retailworker13

[retailworker13]

AITA for writing this letter to a manager to explain everything instead of trying to get past my anxiety to explain all of this with actual words?

I apologize so much as this letter is very long but addresses all the points I was told was going to be "discussed" with me by someone at work.

A little bit of background, there is a specific coworker at my job that everyone seems to have a problem with, for a multitude of reasons (including many managers and quite a few customers). We all do our best to be nice when she's working with us, but she never stops complaining about anything, and we do try to help her out with certain things. It's gotten to the point she can't work very much because of the complaints she's gotten from other coworkers and customers. After I got off of work 5/26, what I understood was she spent the rest of her shift complaining about me, and whatever I did to a manager who (after a lovely restructure), went from supervisor to manager because the positions combined. Totally fine, we all went through the restructure just fine and have been doing okay since. The virus has screwed a lot up for this but we are all working through it.

I really want to hear honest stuff because I do get really bad anxiety in situations where I get messages like "So and so is going to talk to you today because A,B,C." I actually clocked in late today (5/27) because the manager was apparently waiting for me to go into the break room to get ready like I normally do. I clocked in only 5 minutes late after talking to the store manager and my coworker who had initially texted me. The manager was clocked out the same time I clocked in, and was there 15 minutes after they had clocked, because they wanted to talk to me about everything. I may act all big and tough when discussing how irritating this is for me, but when it actually happens I get pretty anxious and a lot of times start to get sick from nerves as well. Because writing is the only way I can communicate effectively and as clear as possible, I wrote a letter that I will be giving to my store manager first before giving it to the other manager for the sole purpose to protect myself from whatever they have to say. I don't think I should have to explain myself since I am no longer in the middle of a high school drama, but in this case I need to because of how this specific coworker is. For privacy I have blocked out all names, of course, including my company. So...here goes...

Letter:

Okay, I’m typing everything up because I have pretty high anxiety when it comes to stuff like this. I was spoken to by Store Manager yesterday (5/27) about “drama” that happened between Coworker and I on 5/26. However, I was completely unsure of what exactly took place yesterday as she didn’t seem to have any issues with me at all. I do know that she didn’t call me up for assistance, or even up to cover her breaks, which slipped my mind as I was busy working on orders in the back.

She has a habit of clocking for breaks and continuing to work, and I thought maybe that’s what she had done because I was in the back working on orders and I wasn’t going to argue with her about doing so as it has been a small issue in the past. If at any time she needed help, she never got on the radio to ask for it. She was working on designing graduation posters and banners for some reason, since the graduation season is well almost over. I understand there may be some stragglers and that’s okay, but we already have designs and do not need new ones.

To reiterate, I was unaware that Coworker had any issue with me since she never spoke up about it. I try to let her know as much as possible the jobs at hand that we need to work on, but she brushes it off and goes to do her own thing. Yes, this severely gets under my skin as when she is around, I’m working on every order I can to make sure that the next shift doesn’t have much to work on, or doesn’t have to worry about the order besides a quality check and call.

She spent her break and lunch on the back computer designing things, which really got to me since I did have quite a few customers at a time, and she was in plain view of them. Store Manager has told her repeatedly to take her break in the back and it wasn’t an issue again until now. I didn’t speak up about it though expect to Store Manager. Again, there was no reason to sit in the back where she was visible to waiting customers. I didn’t have people outright ask or tell me about her, but it was pretty obvious that they weren’t happy.

Again, if she had any issue with me specifically, or complained the rest of the night about me, then why didn’t she say anything when I was there? Why did she wait until after I left to talk about whatever I did to her that day? Yes, there are times I can get annoyed with her, but it’s when she does stuff like all of the above. I had to redo an order that could have been easily done the first time had it been printed properly or even quality checked. And as it turns out, this order was one that she had told the customer we couldn’t do because of the quantity, didn’t even give the option of splitting the order like the other store did, who turned around and split it with us anyways.

Before I go any further as to what was discussed with me today, I just want to say that I am just listing things off as I experienced them and how I see them. I went through similar issues at my other store, and some issues that were pretty worse than all of this.

I follow policy as best as I can, and if I don’t, then normally it’s hopefully a small thing that just slips my mind, which include a changed price, or a slight misquote. However, there are certain things I pretty much stick to the script on. Which includes copyright and all corporate files. I do not go through and delete files unless they’re my own, and I don’t appreciate being blamed for it.

I will admit to throwing the price books away. It has been made clear by corporate that our online receipt numbers need to be up and if taking away the SKUs in the book means we can do that then so be it. There are also SKUs in the book she continually prints that we do not have any more. They took out our flat design prices because those are Affinity only, not us. We are $1.25 per minute, $0.59 per action, and $19.99 base fee. Nothing else. All of those other prices get sent out for a reason and we need to keep it at that. If corporate took that stuff away, then there’s a reason and we need to listen to it.

We have been lenient on school files because of everything that is happening. But I’m still abiding by our copyright policies with College logos, names and mascots as that’s on the list of stuff we cannot print. I do not “pick and choose” what and what not to print, I check nearly every file for Copyright and if it has it then I either have them sign the release form if it’s not outright Disney or Nickelodeon or something of that nature. However, there is one single exception that I make that it is his personal artwork and if you’d like me to have him sign a release form every time that he comes in then so be it. It’s for his business.

Now, if we are on the subject of picking and choosing, then I’m not the only person in the department who does it. And if you are able to pick and choose who we do and don’t give a copyright violation to then we don’t either. Also, there are multiple orders that have still yet to be paid for that have been there for months, that it is obvious that they aren’t going to come pay for. I am just trying to get an understanding as to how I am the only person in the department who has any issue since I’m not the one who took those $300-600 orders (banners, invoices, etc.).

As a department, we normally function pretty well until we have an issue with an order. Especially the ones like Special Customer 1 or Special Customer 2, or any of the orders that you personally take care of. However, we get issues when we don’t know how to do the order, or we are charging them what we are supposed to be because they’ve “never been charged that” or “they don’t pay that”, when we should be charging them for designing or parts of their order. Again, I’m speaking in terms of what I’ve experienced and what the department has had to go through after the restructuring.

Since you are technically not in the department (as much as you were as supervisor), it makes it hard when we have orders like this because we are following what we were trained to do, and we are getting the short end of the stick for this. We as a department aren’t at fault for this and I’m not saying you are either so please don’t take it that way, but it does make it a lot harder on the rest of us when you take a week-long vacation and we get yelled at over the phone because we are only supposed to have files on our systems for 2 weeks and emails for 30 days and it’s not our responsibility to hold them.

I don’t pick and choose what to do or not to do, I keep everything as uniformed as possible when it comes to turn around times, jobs that we do, jobs that we don’t do, the express fee, copyright, pricing. Everything is as crystal clear as I can make it. If someone else doesn’t like it, but it’s the best I can do and I can’t recommend anything else, then that’s all I got but I did everything the way I was supposed to do it. No one uses the express fee (and sometimes I’m guilty of it too, but I always try to get as much done with the job as I can) and there are a lot of jobs that absolutely have to have it, because we have to put their job in front of everyone else’s to get it done even though everyone else has to (and is normally okay with) a realistic turn-around time.

I don’t just take in a job, leave no notes or information and expect someone to get it done for me. I put as many notes as possible about it, or as many notes that are needed, and I try my best to get the order started. I fill out the project folder as needed, and I keep the notes clear and understandable for everyone. I don’t mean for any of my notes to come off as passive aggressive, and I can print you every single note I have not handwritten. Everything is spelled out as clear as I can make it, and it does get under my skin when they go ignored, or even trashed/shredded before anyone else can see them. If it addressed to someone specific, then it will go to that someone specific (unless of course it’s a question or a request in case anyone else knows the answer).

I am as nice and kind to customers and associates alike to avoid getting complaints or having any issues at all, and if I have a problem, yes, I vent about it as I did in this letter. But it is at the point in time where it’s getting old, and I’m done trying to fight to stick to what corporate’s given us and what we are supposed to be doing that I don’t care who has a problem with me, or even if I work in the print department at all. If there are so many issues with me following what corporate is telling us for that department then have me moved to the floor. I don’t want to be in a department where I’m trying to do the right thing and follow the rules, guidelines, policies, and training that has been giving to me, explained to me, or that I’ve been through. It’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing in the department, I’ve worked there long enough, and I have experienced enough to know at least how to conduct myself when speaking to customers, and I know almost everything I need to know about the department to effectively work there. There is a minimal list of things I don’t know how to do, but all things considered, I don’t deal with specific services that we provide all that often. But it’s not like it’s something we need to memorize like we do with everything else. Corporate has given us everything we need, and I’m not going to apologize for following what they’ve provided in terms of rules and policies. But if I’m one of the few in the department that actually do this, then I’m not the one that needs to be spoken to about all of this.

I’m not going to sit back and go through “drama” that can easily be fixed by just following corporate guidelines. I don’t care if “having a SKU book is okay” because it’s not. Corporate took the SKUs away to get our online receipt numbers up and our register keys down, but we have the ENTIRE price book of what we do in stores now on the register. If we can’t make an online receipt, then we have the register. I’m not in the wrong about this. There are more productive ways to spend time then to go through and deliberately put something back into a file that Corporate left out on purpose. And I’m not sorry for feeling that way but I’m not the only person who has a problem with it, I’m just the one who’s the most outspoken about it and I’m not afraid to shred the books I find because no one else needs them. Even the cashiers know how to find the book, or we could just make it easier on them and give them an online receipt since they are more than capable of doing that too.

If I’m going to be targeted for doing what I’ve been trained to do and work how I’ve been taught to work, then maybe I need to rethink my position and find a better one. Or we could just do our jobs the right way the first time how we are trained to do it, and have no issues, and we would all be fine. If not, then I need to rethink my decision to work either in this department, or at this company all together.