September 18, 2008

Beginning Again For The First Time

One year ago, I was at Sears, working as the manager of the receiving department, as much of you already know. I was probably wearing a dirty black t-shirt and cargo pants with torn pockets. Relatively floppy steel toed shoes, walking up and down the dusty storage aisles cracking jokes about a customer with the greatest bunch of guys I had known to date.

I had found out that Pam, the Assistant Store Manager in charge of the Home Improvement department, had decided she was leaving for the Ashtabula, OH Sears. She pulled me aside and said, "Tony, I want you to know I'm leaving and I want you to put in for my position. There aren't many people I know that would be a better fit than you." She helped me put in for it and within a few weeks, she was gone.

I had my interview with the Store Manager, Chris, and it went extremely well. After all, every single job I'd had in my six plus years at that store had done almost exclusively with that department. I was a salesman for two years; I was a stockman for nearly two years; I was the manager of the signing department and spent almost a year pricing and setting up displays there; and finally worked as the manager of the department in charge of loading those products into customer cars.

The interview went spectacularly. She seemed really excited about it, and I felt like I was seeing my last days of being on the sidelines.

Within a month, I was up at 5 am pouring egg beaters onto a hot grill in the kitchen of the Homewood Suites by Hilton.

Sears had decided to pass over all of that experience for a guy who was the produce manager for the past six months at a Giant Eagle. It was hard swallowing that, I must tell you. Was it me? Am I to blame for what has happened? Did I burn bridges that I couldn't smell the embers of? It was very hard to comprehend, how we were going into the Christmas season and they'd go with someone that was completely new over me. The experience I had.

I was so humiliated that I decided that I needed to find a new place to work. After all, we all know Sears has had financial troubles since they broke champagne bottles over the pillars of the Sears Tower in the late 70's. Who was I kidding? I wasn't going to retire from there. And I sure didn't want to end up like my one time boss Frank; going to work every day with a knot in my stomach and regretting not leaving the company years ago.

So I went to the Homewood to work in the kitchen. Lisa, the manager, had brought Amanda in a few months earlier to be in a management training program they called STEP. (Still don't know what it stands for.) When Amanda was done in February, I'd apply to get into this position that they were scraping for people to get into.

After three months in the kitchen (that I still have nightmares about to this day), I was promoted to the front desk. I didn't think I could do it. It looked easy; there were lots of times I'd look up from sweeping scrambled eggs off the floor and saw the girl at the desk laughing and carrying on with Amanda as if the world were made of marshmallows and chocolates. Answering the phone like a robot, saying the same things, talking to guests as if they were having the time of their lives. It looked like I could never do it.

But soon enough, I learned the job and found my own little way of doing things, and it worked for me. I started to enjoy it. And soon enough, it came time for the STEP program. So I applied, and was interviewed. A few weeks went by and I got nervous, thinking there was a problem. This very same program spot (that six months prior was filled when Lisa went to Sears to complain about her grill and found Amanda) had fifteen candidates looking for it.

The word came down that the company was looking to sell some of their assets and they didn't have the money to continue the STEP program, and it was eliminated.

So I had left Sears for nothing, really. I had risked leaving a job that, yeah, sucked hard, but I was good at and left behind a really good bunch of people.

I still miss them, alot.

Had a tough time with it, and my job performance went in the can. Within a few weeks I was in the managers office getting ripped for being nasty to a guest on the phone and also being nasty to a guest in the hotel in the same night.

I had the next two days off and I thought long and hard about what I was going to do. I felt shamed and stupid for making this jump and it not working out. But I found out most likely I didn't need this STEP program anyway. Who knows, maybe in a few months or so you'll have an opportunity to be a manager! So I decided to refocus and just treat it like it was just a job. Stop TRYING to be something that you aren't.

Fast forward a few glorious months where I shined like a new penny on the sun. Guest compliments, friends made, emails to the manager about my service, everything. At the beginning of August, Lisa relocated to Illinois and her assistant, Shawn, has moved up and become the new General Manager. What a guy, too. Smart, funny, and definitely seemed very relaxed at work. Someone I related to very quickly.

And I was told to put in my resume to be his assistant. Lisa said, "There aren't many people I know who could possibly be a better choice."

Unfortunately here's where the story gets short and cryptic, because apparently there is someone that reads this blog at the hotel and I don't want to say anything mean about the people that I was up against. It was a rough few weeks, looking at everyone else's pros and cons that I worked with on the desk, and I was a jerk alot of times. In hindsight, I wish I would have known this was going to happen.

Yesterday, Shawn made the decision to bring back a woman who had previously been the Assistant General Manager at this very same property but quit for reasons I don't know the truth about, only hearsay. I must say here in my own little blog that I strongly, STRONGLY disagree with the decision to bring in a person from the past. I thought we were trying to create a new atmosphere with the end of the Lisa era.

Once again, I'm faced with the internal squabbling: Did I do something wrong? Whats wrong with me? I don't smell anything burning! Why can't I break through?

But, in a business sense, if thats what Shawn feels is best for the hotel, then so be it. Although I feel that our team has been cheated somehow of not getting our chance to succeed, I can live with the decision. I'm not happy at all, and I have no bones about saying this. Someone "of influence" could read this. At this point, I don't care. Its the god's honest truth and anyone who knows me more than just a few minutes knows that I wouldn't be Tony if I didn't say something like this.

I'm sure that Dad is reading this right now thinking I'm going to get fired or something. But I won't. I've done worse, and after all...

The real issue is that this political bullshit doesn't matter. I still believe, after everything else, that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter to the guy who just got done driving 14 hours to get to Erie for his brother's funeral. It doesn't matter to the woman who stays at the hotel to work at a local business. It doesn't matter to the ten year old kid who just wants to hurry up and get changed and get in the pool! These are the people that are important. Other people, whether they are guests or customers, are the ones who need to be treated decently. Call it a quasi-spiritual quest or whatever, but I feel better knowing I made someone's day, and I will continue to do so.

As of yesterday I had, ironically enough, the next two days to get over this and go back to work. And when I do, it will be with renewed focus and drive. But this time, my life in general will go forward and be successful from this point out, not necessarily just my career.

I'd said in prior posts that if I don't get it that I'll start working hardcore on my musician credentials, and I intend to do just that.

I just want to say thank you if you are still reading this contrived little ditty. I know that in a matter of weeks I'll look back at this post and laugh at how silly it sounded, but thats the beauty of life.

You can forgive.

Its going to take a little extra for me to do so this time, but I will.

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