AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

He and his sock puppet ican think that copying and pasting is a witticism.

But you have said that you work in a store - someone else's business.

What does and doesn't interest you is, of course, your own affair.

However, it doesn't appear to me that you know nearly as much about businesses, including start ups, as you assert.

You are fond of throwing the word "bully" out there.
It seems like anyone that you dont like or has any type of management or supervisory position is a "bully".

Did it ever occur to you that people might become managers because they are good at what they do, or because they have the education or experience to do the job?

And if retail is " just about the bottom of the employment pile", why is it that so many people make a good living doing it?
More important, why are you doing it?

It does not take education to become a manager.

No one makes a good living at it. The last time anyone could support a family as a clerk was in 1978.

Do you enjoy displaying your general lack of familiarity with the real world?

mm, I agree; it doesn't matter what anybody does to make their income - as long as it's honest work for pay. Being a supervisor shows growth in the individual's work life, and that is to be commended.

Look, john, consider some mistakes managers make:

1.) Rather than post a calendar with large blocks on which people write their names when they want the day off, the manager accepts little pieces of paper on which employees write notes. Make a suggestion to her about a different way to keep records? When any suggestion of that kind is made, she punishes the employee.

2.) Finding ways to make employees cry.

3.) Deduct 4 cents from the annual 25-cent raise because an employee once wore leggings to work . . . which were not specified in the dress code . . . and included a note that the person "sometimes comes in dressed inappropriately."

4.) Criticize an employee for being a size 6 when that same manager gained 50 pounds in the three years she held that position.

There have been jobs I loved. I worked at a public radio station as a long-term temp. I was the assistant editor of a weekly paper. Both were great jobs. Neither paid well but the working conditions were terrific. Furthermore, I was doing something I loved and something for which I have a talent and in which I have an interest.

I worked at a small gift shop that specialized in hand made pottery. I loved that and am still friends with the owner, my former boss (I moved 100 miles).

I like my current teaching job because it involves doing something worthwhile for which I have a talent. However, I did not like teaching at either the junior high school or high school level. Many of the principals were incompetent, as were many department chairs. If you are going to answer that by saying there needs to be merit pay, please refrain. Merit pay is a bad idea.

Which brings me to another point. How many people love their jobs? Damn few. Friends, fellow employees, people that I know casually (like customers at the liquor store) continually complain about their jobs. Once, two friends came into book group complaining about their work. One was a Lutheran minister and the other ran a library at MIT! Both are high status jobs that people ought to enjoy.

Working retail for an independently owned store is better than working for a chain. I selected Williams-Sonoma because I am an excellent cook and baker (that is based on the number of people who have asked me to cater parties for them and my reputation and not on some self-assessment). I had just finished my second master's degree and thought I would be working in publishing within a year. I took the job because I had been a full-time mother for many years and needed someone to vouch for me as an employee. I also needed money to live on while I looked for work.

There are retail jobs I would never consider, although older women have a rough time in the job market. Clothing stores, retail stores, electronics stores are places I would not consider unless my back was against the wall. I have limited my retail work to venues that I know enough about to honestly sell. Despite my selectivity, retail is difficult, demeaning and physically demanding work.

I have come to the conclusion that working in retail is almost a mark against one in terms of future employment; that employers are turned off by the mention of retail on a resume.

pom, do you realize how outlandish and silly your assertions are? I happen to know a guy that got a degree to become a teacher, but decided to instead become a manager working for a major retail store chain, this after working there to help put himself through school. The managers at the chain liked him so well that they groomed him to go into management, which is what he is now doing, I think just now getting his own store. I know another young guy that manages a Home Depot, after just working there as a general employee starting out, and this young man is doing quite well, thank you. Are these guys bullies? Absolutely not, and it is an insult for you to suggest it. They are managers because they are responsible young men that have worked hard.

I would also like to point out to you that after my Mom was widowed when I was a very young boy, she worked at Woolsworth for many years, which helped support us as a family. We also farmed, my older brother doing most of the work until my mother married my step-dad 6 years later. We might have had bread and gravy for many meals, but we never thought we lacked for anything, pom.

Maybe not to work in a liquor store.
However, just because you choose to work in a liquor store doesnt mean everyone does.
There are many jobs in this world where you must have an education to be a manager.
It might be a college degree, it might be technical knowledge of the job, it might be specialized knowledge of another sort, but that is still education.




Again, just because you arent making a good living off of it doesnt mean nobody is.



I think its more a case of you have insulated yourself from the real world.
You see only what you want to see, you hear only what you want to hear, and anything that challenges your worldview is either bigoted, wrong, or coming from a bully.

You arent happy with what you are doing to support yourself, so in your opinion that means nobody is happy with their job.
You seem to want to insult those that do work in retail, totally ignoring the fact that therre are people that like what they are doing, are good at what they do, AND make a good living doing it.

And your claim that it doesnt take education to be a manager is just plain wrong, and you know it.
Even if you are the manager of a fast food place, you still have to have an education into how to make schedules, OSHA rules, how the different foods are made, how to make the deposits, etc.
It may not be a formal college education, but your claim that you dont have to be educated just insulted and denigrated EVERYONE that holds any type of management position.

BTW, you do realize that the office of the POTUS is as much a management job as a political job.

once upon a time, most retail workers were career workers. They began in the stockroom, but, more likely, on the sales floor and worked their way up. Today, many managers are recent college grads who are willing to do the work. Usually, the few who work their way up are better managers than those who come out of college into retail. Companies make a mistake in hiring degree holders to manage.

So even if they work their way up to manager, arent they being EDUCATED about the job along the way?

Your post is not worth my time. I already discussed managers who rise through the retail ranks v. those with degrees.

mm, the guy I just spoke of in my previous post, that went into management for a major store chain, they groomed him with much training and preparation on his way up into management, before he ever actually started to manage an entire store. I believe he started with management of various departments or functions within a store.

A degree is only a ticket into a job; what counts is performance on the job.

Big chain stores are easier to manage, because they have automated inventory systems. It's more difficult to run a mom and pop store if the owners don't have good skills in inventory control.

I've worked in retail, but at the audit level for Florsheim Shoes. When I worked in the home office, I learned much about administration of store managers and budgets for the retail division. That experience helped me work in management positions for the rest of my working career.

I am only speaking of retail.

However, let's extend the idea of management a bit. Would you consider an "office manager" part of management? I have never known a woman who held such a post who was a college grad. Rather, office managers have always been women who went to work immediately out of high school, either as bank tellers or sales clerks or in the old typing pools, who, eventually became office managers.
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Listen, drop the condescension: "Again, just because you arent making a good living off of it doesnt mean nobody is." I am not you. I do research.

For more than 30 years, I have had conversations with friends, starting with a woman I knew in Detroit whose father had been an elevator operator and whose mother was a housewife. An only child, she had been given piano lessons as a child and was a piano performance major at a private college. Now, no one operates an elevator today but a man who earns at the equivalent level would not be able to buy a house or give his daughter piano lessons. Furthermore, his wife would have to work and he would probably have a second job.

Another friend has remarked several times that her uncle sold shoes . . . he did not own the store. But he went to work every day in a suit and purchased a house for his family while his wife was a homemaker.

Now, according to the census bureau, the last time a retail clerk could support a family was in 1978.

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People talk to me. they always have. I have a large circle of friends. Don't report back to me about conversations you weren't privy to. It is you who lacks objectivity, which is what you said about me.

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Most fast food managers are high school graduates and they should be.

Look, there should be a way for high school graduates to get ahead, to acquire status and make a living. One of those ways is through managing a store or a fast food restaurant. Actually, 60 Minutes did a piece on McDonald's management program many years ago, and the McDonald's focus is on high school graduates who show a flair for management.

No, my "claim" as you put it in your ignorance does not insult people. What insults people is for companies like Macy's or Williams-Sonoma to hire college graduates over people who worked in retail from the age of 16 or 18 and who, at 24 or 25, know how to run a store.

In fact, when I worked at Williams-Sonoma, we had a new manager every 6 to 18 months. It just is not a job people keep. Probably because it is a miserable job. Those store managers often have to put up with power-tripping blowhards who happen to be district managers. There is a great deal of power-tripping in retail.

Every time a manager left, the other hourly employees came to me and asked me to apply for the position. I always made up a polite excuse. Frankly, I think it would be wrong for someone who is highly educated to manage a store and take a job and a potential opportunity away from a high school graduate. It is selfish, unethical, just plain rude.

My first job at 16 was working at a K-Mart. My mother insisted on K-Mart, in part because she misunderstood that working as a waitress was a higher status job. All of the mangers then (1963) were high school graduates and they all looked up to the jewelry department head. Why? Because he went to junior college for a year. Sure, it was nearly 50 years ago, but, retail management does remain a mixed bag and I firmly believe that retail management should be returned to the high school graduate.

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Finally, I think to call the President a manager is wrong. I have little respect for that idea. I prefer the President come from the Senate.

People can not debate if they do not agree on definitions. The word you want to use is trained, not educated. People who work their way up are trained, they are experienced but they are not educated.

No, big chain stores have tightly written, heavily documented rules about how to do everything but how to treat people. Seriously, part of the turn-off for me working at Williams-Sonoma was not just the lack of creativity, it was the direct opposition to creativity.

Working at a place like Talbot's or Macy's or Williams-Sonoma requires an immediate and total mind shut-down.

What makes running a mom-and-pop store more difficult is the immediate responsibility for purchasing, making the decisions about customer demand and what will sell.

Now we are expected to believe that not only are you the poetry teacher of our youth, you are an expert in retail business.

Gosh but you are pathetic.

I wonder who I offended by my post. Small minds. LOL

First, I don't teach poetry. I never claimed expertise in the matter. I teach writing.

Second, I am 63 years old. I have had plenty of time to learn things. I keep an open mind. Besides, retail work is not rocket science. One of my colleagues at the community college said teaching developmental writing is not difficult and a teacher should be able to figure it out in a week.

Third, what has been your score range on standardized tests? High 70s? Mid 80s? If you score in the 70th percentile on all standardized tests, don't you think you would learn things more quickly than someone who consistently scored in the 50th? If you scored in the 80th, wouldn't you outstrip someone who scored in the 70th? Don't you expect yourself to learn with some facility? I expect myself to.

In re: people liking their jobs:

When I was preparing to leave full-time mothering behind, I put a great deal of consideration into what line of work I would pursue. I began by going to a career service. At the introductory lecture (which were open to the public and presented the first Tuesday of every month), the director said that people were leaving their jobs (this had to have been in 1987 +/-) because of discontent. At the time, for every person admitted to the Bar, one left the practice of law. I knew lots of non-practicing lawyers where I lived, so I didn't question that statistic.

She added that while there were no concrete numbers for the medical profession, that it, too, had a high turnover.

More recently, CBS reported that only 45% of AMerican workers like their jobs, which is "the lowest level ever recorded by the Conference Board research group in more than 22 years of studying the issue."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/05/national/main6056611.shtml