Management issues.

It was Saturday 27th November and I was at work helping my Mother put some boxes away in the stockroom. After a while, the Store Manager, David turned up and we had a bit of a natter. It was mentioned that when I go home at 11, my Mother would be left to finish the next seven hours of her shift on her own. I jokingly said to David, "If you want to throw some extra hours at me, I'd be happy to stay on longer." He chuckled and said that if he had any spare hours to hand out he would be happy to and, with that, he walked off into his office.

This got me to thinking. When I started, I was told that they'd hired 22 new members of staff for the christmas period (it was actually 23 but one of them is leaving already so I'm discounting him). I should mention at this point that the staff of Marks and Spencer are divided into two main groups; the people who work on the shop floor dealing with customers and keeping the shop tidy, and the team
In Ops who work in the stockroom and are the backbone of the company, without whom the whole operation would fall apart.

It goes without saying that without us in the background, the shop would grind to a halt. So how do you think they distributed their 22 new starters? That's right, they put 21 of them on the shop floor and put me and only me in Ops.

This means it's just me and my Mother out back while they have a small community downstairs. But I only work for 4 hour shifts and so, for the rest of the time, my Mother is essentially on her own.

I remember once, while we were closing the shop, someone commented on how they'd never seen so many people on the shop floor at closing time. It was like a bloody ant farm. The annoying thing was that while half of the staff were going about doing their various tasks, the other half were just standing around having a good ol' chin wag because they had nothing else to do. Clearly they aren't all needed.

I honestly don't see how we can allow one solitary memer of staff to work alone in the stockroom holding the shop together while they have an unnecessarily large army doing naff all downstairs. I say we need to trim the fat down there, getting rid of all the dead weight and give me some of those hours they coveniently 'don't have spare.'

Thank you, that is all.
xxx