2004-10-16 - 6:05 p.m.

Furor

I have quit my time-devouring job as a store manager. It paid very well, particularly for a twenty-five year old college dropout with no particular experience in anything in particular.

I realized rather abruptly, as I came to work one Friday morning at 9AM for a shift that would last until 2AM, followed by another one of identical length on Saturday, that I hated my job and that no matter how few hours I worked, I would continue to hate working there. I sat in my office chair for awhile and thought about that, then set up the store for normal operation. Then put in my two week notice about a half-hour later.

There is a story of the Buddha that I heard a long time ago and then wrote down piecemeal some time after that -- this may not necessarily be canon Buddhism, is what I'm attempting to convey. Buddha was terrifically rich before he became enlightened, and a member of the highest caste; he sat in his mansion all day considering Things of the Highest Order and contemplating the true nature of life and reality and consciousness.

Then, one day, he realized that material possessions and -- indeed -- all desire were simply traps that bound us to this existence. And so he got up and left his house and wandered.

I can take or leave what I suspect was the original moral of the story -- that goods and desire are bad. I've had some very uplifting experiences with desire, thank you. I'm not debating that the wholehearted pursuit of material gain tends to leave one a tad bit empty, just -- anyway. What I got out of that story was the certainty with which the Buddha moved when he'd become certain of his beliefs.

He believed that he ought to leave. So he left.

If this was a modern story, a modern movie or a latter-day hero, pages and hours and months would have been taken up by the epic struggle in the heroic soul. "Should I stay or should I go now?" And in the end they would make the right choice with the support of those who were truly important to them and la la la my brain just fell out and died.

Buddha just did it. I respect that, and on the rare occasions that I'm certain of something, I do try to emulate it and not cheapen whatever boat-rocking realization about my life I've had by shoving it to the side and continuing on my original course. I think if you shove them to the side, they come less often; perhaps eventually stop for good. I don't want that.

Anyhow. I quit. I walked out of fifty thousand a year and a hundred percent job security with everyone in the industry in the state knowing my name. I walked out -- if not a legend, at least a sterling example.

The state, you see, is not doing so well profit-wise, and I was a shining example showing that huge profits were waiting to be made if you worked hard enough. A couple of administrative personnel were maintaining their jobs solely on the basis that my district was profitable, solely because of my store. I think I have probably cost them their jobs by leaving.

One of them is not taking it so well. He's flailing about on the phones yelling at the remaining managers and generally being in a huff, blaming everyone but himself for his failure to locate a replacement in the more-than-adequate two weeks I gave them.

I don't, you see, believe that they thought I was serious about leaving. Who'd walk out of that much money when they didn't have to? So my final day rolled around and he called up eight hours into my seventeen-hour shift and asked what it would take for me to stay. I said I wasn't staying. He tried to tell me he was requiring me to stay. I laughed, he hung up on me.

I always had a decent amount of respect for the guy -- he's got bad points, but I figured it was just that he was in a bad situation, and that he'd get better. He's spent the last twenty-four hours systematically demoralizing the store managers he does have left in his district and generally displaying a complete lack of understanding of basic principles of how you treat good, necessary employees.

A prize example is a phone call he made yesterday to the only other store manager in the district who's actually running a profit -- a former assistant manager of mine -- accusing her of not working enough hours. His report, he said, showed her working 48 hours the previous week when we all knew we were required to work 50. She'll be changing jobs soon. You don't yell at the people you need most for stupid little crap.

In essence, here is what I have learned about management from the last year and a half with a store of my own and a crew built from the ground up.

First, find your core. In any group of people, however hostile, there will be one or two who are more sympathetic to you than the rest. Focus on them and eliminate the rest. You need veteran employees, and cannot afford to fire everyone. You also cannot most likely afford to *keep* everyone.

Second, termination is a last resort. Much like nuclear war, termination is a lot more effective as a deterrant than an actual policy. You are not the only employer in town, and never will be.

Third, disciplinary action is *not* for what someone has done (exception being made for violence, theft, and other blatently illegal activities). It is never for mistakes. It is for what the employee is *going* to do if you do not change their pattern of behavior. Most people can be worked with and brought up to the level you want them to be at -- the only ones that *must* be terminated are the ones who refuse to change.

Fourth, it's easiest to lead from the front. Doing more work than anyone is not always possible, but it certainly makes leadership easier when no one can say they work harder than you do. At least know the job you're supervising -- work it at the busiest time, under the worst conditions, and know what can go wrong with it before you start trying to direct other people through it.

Fifth, do not blame your failures on other people. If you know there is a problem, whether it's in operations or maintainence or supply or any other aspect of your responsibilities and you let it slide, you had damn well better not let someone else take the heat for it. Turning a blind eye to something does not make it any less your responsibility.

Sixth, people will generally characterize you as a pretty okay person if you simply listen to what they're saying and acknowledge it. People like people who make them feel interesting.

At any rate, I'm not going to be working for at least a few months -- I've got a lot of money saved up and very few expenses. I plan to play a lot of video games, eat plenty of junk food, catch up on my reading -- I realized two weeks ago yesterday, right before I put in my notice, that I hadn't read an entire book in over two months! Gah! -- and just generally take it easy.

And then I'll go back to retail with a renewed appreciation for dealing with the customers there. Sure, they're idiots too, but at least they're not hungry idiots -- I can listen to normal idiots all day long and smile.

I'm guessing it'll take me a couple months in a large store to get into lower management, and quite possibly another year after that to move any higher. Assistant managers of large retail stores in this area tend to make $30-40k salary and rarely work over fifty hours -- why would they? There are five of them at a normal store, eight at some of the larger ones.

Perhaps someday I'll have a store of my own again.

I don't know what to think about how this meshes with my larger beliefs on Things. I don't know what I *can* do that would in any way, shape, or form agree with my beliefs and my knowledge of what's happening in the rest of the world. The best ways to make money involve working for the people who have most successfully and irresponsibly destroyed the social and environmental fabric around them -- carving out a niche, they call it.

The best I can do right now, on my first day of freedom in three years, is to drink another soda and play another video game. Perhaps later I'll be in a position to do something significant.

Right now, I will try to make the Other happy and content. I will try to continue finding small things that make her laugh and making her coffee in the morning, which I've never done for anyone before.

She'd never eaten a pear before I cut one up and gave it to her, and now we share them half-and-half at night.

I don't know how anything is going to end, but I guess that's the point, isn't it?

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