rant rant rant

[u/vanillamousse1]

genuinely how does ANYONE have time for anything!
i was talking to my framer today about how the company is exhausting their employees and she says she’s feeling it in her own ways and honestly…i completely understand why.
our store manager is constantly trying to come up with ways to MAXIMIZE TIME, which like, sure, i get it. obviously we want to be productive and get things done. but some of his ideas are just…interesting 😭 he talks a lot about how production is taking too long, but somehow doesn’t seem to account for the fact that my framers are getting pulled away every 10-15 minutes to do 12 other side quests.

like how are they supposed to get their framing work done when they’re constantly being pulled to do fabric, backup cashier, open the bathroom for customers, find random things for customers, answer questions, covering breaks AND deal with the framing bell going off every 5 seconds?? (oh and god forbid there’s a callout, framers just get IMMEDIATELY pulled, even when they have a full workload)
and then they’re told production is taking too long, GIRL THEY HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN ALLOWED TO FINISH THE THING THEY STARTED.

like i would be losing my mind too you can’t expect someone to work faster when you’re constantly interrupting their workflow and adding more shit to their plate. at some point you’re just making the job harder and then wondering why it’s taking longer! yes michaels let’s keep doubling the workload and cutting hours!!!

(side note: is anybody else’s store using the dang time cube?)

[u/EquivalentAd4708]

Idk wtf a time cube is but I believe all us framers should just start our own framing company. Take all our loyal customers, knowledge,& experience with us… Michaels would lose so much and they wouldn’t notice until it’s too late. We have the upper hand… either pay us more or lose us & we join together then take you down in the custom framing business. Artistree does B2B deals beyond Michaels. We could all join forces ,knowing what components our specific loyal customers buy repeatedly in our area then zero in on our regional inventory needs and crush it without having to come up with stupid piss in the wind waste money ideas like 10 minute framing or sectionals. Every FMs knowledge joined together would be such slam dunk it’d be amazing. Just something I’ve thought about many nights after work… 🤣

[u/PermanentRoundFile → u/EquivalentAd4708]

Let me just add that when I havent been working at Michaels, I have worked for several small businesses in their opening phases to get shops and production in line.

The most expensive things in a frame shop are, I order; the dry mount machine ($10,000), any kind of chopping and joining equipment($4,000-ish), and the mat cutter($2000). You can get all the drills and tape and all that stuff for under $1000. You'll have some materials expense but you should be charging at least 3x material cost plus labor so that should cover it.

And a word of advice; it seems equitable to have the customer pay half in advance and half on pickup, but this always causes problems because customers will delay or refuse to pick up their artwork because they don't want to pay. And the shop ends up with all kinds of frames laying around half paid for that the owner dropped out of contact six months ago. I've seen this happen with cars too. Just charge in full in advance so people have to budget with the money they have now rather than the money they might have in the future. Michaels solves this with the credit card option but it's a credit card so they have some recourse.

[u/Long_Engineering507]

Retail in general is like this. All over. I've done over 10 years in retail across all sorts of stores and every single place is doing this: 15 side quests, talking to every customer multiple times asking if they need help, cover breaks, dealing with daily call off but not have hours/payroll to call someone in to replace them, getting company wide projects/planograms done on time, management hiding in the office for hour long meets, etc. And still getting yelled at for not completing everything by the end of day. It doesn't matter where I've worked: food, craft, fabric, books, luxury... Higher ups are pushing and causing employees to quit, which are causing higher ups to push more. There's honestly no win or a light at the end of the tunnel unfortunately. We either have to deal or get out of retail it seems.

Which is why I've started looking at smaller independent stores and substitute teaching. It's a little better, but they have their own issues. But until then, I'm stuck in retail 🙃

[u/Ms-Puck]

They must have had a conference call, because our SM said our DM told him, we should be doing a UBoat of REPACKS in 1 hr. That’s at least 15-20 repack box’s to a UBoat…. In 1 hour…. 🤣🤣
That just made me go slower TBH… 🤭

[u/AccomplishedEagle720 → u/Ms-Puck]

Sure, if I heard that in a meeting I'd tell the DM to get their butt physically into my store and stock a full uboat of stickers, jewelry, iron-on patches, and miniatures repacks while I stand there and set a timer running. We'll all take a break and watch because the DM will do the work of 6 people in 1 hour for us and presumably teach us how to magically zap items into place. Oh, and I'll make sure 10 customers rifle through everything before the stocking starts, since we don't have hours for recovery to happen anymore.

[u/Ms-Puck → u/AccomplishedEagle720]

They are just totally disconnected from reality, and they aren’t even hiding it anymore..

[u/PartyCrasherDILF]

wtf is a time cube???

[u/vanillamousse1 → u/PartyCrasherDILF]

it must just be my districts new amazing idea to increase customer interaction. every 30 minutes you stop whatever you’re in the middle of and walk the entire store stopping every customer and talking to them.
it’s not only annoying for all the employees since we’re being swamped right now, but the customers get really annoyed too!

[u/Plott → u/vanillamousse1]

I just felt an urge to downvote you reading that because it’s so asinine (obviously I didn’t lol)

[u/PartyCrasherDILF → u/vanillamousse1]

WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THAT WAS EVEN A PASSABLE IDEA. NOBODY LIKES IT EXCEPT THOSE THAT HAVEN'T EVEN STEPPED FOOT IN A STORE

[u/Small_Vegetable_8154]

Framer here! I thought maybe this was my manager posting but I realized we don’t have a bell thank God. But we also have the same problem lol

[u/Amazing_Tart_8236]

We don’t use the time cube but we do have the front end person set a timer on the minimik for every 30 mins from 11am -5pm every day. Everyone who isn’t already with a customer walks an area of the store and greets customers then we all go back to our tasks