Welcome back and if you came by to make a comment some of my comments get moderated but I'll get it moderated within a day unless I'm on vacation. I've got a new plugin that enables you to subscribe to comments to see if anybody comments on your comment. You'd hate for THEM to have the last word wouldn't you?
So, I’m an area manager with eleven stores that report to me. I’m responsible for 20% of the stores in the company I work for and how’d I get here? Really?
Well, I was a manager of a store, not a very big store really. The store was frequently in the bottom 3 of the company when I took over and it worked it’s way up to bottom 4. Yeah. I know… glorious. But in that time I increased sales by quite a bit in the store and decreased turn-over. I was a good manager. I know that. I didn’t steal. I didn’t screw up too terribly ever, and my employees didn’t hate me any more than any other manager’s employees hate them when scheduling overlaps a holiday and it’s unavoidable that someone has to work it.
Then, one day the person over me transferred away. They didn’t promote up, they transferred. Nobody else would say “yes.” So… I wound up promoted. You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. I was suddenly responsible for stores that did as much in a weekend as I had previously done in a week. I had managers working FOR me that had twice the experience I had and had turned down the job I’d accepted.
I’d like to imply that my bosses saw some secret spark in me that proved to them I’d be great for my job as an area manager but I sincerely believe what they saw was a good manager who would say “yes.” Well, they were right. I was a good store manager. I still think I’m a better store manager than I am an area manager and I want to go back to store manager so bad. I’ve asked for it a lot and been turned down for it.
I see it a lot in companies where we promote people away from where they were great to a place where they’re just good. Being good as a manager of a single location isn’t the same as being great as a manager of many locations at all.
When we area managers look around and wonder where the great store managers have gone we need only look around… we’ve promoted them out of where they were great to where they’re “good.” If we were to value store managers more we’d have an easier job of things as area managers. But we tend to not pay the store managers enough… and we act like store manager is a stepping stone to where the REAL money is… and it’s not the way things should be.
I would love to give a third of my pay to half my good managers because they work harder, longer, and do a better job of things than I do… they don’t need me and I’d be a fool to send them up to an area manager position because they’re so good where they are now… I wish store managers were valued more… not just because I want to be one again either. The part of my job I work hardest at now as an area manager isn’t the paperwork, checklists, or mechanics of the job it’s trying to make sure the managers under me have all the tools they need to more effectively do their job. I see my job now as more of a way to help the people under me be more effective than for me to top-down them into the ground like a hammer driving a nail.
To all you store managers out there reading this. You’re doing a great job! I hope your hard work is recognized by your boss. I’ve had your job and I loved it and miss it. If you do it and love it never leave it… promoting up for more money isn’t the right reason to promote up in my opinion. I did it and I’d trade with you in a minute. I miss the store manager job. I miss the customers. I miss the store.
The How’d I get where I am today… by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.