You must be a RETAIL DETAIL! (Which is still better than being a mere retail ITEM, mind you; one that gets manhandled, thrown to a corner, trampled upon, discounted before winding up, dejected, in a heap pile - but that is an entirely different story!)
Everyone is replaceable (e.g. expendable) in the whole frigging chain - everyone! From the littlest associate to the wretched CEO...!
And all are accountable too - of course!
I just paused the other day and observed the surroundings' cast of characters - and, boy, are they all characters indeed...!
Associate Fifi riding down the main store aisle on a shopping cart like an overgrown child, going "wheeeeeeeee" all the way (giving the patrons' kids the wrongest of examples in the process...!)
Supervisor-For-Hire Ralphie spending all her time chatting on the sales floor (with a customer - an intimate acquaintance type of customer - AND another supervisor, less-than-super...) while others are slaving away... Both of the are thus giving the wrongest of examples too; even wronger than Ralphie's direct underling, Fifi... As if Ralphie is not doing it supremely well enough with her customized mobile-desk-on-a-cart (a small removable shelf attached to a shopping cart so that Madame can write on it, keep her crap and never have to clean it up! Indeed, she just leaves all sorts of junk in the bottom of said cart which is then always stationed in everyone's way in the backstore; this when all other associates are told to never leave a single cart around in the backstore. Her cart has the shelf permanently attached to it, too - so it will never be removed and made accessible to customers ever again. And to add insult to injury, she herself would point out the others' carts, in her "quality" of (considerably-less-than-super) supervisor, even though any other cart forgotten backstage was without an attached shelf on top of it - and much less crap in it too! The only such cart ever left back there is indeed HERS! With the blessing of the other less-than-super supervisor - and the actual management as well. These peeps never believed in leading by example, obviously. But I am digressing right now...)
Associate Jo-Anne - always allowed to talk to as many customers as she wants and possibly can within the limited number of hours that she gets each and every week to do so - while being paid to do some kind of work, of course.
Associate Carlatt - never asked to come in earlier than she does, never asked to stay a minute extra - NEVER bothered with menial tasks such as "facing" or "defacing" or whatever it is that they want (who knows, anymore...!!!)
Associate Abe - hand-picked to replace a jerk, when the company policy is supposed to be all about "growing and promoting from within"... Ralphie was also brought in that way, of course...
All these peeps, and probably more waiting in the wings, can and will bypass the honest worker without much ambition that merely does what he is told, helps out where he is needed and is, in effect, by doing so... a mere retail detail.
:-\
