The Making of A Team Leader

As I mentioned in my first blog, there were a number of reasons I wanted to become a Team leader. However, the main reason was because I thought I could do a better job than the clowns that were already team leaders. Being in one of their stores was like being in a three-ring circus. There was always some drama. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that they weren’t very nice to us or the store personnel. I can’t tell you how many times one of the store managers asked how we could work with these people. I also wondered myself.

I think part of the problem with the team leaders was the way they were chosen. There were two ways to become a Team leader. One way was to be young, male and count fast. The other way was too be available anytime, and to be willing to do and go wherever the DM wanted you to. This was due to the fact that both Area Managers (AM’s) were in their early twenties, and tended to want to promote people closer to their own age (because they also hung out together). The funny thing is, it always ended up backfiring on them because their “buddies” would always end up taking advantage of their friendship.

The other problem was that the Team leaders tended to take their job way too seriously. I mean okay you’re in charge, but does that mean you have to treat everybody else like their crap? Refusing to talk to new auditors, yelling, talking down to people. Some even went as far as threatening people with their job, which was dumb given the districts high turn overrate. It was all so crazy. After all, these were the same people they needed to count the store. So it seemed kind of counter productive to me.

The sad part is their rudeness often backfired because most people (except for new auditors who didn’t know any better, or their buddies) refused to work with them. It got so bad the scheduler would never tell you who was running the store (even if you asked), he would always say he hadn’t found anyone to run the store yet (yeah right). Then of course you’d show up at the store and there they were. This was sometimes quite funny since there were people in the district that absolutely hated each other, and they made no attempt to hide their disgust when they found out the person they hated was running the store.

Nevertheless, I still wanted to be a Team leader. I guess part of it was the cool gray polo they give you, or maybe it was the stress and drama that made it so appealing. I can’t decide. Seriously, I think it was the sincere belief that I was ten million cabillion times smarter than those yahoos (which I still believe), and could run a better inventory. So, since I wasn’t young and male, and had a fulltime job, I knew I needed to figure out a way to get in good with management. It turned out it wasn’t as hard as I originally thought.

Now I wouldn’t recommend this to anybody, but I decided to increase my speed by any means necessary. In order to do so, I had to throw caution to the wind. I stopped doing piece counts after I finished counting areas, and did a lot of cherry picking (yes I know it’s wrong, but hey I was on a mission). If we were in a big store like Sears, I always made sure I counted in clothing (since that was where I counted the fastest). I also made sure I counted the largest areas in quantity inventories, and I never counted an area that looked like it would slow me down.
It didn’t take long for them to start noticing how much faster I was counting and they even started letting me count grocery stores, which very few people in the district got to do.

Once I saw my plan was working, I stepped up my game. I started hanging around the AM’s and chit chatting. This worked even better than I thought because a lot of the Team leaders started to talk to me too. Before I knew it, people were requesting me in their inventories. I never refused. Even if the person running the inventory was the biggest jerk in the world, I still went. It wasn’t long before I started staying to help close out a few inventories, and then I learned how to use the “great and mighty” portable.

Finally I went to see the DM and ask about becoming a Team leader. Much too my surprise, he had heard a lot about me from the AM’s and Team leaders, and was more than happy to have me as a Team leader. I began working on the Team leader modules that same day, and then took the Team leader training class two weeks later. The following week I was given a gray shirt! I was officially a Team leader... and it was just in time for January.