Can my district manager do this? Is it even legal?

[Jane_Smith]

Having a bit of a problem at my workplace. Apparently every month, the district manager keeps a 'point chart' on what stores have the most problems, and actually lists them off from worst, to best. Getting complaint calls? Aka, 'disturbing her peace and quite', as she says, is a huge 'point' cost, per phone call, and can get a store in the red very quickly.

Now - get this. Within a week, i get a complaint called in on me, and apparently one of my other coworkers got like 3 complaints filed on them, so 4 within a 7-day period. And the week prior, the store manager himself got a complaint filed on him by one of our regular customers. So 5, total, this month that I know of. Needless to say, the district manager is very unhappy with us. Now, don't get me wrong, a few of these complaints are warranted, but not all of them - some of them are just complaints that 'lines are to long' when all our registers are open its busy hour and everyone gets off work at the SAME time and everyone, and there dog, likes to come into the store and finish AT THE SAME TIME - but this still counts to the district manager.

Well, I go into work the other day, and find, get this - a rubber chicken. In drag. With a tag around it saying "We SUCK at customer service!", hanging between both registers so everyone can see. Now, don't get me wrong - i screwed up, sure, once this entire month, the other lady did as well, but apparently our district manager said we are the "5th-10th worst store' in the area.. out of like.. 20, whoopie do, and put this "Mascot!" up to encourage us to do 'better'. Yeah. Totally not humilating, insulting, or childish at all right?

My question is - is she allowed to do this? Is this legal? Wtf? Do I have to endure this crap for a month until we get no complaints next month and get off her radar?

[Anarion]

We can sympathize with you, but can't give you legal advice. If you feel that you want to pursue the matter, I suggest that you consult a lawyer.

[Jane_Smith]

Hm - ok, lemme rephrase that, can someone pm me if this is legal or not? Cause, i go to these legal sites and stuff about workplace discrimination/humilation/etc, and they all want me to pay for help.

[Serpentine]

Not sure, couldn't say if I was, check your local laws and/or talk to a lawyer, and either way go over their head and complain to their boss, cuz that's a pretty damn scummy thing to do even if it is legal. Was the chicken visible to the customers? If so, that's just harming the whole chain's reputation; I can't imagine the company owners would be thrilled with that.

[Jane_Smith]

Yes - they leave it hanging in front of both of the doors, above the cash registers, so people coming in and at the cashiers registers can see it clearly. Thus why its so humilating - and ignorant, in my opinion. This is TOTALLY going to make us feel better and get less complaints, right?

[The Glyphstone]

The Forum Rules still apply to PMs. But even if it's not legal, it's also not your (legal) problem, it would be corporate's (legal) problem (they also have more lawyers). Report the issue to corporate, by whatever means is appropriate to your particular company...anonymously if you're worried about retribution of some kind.

[Serpentine]

Yes - they leave it hanging in front of both of the doors, above the cash registers, so people coming in and at the cashiers registers can see it clearly. Thus why its so humilating - and ignorant, in my opinion. This is TOTALLY going to make us feel better and get less complaints, right?

Yeeeaaaah. Ethics and legality aside, this isn't just an embarassment to you, it's an embarassment to the company. Go over their head and report them.

[Stardrake]

Heck, if you REALLY want to be clear... don't complain yourself. Get someone you know who isn't too easily traced to you to complain about it as a customer.

Over the district manager's head if possible, of course.

[Jane_Smith]

Thats just it - i can't find any contact info for the regional managers or vice presidents/etc of my workplace - dollar general, for texas. I can find THERE info, names, gender, even there previous work history, but all contact information is nonexistent like they don't want to be bothered.

[Crow]

(615) 855-4000

Here you go. Dollar General Corporate Headquarters.

Personally, it's a rubber chicken in drag. Whatever, laugh about it, do better in the future. I would find my poor customer service to be more humiliating than the rubber chicken since it is my job (or would be...if I worked there), and I try to take pride in my work. If people are underperforming, it could even be an opportunity for you to shine by taking your work to the next level, if you play things right.

However, if you feel this is part of a larger pattern of humiliation, I would probably go with the earlier suggestion of having a "customer" make the complaint. Corporations who treat their employees like crap generally don't care about internal compalints, and view it as "bad employees just complaining". But if they feel it may impact their pocket books, or their reputation in the eyes of the people whose money they want, they will be more inclined to listen.

Before you do anything though. I suggest you try to handle this like a leader, and try to speak with the district manager directly. Be civil, and tell her how this thing is making the employees feel, and how you think it reflects on the store. Even if it doesn't accomplish anything, at least you can say that you tried to take care of things the "right" way.

[Bouregard]

Yeeeaaaah. Ethics and legality aside, this isn't just an embarassment to you, it's an embarassment to the company. Go over their head and report them.

Good advice. PR just loves to hear about a little district manager showing the company in a bad light. Employees are important for a company. If the company shows that they have to employ "incompetent" employees it reflects bad on the company. If someone post a picture of that stuff on facebook and links it properly, odds are it takes 3 hours tops and the chicken is at least dressed properly or is completely taken down if you're part of a large company. Best case, there's a new vacant district managers position.

Also in a more practical and cynical worldview: If you draw attention to a complaint workflow it generally raises the numbers of complaints.

Feedback procedures should be well planed. Because if the procedures are flawed it just gets down to randomized blaming. I worked in customer support a long time, some weeks I had the best possible feedbacks and other weeks I received pretty much only complaints. The result was that my boss alternated between treatening to fire me and publicaly thanking me for great customer service. Why? Because I did a lot of other stuff that generated no feedbacks, but was equally essential to customer service. In total I received about 90% less feedback then my colleagues. So if someone complained or if the bug of the month was especially grave it hit me extra hard.

[Jane_Smith]

Yeah, thats what I don't get about her system. Ive now worked for the store for 7 months? Almost 8? We had 2-3 complaints during that entire time, but thats it. We were peachy until this month. Tempatures go up, customers get moody, we get a handful of calls and suddenly shes making us look like failures or something, or we should be ashamed and humilated and feel like poor workers - because one lady took offense we couldn't let her use credit to buy 20, 50-dollar gift cards when theres been a spree of debit/credit card-thefts in the area lately (they use the credit function to bypass needing a pin and put money on a gift card they can then use without fear of being caught), or another because there was a long line - during rush hour... when both registers were open, nothing more we could do about it, and we are just human. Or my favorite - because we can't tell a woman to tell her kids to shut up.

Seriously - a guy literally called in and complained because -we told him we could not tell a mother to tell her children to behave or be silent- unless they were damaging property or disrupting other customers - she would then chew us out, and we would be fired for that kinda bs. The kids were playing. In the -toy isle-, a bit loudly, sure, but its a -store-. How would he have reacted to someplace like walmart and the kids running around in there?!! But apparently because these people deem it fit to spend 10 minutes venting at our district manager to calm there nerves over things we cant control and are following what WE ARE TOLD TO DO BY OUR MANAGER, i have to suffer hours of humilation and stress, be chewed out by -my manager-, threatened to be retrained or have to listen to some thinly-coated bull**** for an excuse for him to insult us, make indirect threats, or otherwise act like a hot-air powered balloon of gas.

But, all that aside. 1 Month, a bunch of half-assed complaints, and suddenly -shes saying we are the top 10 worst store in the region-. And apparently it gives her the right to say we all suck, to our faces. And to everyone elses.

[Crow]

Were these complaints to the store manager, or directly to the district manager?

[Palanan]

I can't fathom the reasoning behind the rubber chicken. It's incredibly insulting, and only serves to humiliate rather than to inspire. That's one of the worst possible things the company could do in this situation, and it tells me you have an immature and unprofessional person in a supposed "leadership" position.

As for customer service…I've worked in retail, and it's a sad fact that some customers come in on a hair trigger, looking for an excuse to make a complaint. It's impossible to please every one of them, and this new points system seems weighted against you.

So, something else you might consider is getting the local media involved. Whether or not they would be interested isn't guaranteed--and you'd want to be very certain it wouldn't lead back to you--but corporations are like oozes; they flinch from the sunlight.

Crow is correct that the company's internal complaints line won't get you anywhere; that's mainly there for show. But the kind of working environment you're describing is emotionally corrosive, and that can become an issue of public concern. Depending on the size of your community, this may be too small-scale to catch their interest; but if it does, even the hint of media exposure--a call or two from a reporter about the Chicken Shaming--might just make a difference.

[Gwynfrid]

Obviously, that's a totally crappy management style. If that person hopes to get better stats from that kind of game, then they're going to be disappointed. As others have pointed out, the damage is to the company at large, not just the employees. I also agree with those who recommend having someone else reach out to management, not yourself. It's very plausible that a customer would find the thing offensive (I surely would, if I shopped there) and complain (I might, depending on my mood).

By the way, I recommend you make sure you don't post any info that might lead to your identification (such as the name of the store). Chances that your anonymity gets busted are remote, but that's not unheard of.

[Slipperychicken]

I bet your manager wouldn't freak out so much if he was controlling for seasonal variation in complaint numbers (i.e. Looking at numbers for previous summers). Or if someone was categorizing them by content, and only counting against you complaints attributable to employee behavior.

Maybe his bonuses or promotions are dependent on keeping complaint numbers down, so he resorts to bullying and shouting at employees because he doesn't understand how to deal with these problems.

Do you have a number for HR? Those guys might be able to help.

[Serpentine]

I'd like to say that I think "they probably won't do anything" is a terrible reason to no use the complaint mechanisms already available or to contact the higher-ups yourself. I see this attitude all the time, and I find it incredibly defeatist and pointless. There's no point saying "pfft, they'll never help" if you haven't given them the opportunity to do so. If you contact them, explain the problem, and they do nothing, then you can bitch about how useless they are to your heart's content. But if you don't tell them there's a problem, then they can't even decide to not do anything about it because they won't know it exists.
So go ahead, compile your case and send it to HR and/or the higher-ups. You can even get a customer to do it as well, no reason why not. Especially if you can get a whole bunch of them to send complaints to the district manager about their stupid chicken. If they don't do anything then, then you can have a look at your next lot of options.

[Jane_Smith]

Well - I got a hold to the regional manager. Told him the issue, he said he would look into it, apologized, etc.

Went to work and got pulled in the back by the store manager - he told me to "keep what goes on here here, and what goes on outside, outside." I am also going to guess that was a indirect threat on his part. So that was completely pointless effort to call the company for help.

[Stardrake]

That's pretty much what I was afraid of when I read the suggestion to use official channels. The effectiveness of official channels tends to be roughly proportional to how much the company values their employees, and a till operator at a supermarket is pretty close to the lowest of the low. Half the time, if the location isn't doing as well as they'd like, they're actively looking for ways to make life hard for their employees because it's a method of downsizing where they don't have to give as many benefits to people who leave 'voluntarily'.

Meanwhile, once your name is on an official complaint, then there's more risk of less official channels (like getting a 'customer' to complain on your behalf) being traced back to you.

Yes, this may be being cynical - but my cynicism is the result of observations and personal experiences. This includes a number of cases where I have tried to give someone the benefit of the doubt on something (which is what actually comes more naturally to me) and they've used that benefit of the doubt to turn around and screw me over.

[Crow]

Went to work and got pulled in the back by the store manager - he told me to "keep what goes on here here, and what goes on outside, outside." I am also going to guess that was a indirect threat on his part. So that was completely pointless effort to call the company for help.

Then your next step is to report this conversation to his higher-ups. If this is in regard to workplace humiliation (which it is), then he is creating what is called a "chilled environment", and that is illegal.

Yes, this may be being cynical - but my cynicism is the result of observations and personal experiences. This includes a number of cases where I have tried to give someone the benefit of the doubt on something (which is what actually comes more naturally to me) and they've used that benefit of the doubt to turn around and screw me over.

We should form a club.

[The Glyphstone]

And keep a record. Another site I frequent calls it the '3 D's - Document, Document, Document', and rather than repost, I'll just link to it.
http://www.retailhellunderground.com...ds-of-rhu.html

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jane_Smith
Went to work and got pulled in the back by the store manager - he told me to "keep what goes on here here, and what goes on outside, outside." I am also going to guess that was a indirect threat on his part.

Nothing indirect about it--this is a direct threat from a bully who knows he's doing something wrong. I'm willing to bet there are entire pages of company policy which specifically prohibit this kind of behavior.

You need to call the regional manager right back, right now, and report your manager's threatening behavior in as much detail as you can recall. If the regional manager actually apologized to you on your first call, then you may have an ally there--but you need to make sure he knows about your manager's threats of retaliation.

Originally Posted by Serpentine
I'd like to say that I think "they probably won't do anything" is a terrible reason to no use the complaint mechanisms already available or to contact the higher-ups yourself.

Except that as we've seen, this has just made the OP the number-one target in her store.

For the most part I'm with Stardrake and Crow, having dealt with a variety of corporations, NGOs, and petty power structures in general. Small people gravitate to positions where they can feel slightly less small by humiliating the people they view as beneath them, which is exactly what's going on here.

Originally Posted by Stardrake
…a till operator at a supermarket is pretty close to the lowest of the low.

Dollar store, so not even a supermarket.

And the fact is, many grocery stores are far more sensitive to both customer and employee concerns than most other operations. Competition among grocery stores is intense, and I've never seen them use the kind of behavior that Jane_Smith describes.

In fact, I can't recall seeing that anywhere. No company in their right mind wants to advertise that their employees are substandard--it's utterly destructive of the company image.



--Which is why, to Jane_Smith, I'll emphasize that your manager is an idiot and a bully. You need to get back on the line with the regional manager--or better yet, make an appointment to see him in person. Regional managers are supposed to circulate, and while I wouldn't put off the phone call, it may be worth it to follow up with a face-to-face conversation. You have the right to a better working environment than the one your store manager has created.

[Serpentine]

Except that as we've seen, this has just made the OP the number-one target in her store.

And now we have actual evidence that there is in-house hostility to employee feedback rather than baseless paranoid accusations, and Jane_Smith has an extra shaft in her quiver of evidence for corporate wrongdoing. Sucks for her (and I should have thought to suggest that she make the complaint anonymously), but she's building her case, and there's still the option of having other people complain about it. Makes it more likely (if certainly far from a sure thing) that something will actually change - nothing will change if no one says anything, guaranteed.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Please don't ask for our give legal advice here, not even by PM.