Full-Time or Part-Time: Scheduling Makes All the Difference (or Does It?)

Scheduling must be the hardest part of any manager’s job.  After all, they must pull out all their hair which explains why most of them are bald!  Seriously though, scheduling employees can be a pain especially when the company restricts how much can be spent on payroll which can greatly restrict staffing.  What a surprise that Staples had this more of a problem than anybody else.

But starting in the beginning, Woolworth had a pretty simple scheduling policy.  If you were a full-timer, you were basically guaranteed between 38 and 40 hours per week except department leads which received 44 hours per week (never figured out why they were entitled to 4 hours of overtime per week). There would be the occasional slow period when full-timers received only about 35 hours per week, but never lower.  There was rarely a complaint as long as employees got their requests for time off at least 2 weeks in advance.  Part-timers averaged approximately 20 hours a week and could get more time if they were available.  Since I was hired as a full-timer from day one, I always received at least 35 hours per week.  However, the week following my separation from the company, they were going to go with a new way of scheduling which basically randomly assigned time periods to associates, which meant that everybody would have to have full open availability.  I don’t know how long that lasted but I was glad that I never had to deal with that.

On the first day at HQ, all of us new hire employees were told that we all would be given full-time hours.  Unfortunately, that only lasted all of 2 days.  From day 3 onward, just about everyday I was sent home early sometimes as soon as one hour into my shift.  The reason for this as I found out later was that we were only hired to drop the existing full-timers to below 40 hours per week.  So a scheduled 40 hour week could drop to as low as 15 hours per week, below that of even being considered a part-timer.  Thankfully, I was still on unemployment benefits at that time and my hours lost was made by my unemployment benefits to get up to 40 hours per week.

Now onto the criminal company Staples.  When I was hired back in July 1996, I was hired as a part-timer as does (or did) at the time.  However, my scheduling was ALWAYS for at least 35 hours per week, which actually is full-time hours.  So here I was working a full-time schedule, part-time pay level, and receiving NO benefits (full-time, part-time or otherwise).  It wasn’t until December of 1996 (6 months later) that I finally received the news of becoming a full-time associate.

However, here is the problem.  I never received a review after 30 days, 60 days or even 90 days, which would have given me a pay increase from my measly starting pay.  When I became a full-timer, I was given the minimum full-time amount of $7.00 per hour and nothing more.  The issue is that I was originally entitled to a pay raise after 90 days and didn’t get that.  So realistically, the company owed me a pay raise at the point of my newly acquired full-time status.  But it didn’t happen.  I brought it up every year in my annual review about this and every year I got the answer of “I will look into it” from the reviewing manager.  Of course, they never did and I figure that the company owes me hundreds of dollars of pay from back raises that never happened.

If you think this is the only problem with them, think again.  When I first started with the company, all the full-timers (and those who were pretend full-timers like me) received 40 hours per week.  This was company policy and this is what I agreed upon when I signed the appropriate paperwork to become a full-timer.  However, around my 7th year, a petition was circulated to all full-timers to sign which would have reduced full time hours from 40 down to 37½ hours per week.  Under this petition, if signed, the employee would immediately be scheduled at the lower hours with absolutely no chance of ever gaining 40 hours ever again!  Nobody who was smart enough signed this stupid petition because nobody wanted to reduce their hours.  However, I believe 1 person did sign it, which made all the rest of us look bad.

With this failure, Staples continued with the 40 hour week until my 11th year with the company.  At this point, each full-time employee was called into the manager’s office and told individually about the “new change”, which forced upon employees the new 37½ schedule.  Nobody had a choice in the matter, it was effective immediately.  Certainly, no way to handle long time employees.

Commentary:

The idea of forcing a full-time employee this new scheduling procedure was just downright stupid.  Instead of hour lunches, employees were forced into ½ lunches, barely enough time to get a lunch. 

The whole reduction of time may have saved the company money in one regard, but that money saved goes into the feeding of the many Vice Presidents and other high-end executives of the company including CEO Ronald Sargent, who seems to get a huge increase every year.  And guess where that money comes from?  By robbing the employees of their time through reducing hours and ripping the employees off in the previously mentioned break clock problem, 

Its sad to say that corporate greed robs the company of good employees, but this company is a wonderful poster child for the Occupy groups to knock for poorly handling their employees.

To make matters worse as far as I am concerned, when I became full-time I signed an agreement on a 40 hour work week.  When I was hired. it was company policy to have full-timers have a 40 hour work week.  Certainly this paperwork would have been kept in my personnel file with the company had my file not been severely altered by the management (I will be discussing this at length in future posts, which will be EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!).  Of course when Staples made this schedule change reduction they had nobody sign anything, which probably allowed them to drop hours even further without having any evidence left behind.  I, being with the company for over 10 years at this point, should have been grandfathered and been exempt from this change.  However, being Staples they love to watch everybody bleed equally…and yes bleed will play into a future post….no bandage will stop this wound…

Next Up:  Calculating Your Weekly Hours – Not So Simple

Do You Want a Break? DON’T TOUCH THAT CLOCK!!

Every now and then, everybody could use a break even if it is just to go use the potty.  Sometimes this easier said than done as I will explain.

Way back in the Woolworth days, if you wanted a break all you had to do was just ask.  Normally the manager just had to find someone to cover for you and you were all set.  The manager would just write down the time you left and if the manager was nice gave you some leeway to your time so that 15 minutes could be up to 20 minutes if someone gets stopped along the way.  It was a wonderful way of handling the situation and was basically fool-proof.  No complaints from me on this one.

HQ had a similar approach but the difference was that somebody only had 10 minutes (not really enough time in my book) and that included the time of getting back and forth.  I never really liked their handling of breaks, but I never had to worry about that too often.

Staples, as would be expected, is a totally different animal.  Let me start from the beginning.

Way back when I was hired back in 1996, the Human Resource person (yes, they REALLY HAD Human Resources in the store back then) Nikki told us new hires to NEVER use the BREAK punch on the time clock.  I always wondered why, but just took her word that it was bad.  About 4 years later and long after Nikki and the Human Resources left the store, one of the newly transferred Assistant Managers absolutely INSISTED that the BREAK punch be used on the time clock.  So like I fool, I decided to do it to see what happens.  The following is EXACTLY what happened and the end result.

First I was very careful to make sure that I took EXACTLY 15 minute breaks (the company’s allowable break time), carefully punching in at EXACT TIMES.  Something I noticed that was VERY strange was that when I punched out, the time clock stopped accumulating hours worked.  Yes, you heard that right:  TIME STOPPED!!  This worried me as to why this was happening.  It didn’t restart until I punched back in and then it only started accumulating time after the next minute after punching in.  So, honestly what happened here?  I also kept track of when I punched in at the beginning of the day, my lunch break (more on that in next posting), and when I left for the day.  I fed all this information into an Excel spreadsheet used to keep track of time and the surprise happened when I got my paycheck.

Nikki’s warning had become a reality.  When I received my check, I noticed that it was EXACTLY 20 MINUTES SHORTER of time than I had calculated.  When I approached the Assistant Manager that originally told me to use the BREAK punch and told her of “my check problem”.  She said “If you have a problem with the BREAK punch just don’t use it, just DON’T TELL ANYONE WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!”  My first thought was “HUH?!?”.  Apparently, something was VERY WRONG and a little research got me figuring out the problem.  To make matters worse was when I asked this manager if she would make an adjustment and give me 20 minutes added on to my current check to compensate for the “error”, her answer was a flat-out “NO!”.  So much for EVER using that AGAIN!!  I also let any manager know about my problem with it whenever they wanted me to use it.  When I mentioned it, they backed off quickly like as if I knew the SCAM…YES I SAID SCAM!!

Here is what happens:

When anybody hits BREAK OUT, the clock stops.at the point of clock out retreating to the minute BEFORE YOU PUNCHED.  When they clock back in the clock takes a minute to set itself to track again.  So effectively, you lose 1 minute punching out and 1 minute punching back in.

Now you may be saying “Larry, It is only 2 minutes what’s the big deal?!?”

Well, first I am not Larry. AND the 2 MINUTES IS A HUGE DEAL ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU MULTIPLY 2 MINUTES TIMES THE NUMBER OF BREAKS PER WEEK!!  For a full-timer, with 2 15 minute breaks a day, 5 days a week, it results in the 20 minutes I lost.  For part-timers, if they worked 5 days a week, its 10 minutes lost a week.  Consider this money that should be IN YOUR POCKET, but instead goes to the company as FREE WORK TIME!!  SLAVE LABOR ANYONE?!?

I am now going to introduce something called a self-interview.  This is where I will interview myself on topics that we have discussed or have been in the news lately of related (or not related) interest.  It will be in a different color and be preceded by the words “Interview Section”.  Enjoy..

Interview Section:

Why do you think that nobody has reported this “SCAM” yet to the Department of Labor?

Fear…fear of becoming a whistleblower to something that should not be happening.  After all, chances are that someone could get fired for reporting them.  They are that kind of company.

Why do you feel this way?

Honestly, I would NOT have been surprised if this wasn’t part of the reason I was fired even though I knew about it for years.  It just took an ass* manager to do it.

Don’t you think anybody else has ever noticed their shortage in their paychecks?

This is the funny thing. Since way back at Woolworth’s, I noticed how many employees NEVER looked at their paystubs.  They just took their check and sometimes threw away the stub without even ripping it up.  They don’t have any idea how many hours they got paid for.  It is sad to realize how many employees are SO stupid and are so ignorant on what they are getting paid or the consequences of their tossing of paystubs. 

So, Staples is praying on the logical stupidity of their employees…

Exactly.  The more stupid employees they have, the happier they are..which is probably why I am no longer with them..They couldn’t take my “intelligence”.  Sadly, this will continue until the company goes out of business or somebody finally has the guts to speak up against this abuse.

They must cheat their employees in other time ways as well don’t they?

Oh yes, and that starts my next posting topic when I discuss lunch..always a yummy topic..well usually…

 

Next Up:  Lunch Time –  Another Chance to Lose Time!!

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.

Up Next:  Searching For That Job