smoke shop, blah blah whatever

[edenfalling]

So New Hire Guy, aka NT, aka OMG How Is He Such A Floppy Puppydog worked his... third shift today? Fourth? Anyway, I was training him in closing procedures, because I am our best closer and also a much more reliable trainer than Lemme-Tell-Ya is. Friday is both a good and bad day for that -- good because it's the only day we're still open until 9pm, so we have extra time to get through everything, and bad because it's the only day we're still open until 9pm so it's not really representative of the normal routine. Also weekend newspaper stuff is a little weird, plus weekend coffee setup is not quite the same as weekday coffee setup. But whatever.

The first day I train people how to close, I can't actually train them how to close, because there isn't enough time to let them do all the tasks and still get the doors locked on time and us out at anything remotely resembling a reasonable hour. So I kind of demonstrate everything, get the trainees to do what they can, and then finish a bunch of stuff myself once I have at least taken a minute to say, "And this is how we do such-and-such, which you will not be doing tonight, but maybe next time!"

For example, tonight I had Puppydog count half the instant lottery tickets right before we locked the doors; then I finished the count and put all the fixtures away myself. I had him count the cigarettes, but when the numbers didn't add up to match the register records, I did the recount myself to save time. But he counted and put away all the newspaper returns on his own, washed some coffee pots, ground the coffee-to-go for Saturday, vacuumed, closed out and counted his register drawer, stocked the coolers, and got a bunch of practice with the register and the lottery machine. It's a good start.

I really hope he works out longterm. I hate the hiring circus, and it would be stupidly frustrating to put in all the work training up a new guy only to have him leave before we get properly used to him.