04 November 2010

The Group 'Interview'

Well, first off, it was not an interview.  The waiting room already contained 15 or so young people.  A couple of them nervously chatted, between uncomfortable silences - I work for Tescos, I work for Sainsburys, I just graduated…

We then file up to a large meeting/ lecture room; there are about 50 seats. After a further wait of 10 minutes 30 are occupied. Mostly young people; 2 of Indian extraction - male & female, 2 black guys (1 of whom shortly reveals he has 3 years exp at Sainsbury’s and an MBA from Napier), 80% are 20 – 25 years old, I’m probably the oldest there (cough41). Gent’s dress varies from suited and booted to black jeans, brown shoes and a jumper. The ladies similarly vary from sloppy coats, boots and scarves to power suits and stilettos.

A very tall guy, shirt and tie, sans jacket, strides confidently to the front of the room, he is followed by a younger man, shorter and wearing spectacles.  The tall man has a stripy tie, the shorter fellow sports a pale lilac one, and after introductions the tall chap outlines the nature of the presentation. Both are in their mid thirties.

There will be no assessments today, no questions or tests, numerical, keyboard or psychometric, this lecture is for information purposes, to let you see, and hopefully understand that we do things differently, I’m not saying my colleague or my self are better people than anyone who doesn’t fit with our organisation, just that we are different. We think that you must be a certain sort of person to work for us, but also that we can teach anyone to be that sort of person.

First we are all asked to say our names, where we have come from and what our current jobs are.   Everyone has supermarket/retail experience from 6 months part time as a student to 3- 5 years managerial. Many are recent graduates, business management, IT, information’s systems, retail management, BA’s and masters.

Tallman asks us what we know about the org. Many facts and figures are proffered.  All out off date we are assured, many more stores, a whole extra country, growth is our strength. A, b, c keep it simple, x, y, z, “..and something we call Productivity…” said with loving capital letter and the air of an intimated sexual suggestion by the seated shorter man. In fact,  Tallman moves along, we have a short film that explains many of the unique facets of our glorious firms modus operandi. 

It was about here my eyes started to glaze over.  A film with budget advert production values and a cast of ‘volunteered’ employees explaining the basics of bulk discounting and centralised decision making/planning/systems follows. I miss a lot of this as I’m boggling that they are blatantly using the theme tune from a major TV series as the inspirational music, the sample is less than 20 seconds, perhaps this is how they get away with it?

So, different, efficient, flexible (you need to be, we aren’t at all) lets get down to a typical day.  Starting at 7am, you, perhaps with up to two teammates, but mostly you will stock the shop.  Two pallets of veg, freezer cabinets, ambient, food, drink, household and special promotional lines, all must be transferred from their cages in the warehouse to the store.  In less than an hour you must charge the tills, and have the doors open to receive your first customers, where other operations have a cash manager, a produce supervisor, a personnel officer, here you take on each of those roles as necessary, in the same way that within half an hour you may take on the mantle of complaints tsar, till jockey, shelf stacker and toilet cleaner. The seated, lilac tie one tells how he regularly cleaned the toilet at his store, a fact, he assures us, that rocks other supermarket managers, wide eyed, in their seats.

After providing cover for lunches, monitoring stock levels on the floor and compiling orders it’s time to replenish the shelves and begin checking for short dated produce, of which there will be very little, thanks to our automated stock system, this wonder of the 1980s achieves such a level of refinement in a Europe wide offering, the same baked beans or smoked squid from Portugal to Greece, the same store layout, and themed week, from  Italy to Norway.

Tallman admits that sometimes his words tumble over themselves, such is the speed with which he seizes each second as an opportunity to serve the organisation that took him under it’s wing a mere decade and a half ago, although the time passes so quickly it barely seems like six months.

Has anyone heard negative reports of working with us? The seated one manages to interject, Tallman echoes the question.  Someone mentions a story they have seen in Wikipedia. Tallman smirks and acknowledges the story and others, ‘Plenty to read on the Internet.’ is accompanied by what in a mortal could almost be interpreted as a genuine smile, and it lasts perhaps 0.02 seconds.

All long in the past. Tallman admits that it used to be about the most willing to work 100 hour weeks becoming the shining stars, with many falling along the way, that staff turnover was way over 100%, but that has been addressed by head office and now everyone works a set 47 hour week, although the vaunted flexibility expected from all members of the team, means that you might have to cover sickness and holidays, hours over 53 a week will be offset with time in lieu. I think that was the deal, Tallman’s spiel was now tumbling from his lips with the starry eyed zeal of a true fanatic, and accelerating towards unintelligibility.

The questions peter out, it seems the bases have been covered, the 47 hour week is implemented in five 11 hour shifts, with unpaid breaks (subject to availability and team cohesion, and productivity).  Potentially plus six hours unpaid overtime - flexibility, productivity. It is hard physical labour, less manager, more gang master, running a cash rich business for a German trust fund, all the profits are reinvested, mostly to fuel the organisation’s expansion.  There were hints that the company makes considerable profits from interest on cash holdings.  And it was blatantly underlined that the speed of the distribution system and the muscle of the massive buying power meant that a cabbage, say, that was in a field yesterday could be sold tomorrow, money in the bank, but the farmer won’t be paid for 90 days…

Tallman’s final words return to his first statements, this is a hard physical job, it is five 11 hour days, days off are 2 out of seven, could be Mon & Wed more likely than Sat & Sun, it is not for everyone, and 25% he predicts will not take up the offer of a second interview.  I’ll be in that quarter.

19 comments:

  1. If this were on Cif, we'd have right-wing posters lining up to tell us how hard work will pay off and one day, you too could be Tallman with his snazzy suit and limp penis throttling him, his mortgage and his 2.5 children.

    Back in the real world, it's fucking serfdom.

    Exploitation all the way up and down the supply lines.

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  2. God Turm - that sounds truly grim - and it cost you £80 for the pleasure? I really hope you find something better than that!

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  3. >> it's fucking serfdom.

    Well said Thaum.

    £30+ in fares and £50 wages lost. It was worth learning, but not worth £80..

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  4. Jesus turm. I can't help but think of the wider landscape to this - it's a natural conclusion to a process where the EU would only provide financial (Objective 1) support to places like Spain in the 80s/90s if they ditched generations old agricultural skills in eg cork-oaks, in favour of mass producing bland flavourless fruit and veg for supermarkets. The law of Comaprative Advantage means you produce what you can do cheapest, not best... in turn supermarket execs tell us they have Strawberries on sale in November at 10.00 pm because customers "demand" it.

    It's fucking serfdom, but we demand it.

    Hope you find away to claw some of the eighty quid back.

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  5. my god...

    where other operations have a cash manager, a produce supervisor, a personnel officer, here you take on each of those roles as necessary

    personnel officers (or HR or whatever they're called) have by law to be qualified in some way? when are you supposed to fit in the training courses? at your own expense, presumably...

    imagine they've got one CIPM-qual peep at central office and that the reporting process works really well...

    reminds me a lot of a group interview i did when on vacation from college. a lot of people verging from the bored to the desperate listening to a lot of waffle about synergies and innovation such that i really didn't understand what they actually wanted us to do, until one (more bored than desperate) chap piped up "this is telesales, right? cold-calling?"

    the icy silence that radiated out from Nina was almost tangible.

    I wasn't asked back as I wouldn't commit to a permanent position and had no experience. I pointed out that the advert had said "short-term commitment only, no experience needed".

    more icy silence. i was thanked for my time.

    only cost me a fiver to get there, though (I walked what I could, only took 2 hours), so not as bad as this example by any stretch.

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  6. turminder,

    just read this over lunch. Jesus wept is all I can muster up at the moment. You need to get this published on CiF. Really.

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  7. Do you have the distinction in Britain between salaried employees and hourly rate employees?

    Under US employment laws, salaried employees work for a set amount of money, regardless of the number of hours worked. Salaried positions are usually management positions with a clear path to probable promotion to higher salaries and increased responsibilities. They do receive paid holidays and have paid sick days. Teachers and other 'professional' positions are also salaried.

    Non-management positions are 'hourly-rate'. Laws about how hourly-rate employees are treated are (fairly) strictly enforced. A 40-hour work week is considered 'full time'. Full-time employees receive paid time off and have health insurance and a pension plan as part of their benefits. Paid time off is usually 10 vacation days per year plus certain holidays (usually New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas).

    Anything above 40 hours per week is supposed to be paid at time-and-a-half. Hourly-rate employees are also supposed to receive one paid 15 minute break for every 4 consecutive hours worked and at least 30 minutes, unpaid, for lunch when working a shift of 8 hours or more.

    Any hourly-rate employee who works less than 40 hours/week is considered part-time and, apart from one paid 15 minute break for every four consecutive hours worked, employers are not required to give part-time employees any paid time off or fringe benefits. Yes, that means an employer can schedule all its employees for 39½ hours/week, every week and not have to give them fringe benefits.

    That federally-mandated 15 minutes/4 hours break quite often gets forgotten, as it would be hard for employees to prove that they weren't receiving them and there are other abuses.

    Wal-Mart was fined a few years ago because it was discovered that they were forcing hourly-rate staff to clock out at the end of a shift, then requiring them to stay and do backroom work or shelf stocking without pay. They were also caught locking employees in overnight.

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  8. There are similar statutes here Montana, but as I mentioned over on the UT, one young chap, in the front row (keen, productive, flexible) {I'll have to stop that, I feel dirty, not in a good way} thought that this was a good deal, because he'd just done a 71 hour week, for just his basic..

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  9. Turminder

    Firstly i hope something better comes up for you soon.And tbh it may be a blessing in disguise that you decided not to accept a job with these people even if they had offerred you one.For it would have clearly been a huge mistake and if you had left voluntarily without good reason the DWP wouldn't have allowed you to claim benefits for up to 6 months.

    The level of exploitation of workers in this country is one of the worst-if not thee worst- in northern and western Europe.And again we seem to be heading ever closer to the American model of long hours and few rights.But to add insult to injury the exploitatation is covered up by the soothing language of consensus and understanding-eg every employee is an individual/we value our employees.etc etc,Bollox!

    psIt was a bloody good post Turminder and Duke's right-you really need to get it published on cif.

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  10. Turm

    Take this to Cif - we urgently need some real life experiences printing there to counter the lies and BS.

    The exploitation of desperate souls wrapped up in politico/business speak has to be exposed. Wages are falling and working conditions are worsening - servitude beckons for millions.

    You are right not to accept second interview - problem is many will feel forced to and so will be 'supporting' this system and the sell out of working people.

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  11. Good piece, Turm - the zeal of the little turds that progress in these places is always the most terrifying. I worked at one job (for about 2 weeks before leaving) which had a "company culture" genuinely much more like a cult - really unsettling experience.

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  12. Thanx Paul, Leni : ) Jess not up for piece in current form. May re-write. Bang on the money Jay, after the business I had in the 90s folded my ex and I joined Amway, the desperate often do, we wasted £800 (a lot in 1993) and it was probably the straw that broke my marriage.

    The 'we do things differently' was exactly the same. Just like a cult, you are inside, or out in the cold.

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  13. turminderxuss, riveting piece. I cannot understand why they do not want it published ATL in this form? Obviously you will have to anonymise it but it paints a picture most of us can recognise. I'm a bit surprised by the way as I thought Lidl being a German firm would have a better employee culture? Maybe it is just a case of BRIT management over here.

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  14. Thanks for this, Turminderxuss.

    In one respect, I am sorry that it could not have been better - so that you might have wanted to work there. However, this is a good piece which highlights, as JayReilly says, just how cultish[sp?] these businesses really are, both in operation and mentality.

    The problem is, there are always those whose natural inclination is to fill the role of Kapo and they delight in the idea of enforcing the corporate mindset on those slightly lower down the pecking order, the chain of command, the brainwashing to achieve the gaga company mindset.

    It is also grim and slightly chilling to see the way those employment rights and benefits which have been struggled for are so blithely and callously being removed on the simple basis of: "So, what are you going to do about it, eh?"

    Nil time contracts, unpaid breaks, unpaid overtime, work when you are told at short notice, do several people's jobs...

    Nice.

    Good luck, though, and best wishes.

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  15. Absolutely brilliant piece, Turminder! Jess has sunk further in my estimation.

    "I’m not saying my colleague or my self are better people than anyone who doesn’t fit with our organisation, just that we are different."

    "Tallman moves along, we have a short film that explains many of the unique facets of our glorious firms modus operandi."

    "Tallman admits that sometimes his words tumble over themselves, such is the speed with which he seizes each second as an opportunity to serve the organisation that took him under it’s wing"

    "Tallman’s spiel was now tumbling from his lips with the starry eyed zeal of a true fanatic, and accelerating towards unintelligibility."

    "There were hints that the company makes considerable profits from interest on cash holdings. And it was blatantly underlined that the speed of the distribution system and the muscle of the massive buying power meant that a cabbage, say, that was in a field yesterday could be sold tomorrow, money in the bank, but the farmer won’t be paid for 90 days…"

    Not since Jospeh Heller wrote have I seen a better indictment of the Milo Minderbinder type.

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  16. "The 'we do things differently' was exactly the same. Just like a cult, you are inside, or out in the cold. "

    Where did this corporate-cult-culture come from, exactly? It's a massive compensation / distraction technique - I've been pretty lucky, my two main jobs in the UK were at decent firms, so there was a 'corporate ethic' (or whatever the CSR policy said) but none of this weird 'we're different!' schtick. But at the place I mentioned above, and at a lot of places where mates worked, they used this 'we're different!' as a sort of excuse not to be very good. all very strange...

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  17. Blimey. Depressing stuff indeed.

    The "company-as-cult" thing has been around for a long time though. Years and years ago - I'm talking early 80s - a friend of mine got a job selling ads for Yellow Pages and it was as if someone had given her a frontal lobotomy. She just started spouting all this sale gobbledegook all the fricking time, and applying their "method" to her everyday life, as well as boring everyone shitless with it.

    I didn't keep in touch with her for long enough to find out if she is CEO now or not...

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