Way back in high school I was in a joint English/Chemistry humanities program thing. Woke liberal nonsense, in modern English. The final for both classes was a group report/presentation on a hypothetical environmental crisis. My group actually put in the work, we knew we were going to kill it, and we walked in the door that day with as much confidence as anyone can have (we totally killed it but that’s not this). Also in high school I did this thing where I’d wear a different little dumb novelty button every day. Even teachers would stop me in the hall to see what my button said that day. There was a lot of validation wrapped up in those little buttons. On our presentation day, the button said “We have charts & graphs to back us up, so fck off”. It was Babe Ruth calling his shot. I still have the button.
And I still have charts and graphs.
I’ve said all along, for all their flaws then (and whatever they may be today), AMC was really pretty good at training you to run a movie theater. There were classroom sessions on everything from ordering concessions to firing staff. I ran some of those classrooms as one of the Los Angeles’ six Market Trainers for projection. They put all the information you could ever need right in front of you.
I was fortunate further to spend my first management years at the North 6 in Burbank. We had a cozy little space under the bookstore that absolutely cooked; we could count on every evening show selling out from Friday eve through the Sunday primes. So all of that classroom tedium was practical and actionable, and you either got good or you got transferred back to the 14 or the 8-plex. I spent three years there and by the time I left for Montebello, I had the place in the palm of my hand, and had been tested pretty thoroughly.
A few years after that when I left AMC, Pacific really had nothing much left to teach. The first skill checklist they ever filled out – this was maybe a month after moving back into management – checked every box.
The dynamic at AMC and Pacific/ArcLight was pretty consistent- my staff tended to like me, my good bosses had my back, and the bad ones talked behind my back. With my project work at Best Buy, that dynamic has shifted to my stores liking me, while leadership remains an opportunity for greater alignment (lol).
When there’s no project work on the calendar, we’re on support detail. Usually fixing things up and general maintenance at one or more of our local stores, but during the holidays that tends to become “whatever the store needs”. For me, with my familiarity with the warehouse and with finding things, that’s generally meant holidays spent pulling product to support online sales.
I don’t know if other retailers work at the store or the warehouse level, but at Best Buy when you buy something online, someone at a store is pulling that item off a shelf and either setting it aside or shipping it. You could be shipping some random something several states away if you happen to have that thing in stock at the moment the order was placed. That thing that just showed on your doorstep could have come off the shelf from a store in Decatur. And at every store, there’s ONE person who knows where everything is. That person loses their mind a little with every passing holiday season.
My first year backing up the team at Oxnard, their guy got a head start. The tally started before my support run, so I started $X behind him. But I finished that same $X behind at the end of the season- just behind The Guy and almost double whoever was in third place.
My second year backing up Oxnard, I went in and led the store for the season. The Guy was just behind, third place somewhere in the distant haze. I effectively doubled their online sales capacity. That’s just math. They gave me a little in-system reward certificate :D
It’s not that I don’t care what my bosses think about me (I do, maybe 40%), it’s that I care far more about how I’m doing according to the people I’m supposed to be supporting. In my mind – and I’m right – it’s entirely possible to do that while keeping the boss happy. Because that’s what the boss is supposed to want too.
Of course the boss is supposed to want results too, but it’s also an “of course” that I can be counted upon to get them. So if getting it done is going to be a definite thing, the only variable is how. In my mind – and I’m right – that ‘how’ can include gains beyond the goal at hand, every time. So with every task I’m looking in part at whatever instructions I’m given, and in part at what’s actually possible.
