A local convenience store received a delivery of ice on a day with a heat index of 100 degrees. An outside delivery. Where the ice sat untouched the entire time I was in the store.
The one clerk that was moving another pallet of ice from outside into the freezer was called away – by the store manager no less – to help ring up customers.
I’m all for speedy service and not making people wait in line, but I’m more in favor of reasonable priorities. Those who buy that ice – assuming it’s still ice by the time it’s sold – will receive re-frozen lumps instead of cubes. Job 1 should have been to get it inside into the air-conditioning immediately, and having just three people in line shouldn’t have superseded getting it into the freezer.
I suspect the manager was so in the habit of calling for additional help when a line formed that she didn’t intentionally think about the decision she was making and the de facto priorities she was setting. But don’t have a similar brain freeze when you are called upon to direct your employees. What is important under one set of circumstances may be entirely wrong in another.
