Morning Cuppa with Mona.

[Lioness]

Mona, I miss your shoe avatar already.

Is that one better for you? This one is an actual photo of my legs, in my shoes.

I really like those shoes! They look good on you. :)

 

[Mona]

Thanks! I'm still surprised that I got away with wearing them into a club. The spikes on the front actually make them a potential weapon.

 

[Gyroscope]

I saw a video one time where a lady tied a guy up and kicked him in the dick for like 10 minutes. She was wearing shoes with spikes on them , dude ended up bleeding everywhere. I think he may have also coughed up some blood too.

Is there anything you wish to tell us Mona?
Thrill

 

[Mona]

Not at this point, other than that the particular video you allude to was not made by me. I have, however, been to a club where I was asked by a lady to walk in my heels on a man who was laying on the floor.

 

[Dageaux]

I think you have too many shoes?

SHUT UP!

 

[Mona]

I think I need to record this and make it my ring tone on my phone!!!

$300, seems reasonable to me. I also once freaked out a noobie shoe salesman so badly that he either quit or got transferred to a new department after serving me once. The dumb arse tried to refuse to sell me a pair of heels that had been specially ordered for me, because I was pregnant.

 

[offwidthe]

I only wear sandals. No, really I have like one pair of closed-toed shoes, the rest are Chacos.

 

[CorsetKat]

Had to google that shit.

I'm learning the ways of the modern hippy. I quite envy them at times. I am very in tune with OG hippies, and feel I am one most days. But yeah, typically once people get over the fact that I'm nice even though I always look like I want to kill them, we hit it off. Till then I'm just a devil cunt. I am very open minded though. You do you, and so long as you don't hurt innocents, we won't have issues.

 

[offwidthe]

preach it!

 

[Mona]

So, it seems that I have been given a promotion today. I was officially offered the Assistant Manager position. But I may catapult to Manager next week. So, I told HR to hold off sending me a contract this week, until we're sure which job I'll end up with. No point wasting time, energy and paper printing out contracts if I'm only going to have to sign a different one a few days later.

The AM resigned yesterday because she forgot to put in a formal leave request for her holiday that she left for on Friday afternoon. And when the leave request she put in on Thursday was refused, she resigned. The manager has holidays booked for next week, but withdrew her holidays request so I'm unsure if she's cancelled her intention to go, or just the request to be paid for it. Neither of them realise that they actually have to get approval from HR to take unpaid leave as well as holidays. So she may be resigning this week, too. Especially after she's spoken with the HR manager tomorrow. They stated on Thursday that if they didn't get their holidays, they'd be resigning. And that all the other staff would walk out with them (other than me.) My HR manager isn't too worried, she knows that I can handle it with a staff member from another store and her, until we find more staff. Certainly an interesting start to the new fiscal year.

 

[CorsetKat]

Awesomeness, congrats Mona.

I don't get people's work ethics. If you are gonna do something, do it right. My fav is when my sales staff don't like what they hear from their manager so think coming to me will make it better. Nope. Only if their manager is wrong. I actually had a girl from Fargo, transfer to one of my stores and ask to be scheduled how she wanted to account for traffic. I laughed. You moved to Cali buttercup, you best get used to it.

 

[Mona]

This week will be interesting. The previous AM is back from her week of unpaid leave after she resigned and gave four week's notice, and the Manager has gone on holidays with no approval, and taken unpaid leave... I don't think that either of them realise that they still need approval for that. Basically, I am not sure if the assistant manager actually HAS a job, and if the Manager will be fired for taking leave unapproved. I'll find out this week, what's happening. I'm actually hoping the HR manager waits until next week to tell them to leave, because I REALLY need this coming Sunday off. I've worked every weekend for the last month and have only Friday off this week. I'm going out on Saturday night and want to relax and sleep in on Sunday.

 

[CorsetKat]

Wow

I thought that was just a stupid American thing. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disgusted at the fact that it could be global.

 

[Mona]

Well, it turned out that they're both leaving. The assistant manager's finishing up tomorrow and I'm taking her place. The manager went on unapproved leave and tendered her resignation while away, so has another two weeks of her notice to work out. And the HR manager arranged interviews for new staff while she was away. I did them all on my own and chose four new staff out of the shortlist. But was told that my contract will be held back, because the chances are that I'll end up manager.

i started training three of the girls and the fourth starts tomorrow. I've worked with her before and she really doesn't need training, just basic induction. The manager still has two weeks notice to work out, and she's not particularly happy right now, as I was given the rostering access on Friday and hers was taken away, and I took her hours back to a limit set by the HR manager, and cut some of her daughter's hours to fit the new girls in (also as per instruction by the HR manager) and the other casual girl lost a shift, but I don't care how she feels about it, as I don't expect her to stick around once the manager's gone because she doesn't like being told what to do, and she DEFINITELY won't like it when I'm telling her what to do.

HR manager is coming down on Wednesday week, and meeting all the new staff and doing some training with me and telling me how she wants things to work. I'e already chosen two of the staff to be keyholders and part of the managerial team. And she's approved my choices. So a whole new energy and fresh start is coming. It's quite exciting actually.

I don't know if it's a global thing... I've never worked anywhere where people thought that they could just do whatever they wanted. Especially not in retail. But, I guess there's always a few in every bunch that don't want to conform to what is generally considered acceptable business practices.

 

[Lioness]

That sounds like a horrible chaos. Good thing you’re there to get things back on track.

 

[Mona]

The assistant manager did her last shift today. I bought her a good luck balloon, some cupcakes in a box and a card saying sorry to see you go. She's been quite helpful in trying to ready me for the responsibility and genuinely believes that the manager's actions have been wrong. She knows that I'm caught in the middle and wants to help smooth my transition. I will be training my old work colleague tomorrow, and then throwing her in the deep end the next day and let her work with the current manager for a shift. I know that she will ignore any negativity or gossip that the manager may choose to share with her, so it will be fine. She came in on Saturday to drop off her contract, and is really excited to be working with me again, and the challenge ahead building a fresh team and getting the shop in order. She's OCD so she's perfect for the job. The big lunar eclipse this weekend is bringing about change... and I have to say that my work life has been turned upside down, but I feel that it's a positive change, and I'm up to the challenge.

I've worked out that the green tea capsules I have started taking work best ever two or three days (any more than that causes dehydration, and me to be over-caffeinated.)

 

[Lioness]

It’s good of you to let her vent to you and recognize that she may poison the staff she comes in contact with to get her final sense of justice. That happens in a lot of situations.

 

[Krieg]

Your recounting of the work life reminds me a bit of Royal court intrigue and cabinet shuffles. I would not enjoy your job.

 

[Mona]

It's not usually like that Krieg. Once the transition is over, it will be a positive place to work. I've put together a very positive and upbeat team of girls who are enthusiastic about jewellery and keen to work together.

 

[Mona]

Well, all the toxic older staff have left. Now it's mostly new girls, and the young girl who was the former manager's daughter. She is a really good worker, although I am watching her closely to make sure that she's not sabotaging the ongoing process. But she seemed really excited when we organised a training course day for her on Wednesday. I'm getting into the swing of things, I'd booked two days off for annual leave this week, to go to a concert that was cancelled but I opted to take the time off anyway, so that I can recuperate a little from the last few week's stress.

I've got the rostering worked out, I'm on top of the paperwork that I need to do, and I think the training of the girls is coming along okay, too. It's a huge transition for me, and it will take a little while to have it all sorted out. But I am feeling positive about how it's going.

 

[Mona]

My boss came in on Saturday with her girls and mother. The only suggestion that he had for us was to add a couple of the watches from one area into a front window display because there were gaps where we had sold stock and been too busy all morning to replace it. If there had been other areas that she wanted changed, she would have rattled off a list to me. So that's a great sign. She seemed quite pleased with the shop displays and how busy we were when she came in. So I'm happy with how things are going. The girls are working really well together, and sharing the workload around. They're all happy to work to their strengths. Which is awesome. The previous manager never let anyone do anything, she kept a tight control over everything and micromanaged. (Everyone but me. I just did whatever I thought needed doing. And I'm not much of a micromanager personality myself. I have enough shit to do without trying to everyone else's job too.)

 

[Dageaux]

One of the best quotes I ever heard was from Michael Dell. "I hire people who are smarter than myself, and then I let them do their job". I might dispute that they were smarter than he, but the philosophy is sound.

 

[Mona]

Exactly. I'd rather work smarter than harder. The staff are there for a reason, and that reason is not so that I do all the work. My health wouldn't allow me to do things the way the last manager did. I'd fall in a heap in five seconds flat. I'm taking one bite at a time, and not taking on too many new projects at once. As I teach the girls what they need to know, I'm letting them just do it, and focusing on getting my work done. There are a few areas that need fine tuning, but overall, I think we're performing. I was thinking that we were going to get another manager in for a week or so to show me the ropes, but that hasn't happened. So I'm finding my own way and asking questions as I come across things that I've never done before.

 

[Mona]

One of the best quotes I ever heard was from Michael Dell. "I hire people who are smarter than myself, and then I let them do their job". I might dispute that they were smarter than he, but the philosophy is sound.

There is a quotation offering eccentric advice that is often attributed to the billionaire software magnate Bill Gates: I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

Steve Jobs famously quipped, It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.

 

[Dageaux]

I was corrected recently, apparently the above quote attributed to Michael Dell was said by Henry Ford long before I heard it. Still a good quote tho.

I like the Bill Gates one too, and while the quote from Steve Jobs sounds good in theory, he rarely behaved that way. Rumor has it he was a tyrant. He hired smart people so he could steal their ideas and call them his own.

 

[CorsetKat]

That is what I love about my job and my boss. From day one he basically said, you know what to do, do it. He often told me he trusted me to make decisions early on, and often if I come to him with questions he just says, what would you do if I was t here, I tell him, and he says, sounds good to me. Not to say he doesn't provide answers and advice, but all of it is geared at me gaining knowledge, not do it this way crap. It's refreshing.

 

[shin]

On the subject of The Bible...

In the beginning, there must've been something before the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth. I mean, where did the Angels come from? At any rate... we should consider that God created Eve from Adam's rib, and Adam's name would be a representation of the Latin ad meaning "from", and am meaning something in Aramaic in relation to a son or offspring.

Eve is of the night, and it was interpreted that he was laid to rest when the rib was removed, which bore Eve who we think to be Adam's companion.

 

[CorsetKat]

Read Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil, good history of the creation of man.

 

[Mona]

I tend not to argue the creation debate. There is no way to scientifically or otherwise prove how anything began. I see the debate as an unending circle with no way of knowing where it starts and ends. I believe that religion was created to ease the panic and fear of the unknown for the masses, and as science advances and more answers are revealed, and they, in turn, reveal what can not be known, people turn to their faith for comfort to either try and make sense of that which has no logic, or to reassure themselves that there's a greater reason that is beyond their knowledge for all the suffering and hardship.

My mother has an interesting take on her beliefs (Catholicism), she believes that Earth is the Hell that everyone has to pass through in order to make their way to Heaven.

 

[Bastard Factory]

How's life down under going Mona?