Revelations of Supervisor

For some time ago I worked as a supervisor in a hypermarket of large retail network. In general, in terms of management a hypermarket is a terrible place. It is slow and clumsy Leviathan, which requires an incredible amount of effort, attention and human resources- sections were large, and while you do one thing, in two other places there needed your attendance- and as a result, many tasks or plans are not accomplished, and the work day was over.
In my section my employees were called "stocker"- unlike consultants, our task (in theory) - just put production(stock) on the shelves. In reality we also consulted, though we weren’t obliged to, but mentality of our people expected it from us. Every morning we had to change prices. Depending on luck or promos, the amount of prices that was necessary to change ranged from zero to 10 sheets (on each sheet ~25 pricetag). The complexity of the process is that in order to find product by its description and change the pricetag staff or supervisor is required to know (sometimes by heart) production of the section. By heart? Well, does "crf bwl" or "750gls", “xms 19cm” say anything to you? Any clue what and where to find? :) or one required a good English- not all descriptions were that twisted.

On this you were given hour and half. Of course, often you couldn’t make it in time because there was a shitload of business for supervisor every morning to attend- prepare delivery, make all the office business- check sales, answer mails, view and edit orders, walk around sections and check facing (whether products on shelves are neatly lined) and whether the missing prices were printed- the job would’ve been interesting, if not a couple “buts”. The first one foremost- salary. Supervisor received 200$. That’s ridiculously small wage. You could ask for a raise, but they won’t give it to ya - thing is, if you leave the job, on your place quickly will be found a replacement- it’s pretty hard to find any work in my country, so people catch every opportunity to work, employers- every opportunity to screw as hard as possible. The second downside- all large sections had two supervisors. In general, the whole work was divided between warehouse (it was large, one should know “by heart”), on selling area (where all the show is performing) and office business. Of course throughout the day came a ton of small cases- to plan promo plan with manager, to talk to dissatisfied customers, print delivery sheets because delivery service forgot to and now they desperately need them (or else, production won’t leave the warehouse) and etc etc. The most time was taking “examination”- to make sure, that assigned task was done and done properly. The problem is, that in my section I was only one supervisor. And very often I lacked time for everywhere to attend; they didn’t want to add second supervisor.
By nature, I am a liberal person- if there is a caricature image of the bossy supervisor which constantly controls what and how things were to be done, I tried to be liberal leader- often worked together with staff “in the field”, no total of control, didn’t severely punished staff for mistakes. Perhaps this mistake, but this was my first job experience, especially on managerial post.
We often had to work nightshifts- do you like the beautiful stands with the variety of products, that suddenly pop up next morning? It's all done through night, often several sections at the same time- all around is chaos, confusion, cardboard garbage- and all that customer sees the next day is a beautiful and neat layout of new production.
The worst thing I hated around was bureaucracy- lots of internal-sage “papers” that nobody knew exactly what they needed for, but you won’t do anything without them. For instance, there was 5 differnet forms that supervisor had to prepare and put at warehouse security board, that nobody ever read, everytime it was thrown away and replaced with new one- but just dare to forget to put a new one…And let’s not forget about superiors, that think they knew everything. The most irritating thing about this job in general was this situation- manager tells me to do “this” way- stockers do it. Then comes Department head and says- you know, it’s ugly, remake it and add this production- ok, done (hour later). Next comes General manager and…he says that this production has nothing to do in this place, remove and put somewhere else. 3 persons, 3 executions, result- zero. And 3 hours wasted :)

Hypermarket is a clumsy beast in terms of strategic management. If you planned a whole chain of actions on next day, be sure, smth would go wrong. Once we had a promo to assemble, and guess what? We didn’t receive production. Like, at all. The truck full of stuff stuck on border (it was imported production). What did we do? “Improvise”- replied manager.
Supervising gave me understanding of state governing- when people around me say, that it’s president’s fault or it’s some minister’s fault- no, it’s a whole set of problem, starting with lack of knowledge or experience, ending with desire and resources. The difference is just in scale. Staff often don’t care how product is placed, whether the shelf is dusty, whether the prices are correct. Add to this a patriarchal thinking- when employee doesn’t want to take responsibility to do any action, instead, he constantly asks for your permission or approval. And that’s understandable- would you, if your salary was $200? Important lesson, that I received there was this: be nervous (or rather, involved) about your job on as much, as you are paid. Simple formula, but nevertheless I needed some time to get it (not be aware, but to get it).