Maternity/Paternity Leave

Quote: Mission146

Going back several years, what the hell do they want me to say? That it's been my lifelong dream to be the Assistant Manager of a Sheetz? That I have an undying devotion to outstanding customer service?

Nope. Why am I going to lie? My customer service skills are acceptable, but why they should really want me is because, under my supervision, all cleanliness and other company standards will be exceeded at all times even if I have to pull eighteens and do most of it myself. The dust and grime that had collected on the gas pumps was disgraceful, which I pointed out. Water is basically free.

And then they asked how I would handle shoplifters? I asked to see the management handbook, so she asked why, and I said, "How shoplifters are dealt with is probably going to be found in the management handbook. It doesn't matter what I would do, what matters is how the handbook says to do it."

I legitimately can't believe I didn't get that job. What I try to convey in live job interviews is that I'm all about work and zero about b$%^%^*.

Then they asked me about what I would do if an employee approached me with a personal/home problem. I said, "I would tell the employee that anything related to them outside of Sheetz is none of my business."

It's a wonder how the company is so successful.

I respect your management style, its important for leaders to strictly adhere to policy manuals. Honestly citing policy manuals in interviews should be a massive turn on (it shows that you did your research and are not giving generic answers). Also, working until the job gets done is awesome, too many people expect to leave right at 1700 to the point where the culture is turning lazy.

I also agree that there is too much of a push to make things too personable. The extent of somebody approaching you about a personal problem should be referring them to the EAP (if there is one) and telling them to take time if they need to.

I honestly don't know much about Sheetz, from your posts it sounds similar to a Wawa type place. I have honestly never been to one. It sounds like you were their loss. I am sure there are endless places that would reward those attributes.

Quote: gamerfreak

Can you ask about marital and parental status in an interview in Canada?

That is a huge no-no in the US.

It wasn't as strict when I started but rules like that are one of the reasons I shut down most of my companies. Don't do anything now that means having employees.

Quote: Gandler

I respect your management style, its important for leaders to strictly adhere to policy manuals. Honestly citing policy manuals in interviews should be a massive turn on (it shows that you did your research and are not giving generic answers). Also, working until the job gets done is awesome, too many people expect to leave right at 1700 to the point where the culture is turning lazy.

I also agree that there is too much of a push to make things too personable. The extent of somebody approaching you about a personal problem should be referring them to the EAP (if there is one) and telling them to take time if they need to.

I honestly don't know much about Sheetz, from your posts it sounds similar to a Wawa type place. I have honestly never been to one. It sounds like you were their loss. I am sure there are endless places that would reward those attributes.

Thanks, there are always exceptions, of course...primarily with employee discipline. In the call center, you had a bit more leeway if you were one of the best sellers. If you were way below average on SPH, then we'd throw the book at you...but we'd only go full throw the book if they weren't making any improvements, or sometimes, clearly not even trying to improve.

I think you want to be professional and sort of friendly, but not to the point of being personable. At the call center, I sat in (and usually did the talking) on almost all of the firings because I didn't really care, whereas other supervisors found it difficult as they had almost established a relationship. I'd just go in there and say, "Okay, this is a write-up for low production. As you probably know, this is your fourth low production write-up within a three month period, so as a result, you are terminated. You are, however, welcome to reapply thirty days from today and while that is not an explicit or implicit promise that you WILL be rehired, it does mean that we do consider you ELIGIBLE for rehire as of thirty days from now. Thank you for your contributions to the company, have a good day and I will now see you out."

Yeah, it was like one of ten jobs lifetime that I applied for and KNOW I didn't get, but that was the only one that was a surprise. I know someone who was a Manager at a different Sheetz (I did not ask this person to put in a word for me), so I asked them after the fact to find out what the problem was. He called and asked her and she said, "That guy is a robot-no personality."

Quote: Mission146

, He called and asked her and she said, "That guy is a robot-no personality."

That is what I am looking for in an employee.

Quote: Mission146

You are, however, welcome to reapply thirty days from today and while that is not an explicit or implicit promise that you WILL be rehired, it does mean that we do consider you ELIGIBLE for rehire as of thirty days from now. Thank you for your contributions to the company, have a good day and I will now see you out."

That's sounds like a great idea for a cooling off period for hotheads, who decide what's happened to them is their last failure and not worth living, and going to return and use up all their ammunition.

Quote: DRich

That is what I am looking for in an employee.

Presently employed, but I'll keep that in mind. Aren't you retired, anyway? Thank you for saying so!

Quote: rxwine

That's sounds like a great idea for a cooling off period for hotheads, who decide what's happened to them is their last failure and not worth living, and going to return and use up all their ammunition.

It was usually because we might want them back at some point anyway. Like I said, the place was a revolving door....and four low productions in three months means you're a below average rep---but maybe not that far below average and with the potential to be average, or better, if you applied yourself.

A little bit of job searching will reveal that there aren't really any better-paying jobs around that they can easily get, and in reality, if they would apply themselves to try to hit the commission points, the compensation actually wasn't that bad. In some cases, they also wouldn't be able to find another job in that period of time, which would refresh their memories on why they wanted a job ($$$) in the first place, so they'd come back and apply themselves. You'd be surprised. I had a few low prods come back on Day 31 and start kicking butt right out of the gate and would never even see a low prod write-up again.

If you had a great seller who got termed for too many, "Quality," or, "Integrity," write-ups, then you wanted them to return as soon as possible. For me, my best sellers would always get tipped off by a little bird when they were being monitored, but if other supervisors want to lose their best sellers due to stupid quality rules, then that's their problem...I'll keep mine, thank you. Seeing a Step Four termination write-up for, "Aggressive Tactics," always made me gag---I wanted my reps selling aggressively if it plays to their individual strengths. I wanted them selling passively (that could also get you written up) if that's what they were good at doing.

When it comes to the abysmal ones, we had kind of a secret, "Blacklist," where our official stance is that they were eligible for rehire, but as a practical matter, they weren't coming back unless we had a spot on our only program that didn't require any production. (Basically, this program would call places to conduct a credit card terminal test transaction).

Another reason we had it is for people who failed the drug test. You would be drug tested on your 30th day of employment (mandatory, per the client, but you'll notice that always leaves enough time to pass if you hadn't been using), so if you failed the drug test, but were a good seller...we'd tell you to quit using drugs for thirty days and come back and we would drug test you on day one. After that, they would never be tested again.

We did have, "Random," drug tests...if by "Random," you mean deliberately picking people who we kind of wanted gone anyway or people who we absolutely knew would test negative.

I guess it might have also done the thing you said also, but the above were our reasons for it.

Quote: Mission146

Presently employed, but I'll keep that in mind. Aren't you retired, anyway? Thank you for saying so!

Nope, not retired yet. Although most of us old people that move to Florida are, I am just looking for a good place to die.