I managed a shoe store many years ago. (This would have been shortly after the invention of shoes.) The store was one of 52 scattered across the Northeast. Ours was the last stop when the General Manager conducted a chain-wide inspection tour. He finished and declared ours the "number one store in the chain."
Silly me thought, "pay increases."
Reality: he cut my store payroll by 5 hours per week AND increased our business hours by 5 per week.
*eyetwitch* I haven't been in a position requiring me to model how perfectly my abusive manager manages me to a district manager/coordinator/whatever in decades, and I am exceedingly happy about that. My hair even stopped falling out!
Oh man I remember the story of the JC Penny CEO. We have a CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corp.) podcast here called “Under the Influence” which is hosted by a retired ad guy. It’s fascinating. That CEO did everything I wished all retail would do: cut the crap, charge what you need to, make the prices clear and simple. I don’t want 300 different sales a year with BOGO and save the tax and “usually 14.99 on sale for 9.99 with the purchase of this thing I don’t want”. Just lower the damn prices to the average of what you charge over a year and stop messing around. And make it $10, not $9.99 you aren’t fooling anyone.
And wow. He did all of that. And nearly sunk the company.
I mean, sometimes your ideas are wrong, but usually you don’t get to see how wrong. You just wonder why no one does it your way. I’m glad he learned how wrong I was so I didn’t have to. 😜
At the last major corporation I worked for that wasn't retail, about once a month the CEO would call me directly on my desk phone. The first time he did it, I shouted at the phone "Dammit, Gary, quit PRANKING me!" and hung up.
About five minutes later, I got an email from the CEO.
"Dear John, PLEASE pick up the phone next time I call. I'm not pranking you."
The phone rang, and it was Himself. I apologized, he laughed, and then he went on buttering me up with praise. Then he dropped the bomb.
"You know that new software package you proposed and submitted a requisition for? You've done so well with the old software that we've decided not to acquire the new software. In fact, we want you to develop a training package explaining how to use the software package."
He laughed when I told him it would cost him money for me to do that, because I had my plate full doing the job with obsolete software (I was using software developed in 1988 in 2012, FFS). Then he said, "Well, do what you can."
After that, he'd call me once a month, and on his semi-annual visits, he'd take me and my immediate boss out to lunch. My immediate boss, who KNEW I didn't want his job, was very happy about it. And when the CEO retired in 2017, so did I. And we were still using the software developed in 1988.
"I decided that most CEOs have some sort of untreated mental illness. Leadership draws the power hungry, and power hungry is a symptom."
One of the other symptoms is to see everything as a number.
You haven't reduced corporate overhead by 20%, you put 40% of your staff (who were worth hiring at one or another) out of a job.
Your company is not "the heart and soul" of the towns where it operates, you've driven everyone else out of business. And now you're a local monopoly, for both consumers and employment ..
In the second half of the nineties I was working at Microsoft in Ireland, so technically my CEO was Bill Gates. I never met him, but he read my email once and after that he had some questions for my department manager. He won't remember, but I do (now that you bring it up).
I managed a shoe store many years ago. (This would have been shortly after the invention of shoes.) The store was one of 52 scattered across the Northeast. Ours was the last stop when the General Manager conducted a chain-wide inspection tour. He finished and declared ours the "number one store in the chain."
Silly me thought, "pay increases."
Reality: he cut my store payroll by 5 hours per week AND increased our business hours by 5 per week.
Not much has changed in the decades since.
*eyetwitch* I haven't been in a position requiring me to model how perfectly my abusive manager manages me to a district manager/coordinator/whatever in decades, and I am exceedingly happy about that. My hair even stopped falling out!
Oh man I remember the story of the JC Penny CEO. We have a CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corp.) podcast here called “Under the Influence” which is hosted by a retired ad guy. It’s fascinating. That CEO did everything I wished all retail would do: cut the crap, charge what you need to, make the prices clear and simple. I don’t want 300 different sales a year with BOGO and save the tax and “usually 14.99 on sale for 9.99 with the purchase of this thing I don’t want”. Just lower the damn prices to the average of what you charge over a year and stop messing around. And make it $10, not $9.99 you aren’t fooling anyone.
And wow. He did all of that. And nearly sunk the company.
I mean, sometimes your ideas are wrong, but usually you don’t get to see how wrong. You just wonder why no one does it your way. I’m glad he learned how wrong I was so I didn’t have to. 😜
At the last major corporation I worked for that wasn't retail, about once a month the CEO would call me directly on my desk phone. The first time he did it, I shouted at the phone "Dammit, Gary, quit PRANKING me!" and hung up.
About five minutes later, I got an email from the CEO.
"Dear John, PLEASE pick up the phone next time I call. I'm not pranking you."
The phone rang, and it was Himself. I apologized, he laughed, and then he went on buttering me up with praise. Then he dropped the bomb.
"You know that new software package you proposed and submitted a requisition for? You've done so well with the old software that we've decided not to acquire the new software. In fact, we want you to develop a training package explaining how to use the software package."
He laughed when I told him it would cost him money for me to do that, because I had my plate full doing the job with obsolete software (I was using software developed in 1988 in 2012, FFS). Then he said, "Well, do what you can."
After that, he'd call me once a month, and on his semi-annual visits, he'd take me and my immediate boss out to lunch. My immediate boss, who KNEW I didn't want his job, was very happy about it. And when the CEO retired in 2017, so did I. And we were still using the software developed in 1988.
I was a victim of my own success.
"I decided that most CEOs have some sort of untreated mental illness. Leadership draws the power hungry, and power hungry is a symptom."
One of the other symptoms is to see everything as a number.
You haven't reduced corporate overhead by 20%, you put 40% of your staff (who were worth hiring at one or another) out of a job.
Your company is not "the heart and soul" of the towns where it operates, you've driven everyone else out of business. And now you're a local monopoly, for both consumers and employment ..
I can go on, but you get the picture.
FWIW, my last employment was for a small company, where the CEO did in fact know your name. I'd still be there if it wasnt for cancer.
This brings back memories of being a manager for Sainsbury’s and McDonalds when younger. 9 wasted years!
In the second half of the nineties I was working at Microsoft in Ireland, so technically my CEO was Bill Gates. I never met him, but he read my email once and after that he had some questions for my department manager. He won't remember, but I do (now that you bring it up).
I barely see my immediate supervisor let alone get a visit from the ivory tower.