Company Blog

Voluntary Separation

by Adam Zack — November 9, 2016

The Short-timer Syndrome

A lot of time and thought is spent on counseling, teaching, correcting, reprimanding, warning, suspending and ultimately terminating employees who are not performing as expected. A lot of energy has been focused on correcting bad behavior and how to professionally and legally handle the end of employment for the bad children. But not much has been covered on how to best handle the end of employment for good, and sometimes great, employees who choose to leave your store. Maybe they have a better opportunity somewhere else. Maybe they want a career change. Maybe they inherited some dough from grandma. In any case, many stores just don’t have a clear policy in place for someone who gives their notice to leave. Mostly, a two-week notice is given and accepted. But is it in the best interest of your store to take that notice? If they are leaving for a better opportunity, or maybe to even work for a competitor, should you accept any notice at all or say thanks for your service and good luck. What doesn’t get a lot of thought is the interaction that the departing employee has with his co-workers. Short-timer’s Syndrome is a very real thing, and the amount of output you get, distraction to current employees and potentia...

by Adam Zack — November 2, 2016

Here’s to great hiring managers.

Most everyone in management has hired someone you thought was the bomb, but turned out to be a mistake. Your instincts tell you that you have the right person for the job. They talk the talk, sling the lingo and dress to impress. You think you’re hiring royalty, but it turns out that the emperor has no clothes. And not in the good way. It’s kind of like you have a great first date. Maybe two, or even three. Then the next date there’s some not-so-discreet nose picking or a burp without an “excuse me”. Next thing you know you’ve stumbled into being engaged then married and are thinking, “I don’t want to get divorced again. If I just ignore her it will get better.” But it doesn’t, and before you know it your family is staying away and questioning your taste and decision making ability. If only you’d had the cajones to say after that first booger dig “You know, I don’t think this is really going to work out.” So the strong managers, the real leaders, realize when they’ve made a mistake. They take into account the best interest of their company and their employees and do what’s right by them and make the change. They do it quickly and decisively. They learn from it and ...

by Adam Zack — October 26, 2016

Requests for your effort should be reasonable and the answer realistic.

The word “perfect” is probably the most misused word in America today. I washed the dog. Perfect. I took out the trash. Perfect. I was only 10 minutes late to work today. Perfect. Perfect is the new “fine”. Another phrase that is greatly misused is I’ll try. Hey, can you finish your blog today? I’ll try. Can you empty the dishwasher before your mother gets home? I’ll try. Will start going to the gym regularly like you said you would? I’ll try. Instead of being an action statement, it’s really more of an excuse that means I’m not really going to try at all. In fact, I’ll try and pretend that I didn’t hear your request and I’ll try to not do anything so you’ll forget all about it. Trying needs to involve the same effort that actually doing the action requires. Trying requires 100% concentration and commitment. It has to be something tangible and attainable. Trying should lead to success more often than it leads to failure, and when the result is failure, you should have a sense of satisfaction that your try really was your best effort. Requests for your effort should also be reasonable and the answer realistic. I need you to get your ...

by Adam Zack — October 19, 2016

What The Hell Was THAT!?

So I went to this party the other night that was a real gas. I was driving with my friends Scott and Mark in Scott’s ’66 Mustang when we pulled up next to this dude in a ‘Vette. His wheels were bitchen, and he thought he was boss, but turned out he was all show and no go and we blew his doors off. The bash was really far out. The tunes were neato and the foxes were not at all stuck up. Mark thought he was going to score, but I was playing it mellow because I did not want to catch any cooties. Some dudes were getting blitzed and the dead soldiers were stacked all around the pad, so they passed around a hat to collect more bread. Since I was the square who wasn’t drinking the brew I went out to the pay phone and dropped a dime to call my betty Linda and tell her that we’d have to go to the submarine races another night. She thought that was the pits, but I told her we’d go the next night and it would be groovy since she was my main squeeze and we were going steady. I went back in to the bash and this skirt offered me a big glass of moo juice. Since I was driving, I told her to lay it on me. The night was getting late so I told Scott and Mark that we had to split. On the way home those bozos decid...

by Adam Zack — October 12, 2016

Enthusiasm for life is essential .

When I was in my early 20’s my good friend Karen and I would go out late at night and play the Purse Game. You know, where you tie a piece of fishing line to an old purse and throw it out into the road and wait for someone to drive by, see it and stop. Just before they got out of the car to look for it we’d yank the line and pull it to where we were hiding by the side of the road. We just thought it was the funniest thing ever to see these people get out of their car and look for this purse that they swear they’d seen. One night, in fact the last night we ever played it, we hauled the bag in and waited. This man has a flashlight and comes over to where we are hiding, shines his light on us and says something like “Aren’t you a little old to be playing the Purse Game?” We were totally embarrassed and thought, “You know, maybe he’s right.”Everywhere we go around Carlsbad, California it seems we are surrounded by youth. Millennial families with little kids that scream with delight every time their feet touch a wave. Gen-X kids on skateboards in the parking lots while they smoke cigarettes. High school age boys with girls wearing swimsuits that are not ...

by Adam Zack — October 4, 2016

We are fully invested and part of the success.

I was working on a project a couple days ago and finished it with what I considered OK results. Not great. Not awesome. More like so-so. Fair. Acceptable. I thought “Well, I did my best.” And I thought that most of the time when people say that they really didn’t do their best. “I did my best” is more of an excuse than it is a statement of effort. I didn’t do my best. Not even close. My best requires deep thought and concentration. It requires hard work to achieve high standards. It can’t be done with distractions while multi-tasking. My best is something I am proud of and want to show off. I lowered the bar, then claimed it as my best. So what does doing your best really mean, and is it something that should be done in every task? That is surely a lofty goal – giving every single task you do your true best effort. While mundane tasks like washing the car, taking out the trash and shampooing the cat might pass muster without delivering your best, any interactions with your customers and your employees do deserve the best that you can do. Every time. When we complete a project for a customer and can honestly declare that it is the best work we could have done, then we h...

by Adam Zack — September 28, 2016

Answers below. No cheating!

One thing I used to look forward to when I graduated college was the end of tests. Since I was 5 years old it seemed the test cycle was non-stop, and it would finally be coming to an end! No more studying stress! Standardized tests, mid-terms, finals, SAT, entrance exams, term papers, pop quizzes would all be coming to an end – forever! I was obviously wrong. While the scholastically required graded tests may have come to an end, life tests that are now constant usually are less fun than the school tests of the good ol’ days. Now as adults we have tests of patience, tests of determination, endurance and will power. You got drug tests, driver’s tests, competency tests, paternity tests, intelligence tests, medical tests, personality tests and self-tests. We monitor crash tests, stress tests, nuclear tests, software tests and beta testing. Life’s a test, it seems and everywhere we are being graded. It’s stressful just thinking about it! So to take your mind off of the tests of everyday life, I am giving you a pop quiz about food, the thing as grocers and grocery marketers that we all have in common. It’s easy, amusing and somewhat informative. Get 100% and you get to skip your next life test an...

by Adam Zack — September 21, 2016

Keep your target audience in mind.

This may or may not be a true story. And it may or may not have happened last Sunday. And I may or may not get killed for writing it.There’s this couple that have been together for many, many years. Over the years the man has got more comfortable with bodily functions around the woman. Plus, as he gets older he has a little less control. So on a semi-regular basis nature does its internal combustion work and sounds (and sometimes smells) are emitted. He is frequently reminded that they don’t smell like bon bons and roses or root beer. And most of the time they just occur. And we have no dog to blame it on. Whoops! She has been known to say “I can’t believe you just did that!” and “That sounded like it hurt!” or the standby “You better check your shorts.” The guy usually thinks they are kind of funny. No, really funny. After all, what guy doesn’t think the beans around the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles is hilarious? Who never played “Pull my finger!” with your grandpa? Because farts are funny! So last Sunday after a long day of watching football, the couple is sitting on the couch and the guy hears PHRRT! Having not heard the woman make that sound in 15 years, he says “Did ...

by Adam Zack — September 14, 2016

#2 Customer Complaint

“The waiting is the hardest part….”
– Tom PettyMy patience for waiting in line at the store – any store – has grown shorter and shorter, just like the majority of Americans. Maybe it’s that our schedules have got so tight that an extra 5 minutes seems like 15. Or that we are trying to do too much in a day. Or maybe we just have developed a disdain for what appears like a combination of incompetence and I-don’t-care by employees. We live right down the street from a Smart & Final, the only grocery store within a couple miles, so we frequently have to run in for an item or two. Inevitably, from 5:00-6:30 every night there are two cashiers, maybe three and about 5 people in every line. It took 2 minutes to run in, grab some arugula and cheese, but it takes 5 minutes to get through the register. And that 5 minutes seems like 15. We stand there, look around for any sign of urgency and see none. Or someone calls for customer service and no one shows up. Or the response comes back “He’s on his lunch.” And every time we say sarcastically “Huh, what a shock. There’s a long line and no one is coming to help.” It leaves us with a bad taste for the store and makes us avoid i...

by webmaster — September 7, 2016

Here’s to you, Marc Homan.

My roommate from my sophomore year in college died last week. It was very sudden and unexpected. We were roommates in 1983-1984 and were paired by the University. We both had filled out the “I know no one so I’m trusting the school to pair me with a compatible roommate” questionnaires. I don’t think the school even looked at them. He was in the Navy officer-training program. I had seen “An Officer and a Gentleman”. He was handsome. Very handsome. (At his memorial Friday we learned that some of the wives who knew him referred to him as Commander Yummy – he would have been very embarrassed, but knowingly flattered). He had lots of dates. And girlfriends. LOTS. (If I only had a dollar for the number of times I had to vacate the room on his date nights…) He stayed up late. He was loud and gregarious. He was very muscular. He needed to shave every day. He was very athletic. He was in a fraternity. He could drink like a fish, swear like a sailor, party like a rock star and still be at 8:00 a.m. mass looking like he had got a solid 10 hours of sleep. His friends were all cool. He hung out with the most beautiful girls on campus. All of those things I was not or could not do. Not even close. Th...