Managers in Retail

I just had to share this. The other day at the grocery store, I was in one of the aisles looking at something when over the loudspeaker I heard, in a very loud voice, a manager ordering one of his associates to the very aisle I was in. I looked over a few feet and there was the associate standing there right in the middle of the aisle he was just ordered to report to.

He just looked at me, shrugged and remarked "I hate my boss".

This is not out of the ordinary in retail. I completely sympathized with him. Sometimes when you are in a store and you hear an order barked over the intercom, there is a good chance the person being ordered around is already working on that. Sometimes managers just don't check before they manage.

This has happened to me before as well. I was working in the paint department helping a customer by mixing some paint. I had just left the desk to get the can I needed from the aisle, when over the intercom I hear "customer needs assistance at the paint desk, customer is waiting for assistance at the paint desk". I look back and the person I was helping is the only one there, and they kind of shrank away wondering what that was all about. The manager who paged it was just exiting the door as well, so he didn't even wait to see what happened.

I know it's just them doing their job trying to be sure they cover their butt, however, they can have their own mind sometimes. It can do wonders.