simplerich

I just got done mowing my lawn and the parts about mowing that I like and dislike are the same parts about management that I like and dislike. Obviously, I had a lot of time for thinking on this ride. It’s a big yard. The picture on the right, all the blue… that’s the part I mow. That’s the GPS track of what I mow.

Mowing is either interesting and curvy and going around things and under things and creative, OR it’s long straight stretches of nothing going on where all you have to do is color, I’m sorry, I mean mow, between the lines. From my description can you guess which part I prefer?

Retail management is a lot like that, and the parts I like in retail management are very much like the parts I like in mowing. I like mixing things up. I like it when I get to go to a store and train a new manager or open a new store or convert a bought store to one of ours from whatever it was before. Setting displays, creative cross-promotion with other local businesses, doing a section up for holidays or decorating a clearance section to make room for more, newer stuff. I like the new and interesting… the long straight lines of the day to day maintenance of the status quo is like dying. It’s the part of the job they have to pay me to do. That’s why they call it a job.

Now, to be fair if the day is long, boring, and repetitious it’s mostly my fault. I’ve got the ability in my job to make it more interesting. Once upon a time I mowed the yard in giant circles starting in the  middle. Seen from above the whorls of the mowed lines were like lots of bubbles in the yard. (I did it because my room mate made fun of how not perfectly straight the lines were… he’s never done THAT again! He hated the circles — passive-aggressive mission accomplished!) My job is the same way though. When I lose steam and it gets boring and my boss comments that I’m better at the special projects than I am the day to day… that’s when I realize it’s time to figuratively mow in circles at work.

The things my employees consider busy work if I were to give it to them are perfect for those days. Maybe I should print out the top 50 selling items in the store for the past quarter and find out where they are in the store and on the wall. Have the moved? Print out the top 50 for the past month and see what’s changed. Maybe the changes are because of where something got moved to or from. Print out the top selling 100 items and map out the store shelves by how much money they make… what’s the hottest shelf/wall space in the store? What’s the worst selling real estate in the store? Can you fix it? Now, statistically there will always be a worst selling space just like every class of doctors has a bottom fifty percent, but is there something obviously wrong in that section of space? Is it dark? Is it too close to other shelves? Is it blocked from view or around a corner or awkward? Maybe it’s in a high traffic area where people don’t stop, they just walk through. This is all interesting to me, but wouldn’t be to everyone.

That’s the fun part of the job. Yesterday while sitting in Hardees a friend of mine I went to school with who has managed there for at least 8 years, maybe 10 by now brought us our food and we chatted. I’ve worked fast food and it’s hard work. I could never do it for a living and thank God there are those who do, because I like to eat. The person I was eating with agreed that he could also never do fast food, but said he could also never do retail. The hours were too long and boring. I tried to explain what I liked about it and he said, “Yeah, I know YOU like it… but it’d kill me. So would fast food. I don’t like people at all. They’re annoying, self-important, and obnoxious.” I knew what he meant. He felt about fast food and retail the way I felt about fast food. Fortunately I love retail. If my job ended tomorrow (I hope not!) I’m 90% sure my next job would be in retail. I really do love it… except when it’s boring.

The Mowing and my job… by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.