FamilyDollar – J. Palmer

More Smart-@$$ed Replies

Continuing my series of formerly work related memes:

If you’ve frequented any of the “dollar stores” I’m sure that you’ve noticed that they’re regularly understaffed–sadly, it is by design–and as such, see their fair share of shoplifting. I cannot remember what exactly had been discussed in the group chat, but I would imagine it had something to do with one of us attempting to thwart a shoplifter, or having made the discovery of any number of empty packages on a shelf somewhere.

At one point in my career with the company, I found myself in an awful location where I could not keep any help, nor find any help worthy of hiring. Prior to moving into that store, I had been promised the help and support of my fellow managers and their crews, as that store in particular was known to be one of the more difficult ones in the district to run, and was the district’s top grossing store.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find myself receiving much assistance. It was actually this store that started to turn me a bit bitter toward the rest of our district’s management team, and gave me the inspiration to start start sending memes to the group, as I had grown very tired of the regular, proper and professional memo or message, updating everyone to my needs and status.

I was told by a couple of managers that they actually liked the image above and the one below, and that they felt sympathy for my struggles. 🙄

I did manage to keep myself more-or-less in check, however, as I know I never sent this one–though I was tempted:

Not Always the Smart-@$$

I wasn’t always a smart-aleck in the work group-chat, though I’m sure I’ve given that impression by now. No, I was actually quite helpful, and was called upon by many for ideas or information, believe it or not. See, other than being a hard-worker, I have this desire to know about my job in as much detail as I can possibly find–which means that I will spend quite a bit of time reading through every policy and procedural manual, look at every possible internal and external publication, and look as far ahead and far back in any series of memos, emails, etc. I want to know my job–even if it isn’t something that really interests me. I also want to share any knowledge I gain with my peers, as I believe that if we all know our functions better, the more productive we can be.

Anyway, I have a large number of images that were created just to assist my fellow managers:

In October of 2018 we were given direction to bring out all of our previous years’ Christmas leftovers and set them out for clearance.

In June of 2018 we had a fairly large clearance event, as well as an attempt to drive sales of our seasonal merchandise hard.

October 2018’s Halloween merchandise.

A push for hiring just before the holidays–plus I had just transitioned into this lazy store and drove a few people out.

2018 Holiday merchandising.

Smart-@$$ed Replies

In the previous post, I said that I would frequently share different images with my peers pertaining to the job in some fashion or another–usually to try and release some tension, emotions, or just to try and be a bit comical. Sometimes, what I would send would simply be a reply to something that our district manager had said about the business–more often than not, that reply would be reflective of myself being a bit of a smart-aleck.

I cannot remember what I would’ve sent this as a reply to, but given the date I have for the image–December 18, 2018–I would guess that it has something to do with the shopping season, or the delay of store deliveries.

Obviously, this would have been in response to my agreement with whatever had been said in the group; no clue as to what I would have been replying to.

I’m fairly certain that I sent this in response to a reminder or announcement of a follow-up conference call.

And I think I’ll wrap up this post with this image. The story on this one is I wanted to express what I felt my district manager felt of me and my varied responses and comment in our group chat–Hank Hill’s favorite thing to say in response to his son’s odd behavior’s came to mind. To make things seem more fitting, I attempted to color Hank’s hair grey, and have Hank’s shirt colored and patterned like that of one our DM would wear. I doubt anyone really appreciated it, but I thought it was funny.

Momo

If you haven’t figured out by looking at some of my older posts or looking me up on social media, I was once employed with Family Dollar–I was a manager, too, and a pretty good one, at that if you can believe it. Okay, maybe I was just a dependable, hard worker that kept a very good eye on my assets and did my best to be fair with my subordinates and customers. Being a store manager–meh; but if you’ve ever tried to control one of those dumpster-fires, you know.

(Seriously, it’s a terrible job. And for some stupid reason, in hindsight, I’ll say I loved it and that I wouldn’t mind going back for more–if I could get the pay I had when I left the company!)

Anyway, despite company policies against group messaging at the time, our district managers found keeping a group-text to be helpful and mostly productive. Unfortunately, I as well as a few others, found it to be a great way to blow off steam and joke around with our peers. As such, I frequently made little meme-influenced images and either sent them to the district or to a select few managers. I cannot remember if this image was sent to the group or the couple of managers I considered friends. I don’t think there was any inspiration other than the whole “momo” thing.

According to the file info, I would have created this image on March 9, 2019, about 15 minutes after opening my store.