What was once the main course is now taken off the menu.

The biggest obligation for a journalist is to provide the truth to the readers. To deliver an unbiased opinion to the public. These people can literally control the world through information; people rely on the news a window to the world around them. Why is it then that journalist would switch the location of the room for their own gain?

The wrong kind of battle.

Certainly, it's a horrible idea to demean and threaten your workers. At least, in such a noticeable, ill-meaning way that makes things uncomfortable. It was today that I found out just how far the separation was between the foot soldiers of Bergners and the generals. Oh, also the intelligence of my bosses as well.

Tim walked up to me with displeasure painted all over his face. For anyone else, it would be normal to have that happen, but he was a man of permanent happiness. He usually bounces around the store, spouting encouragement and such with helpful tips that every manager is suppose to state. But he does so with a kind of excitement that he is genuinely happy working here.

So for him to drop by my area with a face unlike the usual means something was up. And the way he stared at me meant he wasn't going to give me a positive term.

“Ryan,” he told me, “have you gotten any credits lately?”.

Credits/credit card sign up's are most important thing at this store. In most retail shops, they have something that keeps their customer coming back to them. Bergners has a credit card of sorts. But there are issues with that system, which I will detail in a second.
I replied that I haven't. I'm not sure why I even was asked that since he already knew.

“Well, you see....we are going to start cutting the hours of those with lower credits than the others...”

Oh! A threat! This is bad management right here, since what he did at that moment was basically take a swing. Someone needs a lesson in management!

Good management is when you sit down with your workers and tell them what has been going on, and see why there is an issue. Together, with team work, you figure it out and if later, more drastic measures are to be taken, then such can be performed.

They skipped that part, and decided to do bad management.

That is when you make your workers the enemy and treat them like cattle. If you are going to do that, do it like good management does and veil it with “assistance”. I didn't respond to this. I just kinda titled my head during his awkward explanation. When he left to tell the other departments about this new “policy”, I discussed with my coworker how much bullshit this is.

You see, getting a customer to sign a credit card is flawed by two things in our system:

1.Most customers already contain a Bergners card. In one week, I've maybe seen 3 people pay with something not the store credit card. And since these suckers don't expire (at least, not for a while), no one already containing one has no reason to sign up again.
2.There just isn't enough incentive to get one. Sure, you get a 10% off on the day you sign up (on select items, mind you), but what else? It doesn't help those that don't want to deal with the high interest rate this card radiates. It doesn't really help those in hard times because they have to pay it off eventually, and fashionable clothing just isn't a necessity in comparison to things like food.

The bigwigs at the corporate offices could easily correct those problems, but that would cost money. So, they attack the middlemen. The higher middlemen, the managers, threaten the smaller ones in return. And things like this could be avoided by simply having a sit down with everyone and figuring things out. But who wants convince?

So, I thank you Bergners'. Now I shall find a job twice as fast. No point in working where the employees aren't even liked.

{Note: Wrote this yesterday, posted today. Forgot to put that in here.}

Murder, Inc

I find human reaction to murders and death hilarious. A murder happened nearby my friends house, and the reception to the event was standard status quota: gossip, worry, and in some cases, move out.

They taped off the area, and placed 4 cop cars blocking off the street, with maybe double the cops. It took them 6 hours to properly scan the area for clues as to what happened. When I drove by twice, the cops were sitting in there cars, not really doing much of anything. They didn't tell anyone besides the immediate left and right houses of the murder happening anything, so the rest of the neighbors not but 2-4 hours away (read:my friends house) had a clue of what's going on.

Let's paint it like this: a murder just happened, and they can't find the guy who did it. The police decided to not share the information that an armed murderer could still be in the area with the people around.

The neighborhood reaction was much more idiotic than the cops. Humans are curious creatures, and that's not inherently a bad thing. It's what is done with that curiosity that makes it terrible.

People watched from the sidelines, which you can't fault since it's murder. You probably should be aware of your surroundings. But they stood out there for got knows how long. And then the gossip began.

I don't know what was said, but it's obvious it wasn't something to make anyone stay. One of the neighbors talked about now moving out because she didn't feel safe even going outside anymore.

Listen, lady. Unless you are holding pounds and pounds of crack, you aren't going to have your door busted down by some maniac looking for it. The reason the guy got killed was because had drugs. Just last week he'd been drug busted.

More to the point of everything: murders and deaths happen all the time without people knowing. Murders happen in every neighborhood, and everyone has a bad seed. Just be thankful you got one that they kill for illegal means like drugs. If they really gave a shit, they would have killed you by now. It's over drugs, not a break in and robbery. Just. Drugs.

{Doesn't matter too much, the boys house is only going on for 2 more weeks.}