A Day in the Life of Retail

Ok so Sherrie has been begging me to do this so here goes nothing...beware it is a long post. :)

Yesterday I had high hopes would go fast and smooth. We are currently trying to set the floor in the home department by Friday. I have 14 different planners for one department. Now many did not change or I just got to a planner that was due oh back in January and now just had the time and man power to redo the floor after I had redone it in November.

A little history of this store: This store has only been opened for about two years. It opened the spring Sherrie, Emma and I graduated. My first encounter with this store was in December of that year. Oh man I wanted out of that dang store soooooooooooo fast. Nothing went well in this store. Everyone was inexperienced which included management and had no idea what they were doing. I was currently working at a store that has been opened since the seventies. They know what the heck they are doing. Nothing was put back in the right spot it should, it was never cleaned up at night so the floor looked sloppy and sooo messed up. Just looking at it made you cry cuz they had so much merchandise and well no one to really clean it up and take good care of it. To make an incredibly long and boring story short, I came to this store off and on for about year before they told me to stay there. Which at first I was devasted because I was so used to the people around me at Joliet. As much as I was frustrated with personality issues, at least they could do their job well. But this has been a very good challenge for me to see what I can do as a manager of people and merchandise. Merchandising this floor is a very creative process and well I can never set the planner exactly because of spacial issues and what not.

So back to where I was yesterday. Every month we get new merchandise in and we have planners and pictures to show us what it is suppose to look like. Today was going to be "Make over the Down Pad day". Our down shop which includes lots of different pillows you can sleep on, lots of different mattress pads you can also sleep on and well Down and Down Alternative comforters and pillows (Down alternative for those who are allergic to feathers or think that down pillows stink like a chicken farm...it really is disgusting) We didn't really get a lot of new merch in for the pad, but it has been so disorganized and the space was not utilized as well as it could be but I hadn't had the time to sit and rearrange this pad yet. So I woke up at 5:00am to go in at six to start this with our new supervisor of the visual team. He is responsible for resetting maniquins and signs in the entire store. So I get there and he had some stuff to do before he started so I tried to finish up the Window set which is another one that is very annoying at times (story for another time I guess). So an hour goes by and we start on it. We move three rows of fixtures off the carpeting and man, I don't think they had been moved for two years....it was nasty. So after a thorough vaccuming, we moved the fixtures into their new homes on the floor. Then we move the beds. We had two beds displaying all the different down and down alternative comforters on the floor. One bed came off and we had to combine the two different comforters onto one bed. So I start vaccuming...and I sucked up something that either busted the belt or something so I had the lovely smell of burnt rubber to contend with....oops... So then it was about time to open the store so I went up front for out morning meeting and then back to the pad. I started working on the wall. We have six four foot sections on the wall and two two foot sections. I started on the short side because our wall is an L shape. So I am thinking that adjusting the shelves to match the other side of the wall is all we have to do...right..... well I find out by reading our core standards that no the shelves are spaced all wrong and every single shelf in every single section needs to be reset. Not to mention the floor has all the matress pads on it. After talking with the store manager she wanted to me to redo the wall...which left no way for this to be done by two o'clock much less four when I actually left. Because when the store is open, I am constantly interupted by customers that need help and Customers in our Catalog and Window area or associates with questions about various things. And I was the only associate in the home department so I had to take all the calls from customers and other stores on the phone.

So, upset about the set back I also started my period and well I was emotional to say the least because I really wanted this finished today and not have to worry about it on Friday because I am off on Thursdays. So after cleaning up my mess and still having a huge empty wall and bins of stuff that either had to go upstairs in the stock room or back out on the floor when we moved some more things around, I wrote my notes to my two associates that work in my department and I left to go crash at home. But not after spending seventy bucks in Sephora...I needed new foundation....

So I go in today because my chiropracter is just a hop skip and a jump down the strip mall, I checked on the progress.... the shelves were reset, either by the associate who worked last night or the ones who worked today but the merch has not been placed in its spot...>< So looks like now I will be in the down shop AGAIN because it wasn't finished today.....so I just had to walk out before I made a scene...so this month...planners will not be done on time...oh well. Roll with the punches I guess.

So there you have it one and all.... a day in the life of retail.