How To Manage Management  

(I’ve been working as an assistant store manager for over six years but am in the middle of my 13-week’s notice to start a new job out of retail. I already jokingly tell my coworkers I can talk back to our sales manager, who oversees five stores. What’s he gonna do, fire me faster? This week he is on vacation, and we have been appointed a replacement. In our store, we have a clearance rack for discounted food-action items located at the entrance of our store. We can discount most items ourselves. A man, who I believe is the replacement, comes up to me while I’m stocking it with newly discounted items.)

Sales Manager: *with an attitude* “Can you stop filling the clearance rack and put it in the back?”

Me: “No. I need room for the new food action starting tomorrow.”

Sales Manager: “It draws attention away from our main action for this week.” *twelve bottles of two-liter soda for a lower price*

Me: “People aren’t going to buy that here; they are too heavy. We are in the middle of the town center and don’t have a parking lot. The closest paid parking garage is too expensive so people don’t really use it. The next one is cheaper but it’s about a ten-minute walk, so it’s too far to carry twenty-four liters. We sold about ten packs in three days.”

Sales Manager: “The clearance rack is commercially not viable.”

Me: “Whenever we fill it to the brim, it sells out within a week. It keeps the flow of goods going for stuff that normally sits on the shelves for weeks. How is that not viable? Besides that, our regular sales manager says we can keep it, because corporate changes its mind about every month whether or not we can display it.”

(He decided to drop the conversation and talk to my store manager. Afterward, she told me two things: he wasn’t the replacement, but rather our sales manager’s boss, our regional director. I didn’t know what he looked like because we only see him once or twice a year, and he is fairly new to our region. Also, he caved in, because he couldn’t think of a decent reply to my arguments. Felt like a win!)