This post will most likely fall on ALL kinds of deaf ears as that is what happens within this company. I have been removed from this company since roughly June and have thought MANY times to email my old director and I havent. I know it would do nothing to help my old coworkers and if anything make their situation worse. So now I'm letting it out on a bit of a late night fury when Im snowed in and listening to the blizzard raging outside.
So to start - take this as someone who doesnt CARE about verizon. I dont think about verizon anymore. The only thing that prompted me to write this is an article that pinged to my phone about how VZW is headed towards the worst year they've had stockwise - while AT&T has a great year. I dont care if you agree - I dont care if you agree. This is my experience with the company/corporate/my ex store. Maybe this will reach the proper people - maybe this will reach no one. I have genuinely no idea.
My background: I had been with the company almost 7 years when I finally quit. I was in the VERY FIRST GROUP of the "LEAD" Program which had actually originated in my district under my store manager. He was running his own program to initiate people and prep them for leadership. Eventually this was adapted nationwide and lead the the LEAD program as it is now. I graduated from the inaugural group and I was based in the PNW at this time.
Everything in the pnw was decent when I was there. My store managers were wonderful - my DM was decent at best.. and overall I was happy. Then I relocated to the Great Lakes Market.
My initial store manager in the great lakes market broke every possible rule he could to get numbers. When I started in the PNW - the rules were followed to a "T". No one wanted any accountability issue. This was NOT the case when I relocated to the Great lakes market. My store manager would break every possible he could to get a sale. There were NUMEROUS times we would do an "in store keep" warranty replacement on a broken device so that it wouldn't bill the customer - but they could come back later and trade in the broken one. Fun fact - that is about 110% against any kind of code of conduct rules. He would trade in broken devices in "good" condition to maximize sales. When anyone would question it - him and the DM at the time (who has since moved on to a different region) would basically bury it and nothing would happen. Fast forward a few years - a really good ASM who had been taught by this individual would be fired for committing the EXACT same thing meanwhile the Store manager gets promoted to a manager in the BGCO department.
Follow that up with my second store manager. She was relatively okay. She wasn't necessarily strict on anyone and would allow people to sit in the back and play call of duty mobile on their phone without caring. I don't have any main concerns about her because she didnt do anything bad - but also didnt do anything good. She would eventually get promoted into an ops position and...
My 3rd store manager. The one that finally drove me away from the company. This would happen in the last year or so (As of 12/23/2022). He was quite possibly the most snake - of snake GMs as possible. Him and the current DM (or I assume still current DM) were such buddy-buddy that this man is impervious to any and all complaints.
First off - he got his position by claiming that he would be actively engaged on the floor and promote all kinds of sales. He had been a multistore GM and had driven these stores to all kinds of success. Which fun fact - speaking to these stores (they were in our district) they said he did basically the same thing in their stores as he did ours. This was his first lie.
Second - he said that he cared DEEPLY about his staff. He would push his staff to do better and wanted to grow his staff to be in the position to promote. This was also BS. He was overheard on NUMEROUS occasions after he took over our store stating that he would prefer to restart his store with all BRAND NEW staff. Leaving behind NUMEROUS tenured staff and having completely new. I'm not going to toot anyones ho-n by saying that they were GODS of selling - but for our area and our store size we did a great job with what we did and we were in the top 30% of our market. Yet - our store manage would rather start over with a completely brand new staff and condition them to wahtever method he used.
Thirdly - this leads to the thrid point. I am age wise born in the early 90s. My old manager is roughly the same age. So this isn't a boomer vs millenial ideaology. This manager is a complete and utterly CO--Y douche when it comes to customers. We all experienced those escalations where they can rub you the wrong way - this store manager would more or less tell the customer to meet him in the parking lot if they had an issue. Implying that he would phyisically fight them to settle the issue at hand. WHich is OBVIOUSLY unprofessional AF of a store manager.
Fourthly - this leads back to the point that has been raised before. The "bro club" that exists between store managers and DMs. It got so bad that when in communication with my old stores back in the PNW they suggested I go above the DM and speak directly to the director about the issues at hand. By the time things had escalated to the point where everyone was frustrated we had already gone through 2-3 directors who had either promoted or left the company. This wasn't necessarily an option and for a staff who already felt like there was nothing they could do - this was even more demoralizing.
At the end of the day - my entire old store staff absolutely hates their jobs. Even the new people who replaced the subsequent 4 (of 6) people who have left including myself have begun to see this. This is known to me by old SM's and reps themselves telling me that everyone is absolutely sick of the GM. Even customers complain about him in surveys - but surveys have no value when it comes to disciplining someone higher up than a rep.
Verizon - Do better. After 7 years with the company I was going to make a career out of it and absolutely loved my job. But one terrible manager pushed me out the door., You are blindly letting these things happen rather than dealing with the problem rather than seeing why your reps are unhappy.
For those of you still with vzw - if you enjoy your job. Great. Im happy for you - just know that even with all the complaints above I genuinely miss sales. After doing it for a good chunk of my adult life and now not doing it- it's a ho-e in my heart. For those of you who hate your job - speak up. I dont know what the answer may be for your case but speak up. If your DM doesnt listen - go beyond them. Find someone that will.
Anyways - there's no real way to do a tl;dr on this so I hope people will take the time to actually read this and maybe empathize, maybe understand how I Feel and how my old coworkers feel at my store. They wont speak up - But I will for them because I am not at that store anymore and I'm far enough removed from the company to not care enough to be blown off as a "disgruntled employee."