As of the 12th of September 2003 I will no longer be working for Wal*Mart ASDA. I was given an ultimatum by my rather inept manager, Zoe, of new work or ASDA. As you can probably guess, I chose the former. I handed my notice in on friday evening and as of this coming friday I will be finished. I would say that I’m going to miss it there, but that would be a lie. I am suddenly feeling upbeat about it. As I said to Simon in my appraisal yesterday (more of which later) I can now focus on my work that I carry out there. Maybe fasttrack myself after Uni finishes into getting my own store 
. Well, whatever, as I tried to explain to Zoe on thursday, my options at my new employers are greater (and more inviting) than those ever made available to me at ASDA. ASDA is a jack of all trades, master of none.
So, anyways. It’s possibly the end of an era. But, sadly, the bad points outnumber the good points and I don’t think I’m going to miss ASDA all that much.
The good points:
* The shopfloor staff. I’ve met some great people who I work alongside, Laura, Soraya, Rod and Ed are all great examples of that.
* I love helping some of the customers. Being part of a shop that size means lots of customers, which in turn means lots of chances to turn people around and blow them away with some excellent, unexpected customer service. Knocking a customer back by being fucking excellent is worth more than you could pay me. I could seriously stand and do it all day. As long as I could have C there, of course 
* The pay was above average, and the benefits were nice. Having 10% off of everything at any ASDA was quite handy.
The bad points, however:
* Absolutely useless management. ASDA Oadby is extremely reactive in style. They react once a problem has occured, they never take steps to prevent things happening. They don’t listen to anyone’s ideas, for example my bulk buying question which I raised in a weekly “huddle.” My manager said that it would be something she’d bring up with the General Store Manager (GSM) that monday. I asked her the following Saturday, still nothing. Four weeks later, I got into a fight with one of the checkout managers over this issue. Only then was something done about it. And no appologies from either the checkout manager OR my department manager! In fact, instead of backing me up when I was being blamed she turned round and told me off for retaliating at a manager. Sorry, but she is MY manager and she should stick up for me. Just as the rest of my team stuck up for me. Alas, she’s about as fickle as a fickle stick and is more interested with sucking up to the other department managers than caring about the morale of her own team.
* The DOGS – I’ll have to credit Soraya with the use of the word DOG. It’s used to describe quite a number of the workers at ASDA. Zoe, Lucy and some others all fit into it. Leaving Lucy & Zoe behind is one of the best reasons for leaving ASDA.
* The rumours. I broke my foot. I sexually molested a colleage. So-and-so slept with x. y kissed c, f bitched about d. It all happened at ASDA and, it was usually behind your back. So, add backstabbing to the list!
* The favouritism. Because f gives the supervisor a lift it gives him a reason to actually stand around and do nothing all day, everyday. Lucy may of been given much more than 3 warnings and been councelled but not once has she been threatened with the sack. Her side was always taken over others, oh and she never did any work, either.
There are plenty more little faults, but I really can’t be dwelling on them all, can I?
To mark me leaving, I went pub last night with Ed, Laura and Soraya. Soraya’s mates started a fight and I remembered why it was that I didn’t like going out. Overall though it was nice to say goodbye to some of the people that I will thoroughly miss. I’ve had a lot of laughs at ASDA and they’re the only thing that have kept me going these past few months when it really piled onto me.
Thanks to my friends from ASDA, however, good ridence to the company. You can take your new uniform back or I’ll burn it, whichever.
Listening to : unbelievable truth – I Wanna Be Adored (cover)
B
