In the time that I’ve been writing, I have touched on what I feel is every possible part of the job that makes a counter clerk grind their teeth: the customers who think they are God’s gift to the automotive world, and worse, the ones who have no clue but do their best retail hustle, trying to leave you holding the bag. The co-workers that have you repeating “how the f*** do you still work here?!” all day long. The store management team, also known as “your bosses” that you deal with day in and day out. Really, though, if you have worked in any form of retail, 95% of this translates to any other retail job…from the woman folding sweaters for the third time that day at Macy’s, to the kid at the computer repair shop who is getting yelled at because the customer is about seventy and doesn’t understand this newfangled technology, to the guy working customer service at Wal-Mart who is ten minutes away from his lunch break and ten seconds away from walking out of the door with both middle fingers held high in the air. You deal with the bad, enjoy the good and that’s just a part of life.But what if things get worse? We aren’t talking about the day that the store was swamped from open to close, no breaks, asshole customers and the whole nine yards bad. (Though, admittedly, we’d have a cold beer waiting for you, because those days just suck…) I have been privy to a situation happening at a store near me, and if you want to see bad, oh, brother…this is bad.

Here’s the situation: for the last three years, the same chain of command has existed at this store, from Regional on down. Things weren’t peachy, but at least everybody respected each other and could come to useful compromises when they were needed. The store has had a high turnover rate, similar to every other store in the area. It’s a combination of horrible candidates from the hiring pool getting fired, and good folks leaving to work in nearby factories. Not only is the money that much more better (usually three times as good), but they get benefits, retirement plans, and this strange thing called “vacation”. Nothing unusual so far, it’s about on-par. That is, up until last month. The Regional guy gets shifted and a new Regional comes in, and with him comes a major culture change. In the matter of a month, half of the staff have quit, two nearby stores have had management shakeups, and now the new guy’s target reticle is focused on this particular store. This guy’s got a bent for the turnover numbers, isn’t happy that almost fifty people have cycled through the employee roster in the matter of a year (never mind that only seven of those fifty were actual firings) and is looking to completely re-staff the store’s management team while getting rid of those already in place. Things have been so bad that two weeks ago, the store manager there went into the ER for a stress-related cardiac event of some kind.

After hearing the account on the side, I decided to make a quick trip and see for myself how bad things are. “Bad” is an understatement…the best thing I can relate it to is a mutiny. The store manager, the commercial guy, the assistant manager, and one of the shift leaders are one event away from walking, and the store manager is filing a grievance with Corporate over Little Napoleon’s behavior. Apparently, during the store manager’s last annual review, his entire review was negative, all in regards to turnover. Don’t mind the fact that he sold just shy of a million dollars last year out of a store originally sized for half of that on a good year. Don’t mind the fact that this guy has routinely gone out of his way to help customers, hours be damned. Don’t mind the fact that this guy typically works 50+ hours a week minimum. No, ding him because there isn’t enough of a reason for your average parts counter clerk to stay instead of jumping ship and cooking up dog food at twice the pay with health insurance, dental, and two weeks vacation. Seems fair, doesn’t it?

I sincerely hope that the store manager’s lawyer is good. I hope that Corporate will see a quick flash of light and punt the new Regional out on his ass before he even hears the word “lawsuit”. It would be a nice change of pace to see a company actually give a shit about an employee instead of focusing on just figures. And if that doesn’t work, I hope every last person in that store has their resume ready to go and walk. It’s one thing to lose your temper at work, but it is something else altogether to lose your health because of the stress.