Standing Outside WH Smiths
June 18th, 2011 | Posted by Paul |
Standing outside WH Smiths on this sunny Saturday in my scruffs. I now remember what it was like to be a store manager in a shopping centre many yeats ago.
I see through the closed, shuttered stores the stirrings of life as the lights start coming on from back to front – showing the store that was’t quite “recovered” properly by the “Weekly Staff”….
When I was part of the management team at Primark Stores, Brighton many years ago we used to have an excellent Saturday team lead by Lisa & Angela. They had their clipboards & “training files” and were the best girls I’d ever had the pleasure of working with when it came to organising/training the Saturday Team – and they were the best “Store Recovery” duo I’d ever seen. Brilliant! 
In fact, you can’t get out of the habit, and as I walk around stores now on a Monday morning, (when I do), and I see a mess, I think to myself – “Lisa & Angela wouldn’t have dared let their girls leave that mess!” – HA!
But back in Grays – the shutters have come up at 08:30am – HURRAH….. but the Post Office part of the store doesn’t open until 9am- BOO! It’s a major disapppointment having nearly raced down the length of the store centre aisle, (to beat a little girl who was trying to overtake me in the queue – HA!).
So….. now I wait for another half an hour inside WH Smiths at the Post Office counter….
Ah well….. at least the air- cons on ;0)
Spooky that. Took a shot yesterday morning of the local Newtown post Office , typically with a queue outside it as it still had not opened even though all the other shops in the row already were. The experience in slightly larger Post Offices is that of long queues inside during the day with “chashier number four” being called out while cahsiers 1,2,3 do their papar work with total disreguard for the queue rage building. I note too that the local Post Office actually closes for lunch unlike any other business in my neighbourhood but also isn’t open long on Saturday which is surely an inconvenience for people working proper hours during the week! The “government” is making noises to privatise her Madge’s post and they also suspect that a big mail price hike is on the cards. Post office Unions have resisted change in the way for example that mail is sorted but the post person calls not first thing in the morning and then later on but now in the afternoon. Modernisation grudgingly accepted by the workers hasn’t improved the service but has encouraged the competition and what used to be called Post Office Counters isn’t as efficient or as profitable as it once was. Much wider use of e mail I guess but still a lot of snail mail and parcels. I think the post offices try to do too many things and not so well, They ought to keep parallel hours with other businesses. The Royal tag for the mail is sacred and sort of offers reassurance that it is a kind of public service . The actually delevery side of things isn’t the problem, its the actual shops , offcies , where you start the process . Closing shed loads of them isn’t the solution. Pofit losesses are not about anything else other than busnesses failing to address the actual needs of the market.