The Friday before my big trip to Hawaii (the 21st?) was my last day of work as a temp at the Nordstrom corporate office. Since leaving Safeway, I have been working in the FLS/Rack compensation department as a data analyst and backend administrative assistant - otherwise known as a ‘minion’ or ‘M2′ as the ladies at the office so lovingly called me.

Working there was an ideal situation for me to be in. First off, it fitted perfectly with my class schedule. I was able to work only three days a week and still receive higher compensation than when I was working fulltime at Safeway. Furthermore, my boss was very understanding in the importance of my education and would constantly remind me that I could take time off in order to keep pace with my course load. I never did take advantage of this as I’m used to a more… consuming… work pace. Her concern was more than enough and the option was very relieving.

Secondly, it was a great opportunity for me to experience the corporate world in action. I watched several women who are already secure in their careers seeing how they interact and perform their duties in a fast pace corporate environment. They’ve been a great source to model off of. Also, the projects given me have allowed me to use the skills fostered at school and have pushed me to acquire new ones as I rushed to learn new data systems and terminology.

Click for more…

As I was doing some cleaning, a customer came up to our register to get rung up. Being more than happy to oblige, I went over to do so. She was purchasing one of our hot soups but her container was empty which was rather odd as typically customers fill up their soup first before purchasing. But it was a rather odd day so I didn’t really think much of it. However after buying it she asked me to do her a favor.

Apparently there was an old man sitting by the windows who had been staring at the soup rather mournfully and, though tried a sample, he didn’t take any to purchase. He was rather thin and scruffy and looked as if he hadn’t eaten for a while.

The lady’s request was for me to take it to him so she could anonymously help him out. He was very pleased and just wolfed down his soup. It is wonderful to see that people are still willing to help strangers out.

Today was a rather busy and hectic day in the deli. It’s almost as if Christmas was soon or something.

I came in early this morning filling in the merchandiser role in place of my manger. Which means I got to put out product and make the orders for new product. Apparently today was a rather heavy load. I have a sneaky suspicion that perhaps this is why my manager chose this particular day off… It took me almost four hours past my usual time to finish (about 9am is when I usually get done. I finished at 1p…) getting all my fresh meat out and as for DPI (specialty cheeses and the like)… that never got done…

Typically, I get all my product out before I do the orders for the next day so that I know what product I actually need. However as fresh meat orders have to be in by 9:30am and I was far from finished in getting all my product out, I had to make educated guesses as to what needed to be ordered which I do not like at all. In my mad dash to send in my order before my cut off time, I had forgotten to order some italian pasta salad kits (all our salads are provided in kits) for a customer order that was going to be picked up tomorrow.

My failure to order it meant that we didn’t have the amount we needed for the customer so I faced calling the other stores to see if I was lucky enough to find one with extra or calling the customer and regretfully apologizing for our incompetence. The latter didn’t quite seem all that appealing.

Click for more…

Yesterday I turned in my two weeks notice at Safeway.

This was something that had been weighing on my heart for a long time and now that I’ve finally done it I feel so much lighter.

Why’d I leave? To quickly sum it all up: working in the deli at Safeway was no longer in alignment with my goals. I had originally only intended on letting my stay at Safeway be a short temporary jumping stone while I looked for someplace more suitable to my long-term plans but I ended up taking the easy way out and stayed just a little bit longer then I had planned. Not that that was a bad thing. I certainly gained a lot from my stay there and I was able to grow a lot. I’m actually rather glad that my first job experience was here.

The people there were also pretty awesome. They were fun to work with and are just great people overall. For the most part. It almost breaks my heart to leave but I must in order to continue growing.

Click for more…

And I wish I was in my bed snoring…

Today is the first Monday of the month which means it’s inventory day. Yosh!

I got up at 3am to head over to Safeway and undergo the tedious amounts of counting required to get a proper inventory record. Thankfully everything wasn’t covered in ice as I had feared. Instead the weather consisted of rain, rain, and even more rain. Inventory went much quicker this time as I’ve become pretty accustomed to how it works. I even managed to find virtually all of the product in our tally sheets which amazed me. They were once sheets of absolute gibberish producing headaches and confusion merely by looking at them but now I’ve started to decipher how they work and have become more familiar with them in the course of my orders.

I’ve come a long way from when I first started. It’s just a little of a year now that I’ve been employed at Safeway. I had only intended to be there for a little bit using it as a stepping stone to launch myself into a “better” field. Or perhaps more accurately, to get my dad off my back. He’d keep waking me up early in the morning, jumping on my bed and demanding that I go get myself a job.

Click for more…

Excerpt from Organization Theory and Design by Richard Daft on the topic of mimetic forces as a form of institutional adaptation.

Executives observe an innovation in a firm generally regarded as successful, so the management practice is quickly copied. An example is the proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots in cafes, hotels, and airports. Starbucks was one of the first companies to adopt Wi-Fi, enabling customers to use laptops and handheld computers at Starbucks stores. The practice has rapidly been copied by both large and small companies, from Holiday Inns to the local deli.

And yes, the Safeway Deli now offers wireless internet. Yosh! This was only written a year and a half ago.

I wish I did have an answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything. And no, the generic response, “42″ just does not cut it.

Life is awesome. Who can really complain about all the wonders that God has done?

But like my Dad tells me, “Life is good if you don’t weaken.” And I’m afraid I’m weakening.

Ever since my return from Japan, my days have been full. Very much so. It reached to the point where I just didn’t sleep for a week or so. Thankfully I’m past that as I just wouldn’t be able to carry on but that doesn’t mean my workload has changed any. In fact life has brought about even more stuff to bring me down. And I feel the tugs pull harder each day.

Click for more…

For the past couple weeks Corporate has been coming into the deli doing their reviews and what have you. So accordingly we’ve been under a lot of pressure to get everything up to snuff. Last week National came into our deli making notes and asking questions. I came in for that morning shift still under the effects of the Advil PM Dad had given me so I was a zombie for that. Also losing my voice due to recovering from sickness didn’t really help my situation out much.

But we survived and the deli looks much better because of it. Unfortunately we still understaffed and orders just aren’t coming in or going out or whatever so we don’t have product. Corporate National is expected to come in again tomorrow and all the regional level Corporate are just swarming all over the place in an attempt to please their superiors. Which is really, really frustrating.

Yesterday Judith and I were the only deli clerks managing the deli save a Russian lady who barely understands English and can perform only minor tasks let alone help with customers. I’d like to think I’m pretty good at training new people as I’ve been able to successfully do so with several but my ability to convey what needs to be done is severely limited when I can’t even communicate with the person. Anyways, needless to say, yesterday was really hectic.

Judith and I were rushing around all over the deli trying to serve the swarm of customers that never seemed to end all the while the ever so thoughtful people from Corporate Regional would micromanage. Help this customer! Make me these sandwiches! When are the chickens going to come out?! Do you have any of “x”? And generally issuing as many mandates as they could as quickly as they could within a limited span of time.

In the midst of trying to keep up with normal day to day operations, we were also trying to prepare for ahead and get our “grab’n'go” product out. I love how managers love to issue mandates that are even feasibly possible… “Uh… sure… I -could- do that. But then I’d have to stop helping customers… Or close early which I know you’ve already specifically forbade. What’s your real priority here?” Ugh… You really need to get more people in here but no, Corporate has deemed that we weren’t worth allocating the required hours to do so.

And then at the end of the day they had the audacity to say, out of our ears of course, to our local deli manager that he “hoped she would have a better crew tomorrow.” Oh wow… I was mad when I found that out… Really mad… To be perfectly honest, Judith and I -are- the best (there are two others at our level but unfortunately the subpar employees outnumber us) night crew employees. I almost laughed at the thought of having our employees who are less inclined to work as hard as we do perform under such abuse. I can just image Corporate Regional’s reaction there!

It’s one thing to analyze and criticize something. It’s another thing to completely demean people who are doing the best with the cards dealt to them. It’s not like they offered to help but merely added to the confusion and problems.

I just about had it. Briefly I sunk back into my depression. Why again am I at this crappy place? Safeway is only a means to an end and perhaps that means shall find its end… I am also rather disappointed with this entire process of working into management. I understand that these visits are demanding of my immediate managers as well and I’ve been promised more indepth training afterwards but even then I suspect my empowerment to perform to the responsibilities that I’m assuming will be rather limited. My manager has never had an assistant before and loves to micromanage things as well. Well that’s one thing I need to work out if I decide to continue on this route.

My school load is already becoming to be a pain and the school year is only beginning to ramp up. I may just have to cut my losses and cut ties with Safeway. Between my education at UWB and my so-called “career” at Safeway, one holds a bright future for me which is worth fighting for and it certainly isn’t the one that involves me wasting away my time in a starter job.

Anyways, I have some reassessing to do. I was planning on getting a decent internship while I was still at UWB which would involve me leaving Safeway’s employment anyways but I wasn’t intending to do so so soon. And I was kinda hoping to see what Safeway had to offer in their management training as that was supposed to be a one-on-one mentorship.