Further Tales of the Fun Factory

It is now just a little under two weeks until Christmas Day, but except for piles of mince pies and chocolate selection boxes, you would not really know in the fun factory. There is a distinct lack of Christmas spirit here this year ... no Christmas tree, the decorations we do have around the store are pitiful, no Christmas music on the shop-floor ( due tothe rules changing and the store not having a broadcast licence ) ... everyone seems to be if not in a bad mood, at least a bit down in the dumps. It is not helped by the fact that we should be getting busy , customer-wise by now - and we are not. The shop is very, VERY quiet. That is not to say that the staff are not busy - we are, but that is more down to having not enough people to do what we have to do .... let me explain.

The credit crunch has finally hit the company, so financially things are not great. It is not in as much trouble as Woolworths ( it is at least solvent ), but there is a big hole in the finances - takings are down, and they are over budget on wages by a lot (they think about £250,000 ). The result of this is that there is an overtime ban, and a block on recruitment until further notice. That is a problem for us - the store virtually runs on overtime at this time of year, and we have had 2 or 3 members of regular staff leave ( or be made to leave.... ;-)) in the last month or so . Everyone is running around like headless chicken, trying to deal with the customers we do have. We are very short staffed ... being quiet is a kind of a blessing and a curse at the same time. . It is a bit of vicious circle at the moment - not enough people around to fill the shelves properly because those we do have are on checkout serving customers , so they look empty ... so the customers we do have complain we never have anything they want, or they are queuing for too long at checkout because we haven't enough people to man them all, so they go elsewhere .... so takings are down ... so there is less money for wages ..... and so it goes on. It is no surprise that the spirit of Christmas Cheer is lacking a little .... with no staff and dwindling but complaining customers, the fun factory is even less fun that usual.

Things might pick up .... there is still the rush for fresh stuff on Christmas Eve to come yet ( not sure if that is good or not considering things ... ) - but somehow I doubt it. Thinking about it, perhaps the title of this post should have been something else ....

*hee hee *