Manager In (Need Of More) Training
We have a manager-in-training (MIT) program where I work. Usually, people get promoted within the company from store level to a Third Key Manager and work their way up from there to assistant manager, store manager, etc. With our MIT program, we hire people from outside the company with previous management experience and fast-track them to be assistant managers. Since Texas has such strict liquor laws, it’s a serious position, even if it doesn’t seem like it from an outside perspective.
I’m a newly-promoted Third Key Manager when we get our new MIT. She’s in her mid- to late forties and has been a store manager of a home goods store for years before coming to us. She started in November, and now it’s mid-February.
Despite her experience, she’s been difficult to work with and doesn’t seem to be really retaining any information. I personally have had to walk her through the simplest procedures multiple times, not to mention the times our assistant manager and store manager have shown her the same things.
One morning, while I’m counting the highly stolen liquors in the store to confirm that nothing has been stolen in a week, she comes up to me.
MIT: “I’ve got a customer that needs a keg for Friday, but they want to pay for it now. Can we do that?”
Some of our smaller stores have people prepay for kegs because they have small beer coolers and can’t keep a lot of kegs on hand. Making people prepay makes sure the keg isn’t just left there. We’re a big store, though, and have a separate cooler just for kegs, so this is a weird request.
Me: “Wait, is the customer on the phone, or are they here in person?”
Only our main location can take payments over the phone.
MIT: “No, they’re here right now. We have three half kegs of [Beer], so they just want to pay now, since they’re here.”
Me: “I mean, since they’re here, they can pay now if they really want.”
MIT: “Okay! I’ll ring them up, then!”
A few hours pass and I finish up doing my counts when my MIT comes up to me again.
MIT: “So, you know how I sold that keg because I thought we had three of them in the cooler?”
Me: *Already with a sinking feeling* “Yeah, what about it? You checked to make sure that all three kegs weren’t already claimed, right?”
MIT: “Well, we don’t actually have any of the kegs that they want.”
Me: “What do you mean, we don’t have the kegs? Didn’t you double-check? You know that the inventory for kegs is always off and needs to be physically checked!”
I have personally informed her of this at least three different times, and I couldn’t tell you how many times other people have told her this, as well.
MIT: “It’s no big deal, right? We get keg deliveries on Thursday!”
We do NOT get [Beer] kegs in on Thursdays; we get them in on Fridays. So, when the customer showed up at 10:00 am for the keg — FOR HIS GRANDDAUGHTER’S WEDDING — guess who got screamed at for nearly twenty minutes before they fixed it by sending them to another store to pick up their keg and working magic to make sure neither store’s inventory was messed up in the process? Yeah, NOT the MIT!
The keg delivery came in less than an hour after the customers left.
