk in with a piece of ABS pipe and grunt like a caveman and expect us to know that your shitter was clogged and in your frustration you sledgehammered your sewer drain and you need two 3" ABS couplings, a length of 3" ABS pipe and ABS glue. It doesn't work that way. Stop, think and take a deep breath.

And I will be more than happy to help those who want to be helped. If all you want to do is complain and bitch and want a truck full of free product delivered to your house yesterday, don't ask me as I can't help you.

Have a nice day.

Yard Sale

2006-09-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

I had to take a few days to think what I wanted to write about and I've been thinking about this very topic, "Yard Sale" for about a week now.

Sometime this month we were supposed to begin what all older stores go through. It's called a refresh. We get new products, old displays are replaced with new ones and the overall configuration changes, i.e. locations of products. As of today we should have been well on our way through this refresh and all that's been done is hang some new light fixtures through out the store. A ton of items have been discontinued with nothing to relace them with leaving a lot of shelves empty. To fill some of the voids we've filled them with discontinued items from all over the store which pretty much makes the store look like a yard sale.

And I've been noticing also is that their is as many as ten "things" attached to the uprights, the vertical steel members that support the shelves. The are bay location stickers for the IMA's to scan for the packdown lists, some of the store support reps have hung bay responsibility stickers on them which serves a purpose I suppose, their are aisle violators that tell customers what is down that particular aisle, chip clips and a multitude of brochures and stickers that show what's on sale or some other form of advertisement. In other words, the store looks rather dumpy. I'm not very proud of it.

Customers are not liking either. And I'm apparently the only level headed person in the county since all of the ticked off customers come to me and blame me for the condition of the store. I'm just a bean counter, an hourly bean counter so before you attempt to rip me a new ass, why don't you first ask who's responsible, in charge or whatever. Screaming at the person that is lower than whale poo get's you nowhere.

Perfect example. In Home Depots wisdom, they seem to think it's a great idea to print an advertisement of products that only a handful of stores ever get and mail them to ten thousand people. In the fine print the ad will state "While supplies last." I guess it's a legal method of bait and switch even though we may have never received the product. So anyway, a seemingly nice lady is in the tile aisle looking lost, confused or stupid I'm not sure which. But me being lost, confused or stupid, (misery brings company I guess) asks her if she need help. She say she's looking for a dark colored 4x4 tile that was in an ad that she received. Well being that I ordered 90% of the tile I felt that I could adequately answer her question. But as I got knee deep into this customer I began to realise that she was looking for a color that we didn't and never will have. So she began to rip into me like a wolverine.

So keep in mind I order what I can order. I don't make the decision what we do and do not carry. Thank you very much.

What a kick in the teeth...

2006-09-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Well, today I got my annual review. I had some last hope as I had been recently recognized, in my mind, as an outstanding employee. I had received praise from my previous supervisor and two awards that recogzied outstanding customer service all in the past few months.

As soon as I was told that I was going to receive my review, it went downhill. In just my unprofessional opinion, I think every employee should be reviewed by his/her immediate supervisor. My first review was given by an hourly employee who ran night crew. So if I had any questions about my review or what was expected of me, I was shit out of luck. Today, my review was "given" by previous supervisor and not the one who actually wrote it. So if I had any questions, again I was up the creeek.

The review itself was rather good. On a scale of 1 to 4 with 1 being bad and 4 being exemplatory, I was rated a 3. Home Depot uses leters now and I can't remember what letter it was but it was the 3rd letter from the bottom. So pretty good; better than most I think I can say.

Now this is were it gets ugly. If I was rated above 75% of the other employees (this is just my perception and may not necessarily be true) I would think I should receive a rather nice raise. Recently with Home Depot, their has not been much negotiating when monetary reviews are given, atleast the monetary part of it. It's a take it or leave it society now. So as I was reading my own review (the manager "giving" my review just handed over the 2 pages and I began to read it. Apparently that is "giving" a review now.) I was not necessarily supprised at what was written so as I said before was expecting something in return for my services that were, according to my review, really good.

The manager handed over to me a third sheet of paper. As he did he said this was my raise. The lobe in my brain that controls anger, anxiety, hope, fear and frustration was working overload. The equivilent of my outstanding servies worked out to be $.44 per hour. Now if I was making $6.00 per hour and if this was 1988 I'd be rather happy. Well I'm not. And it's 2006. I make $11.00 so that comes to be 4%.

Two things here. First, I can really see the screws tightning in Atlanta (Home Depot Headquarters). Everthing that had been some kind of initiative for staying at Home Depot had pretty much been stripped away. I'm only here because of the hours. I work Monday through Friday, 4:00 am to 12:30 pm. That is my only benefit. I'm on the beach drinking Coronas' before anyone else. When I first started (my first tour) in 1992, Home Depot was a "small company" of 500 stores and was still ran by it's founding partners. I was receiving 8% raises annually, Managers actually had authority to financially reward outstanding employees in several different fashions. Everyone was happy, customers and employees. Now that our leashes are so tight that we are gasping for air (and our turnover rate has increased, I'm guessing by 20% to the area of 45-50%) we receive nothing more than a paycheck. Our bonus programs are based off of, essentially customer service and sales so the entire store has to have a gangbuster attitude. Our store doesn't so we don't see that prevlidge. This attitude has nearly been the norm in the stores that I've been in, especially stores with around 100 employees or less. Once Lowes opens we will probable have no more than 115 employees. That seems like a lot but roughly only 25% are in the store at one time and probably half of that are operations, people who work off the floor. Their just isn't enough employees or cashiers on the floor.

Second, what about about the guy who may be a slow learner or a little older. Home Depot was big on hiring twenty-somethings and for good reason, their stamina. Those in their 40's and 50's which is getting to be the norm, just don't have the will power to get slammed day in and day out with little relief and a constantly changing schedule. Floor employees work generally between 5:00 am and 11:00pm so ones schedule can and does regualrly look like this:

Mon Off

Tues 2:00pm 11:00pm

Wed Off

Thu 5:00am 2:00pm

Fri 2:00pm 11:00pm

Sat 8:00am 5:00pm

Sun 10:00am 7:00pm

Yes, split days off are a regular here. So is working late then coming in early. I hated that the most. The rule of thumb is to schedule heavy on the weekends for heavy customer traffic. But a lot of departments in a lot of stores generally have 3-4 employees per department on a Saturday at any given time. So stores aren't crawling like ants but their not exactly "heavy" in my opinion. So in order to get that heavy employee scheduling on the weekends, your going to have to short staff during the week. So that may mean and opener, a mid-shift and a closer. Not bad but a lot of times, especially after the opener (5:00 am 2:00 pm) leaves, that's still only 2 employees on the floor and that mid-shift is probably leaving at 5:00 pm. So that leaves the closer to fend for themselves after the mid is done and leaves nobody of the floor while the closer goes to lunch at around 6:00 pm, a usually heavy time.

Now back to my point. If I'm in my 40's and I'm not exactly in my physical prime and getting slammed day in and day out with no help, my attitude is going to suck. I'm not going to be doing as well. So when my lack-luster ass gets my annual review, what am I getting? Probaly 1-3% and that is no joke. Trying to explain that your physically unable to keep up with the pace is frowned upon and will get nothing more than a cold shoulder and your butt kicked out the front door when your attendance begings to faulter and your customer service begins to wane. And all because Home Depot wants 110% from you while only paying you 75% of what your worth. Then the older worker who has more field experience is going to bail and the zit-popping 19 year old who doesn't know the difference between a 4x4 post and a 4x4 truck, has a poor work ethic and can't stop hitting on the cashiers is on the floor servicing John Q. Public spend their $25,000.

It has been an adventure here. I'm really hoping the Depot can get it's act together and get back to basics; customer service and taking care of each other. Neither exist toady.

See you later..

And you want me to...?

2006-09-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

Kind of busy today for just about everyone. Right out of the gun the was the store manager and two assistant managers in receiving emptying a 53' trailer full of freight. Apparently the trailers owner was going to pick it up and nobody bothered to tell anybody and left it to the one person in receiving to empty it out. Oh...and he was outside unloading a truck so he was a little tied up.

We started cutting back orders this week in anticiaption of Lowes opening October 17th and for our remodel. Every bit of freight that is behind the store has to be gone by then as our sales plan drops 25%. Gonna get reeeaaal slow here reeeaaal soon. So if we play our cards correctly, we'll drop about $1.8 million in inventory in 4 weeks! Hah! It'll never happen. I think on October 17 our inventory will be around $8 million. It's just too much to drop that fast unless the sales drop now.

Not as many negitive vibes from the customers lately. Even the VOC (the customer service report that we get from a third party that surveys customer via an online questionaire) was unusually upbeat. I don't see us making the monthly bonus though. That would be nice since this is most likely my last full month here.

Yep. I've been accepted at Schneider, pending background and drug test. Looking to leave around October 11th or so.

Bye...

An extra day off

2006-09-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

I called in sick today. Just really didn't want to be their. Just the though of losing another IMA after Lowes opens just doesn't sit well with me. With 4 departments I'm at my limit and my week is rather full. Friday's were my free day but not anymore. I have to do all the daily stuff that day and use Friday to do the weekly stuff like price changes.

I'm tentively scheduled to start at Schneider on October 17th in Fontana. My wife had a little tear in her eye as we talked about it. She's seems OK with it as long as I can get back every 10 to 14 days. She seems OK with the extra money.

Busy

2006-09-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

Busy day today. Still down 3 IMA's and I had 470 price changes. They don't have to be all done in one day but they will have to be by Friday. 450 of them are special order pricing in which I just have to accept the change. It's a waste of time as I have to stand around and push a button for about 90 minutes. Could be doing a lot better things that standing around.

One of my favorite co-workers is handing in her notice by the end of this week. She'll be going to an electronics store. I wish her the best.

We will get one IMA back tomorrow. That will take off a ton of pressure. Supposedly were getting our District Manager sometime this week and I really don't want to hear him complain about us not doing our job. We've had plenty of work, just not enough workers.

See you later

Steady as she goes Sulu...

2006-09-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Well another Monday shot to hell. Uneventfull but busy around 11:00AM. Took a short lunch and finshed around 12:15PM. Not bad for being down 3, yes 3 IMA's.

Two more employees are gone to Lowes and no mass exedous. Well see tomorrow and Wednesday just to make sure.

Had kind of a weird customer today. I thought I was explaining to him the difference between the Zinsser 123 Deep Tint primer and the non-deep tint version. All he could say was 'I don't understand.' My forth attempt was something like one is for dark colors and the other is for light colors. He still shook his head. Some people around here just need to stay in their mobile homes and keep the pipe filled and burning.

Our lead IMA is still being a little rough on the newbie. I think she must go home a drink a fifth every night because she is so tense about it. She's not even a supervisor. She just carries the title of 'Lead IMA". So sorry for her. Well...no I'm not. Been their done that.

See ya...

Wow

2006-09-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

What an incredibly painless week. I absolutely thought I would have lost my ass. With one IMA on a LOA and the other one on vacation, I pictured a slaughter house. Not the case and I'm going to assume that the partial reson was the semmingly low customer count. Not a lot of traffic in the store.

Lost yet another employee to Lowe's today. Not sure what to make of it. To each his own I guess. They must be offering a ton of money over their. I've heard though that their 90-day probationary period is brutal though. If you don't come close to matching their expectations, you're going to be like a Ryan Howard home run...OUT OF HERE!...

Read a story regarding a proposal to decrease the OTR driver shortage. The CEO of Schneider says that permitting more immigrants into the country will give OTR companies more of a driver pool. Well yes but...

Just like anything else, what's going to happen to wages if people start working for peanuts?

I think initially wages would fall but would again rise as the cost of goods throughout the US would stay the same over time or rise due to inflation. Regardless if your an immigrant or not, you have to eat, you have to pay the rent, and I don't think immigrants even want to live on food stamps forever so they too would demand higher wages. We will see I guess.

See you next week...

Just another manic Monday

2006-09-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

As if it was THD theme song, the Bengals hit song describes the day perfectly. Down one IMA, Labor Day weekend and zero coverage on the floor.

Too good to be true

2006-09-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

I knew this week was going to easily.

One of our IMA's hurt his back about 3 months ago and is just now going on LOA and disability. I'm not mad at him, accidents happen. THD though will take forever to replace him, if it all. My thinking is that they'll split up his 3 departments to 3 other IMA's, possibly 2 and I'm betting big that I'll be one of them.

Rumor has it that their will be a mass exedous on September 10 as Lowe's orientation starts and their are aparently 16 people who are going to bail without notice. This should be fun.

Our receiving department, in their infinite wisdom, refused a second Behr Paint truck in a week. Apparently the loads are shifting so much that the cans and pails are falling off the pallets. Nothing opened but I guess they didn't want to spend the time to restack everything. It's their right but geeez, Labor Day weekend and with a big paint sale and they decide to be lazy and turn back the truck?!?

And I guess I enjoy pain so I went to explain the possible scenerios to my favorite female manager. And I guess she still doesn't have a clue. She just didn't understand that the sale was not indefinate and customers had to purchase Behr paint before September 4 to get the rebate. She just wanted us to tell customers sorry, we ran out of paint and we can't help you. That attitude just opens up way too many problems. All tits and ass and no brains for that woman.

Atleast it's Friday. Got some nice looking Rib Eye's and a few red and creamy white potatoes for dinner. Corn on the cob too....Mmmmmm... The Mrs. should love that.

See you next week...

More of the same

2006-08-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

This is getting to be an uneventful week and I'm thinking I'll be boring anyone who may read this. Today was OK but tomorrow were going to be down to three IMA's. It should be a slow day as Friday's usually are but only 3 of us is going to be a trick. The other's are going to be off Friday and work Saturday on the floor.

So other than that the usual stuff at THD more curious events with no immediate answers why they are happening such as half a vendor mix being discontinued, full rolls of carpet going AWOL and why the hell night crew takes 3 weeks to get product on the shelf. I understand $1.4 million in freight is a lot but what did they do when we brought in almost $2 million? And I'm going to be held responsible for either our Ops Manager and Store Manager unable to grow some balls and ask for more hours or for Night Ops not having any balls and writing some of these slow fucks up.

Sorry, kinda blew up their. But I am only making $11 an hour and I'm all of a sudden responsible for 10-15 employees. I don't recall ever seeing that in my job description.

Oh well. Again still looking hard at Schneider this winter but I still need to get some answers from CRST Premier.

And just like an Albert Puljos home I am gone...

And Today...

2006-08-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

Well what can I say. Apparently all the D.H.'s are being reviewed on their in-stock position regardless if purchase orders don't ship complete, improper markdowns, damages, theft, improper receiving, etc. So rather than fix the out of stock issues lets just write everyone up, give them poor reviews, bust moral so low that the devil becomes depressed and hopefully everything will get back in stock.

Why is it this company is so inapt to listen to it's employees? We've been telling them for years the issues with auto replenishment, the Transit Facility's not shipping 100% and receiving issues yet nobody cares! Now they want us to accept responsibilty for their lack of desire to fix the issues.

What a life. Now I guess us IMA's are next for the axe across the neck.

End of the Week

2006-08-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

Not much today. Foot traffic is really getting slow in the store yet the complaints just keep rolling in. As I was walking out a lady was on her phone complaining to someone how we are never in stock. She sounded truely upset. I think it was regarding a door.

Had yet another day with crappy coverage in Millworks. The only guy their in the early afternoon didn't know much about special order products so their was a customer their who was quite steamed.
Another lady waited awhile for help earlier this morning too.

Yesterday, a gentleman need help with carpet and I guess was forgot about. He said he waited 45 minutes after I got him some help initially. He was pretty hot under the collar too.

We've been getting crushed by our sales plan this month. Over a $100K I think. Gonna miss the second half of profit sharing I'm sure. I'm not planning on being here so I'm not really pressing for it, just the monthly bonus from this point on.

Lost another employee to Lowes this week. No shocker their. Employees are really being open about their dislike of Home Depot. Several of them today were openly talking about jumping ship to Lowes. In the past that would have gotten atleast a talking to if not they sure would try to find a reason to send you packing.

Well another Friday. Weekend is here. Time for a man soda and a Giants game.

A Bland Day

2006-08-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Wow... nothing really exciting happened today. I guess I won't say much.

Oops...we missed it again

2006-08-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

I think the Home Depot Success Sharing started back several years ago, I want to say in '02, and I don't think that I've heard anyone talk highly of it. You have the opportunity to get a bonus twice a year and this first half we missed the bonus by a mere $1.4 million. Now that sounds like a lot but this store's annual sales plan is $70 million so do the math. Yep, missed it by about a weeks worth of sales.

So here I am sucking every customers asshole and getting nothing for it. And the monthly bonus program that we started in June, I guess we didn't get that one either. So that's my argument for the Success Sharing and Oranged Juice programs. It's tough getting 200 people on the same page and to give a rats ass. I sooo miss the merit badges. You chances of getting a bonus probably tripled back when they handed them out. It was only $100 but it was money in my pocket. Too many outside influences with the other programs. Success Sharing is based off the stores sales plan. If the stores beats its sales plan by 3 to 10 percent, the store shares in that 3 to 10 percent. With my math if we would have beat sales by 3% and 200 employees would have had a $300 check. So it ads up as long as the DM and RVP don't set your plan too high. And you still have to get people in the store filling up their carts. With Oranged Juice it's based more on customer service and anyone with a heartbeat can walk someone down to the light bulb aisle.

Well maybe not since as I said before we didn't seem to have bonused. I try to find out more later. More the reason to drive a truck. Your bonus is based off of your performance and yours only, not 199 other people who may not even care. And for night crew, computer room associates and receiving who don't see cistomers a lot, they don't influence the customer as much if at all so they can bust their ass 24/7 and never see a dime. Their chances are in the hands of others.

See you later...

Respect

2006-08-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

I think I've discovered the whole entire problem with Home Depot. It's respect. Nobody has it or gives it. In just about any situation, the 12 years that I have with Home Depot gets me nothing.

Case in point. In doing his shrink plan, a department head today says that his on-hands are off on one of the SKU's that he counts weekly. In his wisdom, knowledge or whatever you want to call it(stupidity maybe?) he makes the statement that receiving did not receive the last purchase order correctly. In his mind receiving is to blame for everything related to onhands. Not true. He and his people count these items every week. Any chance of them miss counting them? Oh you betcha! But he doesn't see it that way. The purchase order in question has a 2-3 week lead time. It was ordered on the 11th of August, it shipped on the 18th. Today is the 21st. Chances are the P.O. did not arrive 4 days early and 4 days after it shipped. It would have to ben received on Friday night as we don't receive Saturday or Sunday. So if we did receive the order it made it in 7 days and on the same day it was shipped. Unlikely. And he didn't grasp any of that so he wants me to receive it. I explaned that we can't receive a P.O. without researching it first, to make sure that it actually did arrive.

Department Head: "Well it has to be here. My counts are of by the amount of the order."

Me: "We have to research the status with the carrier first, see if they did actually deliver the order."

Department Head: "They did deliver it. My counts are off."

Me: "You can't just start receiving P.O.'s everytime you suspect one hasn't been received. You have to dig deeper. Get the carrier and freight bill information from the shipper. Call the carrier and if it was in fact delivered then have them fax over the Proof of Delivery and see who signed for it."

Department Head: "Well someone had to have signed for it. My counts are off."

Me: "LISTEN TO MY WORDS! IF YOU RECEIVE THIS ORDER AND IN FACT IT HASN'T BEEN RECEIVED, WHEN IT DOES ARRIVE, THE P.O. MAY BE RECEIVED TWICE AND THEN NEXT MONTH YOU'LL BE LOOKING FOR TWICE AS MANY AS YOU ACTUALLY HAVE. YOU'LL BE CREATING MORE WORK FOR ME, YOU AND RECEIVING!!!"

Department Head: "But my counts are off."

I swear to you this was the conversation ver batum.

A similar conversation happened with an Assistant Store Manager (ASM) and I. We have several products that are ordered automatically, we have little to no say in the quantities that are ordered. We can have more ordered but if the system is ordering 50 and we only really need 25, we can't do much about it. Atleast in a simple and quick way. One particular set of items appeared to be over bought and it was, marginally I felt and I explained that to the ASM. She wanted to transfer out the excess to other stores anyway. I moaned, I complained and tried to spell it out for her.

ASM: "We are over-bought on these wood blinds. We need to have them transfered out."

Me: "Well the amount of blinds that we are over-bought on represent less than 1% of inventory."

ASM: "These blinds are everywhere. We have too many. We need to get rid of them."

Now, some people can't comprehend verbal sounds very well, like in the first case and this would be no different. Yet I was able to give the ASM some visual stimulation hoping that her eyes were connected to her brain unlike her ears. I showed her more data on the twenty or so items in question that one would think that it was computer programming code. And I think her eyeballs fell from her head and her brain must of melted from the wealth of information.

Me: "Their are only two items that we are extremely overbought on. Their over-inventory is about $5000 and the other 5 or 6 barely total $1000. It doesn't make much since to me to take the time to transfer out $6000 worth of freight when that is less than a weeks worth of sales for the department."

ASM: "It dosen't matter. We have blinds stacked high in receiving and we need to get rid of them."

Me: "Well they're in receiving because night crew doesn't want to work them into the overhead. You have plenty of room in the department."

ASM: "That's not the point. Their are 12 pallets of blinds in receiving and that's too much we need to send them out to another store."

Me: "Of those 12 pallets, their are only two items on them that are overbought. If I were to transfer out those blinds I'd be transfering out needed inventory. The need to be worked into the overhead."

ASM: "Well...we don't have the man power to do that. We just need to transfer them out."

At this point I'm seriously thinking that her ears in fact do not work. It was kind of like the Big Dig in Boston. All those tunnels and none of them are connected to anything.

Me: "Finding stores that want those SKU's is going to take time. Every other store in the region is also on Auto Replenishment and if we're over bought in blinds, chances are they are too. Why would they want something that they already have too much of?"

ASM: "We don't know that so you will have to call the other stores to find out."

Me: "I did. And the twenty or so stores I checked were overbought also."

ASM: "Well... you need to find some store to take some of these blinds off of our hands."

Me: "According to my math, to transfer out $6000 worth of blinds between 10 stores will cost around $1000 with UPS. Then their's the numorous phone calls and follow-up phone calls, lost sales due to being off of the sales floor and lost productivity. I just don't see us gaining a lot by sending these blinds out. Besides, they're on auto replenishment. What we send out is going to come right back in another order."

ASM: "Well...we need to transfer out these blinds."

I gave up at this point. Her experience at Wet Seal just smothered my logic. I am soooo fortunate to have her as an ASM at my store. What an ass...et.

So after spending about 6 hours making phone calls, packging the blinds and getting them on their way, the ASM and I have another conversation about a week later.

ASM: "Hey...did you transfer out those blinds?"

Me: "Yep."

Now I didn't volunteer how many. In actuality, I only was able to transfer out about a dozen to one store. Lotsa time wasted, little return.

ASM: "Why do we have so many blinds in receiving?"

Me: "Auto replenishment must have brought them in."

ASM: "Oh...well we have too many. We need to transfer some out."

And my wife wonders why I come home only to slam a half a dozen 7 and 7's.

Onward...

I chatted with a few Schneider drivers last night. I'm just that much more assured that this is going to be OK for me. I just need to get that 110% assurance from the Mrs. and then I'm good. More later on it.

Bye...

End of the Road...

2006-08-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

Friday is here and it's the end to a not too terrible week. Apparently our IMA that was going to Lowes is not going...yet.

Since I was done with everything at 6:00AM I sat around and pretty much nothing for the rest of the day. I cooked some kabobs for the whatever thing we were having to day, mixed a few gallons of paint and left a half an hour early, all without the pesty customers harrassing me.

A slow week, the reason for the lack of posts. That's good I guess. Beats being slammed with so much work that you have to pencil whip every other task just to get done.

See you next week...

And Then Their Were None...

2006-08-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

The slide continues here at The Home Depot. We are losing another IMA and no suprise here; to Lowes. Gonna have another boot camp ordering $15 million for the highest grossing department. Atleast they'll have all winter to train. I new this would be coming, I just didn't want to deal with it.

One of our genious DH's was so ticked off at one of his employee's that he was ranting and raving how that person is getting fired, mentioned him by name and even filling out the term paperwork. Funny, we've been talking for months about him getting fired.

Apparently this was a big misunderstanding between Home Depot and Mills Pride. We were never supposed to discontinue the products in our store as we couldn't fit the replacement products in out store set. And didn't I say how disorganized Depot was in regarding the changes with Mills Pride?

A funny joke.

Man goes to doctor for checkup. Doctor takes blood and urine.

Next day, patient returns.

Doctor, face sadened, talks to patient.
"I have bad news and worse news."
Patient, shocked expression and nervously looking around.
"Bad news? What's the bad news?"
"You have 24 hours to live."
"24 hours to live? My God! What can be worse than that?"
"I forgot to tell you yesterday."

Now picture yourself in a conversation with a Home Depot employee and lets change the words around.

Home Depot customer walks into store. Orders flooring to be installed. Pays money, gets date of install and leaves.

3 weeks pass and install date has come and gone.

Customer on phone with slightly stern look on face.
"I ordered this and paid to have it installed and the installer never showed?"

The employee states in a cheerful tone as if what they are about to say is the norm, which it is.
"OOhhh...tch, tch, tch. I'm sorry. We don't carry that product anymore."

Customer now angered and their forehead wrinkels multiply like lemmins breeding.
"What? Why didn't anyone tell me this when I ordered it?"

Employee still maintains a happy demenor as she begins their next insult.
"Well sir, I don't know. but I would be more than happy to set you up with another flooring of your choice!"

Customer questions with a slight gleem of hope.
"I have company coming over for the holidays, in a week. Can I get it installed before then?"

The employee drops the bomb...

"Well sir. I would have to cancel the existing order on the product that is no longer carried and reorder the new product under a different order number. I would have to get a managers approval on the refund on the old order and place the refund owed amount onto the new order. Then I would have to fax to the installer the specs for the job and they would contact you for an pre-install inspection. Now if the pre-install inspection fails then you will have to have the installer fix the issues before the new flooring can be installed. After any repairs have been made then your wonderful new flooring can be installed!"

Customer, now worried asked the obvious.
"Well how long is that going to take?"

"About 4 to 6 weeks."

Customer now grits teeth with such force that bits of enamal began to fly from their mouth.

I see it happening everyday. This 'oops I forgot' mentallity is incredible. Their is no recourse, nobody is repremanded or held accountable. Don't try to tell me any different. I've worked in stores that did $800K a week in sales and others that did $3 million. The training, or lack of is all the same. Managers seem to be powerless. I thought you could terminate employees for stupidity. Managers don't hold people accountable and they don't push training. It's really sad.

Until tomorrow...

Well, Here It Comes...

2006-08-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

I can smell Lowes from here. Lowes apparently has its new store ready to go and is currently staffing. We had a Department Head leave today, without notice, as they had to report to work that morning. Said thet they made an offer that couldn't be refused. I wish them luck. Now it's only a matter of time before more employees begin to leave. One of our other DH's was hired on (after he was fired) at Lowes for a reported $18.00 per hour. They were quite the B.S.'er so I would trust the information as far as I could toss it.

We got more info on our remodel today, more definative dates to be exact. Made me feel a little better.

Night crew has been stuffing three trailers full of freight and then forgeting about it. I've had freight in one of them for more than a month and needed it for atleast 2 weeks and can't get them to bring it in.

As the $$$ go down the toilet.

Had a big 50 minute meeting on the Orange Juice Program. Got a little ugly with one employee and the store manager. Just goes to show it just isn't worth it to get a bunch of emplyees in a room with the store manager and ask them how they like their pay and incentives. Well he got what he wanted...negativatity.

Gotta run...

Friday...

2006-08-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

All I can say is that it's Friday. The week is over and the weekend is here. Just looking through the store today with my apron off, I really noticed how hard this store looks. It's imcomplete. Bays don't look finished. It's almost as if were preparing to open for the first time, not as if we had been open for 6 years. Lowes prides themselves on the cleansiness of their stores. Their floors are spotless, ours are cluttered and unorganised. Looks like a yard sale half the time.

Spent some of the afternoon looking through trucking blogs. For the most part the drives seemed pleased with their choices of companies yet the families seem to be stuggling with the fact the man is gone 25 days out of the month. Communication seems to be the common denominator though with all of them. Gotta call or e-mail the family everyday. Looking forward to the day when I'm training but I hope that my family is OK with too.

Bye...

Relatively Calm...Before the Storm

2006-08-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

I am a firm believer in the saying "Calm Before the Storm". I think traditionally that August and September can be slow months at Home Depot. Well two things are happening here;

1)Everyone has been doing their home repairs for the season and are more or less done. Now it's just sit and wait until winter comes and then goes the emergency roof and other exterior repairs.
2)Lowes is now going like gangbusters to open in October. Our pissed off customers could be waiting for them and putting everything off until then.

I don't care which. I've done this for 12 years now, mostly in a store that did $2.7 million a week in sales. This little crackerjack box is nothing. I just hink it's funny how were going into this 100 bay reset with what seems little planning. Very few people have an idea of what is going on. I just think the Mills Pride thing is just the first nail for this store. People are going to be pissed.

Not much happened today. Just wiped the board clean today so hopefully tomorrow will be all downhill.

Bye for now.

A Humdinger of a Day

2006-08-09T13:42:00.000-07:00

A real fun day today. It seems that our new IMA is struggling. I know it's only the third day but our job is a glorified bean counter and thats it. Granted their are a few things that have to be priortized and done first but everyday is the same thing. Nothing changes. You just go down the list of things to do and do them. First you do the packdown list. Everyday. Then you do ad actions and if their aren't any go on to emergency price changes. If their are no price changes then go on to SKU exceptions and then cycle counts. When that's all done work the SOQ's. That's what we do. Everyday. No exceptions. Monday through Friday.

Done with store employee bashing so lets move on to corporate. It seems that we've decided to cut ties with Mills Pride...sort of. We will no longer be carring Mills Pride kitchen or orginaztion cabinets in stock. They will be available special order. No big deal you would think. But we were apparently left out of the loop on this whole thing. Now we have about 20 will-calls to fill and no product. Nice huh? So now we hope that our outstanding orders do actually ship. If they don't then we'll be screwed. We'll be calling other stores begging them for their overstock. Not too difficult you say? Well if the other stores are in the same boat as we are the chances of them sending us anything is rather slim.

When I called MST (Home Depot's middle man between us and the Merchants) they told me that Mills Pride is still an active vendor. OK, true so why is Mills Pride telling me different? Their repsonse at MST?

" I dunno."

Genius.

400 freaking Home Depot's in Califonia and MST doesn't seem to think that Mills Pride is being discontinued in any of them? Maybe they were left out of the equation too.

So Mills Pride did confirm to me for the second time that we are in fact no longer carring their products in stock. I then begged them to send the open orders but they will have to get approval first from Home Depot. And that will take a week.

A week?

I'm glad that we're not EMT's.

Scenerio;
Man pinned in car from accident. Ex Home Depot executive now an EMT is at the scene.

Victim;
"Help me. I can't feel my legs. And the steering wheel is crushing my chest!"

Ex Home Depot Exec/EMT;
"Ohhh ma'am, I am truuuuuly sorry but I'm going to have to get approval to extracate you from the vehicle. I'll be back in a week."

Jeeeeeez...and people wonder why our stock is near rock bottom.

So backtracking to my second conversation with Mills Pride, I was telling them how I need to locate stores that we still carrying their products. Even as Home Depot is shitting all over them the lady on the phone was very helpful and put me on hold to find out if their were any. She returned a minute later to say that Home Depot did send them a color coded list that indicated the staus of Mills Pride in all the stores in California, wether is was still active or not, what was being carried, etc.

Oh great I thought. We're saved. Even if the PO's don't ship we can still get product. And her reply;

"Well, Home Depot didn't send us the descriptions of each color so we don't know what's happening in each store."

Double genius. Onward to my next career.

So as to keep my wife happy, I will submit my application to Schneider or GTI after we return from Mexico. If I can time it right I might do it before we leave and give a 1 week notice and I'm done. We'll see around December.

See you later.

Yippie Skippie

2006-08-08T18:32:00.000-07:00

Our DM came by today. He didn't say much other than he asked me a question regarding a product that a customer was looking for. He had quite the onterauge in the training room. Must have been twenty people crammed in their. He seemed rather content so hopfully hell won't burn us tomorrow morning. And our night ops manager was peeing blood? Ummm...guess he better get that looked into.

See ya later...

Mostly uneventful

2006-08-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Well we did get our replacement I.M.A. today. Finally. And after...what? Two Weeks? If being slow was a crime Home Depot would be doing 25 to life. The District Manager will apparently be here tomorrow. We're taking bets on if he will actually show. He's kind of flakey.

Looked a little more into Schneider and CRST. I'm 50/50 now. Possibly leaning to CRST as the pay is slightly higher after the first year. Think I'm going to stick it out with Depot until after we get back from Mexico, drop the bomb around Christmas and go to Fontana with either CRST or Schneider as both will send you their anyway. Schneider was looking like the clear winner but the pay after the first year was slightly better. Gonna have to look at the whole picture now to make the final determination. Still got a few months though so no rush.

See ya.

Friday is finally here

2006-08-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

As bad as this week was Friday did finally get here but she didn't go down without a fight. Right around lunch out entire computer system went down; no mobile ordering carts, no terminals and no front end. Nice. That last about 30 minutes. After lunch we still didn't know who was going to be the replacement I.M.A. I guess they'll call them Monday morning at 3:55AM to let them know. Our I.M.A. that is out on brevement won't be back until Tuesday so another busy start to the week next week. Oh, and my daughter has lice. Such a nice topping for the week.

See ya.

Bland Day

2006-08-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

Not much happened today. Kinda of boring actually.

Busy...Busy...Busy

2006-08-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

Lots of work today with the other 2 IMA's gone. Our DM was supposed to stop by. We never saw him. Might be a good thing that we didn't since we had to whip a lot of stuff in a short time span. It seems it would be more fiscally responsible to hire more employees and have it done right the first time rather than have a skeleton crew whip the numbers and do it over later. Just my thought.

Really thinking hard about Schneider and CRST today. Really wanna get out of here. I'm still not sure if the Mrs. is for it. The almost 90% increase in pay isn't really turning her. I think she's worried about not being able to go on the cruise and I think the closer we get the more upset she gets about the thought of me changing jobs. I'll have to sit tight for now and see how she plays it.

See ya.

Tuesday...another Tuesday

2006-08-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

Well it seemed like Monday today. Not too busy customer wise but THD has this uncanny nact for making you busy. My favorite ASM had me count a thousand blinds just for her sake of knowledge I guess. And probably since my 12 years of experience compared to her 1 year just didn't make a dent in her brain.

We are now down 2 I.M.A.'s as one left today on bereavement. Gonna be real fun the rest of the week. We should she the replacement I.M.A. on Monday for the one that got promoted.

Our dingy specialty DH left the store today to pick some tile up from another store only to never return. She was part of Millworks coverage so their was no one around to cover lunch. Nice. Atleast none of the customers threw a 2 year old tantrum about the lack of employees. Oh...almost forgot. Another employee quit. Yes, you read that correctly. Another employee quit in floor and wall today. Pretty much a skeleton crew over their now. Guess I'll have to do the job of 4 people tomorrow as he was the opener. And the DM is coming by I hear. Our lack of floor coverage should impress him well.

See you later.

Another Monday

2006-07-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

I was actually looking forward to my first post of this blog. I really wanted to give some insight to the general public of what it's like working for the #1 home improvement retailer in the world. I am not one to "Bleed Orange" as Bob Nardelli would say. I come to work, do my job very well and I go home. It's just all this crap that this company pushes onto it's employees and customers. I'm amazed on how this company is so financially strong with the horrible customer service that we promote. It's not that Home Depot hires bad people. For the most part, everyone that I've worked with over the past decade and 2 stores were reasonably good people.

It's just a bad environment.

I have made the decision though to change career's. I don't hate Home Depot. I hate some of their managers, I don't agree with some of the company ethics nor do I promote their current employee bonus program "Orange Juiced". I feel it's another ploy to get us to work harder for a very slim chance of financial gain. I'll explain my thoughts on a later post.

I have been considering taking a leap of faith into commercial trucking. I've been looking into several companies; Schneider National for one and Gordon Trucking. I'm leaning towards Schneider as their training is much quicker and new drivers get paid sooner. Training is provided too at no cost. Orange apron for an orange truck! What do you think?

In the mean time I'll still blog my travels through this fairytale land of Home Depot. So without further adieu, here's what happened today;

Right out of the gun at 4:00am we found out out that yet another employee was termed for points. So were short just that much more.

Second, we still don't have a replacement for the I.M.A. that we lost last week so the vise gets tighter on us remaining 5.

Third, because of the fires and poor circulation in the building we pretty much had to gag on smoke all day.

Fourth, because Lowes is coming to town in December, we've begun cutting hours already. IT'S BARELY AUGUST AND WE'RE ALREADY CUTTING HOURS?

And last, we have to have a representative at the Monday Ops meeting at noon. Since I'm the only I.M.A. still their, guess who gets one less hour on the second busiest day of the week to accomplish their work. And without saying it's a heavy customer flow period. What's one less employee on the floor when you have hardly any anyway?

Their were several other issues that I should post but I won't. I'm boring you already. I can hardly wait until tomorrow! I can hardly wait to change jobs. I'm not sure when that will be. I'm planning for the end of October so as to maybe to get in the "Orange Juiced" program at the Depot . I seriously don't plan on getting anything from it as it is a long shot. And as I said before I'll explain it later.

Blog you later.