Creative Writing: The Case Of The Broken Hutch Essay, Research Paper
Creative Writing: The Case of the Broken Hutch
I would like to write a story about a conflict I had with a past boss.
It had to deal with the fact that he did not want to hear my side of the story,
and listen totally to the customer. This has affected my life and the way I
work with my co-workers to this present date.I work at a home rental store,
we rent furniture, electronics, household appliances, and computers. We rent
practically anything that you can put in your house. We are the largest rent to
own company in the United States and in the United Kingdom. We currently have
over 1,100 stores and we have about 30,000 employees. I starte’d to work for the
company because I was going to junior college and needed a job to pay the bills.
At the time I was hired I lived with my parents and had car payments and credit
card payments. So I needed enough money to pay for the car and the cards. Also
in about a year I would be moving out into an apartment of my own, and I also
would be started to attend Sacramento State. I pay for my own schooling either
out of my pocket or by getting student loans.
When I first started working for this company they were short handed and
all the employees at the store I started at were new to each other. That is
they had worked for the company at other stores but had not worked together. I
was hired when the manager went to his yearly manager meeting in Reno.
When I was hired I was hired on as a delivery driver. The delivery driver is
responsible for all of the deliveries and pick-ups of store merchandise. The
only training that I received were two videos. One video was on “Smith’s Safe
Driving Techniques”, and the other was “In-Home Deliveries and In-Store
Deliveries”. Through working with the company I learned many new things. We
got the newest and latest electronic equipment and computers, so I had to stay
on top of technology. All of this training I did by myself, no one helped me
out and no one looked over my shoulder. I have always been able to grasp new
concepts and run with them, so learning new items were fun and interesting.
Also through working with the company I learned that they had a big turn-over
ratio of employees. Employees were either get tired of working a 50 hour work
week, or they would have no chance for advancement. When I first was hired
there was no Market Manager of our area, so any comment that could not be
answered by our manager, we could not get from the next higher person.
About 6 months after I started to work we finally got a Market Manager
from Chicago. His name was Bob, he was a short, stocky build, Italian with an
attitude that he was the best. All the stores in the area went through
introducing periods, were he would come into the stores and introduce himself
and see where all the stores were performing.Bob had his position for about 6
months after he had moved to Sacramento. Like all other companies ours went
through a down-sizing. One of the first things that the company did were to
change our seven markets down to six markets, that meant that one of the market
managers had to lose there job. So the one that just received his job had to
give up his job, that was Bob.The same time that this down-sizing was
happening, they had just opened up a new store in the Sacramento area, and our
manager was the one to open it up. So instead of firing Bob they gave him the
management of my store. Since they had moved him over here and did not give him
much time on the job, they let him keeps the salary of a market manager.
The hardest thing in accepting Bob was that he was our market manager,
and now we have to accept him as our manager. Even though we try not to hate
our bosses, we tend not to like them that much and that works double for an even
higher boss. It is not that Bob was a bad guy, it just that he was our boss and
most co-workers do not like their bosses.Once Bob got to the store we had
to go through some major changes, for Bob it was, “My way or the highway”. He
never actually said it, but actions speak louder than words. He was determined
to run the store his way, in my opinion, he wanted to run the store perfectly in
his own mind, that is he ran the store the way he thought it should be run.
Unfortunately what he thought was perfect was not perfect in the mind of the new
market manager for our region.The new market manager Mike and my boss Bob did
not like each other much. Bob was angry at Mike because Mike had his job, and
Bob thought that he could do a better job at the market manager position. Mike
did not like Bob because Bob was making more money than Mike and that there will
always be a manager looking over your shoulder saying, “I could have done that
better.”. After getting used to Bob’s habits we started to work like a
machine, everyone has his/her separate job and together we had the store running
smoothly. We even had a time were if we met our goals for the week, Bob would
buy us pizza lunch on Friday’s. After a while, we started to hit our goals
every week and soon he stopped buy pizza altogether. Now it is not that I had a
problem with no free lunch on Friday, it was that if you achieve a goal you
should be rewarded. I guess in Bob’s mind, he thought that if we hit our goals
every week then they are no longer goals they are a way of life. And now if had
missed our goals he would be upset because we were functioning below standards.
Not only we were missing his high standard’s, he were making him look bad.
He thought that if the store looks good than he would look good. the problem
with this is that Bob’s idea of the running of the store was, “If the store does
good- it is all because of me, if the store does bad- it is because of my
employees.”. He never really looked at us as equals or people that know what we
are doing, he looked at us as grunts that did all the dirty work and did not get
any credit. When he left messages for us to read on the message board, he would
refer to us as “crew” or “employees”, we were never people, we were an item that
was used to one purpose and one purpose only and that was to make Bob look good.
As all of this was going on I would remain quiet about what I thought
because I was just a delivery driver, and did not want everyone to say that I
did not know what I was talking about. At this time, I had worked for the
company for about one and a half years. I was still a delivery driver because
once you became a Customer Service Representative or and Account Representative
you had a mandatory 50 hour work week. Well, I was a full time student at
Sacramento State and was already working 30+ hours every week, so I was burning
the candle at both ends.Even though I decided not to take the next step
in advancement, I knew most everything that was necessary to run the store. Over
the time I was at the store I learned how the store computer works, by myself.
I also made it my responsibility to learn anything else that was easy for me to
do, so as my co-workers load would be lightened. Everyone at the store knew
that I could do all the functions necessary to run the store, but Bob would go
out of his way to make sure that I did not have the accessibility to the
computer and to other functions that were not delegated to me.I can understand
why he did this, because he is responsible for the running of the store, and
those people who were above me had to pass training in order to get the status
and title that they have now. I did not try to go out of my way to take
payments or to do deposits, it is that I saw my co-workers have a great deal of
work to do, and I would like to help them get all there jobs done. The worst
thing I could see myself doing, is I would be just sitting there and a customer
comes up for some help and all I can saw is, “Sorry I can not help you, I just
work here.”. So I started to get more and more jobs that I did on a daily basis
taken away from me, which caused my co-workers to have to do them. I
finally got someone that I could do deliveries and pick-ups with that knew what
he was doing. In my job at this time, now currently about two years, I had went
through many different people that I worked with. The problem was that our
store was a training store, that meant people would be there for about two
months then be shipped to another store once there training was done. With
working with different people all the time you had to get used to working with
them, which way to flip the sofa or the best way into the house- which is not
always through the front door. Well, finally Martin came over and he
was supposed to be over here to stay. Martin and I came off great, he had been
working at another store for about a year, so he knew what he was doing. So when
we went out to do a delivery we both had the same idea of which way to flip and
which entrance would be the best. If we had a question or comment we could
express it to each other. It was great working with someone that you could do a
delivery without saying a word and it would be delivered perfect. We both had
common interests and we got along great, I would actually say that I met a great
friend in Martin.
Bob could see that we were getting along great and after awhile it
seemed that Martin and I would not do to many deliveries or pick ups together.
This bothered me because we could get a delivery done faster and one-time than
anyone else in the area. Actually we were both angered by it, but Bob was the
boss and we had to listen to the “Great One”. With working with renting out
furniture, we have a policy that we will move the merchandise if you are moving.
We do this first of all, because we like to ensure that the merchandise is going
in a secure area. We also do this to make sure that we know what address that
our merchandise is located. And lastly we do this because some of our
merchandise is heavy and our customer’s do not have a truck that can fit all the
furniture, so we choose to move the merchandise for them.
We have a customer that rents a nice traditional style dining room set.
And she needed to have it moved to her new residence. She has a cherrywood
dinette table, cherrywood server, and a cherrywood hutch and base. Now
cherrywood is a very soft wood and can be easily damaged. So when Martin and
myself went to pick up the merchandise we were very careful in wrapping the
items. She lived in an upstairs apartment and was moving to a house down the
road. We wrapped everything up and loaded it into the truck and strapped
everything down. The customer told us that she still had some packing to do and
her mother, who is also one of our customers, will be waiting at the house for
us.
Once we got to the house we moved everything through the garage because
it was a straight shot into the house. The mother was there the whole time that
we were moving everything into the house. We only had one piece left, it was
the top of the china hutch, which was glassed filled and very fragile. Instead
of put it on the dolly we decided it would be easier and better if we were to
carry it in. As we were walking into the garage we hit the top piece on the
edge of the garage door. We placed it on top of the base and examined were we
had hit the china hutch top, we did not notice anything and the mother was there
and she made no reference to anything wrong.We went on with the rest of our
day, normal as usual. As we were coming through the back door, we heard Bob
yell to us “I have something for you guys to sign.”. we came into his office to
see what he wanted us to sign, they were write-up slips. He had written on the
paper that we damaged customer’s merchandise and that we were not careful and
safe in the way that we delivered the merchandise. I guess the customer called
up later in the day and said that we had broke her china hutch.My first
response was, “We didn’t break it, we hit the top but we check out everything,
and it was all right. The mother was there also and she didn’t say anything.”.
Bob said, “You should have told me that you hit the top of the china
hutch, and we wouldn’t have this problem. All I know is that she called saying
that when she came home it was broke. I need you guys to sign these.”I said,
“The way this is written, I refuse to sign it. I think in my opinion that I was
safe and careful in delivering it. Also I know we didn’t break it cause I
checked it out myself.”.
Bob said, “You refuse to sign it.”"Yes, I’m not going to sign it.”,
I replied.Bob said, “Well, you can go home right know, and consider
yourself on suspense until you come back and talk to me about this.”.I said,
“Bye.”. As I was leaving I could here Bob asking Martin if he had the
same opinion as me, because he could go home with me. Martin did not share my
opinion, or at least he did not express it. It was about 5:00 o’clock on Friday
when he sent me home, so I started my weekend early. Usually when working for
the company you work on Saturday and have Sunday and another day off during the
week. So I decided to have a long weekend. When I got home I was thinki’ng to
myself, how could he take her word over ours. He did not even ask us what
happen, it was just here sign this. One of the first things I did was to call
up the other managers and tell them what happened. They all did not agree with
me but they did not agree with Bob either. I decided to call the new market
manager, Mike, and to tell him what happened and to also tell him my side of the
story. When I called him, he listen and then gave me his own advice. He had
told me that write-ups are not an omission of guilt, they are just write-ups
that say something was done and we need to have a change in behavior or
termination will be in the future.While on my extended weekend, Saturday I
was thinking about being written up. I had never been written up in my life.
Although I have not had that many jobs, I have never had anybody tell me or
write me up to say that I was doing something wrong. This might have effected
the way I acted. I had been working for the company for two years and never
broke any merchandise and self taught myself practically everything I knew. I
also made it a key to be careful and safe in all I do, and now Bob is trying to
say that I cannot do my job. That is what it was like, he was saying you can
not do your job, that is how I felt. On Saturday night, I decided to call up
Bob and say that I would like to speak with , he said that if I came in early
Monday morning we could talk this out and have a meeting. In Monday
morning’s meeting, we talked about what had happened on Friday night. I had
told him how I felt about that we knew we hit the top but had checked it out and
found nothing to be wrong with the china hutch. I still had to sign a write-up
but he had written it differently, I still thought that I was not in the wrong,
but instead of arguing more I signed the write-up. I needed the job and I
needed the money to pay bills and to pay for school. I later found out that
Bob had been written up by Mike for something concerning the store. Bob has the
personality that he will pass the buck as they say. In order to make Bob not
look as bad he would have to bring us done to his level, and in order to do that,
he would have to write us up. Bob does not like criticism about his job just
like no one else likes criticism about their job. For about a week Bob
and myself would pass but we use very little words. We ordered the customer a
new china hutch. When it came in we delivered out to her house. This was the
first time I had been back to the house to see what she said we had done to her
china hutch. Upon moving closer to the china hutch, it was very noticeable.
This was something you would notice once you got within 10 feet. Now when it
happened Martin, the mother, and myself did not see the damage. In my honest
opinion I believe she was trying to see what we had done after her mother told
her we hit the top, and she pulled down on it, and broke it her self.We
delivered the new china hutch in the box, being very careful as to not hit
anything or damage anything. About a week later she called up and said that the
color was lighter on the one she currently has, and that she would like to get
her old one back. We went back out to her house and delivered her old one back
to her. She never knew what happened behind the scenes of all this commotion.