Visit from the SBAM

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So our Seasonal Business Associates Manager, or SBAM for short, came to visit us from Boston. I'd give a name, but since some of this stuff is some harsh personal opinion, I'm not going to. Lawsuits and all. :P

I... REALLY DO NOT LIKE HIM.

Here's why...

We're selling these bears right? Well he told us that to maximize sales, to carry them around and force the customers to hold and touch them, to make them want to buy them. And to engage anyone that got close to the kiosk. That's fine and dandy and all, but a lot of people just want to be left alone. And they don't like pushy sales people like the SBAM wanted us to be.

He also told us that we have to sell these test gift cards whether we like it or not. Now, that'd be fine, except that we don't have the space to. Most kiosks have these free standing pods for a good quarter of their product to sit on--we don't. So all the stuff that's supposed to go on the pods is shoved into our kiosk. We are incredibly short on space. And in order to sell the gift cards, we'd have to remove an entire end basket of calendars and fit them in with everything else to do so. We don't have that kind of space! And we haven't been able to successfully download the Verifone update to allow us to sell the giftcards anyways, so Alix said just to not worry about it for now. Fine by me.

The SBAM also decided we are to not have a stool. We already had gotten rid of the chair before he came. Since none of us (that I knew of) had any reason to use the stool, he took it back to Saratoga with him. Alix is bringing it back tomorrow. But like, he said no one should ever use a stool without reason. And Alix said she did have one pregnant girl in Saratoga. Know what the SBAM said? He said that she could use one if she needed, but even she shouldn't be sitting down. SHE'S AT LEAST 6 MONTHS PREGNANT AND SHE SHOULDN'T SIT DOWN!? I swear... men... >:\

He also told Alix to make sure there were always two people on so that we could have one person at either end of the kiosk, but to stay away from the register because it turned people off. And that we didn't need to bring books or anything nor to sit down because there was plenty to keep us occupied.

...Oh really? Yeah... it takes an hour tops to clean the kiosk up by yourself. And I'm the only one who does paperwork so...

He also said that even though the mall was dead, that we could still make goal. Excuse me? Does anyone else see the flawed logic in this?

We took him out to the backroom as well, and he told us it wasn't that bad of a walk (I wanted to slap him) and that we needed to spread out and open all the boxes so we could flip through the calendars instead of reading the sides. Sorry, but I find it much faster to read the sides instead of flipping through everything.

I was being very pessimistic about it all. And the SBAM asked how long I'd been in retail, at which point I asked Alix when I was hired, which was September. So I told him since September, since that was the truth. And he seemed shocked. Told me I was doing a good job, but that I needed to be happier or customers wouldn't want to be around me. Well, both Alix and I told him I was good around customers, just not around others that saw the truth. Yeah, he didn't seem to like that answer. Oh well.

He was just a total jerk. I hope I never see him again, because I don't like him. The only thing we actually put into practice was placing calendar wraps behind calendars to make people want to buy them more, and it's kinda worked; and to keep track of customers and sales per person. I even made up nice sheets for this. Alix said the SBAM was going to love me. Good, he should. LOL

And he tried to put his selling tactics into play, and the lady got so disgusted with him that she practically threw the calendar back at him and stormed off.

Good job dude.